Man, let me tell you, for years I thought I was just built wrong. Seriously. I mean, you’re trying your best, you read all the books, you follow all the routines, you think you’ve planned every single aspect of your health down to the micro-nutrient, and yet, you feel like crap. Not just physically, but that deep, gnawing self-doubt that whispers constantly: “You missed something. You are failing.”
I went through a phase a few years back—it was brutal. I was convinced I had some rare disease. Every tiny twitch, every unusual headache, I would immediately jump to the worst conclusion. My doctor, bless his heart, ran every test under the sun. Everything came back clean. He finally looked at me, dead serious, and said, “You are optimizing yourself into a panic attack.”
I knew he was right, but I couldn’t stop. I was trapped in this loop of analysis. That’s when I started really digging into my own chart, not for fluffy predictions, but to figure out the architectural flaw in my brain, the operating system error.
The Strategy That Betrayed Me: Pallas in Virgo
I stumbled upon Pallas. Pallas is about strategic intelligence, patterning, and seeing the solutions. Virgo is, well, we all know Virgo: detail, service, routine, and health obsession. Put them together, and what do you get? A brilliant mind dedicated to finding every single microscopic flaw in the system—and in this case, the system was my body and my worth.
I realized I wasn’t just managing my health; I was weaponizing my strategic mind against myself. I was using Pallas’s incredible patterning ability to chart my own decline. I designed the perfect prison of self-doubt. My strategies for healing became the source of the sickness.
I decided enough was enough. I had to use the same Pallas energy, the strategic planning skill, to strategically dismantle the Virgoan obsession. This was my personal overhaul project. Here is exactly what I did, step by detailed step.
Phase 1: Cutting the Data Cord
The first thing I had to implement was radical data elimination. My Pallas/Virgo mind feeds on information, so I cut the supply.
- I deleted the spreadsheets. I had daily logs of every meal, every supplement, every bathroom trip, and every subtle mood swing. It was the source of my power, but also my anxiety. I physically hit ‘delete’ and emptied the recycle bin. It felt like I was losing a limb, but it was necessary.
- I stopped reading health articles. No more symptom-checking online. If I felt a pang of worry, I had to physically put my phone down and walk away. I forced myself to ignore the internal critique for a full hour, escalating that time commitment daily.
- I limited my mirror time. Seriously. Virgo tends to hyper-analyze physical appearance and critique the self. I started getting dressed without detailed scrutiny.
Phase 2: Reassigning the Strategy
I couldn’t just stop planning; Pallas demands a strategy. So I reassigned the focus. Instead of strategizing perfection, I started strategizing tolerance and imperfection. I needed a new pattern.
I moved the critical energy off my body and onto mundane, external projects where perfection actually matters slightly less. I channelled the focus onto my messy garage reorganization. The detailed measuring and planning had a harmless outlet.
But the biggest shift was changing the metric for success.
- Old Metric: Did I perfectly follow the plan and feel zero symptoms?
- New Metric: Did I intentionally choose something imperfect (a slightly messy meal, a forgotten routine step) and manage the ensuing anxiety successfully?
This was powerful. Every time I resisted the urge to track a symptom, that was a win. Every time I ate a slice of pizza without researching its inflammatory index, that was strategic genius.
Phase 3: Embracing the Messy Action
The final stage was integrating messy action—the direct opposite of my Virgo strategy. I forced myself into scenarios that triggered my analytical dread.
I started jogging outside without checking the exact mileage or pace. I just ran until I felt tired. My Virgo screamed that this wasn’t quantifiable, but Pallas was learning a new pattern: the pattern of trusting intuition over data.
I implemented a two-minute rule for self-doubt: if the worry pops up, I give it two minutes to state its case, and then I have to physically get up and do something completely unrelated and non-analytical. I used strong, physical verbs to interrupt the mental cycle: I lifted weights, I cleaned the counters, I shouted the lyrics to terrible 80s songs.
This process of strategically dismantling my strategic flaw took about six months of conscious effort. Did I stop being detail-oriented? Hell no, I love lists. But I learned to recognize when that detailed focus turns toxic. Now, when the health anxiety creeps up, I don’t analyze the symptom. I analyze the strategy that produced the anxiety, and I choose the opposite route. I still have Pallas in Virgo, but now she’s working for me, not as my personal, high-achieving saboteur. It’s a game changer, truly.
