How Can I Live Without You? Reclaiming Your 7th House Projections to Help you Heal After Relationship Loss (Separation, Divorce or Bereavement)

“you
not wanting me
was
the beginning of me
wanting myself
thank you”

― Nayyirah Waheed

What is a “7th House Projection”?

In an astrology chart, the 7th house is known as the house of marriage, partnerships and relationships.  It is the house of “people other than yourself”.  In modern psychological astrology, the 7th house is also known as the house of projection.  Projection is the (unconscious) act of denying a trait that exists within yourself and attributing it to another person.  When we project our 7th house, we allow another person to act out a personality trait instead of acting it out ourselves.  We fail to connect to the trait in ourselves and so we rely on someone else to deal with it.  We might even become convinced that we lack that personality trait altogether, when it is actually just dormant inside of us.  

The 7th House as a “Blind Spot”

The sign on the cusp of the 7th house (the Descendant or DC) and planets in the 7th house represent personality traits and behaviors that we tend to disown.  (The ruling planet of the 7th house cusp might also be involved in our projection, too.  But since it is usually located in a house other than the 7th, it might not play as big a role.)  As a result, the 7th house behaves like a blind spot.  We don’t recognize our own 7th house characteristics, but we do recognize them in others, and then we gravitate toward those people.  Often, we form close relationships with these people as friends or spouses and are content to let them express our 7th house traits and behaviors, so we don’t have to.  Or we might unconsciously allow a close relative to act out our 7th house for us.

But what happens if the person whom you projected upon leaves the relationship?  What if your friend moves away?  What if your love relationship ends in separation or divorce?  Or, God forbid, what happens if that particular relative dies?  What do you do when suddenly there is no one around to act out your 7th house characteristics for you?  

Separation, divorce, loss and bereavement involve lengthy and difficult psychological, emotional and spiritual processes that are too complex to be dealt with in this short article.  But what I do wish to address is how to re-claim your 7th house projections–a process that can help you start to feel a bit more whole and functional again after your loss.  

When you have been in a pattern of 7th house projection for a long time and suddenly that person disappears from your life, along with the grief comes additional fear and panic.  On a deep, subconscious level, a part of us suddenly realizes: “I no longer have this specific 7th house energy in my life.”  And that can feel frightening and depressing, like we suddenly have a giant hole in our soul.  We might feel like a child who who cannot fend for itself or that we have somehow been abandoned.  We think we can only get our needs fulfilled again by the actual person who is gone.  And that can feel traumatizing because there is no way to get them back.   

But a lot of this panic occurs because we mistake the energy we projected onto the person with the actual person themselves.  We might not be able to get that specific person back in our life, but we can gain back some of what they represented to us.  I am not saying that reclaiming a 7th house projection will fill the gaping hole that another person left in your life.  Grief is a lengthy human process that cannot be avoided, and it can be devastating.  But the archetypal energies you gave away in the first place CAN be reclaimed.  And this can help you feel a bit more whole and stable.  Reclaiming your 7th house energies can also provide moments of peace and fulfillment despite the fact that the person you love is not on the scene anymore.

What does Reclaiming a Projection Look Like?

Reclaiming a 7th house projection is best begun after you have spent some time tackling the major elements of loss, such as shock, grief, anger, depression and coping with the practical or material concerns of suddenly being on your own.  But at some point in your healing process there will come a time when you will feel ready to examine your 7th house projections and begin to work at reclaiming them.

When we suddenly realize that we have to take back a projected trait, behavior or activity, at first we may hate and resist the idea.  We may have no desire to do so, and often we are forced into doing it.  But reclaiming your 7th house is worth attempting to do willingly and consciously.  It is kind of like going to the gym:  the hardest part is actually making the time in our day and summoning the energy to get there.  After we finally get there and start working out, it actually feels pretty awesome.  It is the same with projection.  It is tough to consciously reclaim a projection, but once you try it, it feels awesome in the moments when you manage to do it and in the end, you are glad you did it.

Part I:  Reclaiming Planets in your 7th House

“The emotion that can break your heart is sometimes the very one that heals it…”

― Nicholas Sparks

What follows is a list of how we tend to project our 7th house planets.  If you do not have any planets in your 7th house, then skip ahead to Part II and read the section on signs on the cusp of your 7th.  Or read about the planet that rules your 7th house cusp instead.  Note that planets in the 7th house that are also in opposition to another planet are even more likely to be projected out–they are “double trouble”.  Also, if you have the South Lunar Node in the 7th house, reclaiming a 7th house projection gets somewhat tricky and might not actually be the best thing to strive for.  You might wish to consult with a professional Evolutionary astrologer who understands the complexity of reading nodal axes before you throw yourself into reclaiming your 7th house.  Finally, planets transiting through the 7th house can show you when projection might be happening.  During 7th house transits, you might unwittingly lure someone into your life to project upon.  So during a 7th house transit you can become aware of this tendency and choose to work on consciously expressing your 7th house directly.

Reclaiming the Sun

If you have the Sun in your 7th house, you might have a tendency to make someone else the star of the your life while you become the person who revolves around them.  You might revere this person and enjoy basking in the warm, life-giving rays that emanate  from them.  To reclaim this energy, you will need to learn how to become the star of your own life and get used to being the center of your own world again. 

The Sun person might feel like someone who is larger than life.  While you might adore them, you might also feel like you can never be as special as they are.  You might feel inferior and like you lack an essential quality that they seem to have in abundance: charm, magnanimity, popularity.  They are the “Golden Child”–that special someone who seems naturally blessed.  They might be someone who easily attracts attention or who is a natural born leader.  Or they might have a lot of power, authority or wealth.  Other people seem to look up to them wherever they go, like they are royalty, while you get relegated to the sidelines.  You might make the Sun person an authority figure or expert in your life–someone who always calls the shots in the relationship, while you take the back seat and follow their lead. 

