Can I get a W in the chat
W is for worthiness
The majority of my focus when I'm writing these horoscopes is to look at what's happening to and around the 2nd house and its ruling planet. I'm also applying layers of analysis to the transits on their own and what they're speaking to in regards to the collective flow of resource. It's not like your typical mundane financial astrological forecasts, which chart the course of markets and global trends over time--this kind of financial astrology is more personal.
In the natal chart, the 2nd house is occupied by the sign that follows the ascendant--so if you're an Aries rising you'd have a Taurus 2nd house, if you're an Aquarius rising you'd have a Pisces 2nd house, so on. Traditionally, the 2nd house describes your resources, your inherent skills, your relationship to money, and your feelings of self-worth. Oftentimes, when I'm in financial readings with people, these topics are tightly interwoven, and most often we end up discussing the wounds that exist around worth and self-esteem and money simultaneously. The ‘worthiness wound’ is a very common thing that comes up in my sessions. So, what is the worthiness wound and what does it look like?
Self-worth, also called self-esteem, is absolutely something that can be wounded, and for a lot of us, it is. Low self-worth can be a symptom of financial trauma, and it may also perpetuate financial problems. For people with this wound, it can manifest as:
- cycles of self-sabotage
- seeking out and/or staying in toxic relationships
- engaging in careless or avoidant behaviors, often in response to an external stressor
- low distress tolerance
- fear of/resistance toward trying new things (hobbies, clothing, mindsets, even new TV shows)
- having very few meaningful friendships
All of these things result in a world that is very small. You avoid new things so you’re constantly going to the same places, having the same experiences with the same people again and again. Oftentimes shame compounds all of this because when our self-esteem is damaged, we do things that are uncharacteristic or not estimable and it perpetuates the feeling of being intrinsically bad or broken.
What does the worthiness wound look like specifically when it comes to money?
- quickly spending money whenever you receive it so you never have savings (self sabotage, don’t trust yourself with it)
- avoiding looking at your finances, debts (avoidant behaviors, low distress tolerance)
- perhaps able to make a budget, but not able to stick to it (resistance to new things)
- remaining in “just getting by” mode for extended periods of time (staying in toxic relationships)
I must say this: NONE OF THIS IS YOUR FAULT. I don’t want anyone to look at this list, identify with all or part of it, and begin to blame themselves or beat themselves up. There is nothing inherently wrong with you that caused your financial life to look the way it looks. That’s why we are here: to heal from financial trauma, AKA things that are out of our control. Even if you’ve made plenty of money in your life and then lost it all, or you’ve been in a position where saving money was possible and you didn’t do it, I’m still not going to tell you that it’s your fault.
The worthiness wound is, in essence, a trauma response. Somewhere along the way, whether it was people or situations or both, something (or several somethings) happened that resulted in your sense of self-worth becoming wounded. Usually, when it comes to self-esteem, the wounding has occurred over a series of repeated traumas, and often there was at least one influential person who contributed to this wounding.
Sometimes, if you’re like me, your financial traumas were literally a series of unfortunate events that came into your life one after the other until you were staring down the possibility of losing absolutely everything. But it’s not always Tower moments; sometimes it’s more subtle influences that add up to erode our self-worth and contribute to the cycle of money trauma.
Whatever the cause, we begin to reverse the damage by identifying our values. More on that soon.