Pluto Interrupted

But There Was A Plan By Rebecca Schmidt

Trigger warning: This post includes a reference to sexual abuse.

There will be a Full Moon in Libra on April 1st in my fourth house of home, family and emotional safety. This can bring a balancing of the scales and for me this feels like a before and after moment.

The backstory is that I had a traumatic experience when I was 11 years old. I was staying at a friend's house because my brother was in the hospital in another city and my mom was there with him. My father's company was on strike but he was a manager so was working 15 hour days. They thought it would be a fun time for me but instead I awoke in the middle of the night to my friend’s stepfather abusing her while I laid frozen beside her pretending to be asleep. After that, I no longer felt safe being alone with adults, especially men.

I had a memory come up this morning about starting classes with a new piano teacher soon after that experience. I remember being excited to play more modern music after years of classical but the classes were held alone in a room in the basement of a music store which set off alarm bells in my body. I was super rude to him. I pushed back and I am pretty sure I told him to fuck off too.

Looking back, I can see I was protecting myself.
He wasn’t the problem but my body was obviously in full panic from being in that position.

My mom was so angry and embarrassed and I remember feeling so misunderstood and confused. I wish I could have told her the truth about everything but I was already running on strong patterns to not cause any extra stress in my home. I had created a coping mechanism that if I could manage my parents’ emotions then I would get my needs met, feel safe and have my harmonious home and family back like in my earlier years. So I tried not to cause any waves and I held that secret in hopes that my brother would get the attention he needed, my parents would have less stress and that I would feel safe again.

At least, that’s what I believed. Unfortunately, that plan I created as a child, backfired big time. Those patterns followed me throughout my life and as much as they had been created to help me to cope and keep me safe, they instead wreaked havoc on my life and relationships. In order to uphold them, I had to sometimes lie and to do things I didn't actually want to be doing to keep the peace. This led me to disappoint and abandon myself and my needs.

I am definitely feeling the effects of the upcoming Full Moon in Libra on April 1st. It will be conjunct my natal Pluto, which was in retrograde when I was born, meaning I internalized exactly this… holding dark secrets, people pleasing dynamics, managing the room and managing myself in order to feel safe.

Thankfully this Full Moon is ending that very long chapter. I have done the work. I have moved through my underworld and this is my rebirth. I am no longer running on patterns of codependency, over-managing or abandoning myself to maintain harmony.
I have been setting boundaries and removing myself from what no longer serves me.
In turn, I have come back to myself. My true home.

So what feels really powerful is that this is all happening as we are about to close on the sale of our house. A place where I have been held while I did a lot of deep inner healing work. This is a physical closing and a deep internal one at the same time.
It feels really good to feel emotionally safe and more harmonious in my home and to be able to finally meet my own needs and to make sure those close to me can meet them too. I am so excited for what my mind and my life will be able to do now that I am no longer running on those old patterns and programming.

Ya never know, maybe I will start those piano lessons back up again.