Meant for Adults Only: Content and Language Warning
What Tools Have You Used To Understand Yourself?
I sometimes spiral, literally, into a darkness that I’m just tired of going into without a flashlight or an atlas. I will never be able to stop going there because it is a part of me, but I have learned to balance that part with light. (And also to carry an atlas for direction..) And most often, even with light and direction, I somehow manage to still get lost in the dark. I am a complex person, overwhelming myself most of the time, and for many years, I didn’t understand who I was, let alone my purpose for being here. Of course I was getting lost because I didn’t know where I was going. I set out on a spiritual mission to find myself in 2013, after nearly succumbing to the darkness. I set out to find myself.
There were two different bodies of research that shined a very bright light for me in the understanding of who I am: the MBTI (Myers-Briggs Typing Index) and astrology natal charts. Today I am talking about how these two things have helped me gain an understanding of who I really am; who I was born to be, before everyone started telling me who I am, what I can and cannot do, who and what I should be, and also who I am not.
MBTI Personality Type Discussed
INFJ’s have many interests that always connect, but these interests don’t always seem to connect to other people. Even with two masters degrees in Education, most of my self- education (aka rabbit holes) and higher learning has been about spiritual concepts, such as astrology and tarot. I am deeply into ancient systems that can provide support with helping me find balance, with bringing light to darkness.
INFJ’s don’t really fit into this world. They are very different, and they know that from a very early age. The way that people respond to them is how we they gauge who they are, and if they don’t know how to respond, which often times they don’t, it feels like another slight. Like another person that rejected them, or another person that called them weird. I am weird. But weird is not always a negative term. It actually means different, and different is good.
INFJ’s will often begin to believe that they are truly weird and very different from the majority. Because there is only between 1%- 3% of the population that are INFJ-type people, they feel as though they are singularly different. And alone. Until they realize that there are others like them, and there are people that actually think like them, and can follow their “crazy” thought processes, and understand what they’re doing and why they are doing it, they feel like they may even be aliens, with nowhere that they fit into, in this universe.
All I know is that I never felt good enough, or smart enough. As an INFJ, I have never been allowed to just comfortably be me, unapologetically be me. I have been told I think too much, that I waste my time worrying. I’ve been told so many things about myself that I eventually started to believe it all because I couldn’t figure it out. I made no sense and I often felt lost! Apparently, most INFJ’s feel lost, although they don’t like to feel or be lost, at all. It’s the worst feeling in the world for me because I have to be able to find my own way. I have my own atlas, one that I have created, in order to traverse my life. I make my life up as I go. And I may rewrite my story multiple times; and it might even seem like I have lived multiple lives, all in one lifetime. I have.
I have spent years overthinking about why I am this way, over-analyzing myself, judging myself way too harshly, using symbols and metaphors to connect every little thing in the puzzles that my brain creates, even creating stories for the lack of truth that was realized in situations. I have even blamed myself for everyone else’s bad behavior, and really believed that it was inspired by something I did. All of these things made it hard for me to love myself. But, I was born this way. I was born to be a walking contradiction. It’s almost like I’ve been “damned if I do, and damned if I don’t,” my entire life. The truth is: I am even a contradiction to myself. And I have to always remind myself about light and dark, and about balance. It is a walk on a trapeze line, while holding a monkey. The monkey is always moving, and so is the line, and so am I… But, I have to balance or I will fall. This is real life. There’s no net to catch me. I need to catch myself.
I have studied the INFJ function stack, and how I process in a very unique way. The INFJ function stack is very strange, because they use their internal intuition… And the way that their intuition makes them feel in order to vacillate in a circular thinking pattern allows them to connect tiny pieces into a big picture that they can then judge immediately for validity. INFJ’s do this automatically, and in about two seconds flat, on any given day, with any given idea. But, they don’t stop there, because they have to think of it from everyone’s perspective, on every given day, mix it in with how these perspectives makes them feel, and then make connections between those feelings and thinking parts, making a judgment about all of it, and then connecting it to their prior learning and background knowledge in order to see a big picture. They always have to get a bird’s eye view.
They will then go through all of these different “what if‘s” and/or possibilities that could or may happen. And they literally do this with every thought that they have, so much that they forget that they are in a living body that has senses- (extroverted sensing is an inferior function- it doesn’t come naturally for them. INFJ’s are so busy living in their heads that their body sometimes wishes it could move there. They are too busy considering the multiple incarnations they have lived, in their own heads, while the multiverse of possibilities is playing in the background. It’s exhausting. At least that’s what it feels like for me. When overthinking (also called being “in the grip,”) occurs for an INFJ, it can be very dysfunctional. I didn’t know how or why my brain would get into “the grip,” and why there were such extreme polarities to my happy self and my anxious self…
From an early age, I have been on a personal mission to improve myself, and that is what I have tried to do daily for my whole life. But it wasn’t based on self-actualization in the beginning. It was based on trying to make people like me, and I spent several years trying really hard to make friends with people who thought I was weird. An interesting fact is that many INFJ’s limit their brain potential to fit in, and they don’t even know that their brains have become debilitated by people who didn’t want to try to understand them… because they probably didn’t have the cognitive ability to understand them. INFJ’s transform often, and I always think of my life as a game, in which I must constantly “level up” to fulfill my journey, which is to be worthy; to be seen and still be worthy. And to make a difference in this world. (I can admit that.)
