One of the purposes of our earthly incarnation is to move away from old habits, patterning and past – life conditioning, and to grow in Spirit. As such, we all have carried certain habits, old patterning and past-life conditioning into this incarnation to deal with. Our cultural origin and traditions, childhood conditioning and programming, social, political and religious beliefs all enable us to connect to whatever we have chosen to deal with throughout our chosen life experiences.
We all have habits and exhibit them in our own way. Some habits we already know consciously, but most of them we just spontaneously do without knowing we have them until someone points it out to us because they are hidden and deeply ingrained in our subconscious, and we carry them to this incarnation from our past incarnations. Nothing is wrong with habits, however, they can become great hindrances for our soul learning and growing experiences. Often because the conditioning is deeply ingrained, the old patterning keeps repeating itself, the Self part of us becomes so used to these traits that they have become a part of us of which we are so comfortable with, thus, the habit has become fixed and hard to change. The Self-part of us uses our conditioning and our deep ingrained patterning and habits to control and manipulate us. The Self’s only purpose is to keep us in the comfort zone for comfort, security and survival. Unfortunately, what we feel comfortable with and what we stubbornly stick with are actually the parts of us that we have chosen to discontinue and move away from in this incarnation in order to grow Spiritually and move forward in vibration. Therefore, if we, as a soul, want to attain soul growth, it is necessary to make a conscious effort to change our habits and to move away from our conditioning.
How can we know our habits, patterning and conditioning? By looking at our Moon sign, and the sign of the South Node of the Moon and their house locations in our individual natal chart will lead us to the answer. In Astrology, the placement of the Moon in our birth chart is very significant from a karmic perspective. It indicates the accumulated karmic tendencies, both positive and negative, that we carry from our past-incarnated experiences on the earth plane. It represents what we have already done and developed, what is instinctive and natural to us, and what we tend to do over and over again – our emotional make-up, our habits, patterning, conditioning and subconscious predisposition, etc. It is the psychic imprint of our past. The south node of the Moon depicts what we have developed and are comfortable with – our behavior patterns from the past, our outdated and worn out behaviors and habits, etc.
For example, in my natal chart, I have the Moon in Gemini, indicating that I have a very active and restless mind. It has been a big challenge for me to quiet my mind and to be still. I am still learning to dance with my Gemini Moon energy nowadays, LOL. I used to have a tendency of using my intellect and rational thinking to defuse the emotional factors in situations or when dealing with conflicts with others. I was uncomfortable with feeling the less pleasant aspects of life, and I was trying to avoid confrontation. Whenever I felt a situation was getting too heavy, I wanted to fly away emotionally and physically. I needed to have a lot of mental stimulation and variety because I would easily get bored. I was also changing jobs every 3-5 years no matter how good the job was and how well I was doing as if I was afraid of stability and permanence. I had been habitually doing things this way since I was a child. I did not realize this until I learned astrology and the significance of the Moon related to my patterning. I then realized my deep ingrained tendency of intellectualizing or emotionally detaching myself rather than fully immersing myself in an emotional experience and committing myself to someone or something permanently.
My South Node of the Moon is Cancer in the 7th house, indicating I spent many incarnations in marriage and partnerships. It had become my comfort zone. When I graduated from the college, all I wanted to do was to be a stay at home wife, looking after my husband and raising my child. I was so ready to get married and to become a wife and mother. I did not know this was my past life mode. Thus, when I was rejected by the man I fell in love with, I was really devastated and deeply ashamed without knowing that the man who rejected me was actually helping me to face my out dated past life behaviors and habits. He was pushing me towards what I needed to fulfill my destiny and evolve as a soul (The North Node of the Moon). Without his rejection, I would never have considered going to graduate school, obtaining my Ph.D. and coming to the USA; I would never be where I am today!
Changing our habits, old patterning and conditioning is never an easy task, because it has become a very comfortable part of us. However, forcing ourselves to change will not work either, as it will only create more fear and resistance that the Self-part of us will hold onto. So how should we change and what should we do? Awareness is the first step. Be aware of our habits, old patterning and conditioning; Secondly, ask the universe to assist us if we feel that we are ready to make change; Thirdly, start to face our fear, doubt, insecurity, pride and other issues. Do it one by one, little by little. Once we have faced our own fear and insecurity one by one, we start to feel better, lighter, freer and more at peace, and we raise our consciousness and vibration along with it. We then gain more insight and knowledge and have the confidence in ourselves to let go of the conditioning and to change our habits and old patterning. As we do, we begin to see life differently and we will find we no longer need the things we used to need, and we gradually strip away everything we no longer need. It takes time, but slowly and surely, we will find that we become a different person from before, and we have more peace and contentment. We are still the same soul, but we have removed all we no longer need, and we become the soul we truly are. I call this the process of personal enlightenment, or the journey of life.