To reclaim your projection, you will need to take the reverence that you have for the Sun person and turn it back to yourself.  You will need to learn ways to put yourself first, and to recognize your own star quality and your own talents and gifts.  You will need to learn to take charge of your own choices and direction in life instead of finding someone charismatic and strong to lead you.  And you will need to give yourself credit about how special you really are.  Every personalty trait that you admire about the Sun person is actually a trait that you have inside yourself.  You just need to give yourself permission to show those traits to the world now.  It’s time for you to receive the applause and respect you have always wanted.

Reclaiming the Moon  

If you have projected your 7th house Moon onto someone else, you might have trouble getting in touch with your own emotions and feelings.  You might also have trouble nurturing yourself.  Someone else in your life might have played out this role for you.  They might have been a mother-type figure who validated your emotions and supported you whenever you needed it.  Or they were the ones who performed all the emotional labor in the family.  (They took on the role of nurturing the children and other family members so you could play a different role in the family such as “the career person.”)  When a Moon person leaves your life, you suddenly feel bereft and “motherless” even if that person was not your mother.  You might feel like you lost a chief source of security.

If you have disowned and projected your Moon for a long time, you might feel like you have a lot of people in your life who seem overly emotional, irrational, illogical, childish, neurotic, or impractical.   Getting habitually annoyed with emotional people can be a clue that you are strongly rejecting your own feeling nature and are out of touch with it.  Nature abhors a vacuum so the more out of touch you are with your own true feelings, the more “hysterical” or seemingly “irrational” the people around you are likely to become in order to balance out the energy of your projection.

To reclaim your projected Moon, you might need to search for emotions that have been buried for a very long time.  Is there an emotion inside yourself that you just can’t bear to feel?  Have you avoided dealing with trauma from your past?  There is likely something in your subconscious mind that is so sensitive that you won’t go near it with a ten-foot pole.  And that might be crippling your relationships in some way.

You might have to loosen up your practical, logical side and learn to become more in tune with your intuition, empathy and compassion.  How do you relate to children or to people who are sick or vulnerable?  Do they make you uncomfortable because you don’t know what to do or to say?  Or does their state make you secretly afraid or disgusted?  Are you able to nurture and emotionally feed others?  Are you able to nurture and emotionally feed yourself?  If not, you might have some work to do in reclaiming your Moon.

Start with learning basic emotional self-care.  Learning self-care and self-soothing paves the way toward making you feel secure enough to begin to venture more deeply into your emotional nature and to withstand whatever feelings you find there.  Get in touch with your inner child and learn how to talk to it and comfort it.  Learn to act spontaneously on your feelings.  Be willing to be vulnerable with the people who love you.  Open your heart.  Learn to cry.  Learn to share how you feel inside.

From there you can move on to nurturing other people in your life.  Your job might be to learn to express love and caring or to learn to anticipate the needs of others before they vocalize them to you.

Reclaiming Mercury 

If you have projected your 7th house Mercury, you might be out of touch with your  intellectual side.  You might see yourself as someone who is not very bright or studious.  You might undersell your intelligence or your ability to think with any type of rigor.  You might eschew certain types of reading and writing and let someone close to you handle all the important documents in your life.  You might become close with someone who is a teacher or educator, and feel like you are not as smart as they are.  Or you might make a friend or spouse into a kind of personal “secretary” and have them handle all the tasks that involve paperwork, book keeping, scheduling or phone calls.  You might tell yourself that you are simply not good at that kind of thing, or that you don’t feel smart enough to do it.

You might even be the type of person who always lets their partner “do the thinking’ of the relationship.  You might not form strong opinions of your own, preferring to adopt the political, religious or social views that your spouse holds.  

You might also have a tendency to disown yourself from the way you communicate.  If you are not a talkative person, you might let your partner do all the talking when you are socializing in a group.  Or you might become close with someone who is a master salesperson or a convincing speaker and hide behind them, content in knowing that you don’t have to speak up as long as they are around.  You might hate dealing with buying and selling, or anything having to do with commerce, preferring someone else deal with those things in your life.  You might feel insecure about your grammar or your foreign accent, or that speaking with others is awkward or requires too much effort.  

Ways to reclaim your projected Mercury include:   Establish your own opinions and ideas and learn to speak up about them.  Share your ideas with others.  Read more.  Write more.  Enroll in a class you are interested in.  Become curious.  Ask questions.  Own your own intelligence.  Remind yourself that you are just as smart as anyone else.  Take on a teaching role.  Take a Toastmaster’s course to learn public speaking.  Learn how to tell a great story or how to deliver a punchline on a joke.  Be responsible for your own documents, paperwork, schedules and appointments.  Go to a party and challenge yourself to approach at least 3 strangers.  Strike up some small talk.  Sell your used items online and learn to dicker.  Practice singing. 

Reclaiming Venus

If you have been projecting your 7^th house Venus, you might have trouble valuing yourself.  You might have problems with self-esteem or self-worth. You might also see yourself as ugly while you think the Venus person you project upon is The Ultimate Beauty.  To reclaim wholeness, practice recognizing what is beautiful about yourself, both inside and out.  You might be knocking yourself out trying to be more physically attractive when all your really need is an adjustment in your thinking:  you already are beautiful.  Stunning, in fact.

You might need to take more responsibility for finding love in your life.  You might be the passive type who waits alone until others come to you to declare their love.  But you might need to be more active in pursuing love and taking action.  If you are in a relationship, you might get lazy and let your partner do all the work that involves romance.  Step up and take on your share of the task.  Initiate a romantic evening.  Buy a surprise gift.  Leave a love note in your partner’s lunch bag or gym kit.

You might rely on others to smooth out social relationships in your life or to do all the emotional work of maintaining strong ties with family and friends (things like planning get-togethers or remembering other people’s birthdays and anniversaries.)  Step up and do some of that work, too.  Be the glue that brings your loved ones together in your life.