As an INFJ, I act as a mirror, reflecting back to people who they are. As they say, a mirror goes both ways. My journey has only to do with me believing that I am worthy of my journey, of my life. That I am seen. That I am heard. That who I am matters, and makes a difference. I get confused on who needs to see me in this way. I sometimes wonder if people can even see me, wondering why I feel and know things about people that they don’t even know, or haven’t yet learned about themselves; yet, they know nothing about me.
Society has called INFJ’s many different names throughout history. Here are a couple of them: Spiritualists, Shamans, light workers, empaths, intuitive empaths, intuitives, psychics, clairvoyant and claircognizant, sages, witches, sigmas, seers- the people who see, hear, feel, and know the things that they shouldn’t, the unvoiced things that scream to them anyway. They have come to “see,” without being seen. In an introverted way, they watch the world, and they never take their eyes away, because they can’t. I am trying to understand it. I am trying to understand why I am here, and what the purpose of my life is. I strongly believe that my purpose is that of a person who learns to balance light and dark in order to show others how to do the same. Much of the work that I do, and have done with people, is helping them to see into the darkness of their own being.
I have always tried to bring light to my own darkness, as I aim to transcend my pain and rejection, by transformation. I am a transformer by nature, and a teacher by day. I have transcended many things and I will gladly show people how to heal, in order to change the world… and to make a difference. I have always felt that I have a calling. There is no point, for me, in denying it, because I would just be lying to myself. But, why lie when the truth will set you free?
Astrology Natal Chart Discussed
My natal chart is ridiculously on point for the life I have experienced. The more I discover about the astrology of my natal chart, the more fascinated I become…because it is also based on duality and the pull of opposite energies, and it is a huge contradiction, just like me! My natal chart has “multiple “fated” points, but I will be discussing the Yod, also called the “Finger of God,” that gives Mars (how you pursue your goals) and Chiron (my wound) full control of my entire chart. For more information on “fated points,” read this article.
About the “Finger of God”
I have learned a lot about astrology, but I have especially researched what it would mean for me to have a “finger of God,” (also called a Yod), and how that will be activated. I realized recently that Chiron has activated my Yod: a divine mission.
Chiron in a natal chart represents your main wound in your life, and also how to heal it. He is called “the wounded healer.” Interestingly enough, I have Chiron conjunct my midheaven in Aries, in my ninth house, which is known as “the House of God and Spirituality.” Transiting Chiron is actually at the same point as he was on the day I was born, called a Chiron return. He checks your path midpoint, and shows you why you must rectify it, in order to heal these wounds. To believe that some wounds are deep, so deep that they can never be healed, will never be true. It is true that we hide some of these wounds so deep because we never want them revealed. Ours wounds are personal to us, and can be related to love, money, other people… but ALL of them are our wounds, and blaming others for the ways we respond…well, that’s our shadow coming out to play. And it will come out to play every chance it gets, until you turn around and face it. The Shadow harbors fears, it brings shame, and it brings all of those feelings in with a rush, and you can’t stop it…because you haven’t done the work to see it, to rectify it. Suddenly, you are succumbing to your own darkness, getting lost because you have no atlas and no flashlight. The main three questions that Chiron asks are: Where are you wounded? How can you heal yourself? How can you show others to heal?
A Yod is said to be fated. My Yod is comprised of Mars (10H Taurus), Pluto (3H Libra) and Neptune (5H Sagittarius), and my Scorpio Moon (4H) that acts as a boomerang to Mars (the apex of the Yod) because it is in exact opposition to Mars, (same degree) and directly between the two bottom planets (feet) of my Yod. That means that my Moon will help me solve my Yod. A Yod in the chart creates particularly strong energy, stronger than you would get by these aspects on their own. A person with a Yod will have a difficult time with this frazzling and neurotic energy, especially earlier in life. A Yod is very challenging, and there will be many difficult circumstances and relationships in life which seem to show a repeating theme as if you are learning the same lesson, over and over, in order to perfect something. It is believed that a person with a Yod has been working on a special task or mission over many lifetimes, making mistakes along the way, while acquiring the skills needed to solve it. The Yod in the chart signifies that this is the life to bring it all together, to make up for the mistakes, and to pay back the karmic debt. In this life, the skills are to be perfected and used in a constructive, selfless way that benefits others.
In order to do this, the person with the Yod must develop a great sense of individuality and self-confidence and they may have to play the role of the rescuer and the victim, over and over, until they develop an understanding of personal and collective service. In relating to others, this person will explore realms of experiences that are not understood at an ordinary level, but this person is influenced by the collective unconscious patterns of behavior. Yay me! 😂 Bottom line… the Yod is a problem that must be solved. By me. I’m sure I know how and why my Yod was activated now.
