If Anna Thompson were to improve herself, the first step would be to become aware of the weaknesses which may be holding her back and preventing her evolution. These could include her perfectionism, her tendency to hyperfocus on minutiae, her over intellectualization, and her comfort with a constant state of worry.

You sometimes feel a conflict between your desire for social and professional success and your need for a stable, secure domestic life. You are deeply committed to both ideas and do not always succeed in reconciling their schedules and demands on you. Sometimes it feels as though you will never be able to find a balance. However, no job promotion will really satisfy you if you neglect your most intimate needs and desires. Although it sometimes seems easier to you to climb the rungs of the career ladder out there in the real world, if you merely sacrifice your domestic life, you are only trying to fool yourself. You should accept the fact that your domestic life is the true basis and foundation of your development. All your career endeavors and success will be even more rewarding if they are supported by a safe, warm personal life.

Anna Thompson,

I may experience discord in relationships. Although I am friendly and outgoing and commit myself to friendships and partnerships, I often find it difficult to balance my own needs, desires, and goals with the objective reality of others and their individual desires and needs. To understand and overcome this problem, I should accept the idea that every relationship follows more or less the same general scheme: a base of intimacy and an accomplishment or purpose apart from the relationship itself. If I succeed in defining, through discussion and communication, what sort of intimate relationship I and my partners want to maintain and what accomplishment or purpose they hope to achieve, many conflicts will be avoided.

Anna Thompson is sensitive and sometimes impressionable. This can be a productive and creative factor, but if she doesn’t manage to control her emotionalism, it can also hamper her adaptation to the realities of life. Were that to be the case, her ability to find happiness within herself could gradually cut her off from her environment. She must thus work on detaching herself from her emotions and getting a handle on her sensitivity. Her intuitive ability to perceive other people’s inner energies could predestine her for a socially oriented career. As a caregiver, healer, helper, guide, or advisor, she could succeed in teaching, psychology or psychiatry, or social work.

To trust yourself better and gain self-assurance, the first step is to learn to say no. Once you are capable of saying no to others, you can say yes to life. You must develop your awareness of all the good things in your life, as well as all the changes you hope to make in order to enjoy life more. This is the foundation that will support you, the inexhaustible source and center of the transformation of your personality. Infantile anxieties which arose in childhood when you were helpless may be obstacles to your evolution. Sometimes they actually prevent you from daring to confront challenges you would be altogether capable of assuming now! One of the reasons you yield to these childhood fears so readily is that they procure a feeling so familiar to you that, although it is negative, it is a reassuring part of your identity. However, the more often you reinforce this complex by yielding to that feeling, the more unaware you become of your true emotional state. The irrational childhood fears have also reinforced your pessimistic tendencies. It is difficult for you to believe in the sunny side of life because of the pernicious little voice inside you that claims you don’t really deserve all this goodness. This side of you could undermine your vitality and force you to compensate or flee from reality. In doing so, you limit your power to bring about a positive change in yourself or your life. It’s a vicious cycle, and to free yourself, the first step is to free yourself from the fears which prevent you from taking full advantage of life. You can succeed if you arrange a relaxed, positive environment for yourself, establish sincere relations with one or two special people, and, if possible, find a setting – perhaps a yoga class – in which you can practice relaxation exercises.