So I was thinking about my son going off on his own this morning, very independent, on this flight - expressing his individuality, and how important it is to meditate on shoring up our own inner and outer strength as a meditation for the Aquarian Full Moon.
The full moon is a time of reflection, and Aquarius is such an independent and strong archetype, it is in a unique dichotomy of being a maverick of individuality while being the push for humanitarian collective progress. We also need to consider the Leo archetype in this full moon, as that is the light the moon is reflecting from the sun. This is where we need to push ourselves to be 'creageous' (creative + courageous haha). But the kryptonite for the Aquarius Leo axis energy is fear of judgment. That can be the thing that stops all progressive individuality, and self-expressive output - and what a damn shame that is. Those two things are part of what makes the human experience beautiful.
Being Judged by others is a real fear many of us have because it is tribal in its roots. When we think about tribal acceptance, that could be a matter of life or death, right? It's the difference between having resources, shelter, love, and reproductive opportunities - or having nothing and possibly being dinner for the lions. It's a big deal. We are still functioning on that level of deep tribal acceptance desire, which is what fuels these major social media platforms - hearts, likes, views, comments, blah blah blah. Yeah. Social media entangles and manipulates us all the way deep into our tribal root needs.
But now we are not in danger of dying if someone doesn't accept or like us, and even more critically, the amount of people we are considering as part of our 'tribe' has expanded exponentially beyond what we have evolved to experience. There is something called Dunbar’s number
Dunbar's number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people we can maintain stable social relationships with, where we know who each person is and how each person relates to every other person.
In the 1990s British anthropologist Robin Dunbar found a correlation between primate brain size and average social group size. By using the average human brain size and extrapolating from the results of primates, he proposed that humans can comfortably maintain approximately 150 stable relationships.
There are some arguments for that number. Philip Lieberman said nutritional limitations led to societies of approximately 30–50 people because that’s the group size that can be fed without at least rudimentary agriculture, and we have big human brains that consume more nutrients than ape brains, making group sizes of approximately 150 too large for paleolithic humans.
So potentially the amount of people we are designed to interact with and care about their opinions, could be an even smaller number, right? Ok, so now we are dealing with this coded social parameter, but when we put the social media dilemma into question, we are interacting with several hundred, potentially thousands, to hundreds of thousands, to sometimes even millions of other people who suddenly could have some access to you.
Now that’s crazy. But here is where the Aquarian/Leonine story is taking us. The collective, and the individual, self-expression, and group expression - they are intertwined. Leo gets a lot of credit for the personal expression point, but that has to be shared out into the world to inspire the collective- and the aquarian other half is about individuality that needs to be shared out into the world to further the collective.
Being criticized can ly challenging because it potentially shakes the foundation of our reality structures. This can get even harder when it is directed at your expression, your art, your creations, your physical body, your choices, your politics, your opinions, your sports team, or generally the things you are passionate about.
Ok, you know what I mean here. It sucks to get criticized - I don’t think anyone would line up for that experience.
When it does happen, it’s very easy to give in to one of two reactions - first is fighting back, defense and second is self-doubt - giving up your position to please others. Neither choice is the winning move.
Philosopher Elbert Hubbard said, “To escape criticism, do nothing”
Let that sit with you for a second.
The only way to ensure that you will not have any criticism is to do nothing. What kind of life is that? Is that the life you want?
Let me tell you, especially the people pleasers, and the recovering people pleasers, that you can’t please all the people all of the time. Heck, you can’t even please most people most of the time.
On every single one of the videos I make, I get dislikes. Every single one. No matter how much effort I put into the video, inevitably, someone has to go out of their way to tell me it sucks, haha! And that was hard to get used to at first - I mean I have a ton of Virgo energy, so I value the pursuit of perfection. The deal with social media is that your results are quantifiable - you can easily see in numbers if what you are doing is being appreciated by the masses, a collective of mostly strangers.
In all honesty, being criticized is very important in personal growth, and that might sound counterintuitive, but it’s not the criticism that holds the power. it’s how you react to it, how you internalize it or chose NOT to internalize it.
So my teenage boys are both really into working out, lifting weights, and all the gym stuffMymy younger son, who has a huge Arnold Swatrzenegger flag in his room had his birthday a few days ago, and part of his party was to go to this powerlifting gym with his friends. One of the things these boys are so proud of is their weight-lifting calluses. Each day they push themselves to the limit and the skin on their hands thicken.
Each criticism can be seen as a set in the powerlifting gym. Thickening your skin. Building strength in the muscles of your self-expression. Understanding that you cannot please everyone, ever, so why compromise your individuality?
That being said, the most beautiful power we have here is extending that grace and acceptance to other people who are expressing their individuality. We do not have to agree, or even like what other people do or think or say, but if we are claiming sovereignty, we must allow others to have their own sovereignty. This is where we get a bigger picture of reality. Opposing opinions can coexist - both have space to be equally true and at the same time equally false.
Recently I was watching this clip of a discussion with a mainstream journalist interviewing Robert F. Kenedy Jr., who is a potential presidential candidate in the 2024 election, here, I’ll play the clip for you.
Now I am not a politically interested person by nature because of the games being played, but at least here with this statement, we are seeing that there could be a change in the direction away from separationist tactics. We don’t need to agree with people to respect them and allow them to have their own opinions. We don’t need to attack people personally and add to the madness.
When someone does not agree with us, that’s ok. When someone doesn’t like us, that’s ok. When someone criticizes us, that is based on their own biases, opinions, and thoughts. That doesn’t mean it’s true for you unless you accept it as true. Once the sting of the initial criticism dims, you can look closer at the criticism and decide if that was a constructive statement that can help you grow, or if it is a meaningless attempt at control.
Being human and doing anything is going to lead to criticism - that HAS to be ok, because what are the alternatives??
It’s the calluses, the inner strength, the muscles of self-embodiment, and the Aquarius/Leo principle of personal power, that can lead to collective acceptance and change for the better.
Something to contemplate.
I wish you a beautiful full aquarian moon, and I’ll talk to you next time.
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