Do you think you lack artistic flare or musical talent? Could be that you simply have a dormant inner talent that you have been “farming out” to other people to express. Grab some courage and take a class in sketching or interior design. Or learn to play an instrument.  Find an artistic outlet of some kind.

Are you afraid of handling money or think that you aren’t any good at dealing with your finances? Would you prefer others to be in charge of dealing with all the banking, investment decisions and balancing the checkbook?  Could be a sign you need to reclaim your projected Venus and take charge of your finances again.

Reclaiming Mars

If you tend to fight with your romantic partners a great deal or get into a lot of conflict or skirmishes with people in general, you might be in the habit of projecting your 7th house Mars.  And if you feel constantly victimized and mistreated by angry people (and that it is always their fault), then you definitely have projected your Mars elsewhere.  It is time to reclaim your inner warrior.

A projected Mars can make you feel helpless–like it is hard to take action on anything you want.  You might feel like you always have to defer to the desires of someone else or that someone is always arguing with you, blocking you from doing what you want.  But if that person is suddenly gone from your life, you might be surprised to find that you still have trouble taking action in your life and getting what you want because the problem didn’t lie solely in the other person!  Until you learn to reclaim your projected Mars, you might always feel stuck, depressed or spinning in circles.

If you are projecting your Mars, you tend to attract a lot of strong, angry and contentious people into your life. You unconsciously give your power away to them, and then argue with them, blaming them for all the strife.

To reclaim your Mars, you need to get in touch with your own inner strength again.  Get physical and active.  Take up a sport you enjoy or do something that physically gives you a sense of power.  You also need to dig deep into yourself and locate your buried anger.  Chances are you have a habit of swallowing it down and that it is doing you a lot of harm.  The more you suppress your anger, the more you will attract angry people into your life or people who seem to always want to bicker and fight. 

The minute you grab hold of your Mars, take back your power, stop behaving passively, and take a stand, people usually will begin to respond favorably to you.  They stop arguing.  They stop resisting you.  They stop being contentious.  So try to avoid being passive aggressive.  Deal with feelings of anger and irritation in a direct way, both inside yourself and with others.  Learn to confront people, relationships and problems in a healthy way.  Own what is your own contribution to a conflict and resist thinking that it is all the other person’s fault. Mars wants action, so ask yourself: what action can I take right now to achieve my desires?  Where am I caving in to the desires of others in ways that are intolerable for me?

Maybe you will discover that there is a part of you that secretly enjoys butting heads with others.  Okay, that’s cool.  Own it.  It can be turned into a positive skill, when harnessed properly at work and in relationships. A healthy sense of competition, assertiveness, self-confidence and will power can get you where you want to go in life. 

If you are projecting your Mars, you might also expect your partner to be responsible for initiating sex all the time.  Or for determining how sex will go. It might be time for you to take the reins in that department, too.  Do you feel unsexy? Or unsatisfied? Or alone?  Stop waiting for someone to come to you and solve all the problems.  It is time to get pro-active and take action on creating the kind of sex life you would enjoy.

Reclaiming Jupiter

If you have Jupiter in the 7th house, you might unconsciously believe that joy and happiness is something that comes from other people, rather than something that you create for yourself.  Certain people seem to expand your world in ways that benefit you.  A projected Jupiter person can feel like a personal good luck charm or a fairy god mother–someone who is an endless source of bounty in your life.  But when they are suddenly gone from your life and you are alone, you might feel depressed and like happiness has become elusive.

A 7th house Jupiter that is projected can feel like you don’t know how to have fun by yourself.  You might be the type of person who is all work and no play until someone comes along and drags you off to do things that are fun.  But if you are alone and nobody does that for you, you can easily drift in a gray existence, constantly working and wondering why you aren’t enjoying your life.

Jupiter specifically pertains to long distance travel, higher education and spirituality.  So you might have a person in your life who gravitates toward these things and pulls you along for the ride.  If this Jupiter person disappears from your life, you might find it difficult to pursue these things on your own and will need to make an extra effort to bring them into your life again.   

Another key to unlocking your unclaimed Jupiter is to seek out what makes you happy.  It’s time to sit down and try to identify what brings joy to your heart.  Then actively pursue it.  Look to the sign that Jupiter is in for a clue regarding where to start looking.  What you learn might be surprising.  For instance, you might think that you get joy by doing something you already know how to do.  But when it comes to reclaiming a projection, true joy comes by accomplishing something that you do not know how to do (because someone else was always doing it for you.)

So as an example, you might think that it is fun to lie on the couch, binge watch TV and eat donuts all day.  Because in your experience, you’ve done that before and it was fun in the past.  But try to look beyond what you already know, to something new.  For example, if you have Jupiter in the 7th in Virgo, you might discover a strange joy in learning how to cook and eat healthy foods.  Or working out.  Now a health kick might be the last thing you would think of doing, and you might not even want to do it at first.  But if you took the time to learn to do it, your world suddenly cracks open and expands in a way that was completely unexpected and feels amazing and fun to your projected Jupiter.  And you feel wildly fulfilled by something you least expected. 

Similarly, with Jupiter in Leo, you might have always appreciated creativity and the arts, but were strangely reluctant to pursue those activities unless you were with someone else.  You might have had a friend who always injected your life with concerts, theater tickets or art galleries.  But after your friend moved away to a different city, you felt dissatisfied and moody until you eventually decided to sign up for art lessons on your own and rekindle a long-lost talent for oil painting.  With Jupiter in the 7th, it is sometimes about making an effort to learn something that we were always too lazy to do or never thought we are good at.

Reclaiming a projected Jupiter can be one of the hardest things to do, too, because of Jupiter’s lazy nature.  With Jupiter, we subconsciously expect things to come easily.  But reclaiming a projection is never easy.  So reclaiming a Jupiter projection becomes doubly difficult.  But not impossible.  It just takes some effort and the will to try to do something for yourself that you would normally hope to pass on to someone else.

