Is Your Anxiety a Monster or a Message? What Perseus, Psyche, and the Planets Say

Let me be clear: anxiety isn’t new. It didn’t come with TikTok, inflation, or your coworker (let’s call her Karen) who insists on replying-all to every email. Anxiety has always been part of the human experience. It’s older than your therapist, older than Freud, and definitely older than the DSM.

But while modern psychology offers us diagnoses and prescriptions, astrology and mythology hand us something even juicier: symbols, stories, and patterns that actually mean something. Because anxiety, my friends, isn’t just a medical inconvenience. It’s often a soul-level signal that the unconscious is trying to get a word in edgewise.

And when we tune into mythology—those timeless, archetypal dramas that echo through astrology—we begin to see our own struggles reflected in the lives of gods, mortals, and monsters. Today, we’re zooming in on two mythological blockbusters: Perseus and Medusa, and Eros and Psyche. Why? Because they aren’t just bedtime stories for mythology nerds—they’re metaphors for anxiety in action. And yes, we’re going to bring in the astrology, because I don’t know how to tell a story without a planet or ten.

The Myth of Perseus and Medusa: Anxiety and the Gorgon Within

Let’s start with Perseus. He’s your classic Greek hero: shiny, brave, mildly clueless, and very, very photogenic. He’s given a suicide mission: decapitate Medusa, the monster with snakes for hair and a gaze that turns men to stone. (You know, your typical first date.)

But here’s the twist: Perseus doesn’t look at Medusa directly. If he does, he becomes a statue. Instead, he uses a mirrored shield to view her reflection and strike safely.

In psychological astrology, this entire myth is basically a masterclass in handling anxiety as shadow content.

Medusa isn’t just a monster. She’s a symbol of repressed fear, shame, rage, and trauma. She turns people to stone because she paralyzes them with the intensity of what they’re not ready to face. Sound familiar? That’s anxiety, folks.

And Perseus? He’s the ego trying to do shadow work without getting annihilated.

The mirrored shield is where astrology comes in. This is the Moon, the planet of reflection. The Moon doesn’t generate light—it reflects it. It governs instinct, emotion, and the ever-shifting landscape of the unconscious. If you’re having an anxiety attack, chances are the Moon is doing something nasty in your chart. Moon-Pluto square? Your inner child is probably screaming. Moon-Neptune opposition? You might be absorbing everyone’s emotional debris like a psychic Roomba.

But like Perseus, the goal isn’t to confront our monsters head-on. It’s to reflect on them, observe them through the symbolic mirror of myth and astrology, and only then take conscious action. That’s how we make anxiety manageable—we don’t deny the Gorgon exists. We learn to look at her through the right lens.

If you’ve got a chart full of hard Mercury aspects (Mercury square Uranus, Pluto, or Neptune), congratulations. You might be the proud owner of an overthinking, overstimulated mind that invents new forms of dread before breakfast. Your Medusa isn’t in the bushes. She’s in your inbox. But that’s OK. Astrology gives us a mirrored shield: we don’t have to become our anxiety. We just have to learn from it.

Tips for Working with Perseus-style Anxiety:

• Use journaling as your mirrored shield. Write out your fears without judgment.
• Notice when your thoughts start to spiral—this is usually your personal Gorgon waking up.
• Work with Moon phases and transits. Full Moons often bring hidden anxieties to the surface. Don’t panic—observe.
• Visualize your anxiety as an image or creature. What does it want you to know?

Eros and Psyche: Love, Trust, and the Fear of Seeing Clearly

If Perseus and Medusa is about facing anxiety, the myth of Eros and Psyche is about intimacy, uncertainty, and the anxiety of not knowing.

Here’s the SparkNotes: Psyche is a mortal so beautiful it makes Aphrodite insecure (which, honestly, sounds like a Venus square Pluto transit waiting to happen). As punishment, Psyche is cursed to fall in love with someone she can never look at. That someone turns out to be Eros, the god of erotic love. Every night, he visits her in the dark. They fall in love. But she is forbidden to see his face.

Eventually, overcome with anxiety and curiosity (read: Mercury in Virgo square Neptune in Sagittarius), Psyche lights a lamp to get a peek at her mystery lover. The second she sees him, everything falls apart.

Here, anxiety shows up not as panic or paralysis, but as the tension between trust and fear. Psyche can’t trust what she can’t see. She needs clarity. She needs certainty. She needs to know.

Enter Mercury. Mercury rules perception, thought, and the need to make sense of things. When Mercury is tangled in hard aspects with Neptune, Pluto, or the Moon, we often see a psyche that can’t rest until it figures it all out. Psyche’s name, by the way, literally means “soul” in Greek. So the myth is, quite literally, the soul experiencing anxiety about being in the dark.

And honestly? Who among us hasn’t lit a metaphorical lamp to peek at what we weren’t ready to see? That 2 a.m. deep dive into an ex’s Instagram? Lighting the lamp. Obsessively checking someone’s texts for a change in tone? Lighting the lamp.

Psyche loses everything the moment she breaks the trust. But here’s the deeper message: her journey only truly begins once the anxiety blows it all up. She has to go through trials. She has to descend into the underworld. She has to earn her wholeness. In Jungian terms, this is the individuation process: the soul must separate, suffer, and struggle before it can become fully itself.

So what do we do with this myth? We recognize that anxiety often shows up at the moment just before transformation. It’s the nervous system’s way of saying, “Something important is happening here. Pay attention.”

Tips for Working with Psyche-style Anxiety:

• Practice sitting with the unknown. Not every fear requires immediate answers.
• Use dreamwork to tap into hidden messages from your unconscious.
• If you’re overwhelmed by emotional ambiguity, explore your natal Mercury and Neptune aspects—what story are they telling?
• When anxiety hits, ask yourself: Am I trying to force clarity too soon?

Astrology as Mythic Mirror

What both myths have in common is this: anxiety appears as a signal that something unconscious is breaking through. Medusa appears when the repressed Shadow gets too big to contain. Eros disappears when the soul can no longer remain in the dark.

And astrology? Astrology gives us the language to decode those moments. It tells us when the Moon is triggering an old wound, when Neptune is fogging our vision, when Pluto is whispering from the basement, or when Uranus is zapping our nervous system with existential static.

It doesn’t fix anxiety. But it makes it meaningful. And in my experience, meaning is what makes anxiety bearable.

Because the moment you realize your panic attack is a Perseus moment—a monster rising that you’re finally ready to face—or that your nervous breakdown is a Psyche moment—a revelation that will eventually lead to greater love and selfhood—everything shifts.

You stop asking, “What’s wrong with me?” and start asking, “What’s trying to emerge?”

Final Thoughts from the Astrologer with Anxiety

I have Mercury conjunct Pluto. I overanalyze, obsess, catastrophize, and occasionally spiral because I haven’t eaten. I’m not writing this from some anxiety-free mountaintop. I’m writing it with a coffee in one hand, a stress ball in the other, and transiting Neptune oppose my Mercury.

But here’s what I’ve learned:

Astrology doesn’t rescue you from anxiety. It hands you a map. The monsters don’t go away. But they become familiar. They become integrated. And sometimes, they become allies.

So the next time your mind is racing, your breath is shallow, and your stomach is full of dread?

Ask yourself: Am I about to meet Medusa? Or am I about to light the lamp?

Either way, it’s not the end.

It’s just the beginning of the story.

And if all else fails, check your transits. Mercury might just be in retrograde again (and it currently is). In which case, pour some tea and hide your lamp—for now.

Curse Breakers

I recently recorded a podcast with Jacki Smith for Curse Breakers on anxiety, you can listen to what we have to say below: