Scorpio Season Is Here: A Mental Health Guide to Going Deeper (October 23 - November 21, 2025)

Scorpio Season Is Here: A Mental Health Guide to Going Deeper (October 23 - November 21, 2025)

Meta Title: Scorpio Season 2025 Mental Health | Shadow Work Therapy NYC Meta Description: Navigate Scorpio season's intensity with depth therapy practices. Shadow work, EMDR, and somatic healing for transformation in Brooklyn & NY.

On October 23, 2025, the Sun moves from diplomatic Libra into the deep, mysterious waters of Scorpio. And if you've been feeling the shift—a pull toward intensity, a need to go beneath the surface, an unwillingness to tolerate superficiality—you're already feeling Scorpio season beginning.

Scorpio season isn't here to make small talk. It's here to ask the questions that make people uncomfortable at dinner parties: What are you avoiding? What needs to die so something truer can be born? What have you been hiding, even from yourself?

For those of us doing the real work of healing—the messy, non-linear, uncomfortable work—Scorpio season is sacred time. This is when the cosmos supports depth work, shadow integration, and the kind of transformation that can only happen when you're willing to look at what you've been keeping in the dark.

As a Creative Arts Therapist working with highly sensitive people in Brooklyn and throughout New York State, I want to offer you a grounded, embodied way to work with Scorpio season's intensity—especially if you're navigating anxiety, depression, or trauma. This isn't about spiritual bypassing or toxic positivity. This is about meeting yourself in the depths with compassion and courage.

What Scorpio Season Means for Your Mental Health

Scorpio is the sign of death and rebirth, of psychological depth, of what's hidden beneath the surface. It's ruled by both Mars (action, desire) and Pluto (transformation, the underworld), making it possibly the most intense sign in the zodiac.

Scorpio season brings up:

Buried emotions rising to the surface
Grief you haven't fully processed. Anger you've been suppressing. Desire you've been denying. Pain you've been avoiding. During Scorpio season, what's been pushed down wants to come up—not to torment you, but to be witnessed, felt, and integrated.

The urge to go deeper
Small talk feels unbearable. Surface-level connections feel hollow. You might find yourself craving intensity, truth, and authentic relating—even if it's uncomfortable.

Old wounds becoming visible
Patterns you thought you'd healed might resurface. Trauma responses might intensify. This isn't regression—it's your psyche offering you another layer to work with, another opportunity to heal more deeply.

Intense dreams and intuitive hits
Your unconscious is more active during Scorpio season. Pay attention to your dreams, your body's signals, the things you "just know" without knowing how you know them.

The need for transformation
Something in you is ready to die—an old identity, a limiting belief, a way of being that no longer serves. This can feel like depression, but it might actually be the necessary darkness before rebirth.

Boundaries around your energy
Scorpio is deeply protective of its emotional and psychic space. You might feel less tolerant of energy vampires, superficial relationships, or situations that require you to perform.

The Gift and Challenge of Scorpio Season for Sensitive Souls

If you're highly sensitive, empathic, or already navigating mental health challenges, Scorpio season can feel overwhelming. The intensity that others might barely notice can feel like it's flooding your entire system.

The challenge: Everything feels MORE. Your anxiety might spike. Your depression might deepen. Old trauma might feel freshly activated. Your nervous system might be on high alert, sensing the collective intensity even if nothing in your external life has changed.

The gift: Scorpio season is for people like you. Your sensitivity isn't a liability here—it's an asset. Your ability to feel deeply, to access the unconscious, to work with what's hidden—these are Scorpio's gifts, and you already possess them.

The work is learning to be with the intensity without being overwhelmed by it. To go deep without getting lost. To transform without destroying yourself in the process.

Shadow Work Season: Meeting What You've Been Avoiding

If there's ever a time for shadow work, it's Scorpio season. And if you've been following my work, you know I'm not talking about the Instagram-friendly version of shadow work. I'm talking about the real, therapeutic process of meeting the parts of yourself you've rejected, denied, or hidden away.

Your shadow includes:

• The emotions you learned weren't acceptable (anger, desire, selfishness, need)

• The parts of yourself you believe are "too much" or "not enough"

• The trauma responses your body developed to keep you safe

• The survival patterns that once served you but now constrain you

• The desires and truths you've been afraid to acknowledge

Scorpio season asks: What happens if you finally look at what you've been avoiding?

This might show up as:

• Finally acknowledging the anger you've been suppressing

• Admitting you're not okay when you've been performing okayness

• Recognizing patterns in your relationships that you've been in denial about

• Facing how your trauma is still affecting you, even years later

• Owning desires or needs you've been taught to be ashamed of

Somatic Practices for Scorpio Season's Intensity

Because Scorpio is a water sign that works with emotion and the unconscious, and because it's so intense, this season requires embodied practices that help you work with the energy rather than being flooded by it.

