Safe to be seen, my ass
I recently traveled to my country of origin and was reminded how obsessed some people are with physical appearance.
Not just that, but how entitled they feel to making unsolicited comments on women’s bodies, most of which rude.
The audacity struck me like never before.
As women, we’re conditioned to believe that society scrutinising the shit out of us at every single opportunity is normal and expected.
And no matter how hard we try to live up to whatever is seen as ‘good enough’, we somehow always seem to fall short.
Except, we were good enough to start with.
Everything else is just a lie of the patriarchy, for whom a woman can only be good if she is beautiful, sweet, soft and above all – submissive.
Step out of these ‘goodness’ parameters, all hell breaks loose.
Or so it’d have us believe.
And of course, we’re not stupid. Even as little girls, we quickly figure out the pattern. We know we’re being monitored from all sides, and rather than waiting for someone else to spot our ‘mistakes’ and punish us, we take on the job ourselves.
We become our own worst critic, all to avoid punishment.
At its core, it’s an intelligent self-defence mechanism. An efficient survival tactic.
It kept us alive.
But as patriarchy lies on its deathbed (I believe that’s exactly why it’s throwing its nastiest tantrum now), we need to take our shot and move from survival into thriving.
😱 “But what will people say?” 😱
We all know this fear intimately.
We’ve heard it before: humans are social animals. If you don’t play by the rules, you get kicked out of the tribe → DEAD → GAME OVER.
But for women, the story is a little bit more complicated.
The line between ‘stepping out of line’ and ‘getting kicked out of the tribe’ is very, very fine.
A man fucks up, it’s just another Tuesday. For better or worse, he dusts himself off, keeps going, and probably never mentions it again unless it’s in a LinkedIn post as an anecdote of perseverance, resilience and pioneering spirit.
A woman or other minority fucks up, and they suddenly lose all credibility.
It’s all of a sudden ‘Ha! Told you women can’t lead!’ or some such nonsense, and all its resulting consequences.
The problem therefore becomes: in order to pursue one’s vocation, particularly if that vocation is outside current social norms, you must accept that you will be judged, and that as a woman (or feminine-coded individual), it will likely happen much easier and faster than for a man (or masculine-coded individual).
👁️ The Price Of Being Seen 👁️
Becoming ok with being judged is not simply a matter of just needing to ‘get over your fear’.
That’s patronising AF.
To become ok with being judged is actually a really tall order, and particularly so for women: nothing less than overriding a very intelligent and very well-entrenched survival strategy.
As a woman, being truly seen in your authenticity – particularly when inconvenient or downright deadly to patriarchy – necessarily entails accepting that you will be ‘cast out of the tribe’ in some sense.
Whatever you pursue authentically will inevitably break a social norm at some point, because the social norms are vetted by the woman- and feminine-hating patriarchal program running rampant in our collective and individual consciousness.
It may be that you piss off your family, lose friends, need to re-establish boundaries and expectations with your partner, get a nasty comment – online or offline, or are perceived as losing status or credibility.
That’s the price to pay for entry.
There is no way around it.
Are you willing to pay the price to be seen as who you truly are?
The trick is, the price doesn’t have to be as steep as we’ve been led to believe.
There are ways to work with our mind, body, spirit, so that we sustainably decondition from patriarchal programming and the survival strategies that kept us safe, but which won’t let us thrive and grow into our true potential. I’ll go more into that in the next emails.
Until then, if we are to understand our unique relationship to visibility, we need to look at the Sun’s placement in our birth charts.
☀️ Our Sun – God’s Light Through Us ☀️
Our natal Sun is an important clue for our potential.
Even people who know or care very little about astrology tend to know their Sun sign.
You know you ‘are’ a Gemini, Libra, Capricorn etc.
And you may or may not recognise yourself in it.
The sign of our Sun is just one aspect of our Sun’s story, and just one element of our chart.
We hear the Sun referred to as our ‘life force energy’.
I have come to think of the Sun as nothing less than God’s light shining brightly through us as individuals, through the complex, multifaceted prism of our chart.
A primordial divine ray splitting into gorgeous coloured lights of unspeakable beauty.
In other words, you.
Your Sun holds important clues for both who you are, and who you are yet to be.
What, in nature, contains everything it needs to be its full self, and is not yet what it will be at its full potential?
Of course, a seed.
Say you were born as an acorn. Not an oak tree just yet, yet holding the potential of one. 🌳
You’ll of course look different at each stage of your life, but the essence of an oak tree is always there, in some way, shape or form.
My own Sun is in Capricorn, in the 10th house of career, public image, reputation, public contribution, legacy. Conjunct both my Sagittarius Midheaven AND my Capricorn North node.
This configuration screams visibility, and not just for its own sake, but as part of my soul’s growth. Even when kicking and screaming, life throws me into the arena of visibility, and in stern Capricorn fashion, tells me to toughen up and learn to handle it. Then teach others how to handle it too.
This Sun placement also means that my identity and career are jointly shaped through a Sagittarian-Capricornian blend of influences and manifestations:
Growing up surrounded by religious and spiritual people and books – I was attending Bible readings from a well-known (and quite strict) Christian denomination before I even started school.
Studious, ambitious pupil, who knew as early as 14 that she will study abroad.
Attended an international high school known for its focus on academic performance, followed by 6 years of higher education in psychology and educational studies at top universities abroad: one bearing the name of an apostle, and the other a catholic research university. Both founded in the 15th century.
Immigrated to my third country, hit unemployment stigma. The job market nightmare so many experience now? I lived that in 2016.
My sun may have flickered, but its light never died.
Fallen 7 times, stood up 8. A new way of applying my research skills. Climbing the wrong mountain, pushed too hard, over-prioritised my Capricorn North Node and near-completely neglected my Cancer South Node.
“It doesn’t matter how I feel, it matters only what others think”
“What is the point in feeling good?” – yes I literally said that one out loud.
Pushed harder. Depression. More stigma.
Who am I living for?
Tough calls. Exploring in the dark, yet with optimism.
One day, an idea lands.
I execute. That sort of worked.
I execute again. That didn’t quite work.
Wait, this might work.
It did!!
And then it didn’t, again.
And then it did, again.
Entrepreneurship.
Using my researcher skills to help in the ways I wished I would’ve been helped. Benefitting the lives of women from various parts of the world.
You are worthy, you are enough, this is how you get noticed, this is how you get seen. You can get this job and here is exactly how. These are the gender biases to be aware of. This is how you navigate them. This is how you get to what you want.
This is how you climb the mountain. ⛰️
In parallel: spiritual awakening. Science & spirituality exploration. At first hidden, then public. Where is this going? This makes no sense. What is it that keeps calling to me? Wait, astrology is real??
Everything coming together.
Becoming a vocational astrologer empowering women.
Full circle.
The oak tree grew.
The essence was always there. It will always be there.
The oak tree continues to grow.
🌳
If something in this resonated, a vocational astrology reading might be your next step.
Many of us are feeling the call to bring a new type of contribution to the world, one that feels truer to who we are, yet may look very different to what we’ve done before, or what we’ve been taught is ‘sensible’, ‘allowed’ or ‘worthwhile’.
Through my vocational astrology readings, I can help amplify the volume of that call so that you can hear it clearly and act on it with confidence.
£77 • 60 minutes • recording included • book here
Until next time,
Cristina