Waking up and some reflections on boundaries, inner growth and Mercury retrograde soon to move forward.

I seem to be waking up in awareness at the moment and its wonderful feeling of new life emerging which is hard to describe in words. I am very excited about Mercury going direct in about four days time because I read this last one prefigures the ending of massive cycles and it certainly seems that way to me. Ever since the Sun shifted into Aries a couple of days ago I have felt a surge of positivity while also getting all those Chiron Aries Mars feelings of being smashed up, thwarted by larger collective and ancestral forces, pushed back up inside, told I must follow rules rather than be myself. because who was always TOO MUCH OF SOMETHING. TOO SENSITIVE, TOO HAPPY, TOO FULL OF LIFE, TOO LOUD, TOO TALL, TOO SKINNY, TOO DIFFERENT! Right now I just feel myself bursting out of the cocoon with a big rebel yell but not destructive one, rather a very grounded powerful one.

I am also seeing the depths of compassion I have for humanity. Its what brought me back to be close to my sister who was so thwarted and pushed up inside by her own stroke and bleed back in 1980. Watching what happened to her in terms of being cast aside and coming unstuck by overdoing things also filled me with so much FEAR OF BEING ALIVE. It is something Kat my therapist started to bring up about a year ago, how whenever I get an impulse to be fully alive, the killer or critic comes in with its thoughts of doom and gloom as to why I cannot have or be or do that particular thing.

I saw my second sister also be cut down by my mother when she was using her vital Mars force, to Mum it was kind of offensive, my sister should be acting smaller or lower or dimming her light. They had an almighty clash back in 2011 and after that my sister went on a bit of a flight and it all ended with her son having her committed to the psyche ward in a major town miles away from where we live. My sister'[s marriage had ended and she was finally bursting free of past confinements and it was making everyone uncomfortable. Admittedly she was overstepping some boundaries but it didn’t warrant being drugged and given shock treatment. They really did a number on her.

Anyway I just sat on the sidelines seeing all of this going down, still enmeshed with my Mum really but struggling to break free. Now that my mother has gone I feel I will finally find the freedom to break from the wounds passed down and work not to keep myself as small as my Mum taught us in some ways we should be. I am not talking here about acting in an inflated way, simply about grasping the natural joy that comes from living as a free self spontaneous, fully alive and deeply at home in our own skin with all our feelings and desires, seeking the joy we can by being fully open and giving to life, instead of always demanding from others to fill or heal our old wounds carried from the past.

I did read that the backwards glance of Mercury which began on the final degree of Pisces 29 degrees a few weeks ago would mean a chance to look back on the big journey in order to see things and realise things we could not before. Mercury turns direct on the 28th at 16 degrees of Pisces after meeting with transiting Neptune which is about dissolution and transformation through gaining insights into the past and the unconscious (both personal and collective), feeling and releasing feelings to gain awareness, feeling also the inner connection to larger forces around us both collective and transpersonal.

I had a lovely conversation with one of my angels yesterday after passing Mum’s unit on the way home from the fruit and vegetable markets where we would often meet for a coffee or lunch and I cried a lot also talking to my Mum and asking for forgiveness for certain things. I had to fight my Mum a lot because that is what the younger generation needs to do with parents, we are bursting free of restrictions and limitations they had to live within but at times I lacked compassion for what my mother struggled with internally. I guess you could say I had a lot of maturing and growing in awareness to do in order to see how I carried aspects of my Mum’s very very lonely childhood as well as the way she defended against the fullness of my being and expression in life.

More and more these days I see the love my parents tried to give but also their very real limitations which were all meant to be. We get the parents we need to learn certain lessons. They do their best to give us what they can but they also carry wounds and patterns which they pass on which we must work within to grow in awareness of. It is all just part of an evolutionary journey we are all engaged upon.