Grounding When Everything Feels Too Much

When Scorpio's intensity threatens to overwhelm your nervous system:

The Scorpion Stance
Stand with feet wider than hip-width, knees slightly bent, hands in fists at your sides. Press your feet firmly into the ground. Imagine roots growing from the soles of your feet deep into the earth. Stay here for 2-3 minutes, breathing slowly. This posture activates your strength and boundaries while keeping you grounded.

Cold Water Reset
Splash cold water on your face, hold ice cubes, or take a cold shower. The temperature change helps shift your nervous system out of overwhelm and back into the present moment.

Weighted Grounding
Lie down with something heavy on your chest or over your body—a weighted blanket, heavy books, a person or pet. The pressure helps your nervous system regulate and reminds your body where its edges are.

Working with Intense Emotions

Scorpio brings up BIG feelings. Here's how to work with them without suppressing or being consumed by them:

Container Visualization
When emotions feel too big, imagine a sturdy container—a box, a cauldron, a treasure chest. Visualize placing the emotion in the container with the intention that it's safely held until you're ready to work with it in therapy or alone. This isn't suppression—it's conscious postponement.

Emotion Release Through Sound
In a private space, allow yourself to make sounds that match your emotional state—growls for anger, wails for grief, moans for pain. Let the emotion move through your voice and out of your body.

Somatic Tracking
When intense emotion arises, instead of trying to change it or understand it, just track it somatically: "I notice heat in my chest. I notice tightness in my throat. I notice tingling in my hands." This helps you be with the emotion without being overwhelmed by it.

Creating During the Dark

Scorpio season is powerful for creative work that explores the shadow, the unconscious, and transformation.

Automatic Drawing/Writing
Set a timer for 10-15 minutes. Without thinking or judging, let your hand move across the page. Draw shapes, write words, make marks. Let your unconscious speak through you. Don't try to make it "good"—just let it be honest.

Working in the Dark
Literally create art in low light or with your eyes closed. This bypasses your critical mind and lets deeper material emerge.

Destruction and Recreation
Create something, then destroy it—tear it, burn it (safely), cover it—and create something new from the remains. This embodies Scorpio's death-rebirth process.

Art Therapy Practice: Phoenix Rising—A Scorpio Season Transformation Ritual

This practice guides you through Scorpio's signature process: death, decomposition, and rebirth.

You'll need:

• Black or dark paper

• White, red, or bright colored materials (to represent the new emerging from the dark)

• Something to write on that you can safely burn or bury

• A candle

Part 1: Naming What's Ready to Die

Light your candle. Sit quietly and ask yourself: What in me is ready to die? What pattern, belief, identity, or way of being has served its time?

This might be:

• The version of you that people-pleases to feel safe

• The belief that you're broken or damaged

• The pattern of making yourself small

• The relationship to your body that's rooted in shame

• The creative blocks that keep you from being seen

• The anxiety that's been running your life

Write it down with specificity. Name it. Acknowledge what it's given you and why it developed. Thank it for how it tried to protect you.

Then, burn it or bury it with intention. Let it go. Feel the grief of this ending—even when something needs to die, there's loss. Let yourself feel it.

Part 2: The Dark Night—Sitting with Emptiness

Take your black or dark paper. Using dark colors, create an image of the void, the emptiness, the space between death and rebirth.

This is the uncomfortable part that people try to skip. The in-between. The not-knowing. The waiting in darkness.

Scorpio season says: Don't rush this. Sit with the discomfort. Trust that something is composting in the dark even when you can't see it yet.

As you create, breathe. Feel your body. Notice the urge to "fix" or "know" or "figure out" what comes next. And choose to stay in the not-knowing a little longer.

Part 3: The First Light—What Wants to Be Born

Now, on the same dark paper or a new one, begin to add small touches of light, color, life. What wants to emerge from this darkness?

You don't need to know the full picture yet. Just the first hint. The first spark. The beginning.

Ask yourself:

• Who am I becoming?

• What's emerging from this transformation?

• What new way of being is possible now that the old has died?

Let this be intuitive, not intellectual. Let your hands discover what wants to be born.

Part 4: Commitment to the Becoming

Look at your image. Feel the transformation it represents. Now write a commitment to yourself—not to the old pattern that's dying, but to the new self that's emerging.

Example commitments:

• "I commit to trusting my anger as information instead of suppressing it"

• "I commit to showing up authentically even when it's uncomfortable"

• "I commit to honoring my body as sacred, not broken"

• "I commit to creating from truth, not performance"

• "I commit to choosing aliveness over safety"

Place your hand on your heart and speak this commitment out loud three times.

Keep your image somewhere you'll see it as a reminder that you're in process, you're transforming, you're becoming.

Therapy During Scorpio Season: The Deep Work

If you've been thinking about starting therapy or going deeper in your existing work, Scorpio season is optimal timing for:

EMDR for Trauma Processing
Scorpio season supports the deep processing of traumatic memories and experiences. EMDR helps your nervous system finally metabolize what's been stuck, transforming the charge around old wounds.

