I have been wanting to write about my experience with this Avashta for some time but have not been satisfied with my discouraging conclusions. Being the eternal optimist, and wanting to believe everyone can improve and change their lives, I have decided to call this “part 1”, while I continue to experiment and explore interventions. Lajjita or Ashamed Avastha occurs when Rahu or Ketu are conjunct a planet in the 5^th house or in any house when also joined by a cruel planet (Sun/Mars/Saturn). For example Venus/Rahu/Mars will generate feelings of shame around Venusian ruled manifestations. What I have seen in my experience, is that shamed planets create the most problems and are the most difficult to work with from a therapeutic perspective. The people I have known or worked with that have shamed planets in their charts seem resistant to treatment and do not appear to get better through therapeutic intervention. This is not to say it isn’t possible and I will continue to try, but I have noticed them to be the most resistant and troublesome combinations to overcome.

Mercury shamed by the Sun seems to be more common because they are usually close together in their journey through the sky. Since Mercury’s role is to create a life that works, people with this placement are bound to have difficulty making their lives work for them and to feel shame about it. The people I have seen with ashamed Mercury’s tend to suffer from significant depression. They often feel shame about their skills, either by not developing them or developing them and then not using them. The ones I have worked with have been in therapy for years with little visible change in regards to their depression and situation.

Venus shamed by Sun shows shame because the person has not been able to make their relationship work and are incompatible with their spouse. The person I knew with this was not sexually satisfied with their spouse and sought out fantasies online which would eventually bring them shame. Venus shamed by Mars shows passion that leads to shameful events. With Mars/Rahu shaming it indicates this excess passion is so great that it may dictate the individuals life and lead to shameful events. The person I worked with that had this combination could understand everything logically, but in the moment would create huge aggressive blow-out problems with their spouse again and again and despite treatment, failed to make changes and would not give up this relationship – even when it meant losing their children. Their presenting problem was anger and substance abuse.

The most difficult combination of planets I have seen in a chart included Saturn/Moon/Mars/Jupiter/Rahu all in Virgo. With the “great benefic” shamed, I saw the most challenging set of issues I have ever come across. Jupiter’s role is to manifest the inner virtue in our lives as our husband, children, wealth, purpose and goodness. We can begin to imagine how one’s life might be if Jupiter is ashamed along with Mars, Moon and Saturn.

When the shaming is done by Rahu, “The foundation is dullness, a lack of response to stimuli – the individual then requires extreme stimuli in order to fully experience anything and the need for extremes so often gives cause for shame as negative things can only come from extremes.” -Ernst Wilhelm.

It is this need for “extremes” that manifested the diagnosis of Bipolar Disorder in this person. Many people have this diagnosis but very few actually exhibit the purest symptoms. This was a case where I found the diagnosis an accurate description of her outer behavior. Jupiter also allows you to benefit from counsel. This person was in counseling for years and actually behaved worse over time. This client though intelligent and likable, was just not able to access the help being offered. What I saw was a life long pattern of avoidable, self-created tragedies.

As Ernst states, “When Saturn along with Rahu shames Jupiter the individual carries a self-destructive quality within them that is from feeling ashamed about who they are as they are somehow unable to see themselves as good. As a result of this, many extroverted behaviors are brought about in an attempt to somehow prove themselves that they are good or right. Even a flaunting of behaviors may occur during which the individual will do things that no one can call good as they make the point of, ‘See what I can do, and it does not matter, it does not change who I am, I am still right!’”

Violent abuse, years of humiliation, substance abuse, criminal activity, homelessness, removal of children, and endless self-destructive behaviors that make no sense to the outside observer. It left me baffled as to how to even approach the problems as they continued. Years and years of therapy, medications, plenty of insight – yet they continue to make one poor decision after another.

As a therapist, I like to believe everyone can be helped. But so far I have not found the appropriate interventions for working with the ashamed Avashtas, though I will continue to try. I have inquired to various other astrologers to see what they have seen and everyone seemed to be limited on effective interventions. So hopefully Part: 2 will be titled Successful Interventions for Lajjiita Avashtas. Please feel free to email me any suggestions or experiences you have had with these tough combinations.

My hypothesis for treating these placements will be rooted in a Psychodynamic approach but I want to research and design interventions specifically for processing shame. I would then add a Dialectical-behavior therapy approach towards managing impulses. If the person could somehow tolerate the impulse to act out the situations that generate the shame, then we could focus on healing the shame that is present without creating new shame.