Born Under a Bad Sign: How to Work with Difficult Aspects in Your Natal Chart
By Julia Mihas
I met up with a client this week who was highly intelligent, and she was beginning to learn astrology. She came to me because she wanted to talk about the difficult aspects in her chart, because she was feeling bummed out about them. Seeing her angst in our session helped me remember what it was like when I first started learning astrology. Astrology is so good at pointing out what’s been difficult and hard in your life. Your natal chart can accurately point at the most painful wounds you’ve ever experienced. Ouch!
When you first start learning astrology, the birthchart looks deceptively static: that it’s never going to change because it’s written in stone for the rest of Eternity. On one level, that’s true because your natal chart is a snapshot of the sky when you were born. While you have the same chart for your whole life, it’s not true that your birth chart never changes, because you always change. For instance, you’re a much different person now than who were were when you were 5 years old or 15 years old or even 25. The chart is actually excellent at reflecting the transformation that happen when you change. The symbolism of astrology is so metaphorically dense and multivalent that every placement is actually a spectrum of possibilities with a higher side, a lower side, and a lot of stuff in between.
So if you have some hard aspects in your chart, or if you’ve got some placements that are difficult, like planets in the Sixth, Eighth or Twelfth Houses, it doesn’t mean that you’re doomed or unlucky. What it actually means is that these areas of your life may take more work than the easier placements in your chart. It also means that these challenging placements describe what you need to feel satisfied or self-actualized in whatever area of life they signify.
So let’s say you’ve got a square from Uranus to Venus in your natal chart. That doesn’t mean that you’re destined to get a divorce or always have unstable relationships. What it does mean is that it may take some time and experience to find a relationship that is individualized and independent enough for you. I’ve seen this aspect signify someone who wants to live in a separate place from their partner, as well as someone else who prefers to have a separate bedroom in the same house. I also counseled someone with this aspect who was in a happy, committed partnership, though they never wanted to get married! But generally speaking, the Uranus square Venus aspect requires that a little bit more space is built into the relationship so that each party feels maintains their independence and freedom. The rest of society may be baffled by how weird a Uranus square Venus relationship may be. A constructive Uranus square Venus relationship is just more individualistic compared to everyone else’s. While other people are scratching their heads at how weird you and your partner are, a bohemian relationship is going to feel like breathing a breath of fresh air if you have this aspect in your chart.
Have a lot of planets in the 12th house? Well you need way more alone time than the average person. Is there anyway you could work from home by yourself? Or live closer to nature and away from the city? Or find some way to immerse yourself in creativity, altruism or spirituality everyday? Our society isn’t designed to accommodate 12th house people, and that’s where that’s where the struggle from having these hard placements originates. Hard placements therefore take more time to assimilate and integrate into your life than the easier ones.
Difficult aspects and placements do take some time to figure out because they tend to go against the mainstream standard of how most people prefer to live their life. It’s never easy to go ahead against the grain because our cultural and social systems are not designed to accommodate any radically individualistic lifestyles.
Within every difficult aspect and placement in your chart, there is an enigma that contains a solution towards self-actualization. Difficult placements even describe the unique circumstance you need to give yourself lasting satisfaction and meaning in your life. So don’t be bummed out about the difficult placements in your chart! But definitely take some time and courage to understand their highest expression, and then make that central to who you are.
Watch the video here: https://juliamihas.com/https-www-youtube-com-watchvvjcl1dsq2fs/
