You are highly ambitious, but the real pitfall of this aspect is self-doubt. You do not trust yourself and your own capabilities, talents or skills. You believe that you don’t have what it takes in order for people to like you. You have low self-esteem and low self-confidence. That is one reason why you are so busy working, trying to prove yourself to everyone. You are filled with insecurities and the fear of failure. You are afraid that what you have, as little as it might be, will be taken away from you. You are lonely and have a difficult time opening up and feeling close to others. You think that you can buy other people’s affections and trust. That is not the way it works — you must earn it. You must also realize that others cannot love you until you first come to love yourself, then others after that. You need constant reassurance from others that you are loved, so much so that it may eventually become a burden on your loved ones. There is a strong need for you to re-evaluate the meaning of emotional security. You often feel that you must do something or be something other than what you really are in order to receive approval and acceptance from others. You are very sensitive to criticism and easily feel left out or neglected, and though you may appear cool or distant, you actually care very much about being included in things. Because you are so sensitive, it may seem easier for you to withdraw into a shell rather than risk the emotional bumps and bruises that can occur when you let others really know you in an intimate and personal way.
Your reserve and caution make establishing a close emotional rapport with others difficult for you. You can gain inner security and emotional strength through periods of solitude if you look at these periods as times where you can nourish yourself and develop your own interests, rather than as times of loneliness. You are subject to occasional bouts of depression, anxiety and frustration. There are delays and roadblocks set up in your path of accomplishment. At times it seems like the whole world is against you and that you have to carry the weight of the world entirely on your own shoulders. You need to learn to overcome your feelings of being totally alone in life. This isn’t exactly true. These feelings stem from your inability to express your emotions, so that you feel separated from others. In previous lives, you have tried to love and to be affectionate, but you have been rejected and in this life you are afraid to love because you feel you may be rejected again. You need to learn that emotional security is based on a good philosophy of life and not on other people. Even though you are a controlled, serious and practical person, locked within you is a warm and affectionate person just waiting to get out. But that does involve taking the risk of being hurt again. There’s no way around it. You learn through experience.
This is perhaps the single most powerful aspect you can have in a horoscope. Your greatest asset is your ability to learn by experience, for even though you have made many mistakes, your self-knowledge is your salvation. At the height of depression, despair or error you are able to look yourself squarely in the face and start building your way back to where you want to be. You have a jump on the others who are not assisted by the mental energy and psychological drive that this aspect gives.