Where Do I End and You Begin?

The Courage to See Ourselves

Imagine having to admit that you are part of the problems you create with other people. That is much harder than identifying what is wrong with them. We can usually describe another person’s faults in great detail. They are controlling, manipulative, abusive, secretive, selfish, cold, unpredictable, emotionally unavailable, or impossible to reason with. We may even be completely correct about what we are seeing. But the deeper and far more uncomfortable questions are: Why does this person affect me so strongly, and what are they revealing about me? This does not mean we caused someone else’s harmful behavior, nor does it mean anyone should remain in a dangerous relationship. It means that if we want to understand why a particular pattern has entered our life, we must be willing to look at more than the other person’s behavior.

Everyone alive has patterns, so there is nothing to be ashamed of when one becomes visible. A pattern is one of the most important ways the unconscious brings us information about our own nature. It also speaks to us through dreams, illness, accidents, slips of the tongue, synchronicities, and recurring emotional experiences, but the purpose of this essay is relationship, one of the most immediate and powerful ways the unconscious shows us our many selves. We are a multitude.Again and again, I return to the alchemical dictum: “As above, so below; as within, so without.” What appears in the outer world reflects, in some form, what is also within us. Energy is what we are, and energy is how we are connected to one another. In relationship, these unseen archetypal energies are experienced through attraction, conflict, jealousy, fear, fascination, and love. The Other becomes the place where something within us finally becomes visible.

Readers who are unfamiliar with astrological symbols may not understand every technical detail in this post, but the experiences themselves will likely feel familiar because the symbolism is archetypal. As you read, you may recognize that you, too, have encountered repeating relationship patterns that returned in different forms until their deeper meaning became impossible to ignore.

Consider a woman who has married three abusive men in a row. She sees herself as compassionate, forgiving, and devoted, and each time she tells herself that love, patience, or sacrifice will eventually heal the relationship. Astrologically, she has a Pisces Moon and Neptune square Mars. This has manifested as an underdeveloped Mars function. Neptune describes unconditional love, compassion, sacrifice, and the longing to merge with the oneness of all beings. She identifies with Neptune’s willingness to rescue, endure, forgive, and believe in another person’s potential, while Mars represents anger, self-protection, assertion, decisiveness, and the right to say no. Because she has not learned to live those qualities consciously, Mars is projected onto the men she becomes involved with. They live the aggression openly and selfishly, while she experiences herself only as their victim.

Astrology does not excuse abuse. It gives the experience symbolic meaning by asking why certain energies appear so powerfully in our lives and what they may be trying to make conscious in us. We do not eliminate Mars or Neptune from the psyche. Neptune without Mars can become self-erasure, martyrdom, and sacrifice without limits, while Mars without Neptune can become cruelty, domination, and violence. Her husbands remain responsible for their abusive behavior, but the repeating pattern asks her to recognize the Mars she has not learned to live: the capacity to take a stand for herself, establish firm boundaries, act decisively in her own best interest, and leave when she is being harmed.

We all experience anger. As John Sanford writes in Evil: The Shadow Side of Reality, “Anger is a healthy response to intolerable behavior.” Yet anger is not always expressed openly. Some people are aggressive, while others express anger by being passive aggressive. Withdrawal, silence, delay, helplessness, covert resistance, and refusing to communicate can provoke anger in another person while allowing us to believe that we are entirely innocent.

We do not get rid of our birth chart; the goal is not to eliminate any planet or difficult aspect. It is to recognize when we are projecting an energy, acting it out unconsciously, or forcing another person to carry it for us, and then find a more conscious expression of that same energy. Transformation and healing can occur when a person is willing to dig deeply enough to understand the pattern rather than identify only the other person as the problem. The turning point comes when we begin to ask not only, “Why is this person doing this to me?” but also, “What is this relationship revealing about me?” and “Why does this pattern keep repeating, often with greater intensity each time?” Repetition is one of the primary ways the unconscious makes a pattern visible. Astrological transits often accompany these periods synchronistically, bringing the projected energy so directly into our lives that it becomes increasingly difficult to ignore.

How Can We Change What We Refuse to See Ourselves Doing?Until we recognize that these energies also belong to our own psyche, we can do little more than blame others and experience ourselves entirely as victims of what they are doing. As long as the problem belongs entirely to them, we remain powerless. We can accuse, leave, or find someone new, but the unconscious pattern remains intact because we have not recognized our own participation in it. The other person may express a characteristic or quality so intensely that we cannot miss it. Their neediness, constant criticism, secrecy, arrogance, laziness, controlling behavior, emotional unpredictability, or emotional distance may become extreme enough to dominate the relationship. We see it in them because they are carrying it at full volume. Our own version may be better disguised, but it may still be there. And if the quality is genuinely absent from our conscious personality, it may be one we need to develop — not in its extreme form, but in a more balanced and constructive way. Or we may already be acting it out everywhere without realizing it, even though everyone around us can see it clearly.

Every planet is part of the human psyche, and every planetary energy has more than one possible expression. The Sun symbolizes our radiance, individuality, and capacity to express our gifts, but when exaggerated it can become demanding, self-centered, and preoccupied with being the center of attention. The Moon describes our need for emotional connection, care, nourishment, and belonging, but when overdone it can become needy, dependent, or emotionally demanding. Mercury helps us communicate and understand, yet it can also rationalize, distort, evade, and use words as weapons. Venus creates pleasure, cooperation, charm, and mutuality, but when unconscious it can become possessive, overly accommodating, or inauthentic — sitting on the fence rather than risk conflict by making clear decisions. Mars gives us courage, desire, initiative, and the ability to defend ourselves, but when unconscious it can become pushy, violent, impatient, or combative. Jupiter can inspire faith, generosity, meaning, and a larger vision of life, but when exaggerated it may become self-righteous, inflated, or convinced that its own truth is the only truth. Saturn gives us discipline, structure, responsibility, and healthy limits, but it can also appear as deprivation, punishment, rigidity, bargaining, or the need to control. Chiron describes an enduring wound that, when conscious, can become a source of wisdom and healing; when unconscious, it can keep us identified with being wounded or rejected.

Ask yourself what you see in others, why it affects you so intensely, and whether some version of that quality also lives in you. If you cannot find it, perhaps it represents a capacity you need to develop for yourself — not in an extreme form, but in a balanced way as part of a more complete personality. Then make yourself a promise: whatever you discover is part of the human condition, and you, too, are human. Shadow work is much easier to understand than it is to practice because seeing the shadow in ourselves can bring shame, humiliation, and the collapse of an identity we have worked hard to maintain. Yet its purpose is not self-condemnation. It is consciousness.

“The ego keeps its integrity only if it does not identify with one of the opposites, and if it understands how to hold the balance between them. This is possible only if it remains conscious of both at once…” — Carl Jung, CW 8: The Structure and Dynamics of the Psyche, par. 425

An unlived quality becomes far more dangerous when we insist that it exists only in other people. Jung’s work was evolutionary because it asked us to become more conscious of what we are capable of carrying: both the darkness we deny and the gifts we have not yet lived. This requires moral courage. Moral courage is the willingness to tell the truth about ourselves without collapsing into shame and without escaping into blame. It is the ability to say,

“Yes, that person behaved badly, and I must also examine my own behavior. When have I exhibited some version of that quality myself?”  No teacher can do that inventory for us. A wise teacher may illuminate the pattern or remain beside us while an old identity falls apart, but eventually we must look for ourselves. We must withdraw our projections, take responsibility for what belongs to us, and allow the other person to become human again. That may be the beginning of genuine love — not the love of an idealized image, but the love that becomes possible when neither person has to carry what the other refuses to see.

Every relationship is a message of the Gods. Are we listening? It’s up to us. In Part 2, I will widen the lens to explore how Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto awaken different dimensions of relationship, projection, and consciousness. I will also look at how these transpersonal planets are expressed through the collective, and how our individual consciousness contributes to the consciousness of the whole.

A NOTE TO MY NEW READERS: Words such as shadow, projection, individuation, and the Self come from Jung’s psychology. I have made a Jungian vocabulary guide called Dictionary of Jungian Terms available for free on my website. It also appears in my latest book, WHEN the OTHER Is YOU: Love Beyond Projection — The Alchemy of Relationship in the Age of Aquarius.

I’m delighted to share my conversation with Robin Fisher Roffer on Plenty of Husbands Podcast. We talked about relationship, projection, shadow work, astrology, and the journey of becoming conscious through love. Thank you, Robin, for this beautiful conversation. 🎧 Listen on Spotify🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts and visit her website: PlentyofHusbands.com

- ONGOING SHADOW WORK/ASTROLOGICAL COACHING SESSIONS -

“Working with Rebeca Eigen over the last five months has been one of the most transformative experiences of my life. Through her deep understanding of Jungian psychology, astrology, shadow work, and relationship dynamics, she has helped me navigate one of the most painful and challenging periods I have ever faced.

What makes Rebeca extraordinary is the way she combines profound insight with honesty, vulnerability, and humor. Our long-term work together has helped me understand myself more deeply than years of traditional talk therapy ever had. Through exploring my chart, my shadow, and my marriage, I gained clarity, compassion, and a completely new perspective on myself, my partner, and the opportunities for growth within relationship.”

— Lisa H, Vacaville, California

Download your FREE 7th-House-guide.