Reclaiming Saturn

If you are projecting a 7th house Saturn, you are out of touch with the part of you that is mature, wise and practical.  You might have disowned these traits and projected them onto someone around you who was older or smarter than you.  This person might have been a parent or a teacher but they could also be a friend or a spouse who sometimes behaves like a parent toward you.  You might view this Saturn person as an authority figure–someone to be respected and maybe even obeyed.  At times this can feel comforting and safe but at other times it can be annoying because you feel like you are being treated like a child.

Your Saturn person might be someone who is very traditional or conservative in their values or someone who likes to do things the old-fashioned way.  They might be uptight or inhibited and not free-flowing in their emotions or feelings.  They might be the person in your life who is always hounding you to work harder, be more responsible or to live up to your obligations.  They might be key in helping you achieve great things.  But their serious nature, sober demeanor and relentless work ethic might also feel like a drag, a kill-joy or a limiting force in your life. 

I personally dislike the term “adulting” but its nuance fits here so I will use it.  If adulting is difficult for you, you will likely project your Saturn onto someone who comes into your life and picks up your slack.  They remember to pay the bills on time or clean the house or do some other vital work that you can’t (or won’t) do.  Or they try to drag you to face up to your own responsibilities.  If you have to do something important and don’t quite know how to go about it (eg. calculating your tax return, buying a home etc.)  you might have asked them to be in charge of the task.  This person might teach you how to work, how to get ahead in this world and how to garner respect via finances, possessions and material life.   

If your Saturn person suddenly leaves your world, you might feel scared and frightened about taking over the tasks that they knew how to do.  Suddenly you have to take over the family finances, or make complicated choices about your property and possessions.  Be willing to step up and assume the responsibility.  Don’t immediately try to pass on these tasks to some other “expert” out there.  You can learn how to do all these things for yourself.  The key is to set yourself a long term goal, then break it down into smaller goals that are accomplished week to week.

Typically, your Saturn person might have been someone who on occasion made you feel defensive, insecure or completely inept.  Instead of being warm in nature, they might have been somewhat formal, cool or stand-offish (even if you knew they loved you dearly).  So you likely had a complicated relationship with them.  Still, if you projected your Saturn onto them, now that they are gone, you might be feeling strangely free in a way that is both wonderful and terrible.  You might miss them badly and want them back, but you also love your new freedom.  You will have to learn how to set limits for yourself because suddenly there is nobody there to do that for you.  Life is your oyster, yes, but the really good things in life only come with some work and self-discipline, too.  You might need to internalize a strong work ethic and sense of responsibility and learn how to make yourself accountable.  And you will need to figure out how to delay instant gratification for long-term gain.  The natural self-discipline, patience and maturity you eventually discover in yourself might pleasantly surprise you.

Reclaiming Uranus

In Evolutionary Astrology, Uranus signifies the individual unconscious mind.  Its job is to promote individuation, liberation, freedom and de-conditioning from the status quo.  Jeffrey Wolf Green, the founder of Evolutionary Astrology writes that Uranus correlates with “projected creation.”   So if you have projected away your Uranus, look out, because you are a master at creating things.  Specifically, you create surprise or shocking events that enter your life courtesy of another person and end up changing your whole world.

If you have been projecting Uranus onto someone in your environment, you might see them as someone who brings sudden changes into your life, for better or worse.  At best, they are a refreshing source of activity and energy in your world, constantly delighting and surprising you with new ways of seeing things, or new and better ways of doing things. They might be someone who introduces you to the newest trends or cutting edge information about topics you are really interested in.  They might be the person who keeps you updated on all the newest computer or tech gadgets that make your life easier.  Or they might be the humane activist who teaches you the latest news in climate change and how to save the planet.  At best they are exciting and fun to be around as well as incredibly smart, original and quick-witted.

At worst, however, a Uranus person might show up as someone who is weird, flighty, nervous, eccentric or a totally unpredictable force of nature.  At times this feels exciting but at other times, it can feel maddening.  Their sudden and surprising ADHD-like behavior can wreak havoc in your life, and force you to run after them all day long, stamping out all the literal and figurative fires they start.  Nothing is ever secure or stable.  Your plans can go up in smoke in a heartbeat because the Uranus person suddenly changes their mind, or suddenly creates a new situation that you must respond to immediately.   You sometimes wonder if your heart can take all the constant surprises, shocks and unpredictable events that accompany the Uranus person wherever they go.

Your Uranus person might also be unreliable or unable to commit to promises in the long term.   At times they seem loyal to nobody but their own whims.  They might be brilliant but they might also seem overly angry, rebellious or bitter.  They can also get wrapped up in conspiracy theories, and depending on their own mental stability, this can either be a very good or a very bad thing.  

Regardless of whether this person manifests in a positive or negative way, a projected Uranus archetype can feel pretty unnerving due to the fast pace it creates and constant surprises.  At times it can feel hard to keep up with the Uranus person–like you have to run at top speed or end up being dragged along as if tied behind a galloping horse.  Should the Uranus person suddenly leave your life, you might feel lost because suddenly life slows down and seems completely dull, lifeless, stagnant or stuck.  The sparkle is gone.  Life loses all its zest.  You might feel like the future closes off to you or that you are cut off from excitement.