Shadow Work Through Jungian Art Therapy
Meeting your shadow parts through creative expression allows you to integrate what you've been keeping in the dark. This isn't about "fixing" yourself—it's about becoming whole.

Somatic Parts Work/Internal Family Systems
Scorpio season brings up your protector parts, your exiled parts, your wounded parts. IFS and somatic parts work help you meet these parts with compassion and facilitate internal healing.

Brainspotting
This powerful modality helps you access and process trauma held in your body and brain. Scorpio season's depth supports this kind of deep neurological healing.

Gestalt Empty Chair Work
Have conversations with the parts of yourself you've been avoiding, the people you need to speak to, the emotions you've been suppressing. Scorpio season supports this kind of confrontation with what's been hidden.

For Highly Sensitive People: Protecting Your Energy During Intensity

Your sensitivity during Scorpio season is both gift and vulnerability. Here's how to navigate:

Say no to energy vampires
You don't have time for people who drain you. Scorpio season gives you permission to be ruthless with your boundaries around who gets access to your energy.

Honor your need for solitude
You might need more alone time to process the intensity you're feeling—both yours and the collective's. This isn't antisocial; it's self-preservation.

Work with water
Take baths with salt to clear energy. Stand in the shower and imagine washing away what isn't yours. Drink lots of water to help your system process and release.

Trust your "no"
If something feels off, it probably is. Scorpio season amplifies your intuition. Trust it, even when you can't explain it logically.

Seek support
Don't try to navigate this intensity alone. Reach out to your therapist, your trusted friends, your support system. Asking for help is strength, not weakness.

The Shadow Side of Scorpio Season: What to Watch For

Like all astrological energies, Scorpio has a shadow side that can express unconsciously:

Obsessive thinking or behavior
The same intensity that supports deep work can become obsessive rumination or compulsive behavior. If you're spiraling, use grounding techniques and reach out for support.

Destructive impulses
The urge to burn it all down can become destructive rather than transformative. Make sure your "destruction" is in service of something—not just reactivity or self-sabotage.

Emotional manipulation
Scorpio's emotional power can be used to manipulate or control. Notice if you're using intensity to get needs met indirectly rather than asking clearly.

Staying in the darkness too long
Some transformation happens in the dark, but you're not meant to live there permanently. If you feel stuck in darkness for weeks, reach out for professional support.

Spiritual bypassing with "shadow work"
Using the language of transformation to avoid actual accountability or change. Real shadow work is uncomfortable and requires behavioral change, not just intellectual understanding.

Scorpio Season and Depression: When Transformation Feels Like Descent

If you have a history of depression, Scorpio season might trigger it. It's important to understand the difference between:

Necessary darkness (the void before rebirth, the grief of letting go, the discomfort of transformation)

and

Clinical depression (persistent hopelessness, inability to function, thoughts of self-harm, loss of interest in everything)

If you're experiencing the latter, please reach out for support. Call your therapist, your psychiatrist, a crisis line, a trusted person. Scorpio season's intensity doesn't mean you have to suffer alone.

Sometimes what feels like spiritual transformation is actually a mental health crisis that needs intervention. There's no shame in that. Getting support IS doing the work.

The Gift: Becoming Who You Really Are

Here's what Scorpio season is ultimately offering you: the chance to become more fully yourself.

Not the performed version. Not the people-pleasing version. Not the "acceptable" version.

The real, authentic, sometimes messy, fully human version that includes your shadow, your depth, your intensity, your power, your vulnerability, your truth.

This becoming requires you to let parts of your old self die. It requires you to look at what you've been avoiding. It requires you to feel what you've been suppressing.

But on the other side of that death is rebirth. On the other side of that shadow is wholeness. On the other side of that intensity is transformation.

You don't have to do it alone.

Support for Your Scorpio Season Journey

If Scorpio season is bringing up material that feels too big to navigate alone, I'm here. I specialize in working with highly sensitive, creative people who are doing the deep work of transformation—shadow integration, trauma healing, becoming authentically themselves.

Through EMDR, somatic art therapy, parts work, and Jungian depth approaches, we can work with:

• Trauma that's ready to be processed

• Shadow parts that want to be integrated

• Old patterns that are ready to die

• Depression or anxiety that's part of your transformation

• The discomfort of becoming who you really are

I practice in Brooklyn and throughout New York State from a trauma-informed, queer-affirming, spiritually-honoring lens that respects the sacredness of your journey.

Ready to work with Scorpio season's transformative energy? Schedule your free consultation to explore how depth therapy can support your becoming in Brooklyn or anywhere in New York State.

Scorpio season runs from October 23 - November 21, 2025. This is optimal time for deep therapeutic work, shadow integration, and transformative healing.

Irene Maropakis, LCAT, is a Creative Arts Therapist specializing in EMDR, somatic art therapy, shadow work, and depth psychology for highly sensitive people in Brooklyn, NY and throughout New York State. She practices from a trauma-informed, spiritually-honoring, queer-affirming lens that honors the complexity of transformation.