I chose your question because you remind me a bit of myself when I was a teenager. Though I was popular and generally happy, I too had trouble forming meaningful relationships, and I often felt profoundly lonely. I was often told that my energy was overwhelming and I was intimidating. I also struggled with OCD for a couple of years, though I licked that for good a long time ago.

Like many psychologists, it sounds like you went into this line of study in order to help yourself. (No offense, but psychologists are ironically known for being troubled souls.) I'm glad to hear that you can see the connection between being able to help yourself and being able to help others.

Here's the thing about Aquarians and everyone who is highly intellectual by nature: though we may impress others with our minds, we're not usually warm and fuzzy types. In fact, often the more intelligent a person is, the more challenged they are emotionally because they're out of balance: their strengths and energy are skewed to the mind more than the heart, body or spirit. A lack of heart energy can hold us back socially and keep us from attaining deep fulfillment, especially in relationships.

Though the reasons may sound obvious to other people, intellectuals like Aquarians can be truly baffled as to why people don't like them. After all, they're bold, intelligent and interesting, opinionated, confident and original. If what we want is to be happy, however, our heads can't take us there - we have to go through the heart.

It took me a ridiculous amount of time to figure out that what people crave and really respond to is love. (Isn't love what you're really craving too?) People are attracted to humble, self-effacing types, not brilliant know-it-alls. Further, even when we intellectuals have studied the law of attraction and think we know how to create what we want in our lives, we tend to overanalyze everything and work from the head instead of the heart.

To effectively work with the law of attraction, we have to know how to get into the feeling state of the quality of experience we desire, and sadly, feelings aren't our forte. Like all of us, you are creating your own reality, and what you focus upon will expand in your life. From your letter, it seems you focus mainly on your fears (OCD), how your life is miserable and how no one seems to like you. You write that things aren't getting any better, which suggests that you're waiting for that to happen instead of taking charge and working with the law of attraction to create positive change. To attract positive experiences and people who love you, you'll have to fill your inner world with love and positive vibes first.

The Cancer in your chart would tend to make you more emotional and less aloof than the typical Aquarius. It would also make you much more sensitive, which supports the idea that you could both be highly intellectual and highly sensitive/empathic. Astrology aside, however, much that you wrote suggests that you are really centered in your head, and what you need most is to develop your heart by cultivating love and faith. Love will attract others to you like a magnet, while faith will heal you of the OCD. (OCD is driven by fear so pervasive it takes over your life.)

The main event that changed me and my course was the death of my first love, which led me to develop compassion for the grieving and inspired me to want to help ease their suffering. This is different from pursuing work along a certain line in order to try to help ourselves, though one usually does lead to the other because to help others heal, we have to care about their struggles and have overcome them ourselves.

Along the way, I spent years working on myself and reaching for spiritual growth. Looking back, I now see that the thing I needed most was an open heart, and I believe this is true of you too: the magic elixir you're looking for is big love. I don't mean more love from others, but to center yourself in love and cultivate a greater capacity to love others and radiate divine love in all you say and do.

Another turning point for me was realizing that constant mental activity wasn't a good thing. When I began to practice meditation, I realized that there are all sorts of different types of wisdom in the world, and if what I was after was enlightenment, endlessly processing things in my head wasn't smart but detrimental.

I also noted that people who seemed to truly be at peace didn't care one bit about how smart they were, impressing other people or convincing anyone of anything. Instead, they looked for the beauty in others, offered others love and support, and kept their hearts open to each moment. This was radically different from the way I was accustomed to living, which largely focused on proving that I was worthy of admiration and always right.

Love demands that we rise above the endless fears and desires of the ego to care about more than our own happiness, satisfaction and popularity. Ironically, by letting go of endlessly worrying about ourselves, we gain the peace, love and happiness we've been longing for all along.

The first thing I recommend is that you own and work with the truth that what you focus on will determine how you feel. The remedy for unhappiness is gratitude. Though your life may seem hellish in some ways, it is endlessly blessed in others. Look for things to appreciate in others, in yourself, and in every situation, and point those good things out. The more you do this, the better you will feel and the more others will be drawn to you.

Next, strive to send the warmest, highest energy you can out into the world.
Instead of trying to have all the answers for people, just give them the love, support and understanding they need to get through their struggles. Strive to be kind-hearted instead of right. Whenever you're tempted to try to prove that you're lovable to others, instead, focus on uplifting them and making them feel good about themselves. Since we get back what we send out into the world, this will quickly turn your course of experience around.

Finally, take up a spiritual practice that gets you out of your head, centers you in the heart and puts you in touch with gentle, spiritual people. Yoga would be a great choice, as would meditation designed to open your heart and guide you to love yourself more while sending more love out into the world. As your thoughts, feelings and inner world grow brighter, your outer experiences will follow suit. If you sincerely try, you will see that by working with the power of love, you can profoundly transform every aspect of your life.

- Julia