When you reclaim a projected Uranus, not only do you feel hooked up to excitement again but you start to feel more in control of your life and no longer at the mercy of surprise circumstances.  To reclaim a Uranus projection takes courage and the willingness to be the one who instigates change in your life.  This requires developing conscious awareness of the repeating thoughts that run through your head.  As Jeffrey Wolf Green tells us, repeating thoughts or daydreams about making change or achieving freedom and independence must be paid attention to.  If they repeat often enough, you need to figure out a way to act on them.  This requires making deliberate changes in your life and departing from what is known, familiar and safe.  This can feel terribly scary, especially when you are alone.   But you must learn to take action.  Otherwise, these thoughts will find a way to manifest through surprise or shocking circumstances, in order to lead you forward.  This can feel terribly unpleasant, so it is much better to approach the change consciously, from the driver’s seat where you are somewhat in control of  the process.  The point is to keep moving forward.  If the future scares you, that’s okay–it scares a lot of people.  Just keep taking small steps toward it, making small changes every day or every week.

Other ways of reclaiming an undigested Uranus are to get in touch with your own idiosyncrasies and eccentricities.  Stop worrying about what other people will think of you and follow your own heart, even if it seems odd.  Get in touch with your own inner rebel:  become an activist for your favorite cause.  You don’t have to take to the streets with a bullhorn–it can be something small, like making a change in what you shop for (your money is a vote).  Or you can write letters to your local government representative about an issue you care about.

You can also keep up with cutting-edge information.  And do you need somebody else to always tell you how to reset that digital clock on your device?  Or how to fix your computer when you mess something up?  It can be extremely liberating to sit down once and for all to learn how to do this on your own.  

Reclaiming Neptune

When you project a 7th house Neptune, a person might show up in your life who is very sensitive, gentle and compassionate.  They might be very imaginative, creative or spiritual.  They have a dreamy, peaceful nature that is non-confrontational.  They might be someone who acts like a spiritual adviser to you, or someone you can always turn to for understanding and compassion. 

You might have hopes that this Neptune person is your personal savior–that they can magically redeem you somehow or save you from something.  It might feel like they spend a lot of time rescuing you in some way.  They become your safe place to fall.  Should the Neptune person suddenly leave your life, you might panic or feel that your savior is suddenly gone.  You will need to learn to become your own savior, and become your own safe place to fall.  Your task is to learn to accept yourself completely, with kindness and compassion.

You might have farmed out the task of “spiritual guru” to your Neptune person.  They might have been the one who was responsible for holding faith, expressing spiritual ideals, demonstrating compassion, cultivating forgiveness, making sacrifices and conducting altruistic acts.  They might also have been the person in your life who seemed to have all the imagination and inspiration.  They might have been gifted in the arts or had a beautiful creative talent.  It seemed like they could easily connect to a Higher Wisdom or Higher Love in the Universe.  Of course, sometimes they might have seemed like they had their head in the clouds or that they were unrealistic, ungrounded and impractical.  Maybe you would get frustrated and angry at their naivety, their lack of common sense and the way they could be completely oblivious about certain things.  But at other times, they would startle you with their eerie psychic powers and the way they could intuitively see right through you and all your masks.  They always seemed in touch with the realm of magic and wonder, easily walking on paths frequented by unicorns and fairies that you could not see but somehow sensed were there.

If the Neptune person you have been projecting on suddenly leaves your life, your task is to learn how to reclaim your own inner magic.  It is time to cultivate your own spiritual path, to find your own gossamer wings and to re-learn a child-like faith in the Universe.  It is time to get more in touch with your own Higher Mind and Higher Love, and to unlock your own gifts of intuition and inspiration.   This might lead you to experiment with things that you once considered to be woo-woo, nutty or impractical.  Well, the woo-woo and impractical are exactly what you need to grasp now.  So learn to meditate.  Or take up the study of an occult art.  Go see a fantasy-adventure film or read a fantasy novel.  Do some volunteer work, get involved with a charity, learn a musical instrument or take up photography.   Cultivate compassion and forgiveness.  Practice letting go and trusting.

There is also the possibility that the Neptune person in your life might have expressed some of the more negative qualities of Neptune: perhaps they were weak, naive, physically sick, mentally ill, addicted, confused or just plain deluded.  You might have had to constantly rescue them, look after them or protect them somehow.  Or you had to make a lot of sacrifices for them.  You might have felt invaded or overwhelmed a lot of the time, like their presence or their illness was inescapable.  Should the negative Neptune person suddenly disappear from your life, you might be feeling strangely alone.  Solitude will feel very odd and unnerving, maybe even intolerable.  You might have trouble with boundaries and immediately want to look for someone else to rescue or care for.  Or you might quickly run out and find another person who will cross your boundaries and overwhelm you.  It is best to remain alone for a period, in order to adjust.  You probably need to learn more about establishing healthy boundaries before you leap into your next relationship.  Where do you end and the other person begins?  What are your own needs?   And how can you start to fulfill those needs?  Learn to say no.  Learn how to give in a way that is healthy and does not cost you your own well-being.

Reclaiming Pluto

If you have Pluto in the 7th house, you might have a knack for attracting people with extreme personalities and intense emotions.  They come on like a bulldozer and are passionate about everything.  They are never in neutral.  Their likes are always LOVES and their dislikes are always HATES.  You might feel like you are a very chill customer compared to them and that they behave in ways that are unnecessarily complicated, emotional or dramatic. 

You might seem to attract people in your life who are excessively jealous, vengeful, controlling, manipulative or who get in trouble with the law.  They might have dark personalities or seem somewhat dangerous.  This might lead you to become wary or even fearful of others.  You might begin to project your unconscious fears onto other people, often for no reason.  You start to see danger around every corner, hiding in every person.  You might suffer from an irrational fear of strangers.  You might become paranoid, suspicious or skeptical.

If this sounds like you, then to reclaim your Pluto you will have to discover your own shadow side–the things you don’t like about yourself, or the things that scare you.  Wondering what that might be?  Ask yourself: what did I dislike about the Pluto person?  What scared me about them?  Or ask yourself what is it about other people (or strangers) that scares you the most?  That might be a good place to start.   Was it their jealousy?  Their moodiness?  Their negativity?  Their manipulativeness?  Their violence?  Chances are, you are afraid of owning those very traits in yourself. 