I was also reading a meme from the Loner Wolf site on Pinterest last night which spoke of how ’empaths’ often attract ‘narcissists’ so we can learn essential lessons with boundaries. Empaths possibly struggled a lot in earlier years to be understood for their deep feelings and sensitive nature. They naturally see and extend their energy field into the hearts and minds of others, but this can be a very uncomfortable and unwelcome thing to the more defended person. I remember being shocked when my ex partner started to throw a fit after I noticed a donation he made to a charity and said how lovely it was that he did this. He just flew into a rage and started banging things. I remember feeling really scared but now I look back and see whenever his softness or vulnerability was triggered he could get very defensive.

Some people find it very uncomfortable to be ‘seen’ by an empath. I am much more careful about how I look at others around me now, that I don’t know. Sometimes I sense I may violate a boundary by seeing deeply into someone who does to want to be seen. And at the basis of it all what is most important is that we see ourselves and understand ourselves, to me this is the basis for all true intimacy. However due to temperamental biases and different defences and natures people are going to respond to us in all kinds of ways. When two sensitive very wounded people get together relating may become a mine field due to this. And at times we may project our woundedness onto others as well. In a healthy relationship it’s not unsafe to say what we see and feel if its done in a kind and loving and respectful way and we can too can learn to become open or receptive to anther’s feedback without it being a ‘violation”, sometimes it may be as only we can know how we feel inside and what affects us for good and ill.

Boundaries are a huge issue that have come up for me around this particular Mercury retrograde for me. Neptune has no boundaries (is is the baby floating in the sea of collective energies and feeling before any conscious ego is formed), and my Sun and Venus and Mercury all square Neptune. I had a Mum who didn’t really ‘get’ or read me well. She would violate my boundaries all the time by reading my private journals and by telling me I should not be or feel the way I naturally did, as a result I became boundary less or very defensive around boundaries and guarded in relationships (the later was due to Saturn Moon which was to do also with a duty/rule bound restrictive emphasis in my early home life).

I unconsciously carried this desperation to be seen and understood and because my own feelings were not related to, I struggled too, to understand the feelings of others. Add alcohol into the mix from the age of 14 to 31 and things got pretty darn messy. Working a 12 step recovery programme helped a bit but inter personal therapy with a therapist who truly understand and see my real self has been the best ever help in this regard. I have learned a lot more about boundaries even over the past weeks and I know boundary skirmishes are all essential to this process, in life we have to make mistakes in order to learn lessons or grow, its just not possible to really live a full life without making a lot of mistakes.

Anyway I still find my needs and desires and feelings can be thwarted or restricted at times and its not always pleasant. I had to confront the bank on Friday about the account of mine they have blocked and it was very hard to get my feelings across. In the end the account is still blocked though I can get access to funds for bills that I have by presenting invoices. All this happened because I tried to lend money to someone they think is not legitimate and maybe it is happening because even offering to do so was a boundary violation. I am seeing that often offering to help or being asked for help is not always best. In the end each of us is responsible ourselves in this life, that is what I am learning. am feeling my desire to ‘help’ often comes out of this Neptune square ad maybe there is an element of projection in it.

Putting my own life on hold to be there for my Mum and my sister in later years was a tough decision. I have had a lot of ‘lost’ years as a result, but I have also learned lessons and learned so much more about myself and my family as a result. I now have close relationships with several members in my family and I respect the ones who would rather keep a distance from me.

Its a fine balance deciding when to help or make a sacrifice in order to be there for someone. In the end its all about balance and how own store of personal energy reserves. For me I am happy to help and give of my time love and energy when I feel full within myself. When it becomes hard is when I start to feel myself becoming depleted in some way. That is when I need my boundaries as well as a good sense of attunement to my inner life, feelings and world. When I lose this I can lose myself. I lost myself big time in a past relationship due to boundary issues, but all of that occurred in order for me to grow and learn. I know as long as I live I will be growing and learning. In the end I am just a fallible human stumbling and bumbling and trying her best to live a valuable happy real and grounded life.

Lately though I am feeling this positive surge of energy. A feeling that my life may finally be moving forward after a very very long hiatus or backward turning. I cant wait till Mercury passes through Pisces and is finally free of the retrograde passage and move into Aries. The date for that is 21st April…. energy should start to feel clearer and less confused then though one thing I know for sure, there will always be more challenges presenting themselves because that is what life does. Its is constantly challenging us.