the 12th House and Self-Undoing

12th house areas of influence include institutions, such as hospitals and jails and other "places of confinement," as well as the hidden side of life and secrets, handicaps, and worries. However, it also is the area of introspection, self-examination, our hardest battles and greatest triumphs. It is said to govern those things we must work out for and by ourselves


there are two forms of self-undoing behaviors; the positive, and the negative

If our attitude is positive, or when we know an inner truth, when it's time to end or "undo" an old part of our life, usually we don't have problems with doing what must be done. We can usually see clearly when it's time to "undo" an old aspect of our life and then we focus on doing what we have to do. When it's time for things to end, we end them, whether we like it or not. Our attitude can get in the way, but mostly it's about how much we're choosing to suffer or enjoy the journey


12th house negative are what most people have a hard time with. These kinds of "self-undoing behaviors" are the many unfortunate ways we have of messing up something that doesn't need messing up, and often bring sorrow, doubt, confusion, or regrets.


Some examples of these kinds of self-undoing behaviors are when you do things that jam your own gears, or turn out to have unintended negative consequences. They are the things we do unconsciously, or consciously without understanding the implications of what we're doing, or are doing something we don't need to be doing, and probably shouldn't be doing. It can involve working against your own best interests, self-betrayal, hypocrisy, or not listening to your conscience or your inner voice.

It can range from hesitancy when boldness is needed to rash behavior putting things at risk needlessly. It can be moodiness when you should be celebrating, or reverting to old behaviors that cannot possibly have a favorable outcome at present. It may be trying to achieve something using the wrong tools and not realizing it until after the fact, or trusting something or someone that should not have been trusted to begin with. It could be treating something cheaply that should be held as precious, or the verbal slip that destroys social bonds that didn't need to be broken, or thoughtless ways of dealing with something or someone important to us.

Usually, self-undoing behaviors are associated with regrets. They are a good signal that a 12th house activity is happening in your life. And to be fair, just as there are regrets for things we didn't do right, it is also natural for there to be regrets at the end of every cycle, for all the potential that could have been but for whatever reasons never came to fruition. These types of regrets are very human, and shouldn't be taken as an inner signal to give yourself a hard time or start thinking you did something wrong.



It's all just reminding us to stay alert for appropriate endings as we move through the NOW, and be mindful so that we don't do what we shouldn't, or neglect to do what is in our best and highest interests. Since all we see, know, and live are vibrations, once we realize life is eternal flux we can move with the changes instead of resisting them or clinging to obsolete ways of doing our Being.


Planets in this house also can help you to learn lessons that free you from past destructive patterns. Unsuccessfully navigate it, and your self-image will be blurry. You may self-destruct through alcohol, drugs, or the wrong people or seem to have chronic “bad luck.”

Now we have reached the 12th house, we are almost back where we began. We have already considered the 12th house as our experience of being in the womb and, as with all water houses, this house describes our psychic inheritance and any unfinished business we have inherited from our parents and ancestors. The 12th house does not belong to time-space 'reality', because it has no boundaries. It is the house where everything happens all the time, and where everything is connected. There is no place here for the ego, which can only function in time, and so it describes that part of ourselves which never fully incarnates or engages with the world - the place where our dreams and fantasies hold sway, where visions, hopes and fears inspire, support or paralyse our lives. It is our bolt-hole, the place we escape to, whether psychically, emotionally or physically, just to be alone and to heal ourselves. In the 12th house we can experience a feeling of universal support, guidance and inspiration, which can in turn help us to inspire and support others. Alternatively, this can be where we are our own worst enemies, refusing to engage with the world, overwhelmed by the 'going home project', seeking oblivion, dissolving ourselves in addictive or other kinds of self-destructive behaviour.
People with a 12th house emphasis need time by themselves because they are like psychic sponges, absorbing everything which is going on in the environment around them, which can be overwhelming. The 12th house is where we merge, escape from our separateness and identify with that which is greater than ourselves - it describes our memories of life before birth and our feelings about life after death. It is the desire to retreat or to escape from the hard edges of the world; it is the pull of the monastic life, a life of contemplation and communion with the divine. It is the house where we replenish and heal ourselves in order to gain enough strength for our next venture into the real world. The 12th house is also the house of institutions, hospitals, prisons, monasteries, nunneries and retreats, all of which are containers which protect us from the world. It describes our relationship to such institutions.