Reclaiming an abandoned Pluto archetype is not easy to do.  You might actually need help to do this for a while till you can manage it on your own.  It is a great idea to seek a trained therapist or some other professional who can help you meet and be-friend your shadow side once again.  Once you start reclaiming your own Pluto, you will stop attracting dark people into your life who act Pluto out in negative ways.

In a more positive scenario, you might have had a very passionate, deep and emotionally fulfilling relationship with a Plutonic person.  You might have had an uncanny feeling that the relationship was somehow divinely fated.  The person might have entered your life as if placed there by the hand of God and the relationship changed you in profound ways.  You might have felt like you have always known this person, even when you just met.  Or you might have felt that you desperately needed this person in your life in order to survive.  And now that they are no longer around, the agony of abandonment and loss might be ripping you apart in ways you are not used to.  The depths of your emotions might frighten you because you are not used to charting these waters.

Because of their dramatic, high-intensity impact upon your life, the Plutonic person’s sudden disappearance from your world can feel like you are recovering from a cyclone.  Life feels uncharacteristically quiet and ordinary.  And desperately meaningless because life suddenly lacks depth and passion.  Ordinary average life seems stale, tasteless and frustrating.  You might feel plagued with a hunger for MORE.  But more what, you don’t know.  

In order to reclaim your Pluto archetype, you have to be willing to go to deeper places in your own soul.  You know what a deep relationship was like with another person–now it is time to have a deep relationships with yourself.  You might have a tendency to want to ignore your inner drives, unconscious motivations and passionate desires–the more complicated parts of your nature.  It is time to learn more about your own deep psychological make-up and your own soul.  Your soul has a plan on this earth for you.  Do you have any idea what that might be?  It is time to start investigating that.  There is a reason why you are here and there is a reason why your life is the way that it is.  It might sound funny, but you can have a deep and intense relationship with your inner self that is just as fulfilling and profound as the relationship you had with the person who is now gone. 

Reclaiming Chiron 

Chiron represents the archetype of wounding and healing.  So if you have projected a 7th house Chiron, you tend to attract people into your life who either are healers or who need healing themselves.

If your Chiron person is a healer, they might be someone who helps you in the process of recovering from something–an illness or an emotional problem.  They might be an actual healer by profession–a doctor or other health professional.  Or they simply just radiate healing and feel like a positive force in your life.  Should your Chiron person suddenly disappear from your life, you might feel a sense of shock and abandonment, along with the panic due to the (false) assumption that you cannot heal without them.

If this sounds like you, then you need to get back in touch with your own inner healer.  Every physical body has its own innate wisdom and inborn ability to heal.  You do not need another person to activate that in yourself.  You just need to get back in touch with your own body wisdom.  This means taking on the responsibility for your own health and well-being.  You might need to study new treatments or healing protocols and learn how to manage your own condition now.   And remember–asserting that you have the power to heal yourself is, in itself, empowering and can lead to healing!

Chances are you might have a hidden talent for healing others.  But you might not have understood that because you always gave away the job of “healer” to the Chiron person that was in your life.  Now that your Chiron person is gone, you might have to step into their shoes and take up their practice in helping others.  And you might be surprised at how naturally this comes.  

Alternatively, you might be very aware that you have a talent for healing others, because you find yourself surrounded by broken people most of the time!  A projected 7th house Chiron often shows up as someone in your life who is wounded in some fashion, either mentally or physically.  Do you have a tendency to attract “wounded birds” as partners?  And do you automatically swoop in to help heal them?  Do you feel a vague and unexplainable sense of responsibility toward people who are sick or who need emotional help? 

And perhaps an even more important question is:  How do you feel when these people begin to heal and show signs of being able to stand on their own?  Does the relationship start to crumble?  Do you secretly prefer it when you are the strong one who is helping the other person?  If you find yourself alone or abandoned after spending a lot of time helping someone get back on their feet, it might mean that you need to re-claim your projected Chiron.  This can be one of the more painful archetypes to reclaim because it involves facing your own inner wounds and brokenness.  You need to get back in touch with the part of you that feels hurt, traumatized, ashamed or broken because you have systematically ignored it, avoided it and hired it out for others to act out. 

Facing your inner pain and shame is not an easy thing to do.  It might require a temporary stint with a therapist to help.  But remember–don’t immediately project your Chiron onto your therapist, making them The Expert Healer in your life again!  You are going to be the one who heals yourself.  Nobody else.  Until that happens, resist the urge to hand the task over to some other expert.  And also resist the urge to run out and try to heal others as a way to avoid looking at your own pain and the things you cannot fix about your own life.

PART II  Reclaiming the Sign on your DC

“If your heart is broken, make art with the pieces.”

― Shane Koyczan

Here are some additional suggestions of activities to pursue to help reclaim your projected 7th house.  You can use these suggestions even if you don’t have any natal planets located in your 7th house.

Aries DC

To reclaim your Aries energy, you might need to get in touch with the side of you that is self-oriented instead of partner-oriented.  Allow yourself to be self-centered for a while.  It might seem selfish but if you have abandoned your Aries side you will need to be more selfish for a while to establish a healthy balance.  Work on being assertive and courageously going after what you want in life.  Learn how to express your anger and how to engage in conflict with people in a way that is healthy.   If you tend to be an excessive people-pleaser, learn how to be unflinchingly direct with others about what you need and want.  Learn how to trust your first instincts.  Become more adventurous and willing to quickly charge into new areas of your life without a lot of self-doubt or second -guessing yourself.  Good activities for you to try are anything that makes you feel physically powerful and potent.  Try physical exercise, sports (especially boxing or martial arts), competitions of all kinds, or going on an adventure by yourself.  Be willing to speak up when you disagree about something instead of always keeping the peace.  Wear red or other bold colors.  Give yourself permission to say and do what you want even if someone else disapproves.

