Donât over-identify with your chart.
Donât get too worked up about it. Itâs toxic.
Something that I see and hear way too often, mostly on here and when talking to people that donât really understand astrology in real life, is people seeing their chart, exploring it, and then starting to act âmoreâ like it, describe themselves according to their chart, or only just getting way too worked up over it. Stop. Youâre not a chart. Youâre a human.
Your chart is not supposed to be a guide for you telling you how to act, itâs not some sort of magical enlightment after whichâs discovery your life will magically truly begin because you found out who you are and what youâre supposed to do. Itâs easy to do, humans yearn for something that gives them direction. That can be the government, laws, their friends, families, institutions, it can come from within (meaning you built yourself your own structures and rules. Some of which are called morals. Thatâs besides the point, though) or from outside, and astrology is all to easy to use for this because it literally tells you âhey, look at this. this is you.â but thatâs not what youâre supposed to do with it. Iâm going to quote @astrologymarina here because she put it really nicely:
âTrying to play out your birth chart is not being yourself. Exaggerating all the traits associated with your placements is not authenticity. Donât worry about becoming your chart, because you canât not be it.â
ESPECIALLY as humans, we really tend to, at times (or really, all of the time, just to different measures), put a selective lense over our perception - we donât see everything at once with complete objectivity, ever, not even our actual bodily sight works like this. When looking at your chart, you will always find one or multiple things that catch your eyes most - maybe because, at the time, this part is a big theme in your life, or maybe because it seems exceptionally fitting, or especially foreign. It really doesnât matter. The point is that, with your selective perception, you will start to decide on (and will see this deciding as âfindingâ) âfocal pointsâ in your chart - something that not actually exists as your chart is just an objective screenshot of the firmament at the time of your birth. This is one reason why many astrologers donât âbelieveâ in dominants - it creates the illusion of a âfocal pointâ in your chart that takes the wheel and drives around the globe with all the other planets, signs, placements, and aspects in the backseat.
Back to the topic: With this selective perception, youâre bound to be tempted to over-identify and work yourself up over something. Very typical examples for this are the sun, moon, dominants, and on another, smaller level lilith and chiron. @venusian5 talked about this earlier, but people tend to get overly fatalistic over lilith and chiron because they donât represent something (conventionally)Â âgoodâ in your chart (you can read the rest of what he said here). The sun and moon are other common parts for this due to the emphasis many astrologers put on them.
Especially people who donât have a good grasp on themselves and are rather unaware of themselves are prone to over-identify with their chart. Itâs easy, itâs comfortable. You have something telling you who you are and how to be, no need to figure it out yourself anymore, right? Itâs natural to not be self-aware to some extent and to wish for it to be that easy, but you shouldnât use astrology to escape the need for self-reflection and self-growth.Â
Donât use your selective view of your chart to over-identify with some parts. Youâre all of them - if you donât identify with some, you either a) havenât grown into them yet, b) have already transcended them (though in these two cases, you can still always see âtracesâ of them), c) donât understand them properly, d) ignore other parts that influence this one, or e) simply deny this part. This is not supposed to be a call-out, weâve all been there at some point. The thing is you shouldnât stay there because itâs comfortable. Astrology is not designed to be comfortable. Modern western astrology likes to romanticize (and fatalise) lots of placements, but thatâs not the way to go.Â
Astrology is supposed to enhance your life, not limit it even more by having you limit yourself to what you think your chart tells you.Â