Pluto and I have a very, very complicated relationship. It is one that I complicate, not him. You can’t fight death. You can’t fight transformation. You must surrender to it in order to transcend it. But I chide him daily with, “not today, Satan.” I pretty much view him as the devil. Pluto has been bringing me to my knees since 2008, but I didn’t know much about the planet. I realized in 2019 that my dad died the day Pluto went exact on my natal Sun, and I have studied him daily since! Pluto is called the planet of death and destruction/ transformation. He wants to “transform,” and he always takes what you think you can’t live without, mercilessly. It is a lesson, of sorts, to teach you how strong you are. It is also a lesson to teach you how to rebuild after mass destruction. Pluto enters conversations with a guiding question: What do you love the most and how can I destroy your attachment to it? What do you think you can’t live without? What can be changed to better serve you?
As you can’t fight Pluto, you can’t fight Mars either. Have you ever met an Aries? It’s a lost cause to try to fight. Mars controls how you express your energy to accomplish your goals, and how your energy is expressed sexually. It also influences the way your energy expresses desires, wishes, hopes, etc…Mars asks: What is it gonna take to move you? How mad will I have to make you before I can break you? What can I do to lose you? What will it take to make you fight me?
Neptune is linked to mysticism and spirituality, and also to escapism and how you cope with your problems, and what you will do to solve them for your own sanity. Or if you will drown in escape. He is also linked to Pisces in a very real way. Neptune might ask: Are you going to face this or are you going to run away? If you are going to face it, what will you call on for help?
The Moon can be viewed as your heart. It’s your emotional core. It’s not really your emotions, but it’s how you express them. It’s the energy that you bring to your emotions. It can also be thought of as you’re unconscious mind. The sun and the moon are actually luminaries, not planets. The sun controls the earth’s motion and the moon controls its tides. My moon is in Scorpio in the fourth house, and it is square to everything. (Squares are 90° angles that oppose one another.) . My moon can be held accountable for many of my emotional struggles, but it also is always there to save me. It likes to go deep and it wants all or nothing. It will make no exceptions. A Scorpio moon is considered a debilitated moon because it is in fall. 4th house is literally the worst placement for Scorpio. The 4th house is the realm of childhood, home, family, the mother, and ancestral Karma, also known as “the shit that gets passed down the line, over and over and over again, even though it’s morally wrong.” The moon will ask: do you feel seen? Do you feel heard? Do you feel understood? Do you feel safe? Do you feel loved? Are you able to express your emotions?
Since Mars is at the Apex of my Yod, it is through Mars that I must express this Yod energy (Aries!) to solve the “Finger of god.” 10th house is the house of career and outward projection… So I must use the energy of Pluto, which is transformation, and energy of Neptune, which is spirituality and thinking outside of the box, along with the energy of my Scorpio moon, which loves to dive deep into emotions, in order to transcend my pain and rewrite my story, so that I can teach others how to do the same. And since Chiron (conjunct my MC and starting my 10th house,) has activated this Yod, I must take all of the healing lessons I have learned in my lifetime(s) in order to do it. Sounds easy, right? 😂
Key takeaways for Shilo:
Burying memories, emotions, and energy in your body is repressing these deep wounds and emotions, and it will keep you stuck in a hole that is hard to crawl out of. I don’t think of my body as a place to bury things. Burying things deeply within is what makes people sick; releasing things are what keeps people healthy. You can’t release these lower vibrations and these stories you’ve been told about yourself until you know what they are. You can’t know what they are until you try to see them, until you hold up a light to your darkness. You can’t see them until you can conceptualize them and realize that there are two sides to you… dark and light, conscious and unconscious. Understanding that you have a conscious and a subconscious side to your thinking is very important because your shadow lives in your unconscious, and it controls approximately 94% of your brain. Your conscious thoughts are not in control at all. Don’t rely on the conscious part of your brain for answers. In doing this, you are relying on the part that you actually can control, and that is a waste of time, if you ask me.
I am seeing so much duality in everything- darkness and light, good and evil, black and white, and I’m getting taught new Chiron lessons that are both bringing up wounds I thought I had healed and showing me wounds that are happening right now, as we speak. In terms of transits, I have everything swinging in opposites on every axis. I’m allowing my journey to unfold with divine timing, and I’m learning some very good information from some very great people along the way. Knowing these things about myself helps me to transform anger and resentment (darkness) into something that is beyond me. I am not afraid to face things that I understand; things that I realize are very relevant to the present. The energy that I give to my emotions doesn’t have to be wildly disruptive anymore. My emotions can be controlled and they can be channeled. In order to channel them, I can just hold up my light. 🔦
I think I have been, and I am currently still on my path to fulfilling my purpose. I have gained new direction recently. ♥️ I will continue to go forward in my truth and in full alignment with the process, fully embodying my authentic self and always honoring my gifts and what I can bring to humanity. I have to do it. I can’t be afraid to talk. I can’t be afraid of what people think, or don’t think, about what I am saying. I can’t care if some people don’t listen and/or don’t want to hear me. I know the people that need to hear me will understand my message, and those will be the people I want to hear me. I can place my faith in that.
Bringing light to darkness…
I have prayed for it.
And this is where the universe has led me.
My newest obsession is Quantum Human Design! Please comment with any inspiring information you have gleaned from Human Design!
♥️ Shilo