Although we exited 2022 with some peace and calmness, we started 2023 with some pretty intense energy. Mercury joined the planets Mars and Uranus in a mini retrograde storm and then we experienced a Cancer full moon at the end of the first week of the year. I think many of us felt this huge energetic hit that pretty much lasted for most of the month. Cancer is the sign of the mother and I believe that we were working on clearing not only childhood trauma but ancestral trauma on our mother’s side. Towards the end of January, all planets went direct and we experienced a new moon in Aquarius. However, I feel as though we are still processing and integrating this energy.

Because one of the main themes of the Age of Aquarius is letting go of victim consciousness and embodying sovereignty, I believe the astrological patterns we have been experiencing have served to further clear out more remnants of victim consciousness energy that resides inside of all of us. Something important to understand is that we all have unprocessed emotions from childhood traumatic situations, large and small, that are stored within the cellular memory of our bodies. These traumas created many of our inaccurate belief systems, which includes feelings of victimization. And in order for us to achieve higher vibrational states, we need to process these feelings, all of them, which is not necessarily pleasant to say the least, to help shift these beliefs. Additionally, our DNA contains cellular memory from our parents, ancestors and past lives, which also needs to be brought to the surface and processed as this also energetically ties us to the beliefs we are seeking to shift.

As with the last few retrogrades we have experienced, I have been overwhelmed with triggers from my own childhood that I thought I had resolved, but I guess there was more to clear and understand. My mother, due to her own traumatic childhood, was an emotionally unstable woman. Throughout my childhood, I would oftentimes hear that she hated her life, regretted that she ever had me and was either going to kill herself or leave. Because of this trauma, I created and internalized various belief systems that have repeatedly replayed in my life such as feeling overly responsible for others, difficulty setting boundaries, as well as feeling as though I was victim of these experiences. And once again, I attracted another situation into my life where I was feeling as though I was trapped in a situation I just did not want to be in. For most of the month, I was not speaking my truth, feeling overburdened, angry and resentful. It was very annoying because this was not the first time this situation has come up in my life for examination. I thought I worked on this several times and cleared in. However, in addition to the many triggers from my own childhood, another thread came up, the ancestral one. My mother also felt overwhelmed and overburdened. She too had an unstable and explosive parent. Additionally, because she was the oldest, she had the responsibility of taking care of her siblings. Maybe all of this was resurfacing, not only to clear my own childhood trauma, but to clear the entire lineage. I also realized that I still had unprocessed grief around her death that I did not even know I still carried. I found it so interesting that this retrograde coincided with the last few weeks of her life and mercury actually went straight on the anniversary of her death.

However, as I analyzed which part of this I had not worked on yet, I think the big lesson and release from all of this was letting go of this victimization that the little girl inside of me felt. There is obviously still a piece of me that is holding onto some anger, resentment and sadness about my childhood experience. However, if I truly embrace the concept that we are spiritual beings who come back lifetime after lifetime to learn lessons to evolve in our spiritual development, I have to understand that I chose to have this experience to some extent. Planet earth can be seen as a school. All of us learning different lessons at different lifetimes. Each of us in different classes, learning at different rates through our experiences. All of us are essentially learning from each other. Through relationships, adversity, suffering and our life experience, we grow. We all have to experience different aspects of human existence with the goal of learning love, compassion and understanding in the human form. It is believed that before we are born, we decide what lessons need to be learned in that lifetime. We pick the family and life circumstances that will best facilitate those lessons. This is not to imply that if we experience adversity, we consciously chose or deserve it. Because we have free will on planet earth, not everything that will happen to us was planned. However, we can let go of the feelings of victimization even if this transpired. If during last month, you encountered some triggers from childhood, hopefully, you were able to process it and make peace with it as well as see what belief systems this situation created which still may be replaying in your life. At the present time, we also have the opportunity to break karmic contracts. If we still hold on to resentment, anger, etc. we are going to have to come back and do it all over again. Aren’t we tired of these patterns already? I know I am. I wonder if this intense period of purification is preparing us for what the universe has in store for us in March. I wrote about this in my last article. As we continue moving into 2023, the spiritual year, year #7, let’s keep remembering why we are here. We are here to evolve spiritually, which means doing this difficult work, and raise the vibration of the collective!