Taurus DC

To reclaim your Taurus energy, you might need to convince yourself that you can survive materially without the help of other people.  You are capable of managing your own finances and securing food and shelter without having to rely on someone else to pitch in or help.  Get in touch with the side of you that is independent and self-reliant.  If inclined, start saving to make a major purchase of something big.  (For example, you don’t have to wait until you find a partner before you buy a car or a house.)  Work on building a solid foundation in your life that is secure and can withstand the test of time.   Learn how to create a life that is free from drama, and that is abundant in peace, stability and creature comforts.   Do you know how to cook?  Or how to garden?  Or how to pick up a hammer and some nails and build something?  If not, learning one of these skills could bring a surprising amount of satisfaction.  Look around you: does your home environment lack beauty?  Learn how to create a living space that is not only functional but aesthetically pleasing as well.  Paint the walls or hang up some art.  Work on an artisanal craft.  Get outside more and connect with the natural world.  Take your shoes off and walk barefoot.  Rediscover the pleasure of music in your world.  Learn to play an instrument or get involved with singing in a choir.

Gemini DC

To reclaim your Gemini energy, you need to circulate more and be more open to communicate with different types of people.  If you spend a lot of time alone or if you only interact with certain types of people, you might need to push yourself to mingle more.  Learn how to make small talk and enjoy quick encounters.  (Not every social interaction you have has to be a meaningful soul-shaking encounter.)  Learn how to talk about the little things in life and just enjoy a brief or light human connection.  Make a point of getting to know your neighbors a little better.  Become more curious about others.  Talk less, listen more.  Adopt “beginners mind,”  drop all of your previously learned knowledge and ask yourself:  what can I learn from this person in front of me?”  Study something that seems simple but is useful on a practical level.   Share your knowledge in easy, bite sized pieces that others can easily grasp.  You might prefer the country and nature, but trips to the city are what you need now.  Put aside your heavy reading and pick up a trashy novel and enjoy the fun of lighter fare.  Write a blog about a hobby you have.  Learn to multi-task.  

Cancer DC

If you don’t cry easily, learn how to cry or how to release emotion.  Listen to your intuition, then learn to work with it and act on it.  Put your family first now–work will always be there and it can wait for now.  Allow yourself to have sentimental moments.  Remember the past.  Learn how to nurture yourself emotionally and physically.  Define what security looks like to you, then go and pursue it.  Hang around women more.  Cook someone a meal.   Spend more time looking after children.  Go to the pool or hot tub, or spend time around lakes or the ocean.  Give someone a healing foot massage (where there is nothing in it for you in return.)   Sit down with a friend you know who is experiencing difficulty and just listen to them talk, supporting them emotionally (without offering practical advice or trying to fix them).  If you find nurturing other people too difficult, then plant a vegetable garden and learn how to nurture it.  Or take care of an animal that needs special care.  Take one of those DNA tests that are popular now or study your genealogy.  Take a trip to your ancestral homeland.  Study the history of your people.  Visit relatives.  Connect with your ancestors and your roots. 

Leo DC

Work on your self confidence.  Practice affirming your self-worth.  Learn to take up space without apology.  Practice power poses.  Be willing to attract attention and be in the spotlight more.  Grab your courage, step up and be a leader in something.  Get creative and express yourself.  Get involved in the arts or theater.  Get your hair cut in a new way that attracts attention.  Cultivate your will power.  Don’t just wait for life to happen to you–think about what you want to experience and then go out and use your willpower to make it happen.  Work on opening your heart chakra and letting love flow out of you to your close friends and family.  Get personally involved in situations more instead of stepping back.  Get more close and personal with people, and have more heart-to-heart talks with them.  Learn how to play and to gravitate toward what is personally fun for you.  If you don’t know how to play, then get in touch with your inner child and do what was fun when you were small.  Start from there and branch out.

Virgo DC 

Step up and accept more responsibilities.  Try not to drift passively around in a fog: get more pro-active, organized and efficient.  Don’t wait for someone else to get you motivated or to remind you of your work duties or appointments.  Be the one who organizes things.  Be on time.  If you make a commitment, honor it.  If you make a promise, follow through.  Discover your practical side.  Spend some time looking after your health.  Re-evaluate your nutrition, exercise and hygiene routines.  Start a new healthy habit.  Pay attention to the small details–they make a difference!  Break large tasks into small components.  Be willing to roll up your sleeves and do some grunt work. Pick up other people’s slack or do work that other people tend to avoid.  This means cleaning stuff up, doing chores, tidying things or doing everyday tasks that are necessary but most people don’t like to do.  Learn to see dirt and then learn to clean it up right away.  Set aside one day a week to clean your house top to bottom.  Look after animals and tend to their needs.   Analyze yourself and your life for what could use some improvement.  Is there some skill or trait that you would like to perfect?  Start to work on that, doing small chunks every day.  Learn the joy and pride that comes from doing something really really well instead of simply “just good enough.”  Strive to be “the best” at something.

Libra DC

Brush up on your social skills.  Learn how to conduct pleasant and smooth social interactions–even with people you don’t like.  Practice being non-confrontational in your speech and manner.  Put someone else first.  Consider someone else’s way of thinking.  Become thoughtful of other people’s wants and needs without them having to remind you of them first.  Pay attention to your appearance and clothing and maybe spruce it up a bit.  Take a course in marketing.  Learn to see yourself as others tend to see you.  Practice compromising and creating win-win situations for everyone.  Learn the joy of making someone else happy.  Get in touch with your inner charm and practice flirting with others.  Be the one responsible for making romance happen.  Actively pursue a friendship with someone or a partnership instead of letting them pursue you.  Practice making your relationships more equal and fair.  Avoid unnecessary competition and avoid starting conflict just for the hell of it.  Actively pursue music and the arts, parties and get-togethers.  Get more sociable.

Scorpio DC

Be willing to get more involved with the world on a deeper level.   Become aware of the psychology or the deeper motivations of the people around you.  Get curious about why people do the things they do and don’t accept superficial answers.  Learn to pursue intimacy and make it happen.  Get more pro-active when it comes to your sex life.  (Don’t wait for it to find you–go out there and find it.)  Be willing to share more with others–especially your finances or material resources.   Give up some of your self-reliance and become interdependent on someone else.  Get interested in other people’s values.  You don’t have to agree with them all the time–just be willing to listen and understand them.  Learn to face the darker side of life (and yourself).  There is much richness waiting for you there.  Find the courage to explore your shadow side and the things about yourself you would rather not face.  Then love yourself even more for having these things.  Do not fear extremes–deep challenges in life help us to also experience deep joys.  Watch a horror movie.  Read crime novels.  Discover your inner goth.  Study magick.  Ponder deep subjects like death and the afterlife.  See a hypnotist.  Ponder on the deeper meaning of life itself.  Don’t be afraid to be the person who asks “WHY?”  Dig below the surface of things in order to find truth.

Sagittarius DC 

Get out of your local neighborhood and travel somewhere far away that you have never been to.   Get out of the city.  Get away from people.  Learn to be alone and enjoy your own company.  Get back in touch with yourself and listen to your own inner Truth.  Be willing to be more adventurous.  Seek out nature and wild, unexplored places, especially ones with a fantastic view.  Take a risk.  Take a leap.  Expand your view of things.  Expand your life.  Set a goal and pursue it.  Forget about whether or not you actually arrive at your destination–just enjoy the journey.  Climb a mountain and take in a great view.  Investigate the meaning of life.  Ponder the nature of Truth.  Get more involved with your religion or spirituality.  Go on a spiritual pilgrimage.  Become a teacher.  Become a guru.  Practice optimism and seeing things from the positive side.  Ask yourself what the silver lining always is.  Learn to take things less seriously.   Poke fun at everything, especially yourself.  Establish more freedom in your life and revel in it.  Hang out with horses and enjoy the part of them that is wild, untamed and completely in tune with nature.  That same wildness is inside you, eagerly waiting to be reclaimed.

Capricorn DC

Practice responsibility and behaving like a capable adult.   Practice responding to situations with emotional maturity instead of giving in to childish reactions or emotional over-reactions.  Step up and be the boss or the manager of something in your life.  Assume the responsibility for a task or duty.  Get out of the house more.  Get a job.  If you already have a job but you don’t like it, get a better job.  Get certified.  Or get official accreditation in your education.  Do something that will win you respect from your peers or from society.  Set a long-term goal, then do something small each day to bring you closer to that goal.  Learn to look after your inner child and not expect anyone else to.  Be your own parent.  Be your own authority figure.  Be your own wise elder.  Practice being ultra-practical about things and no-nonsense.  Become more frugal and watch your spending.  Respect rules.  Cultivate a tradition in your life that you celebrate each year.  Value something old fashioned.  Take a business course.  Make a financial plan.  Get involved in politics more.

Aquarius DC 

Be willing to be different than everyone else.  Consider “weirdness” a compliment.  Allow your personal idiosyncrasies and eccentricities to come forth.  Try not to take yourself and your pride so seriously.  Quit worrying about what others will think of you–just do what feels good or right.  Honor your uniqueness.  Practice dropping your own personal point of view and becoming more objective about things–see things in terms of whether or not they are good for the whole world (not just whether or not they are good for you alone or your family alone.)   Join a humanitarian cause.  Lend a hand to help a group of people out.  Seek out community.  Be part of a team.  Avoid being a leader now.  Let others shine–stay out of the limelight.  Enjoy being part of a team and the freedom that being anonymous brings.  Think about the future and what you can do today to make your future brighter.  Watch sci-fi movies.  Read books about the occult or UFOS.  Get involved with some technology.  Study science or math.  Rebel against injustices and inequality.

Pisces DC 

Learn to see the Big Picture in everything, not just the small details of situations.  Try to have more faith and optimism.  Understand that the Universe has a plan and thankfully, it is much better than yours is.  Get out of your own way and learn to flow with the Universe.  Don’t sweat the small stuff so much.  Let go of controlling everything and micro-managing things.  See the forest instead of the trees.  Let go, let loose and get wild and crazy now and then.  Have an extra drink once in a while.  Eat some junk food now and then.  Let go of some of your super high standards–cut yourself some slack and cut the people around you some slack, too.  Go to movies–the actual Big Screen!  Allow yourself time off to escape all your duties and work:  binge Netflix, sleep in or spend the day reading in bed.  Get in touch with the supernatural world.  Cultivate spirituality or religion in your life.  Explore meditation or altered states of consciousness.  Allow yourself to occasionally lose your grip on material reality and explore your Higher Mind.  Stop planning everything before you do it.  Try doing things more spontaneously and live by the seat of your pants.  Understand that nothing in life is perfect and nothing worth having is perfect.

In Conclusion…

Projection will always be in our lives.  We are a social species and we need relationships in order to function and be healthy.  And projection is the glue that brings people together and helps them stay together.  The point is not to try to eliminate projection altogether and completely avoid inter-dependence on another person.  Rather, the point is to understand when you are giving away your own personal power (your 7th house energies) and how to reclaim some of those energies so you can continue to feel whole, stable and strong in your life, whether you are with someone or not.

Furthermore, reclaiming a 7th house projection will not weaken an already existing relationship.  It could actually change all your relationships for the better, because it brings strength and self-confidence and makes you feel less dependent, helpless or needy.  This leaves you more free to really enjoy other people (and all the things they add to your life) without desperately clinging to them.  And ultimately, should a relationship end, you will feel like you are better able to weather the storm and move forward into the future once again.  ♥  

Want to know more about your own 7th House Projections and how to reclaim them?  You can book Danielle for a personal reading.