When "Community Over Competition" Isn't
You Can't Claim Abundance and Act from Scarcity
Some mornings the universe is quietly preparing you for something you don't see coming yet.
I woke up the other day with nowhere to be but a full day ahead. Coffee in hand, I got in my car and turned on the latest episode of Moonbeaming. Sarah Faith Gottesdiener referenced an older episode about dealing with haters, one she thought was worth revisiting. I clocked it and told myself I'd come back to it later. Funny enough, I didn't realize how relevant it would become by the end of the day.
The morning unfolded beautifully. I had two beautiful interactions with my local community. They reminded me exactly why I invest time connecting with my community. I left both feeling lit up and full, experiencing supportive community in action. I drove home grateful, grounded in the present moment, and proud of the connections I was building in my new home.
Then I got on a call and got completely blindsided. A colleague accused me of copying them and ended a collaboration with me. I was so shocked in the moment, I froze. I was confused, stunned, and deeply hurt.
When it was over, I discovered an email that had been sitting in my inbox for twenty minutes before that call even started. One I hadn't seen. In it, they cited a belief in abundance and community over competition, and then proceeded to do the opposite by tearing me down.
I sat with it for a long time. My character isn't something people question. It just isn't. So when it happened I didn't know what to do with it. And then, a few minutes later, my phone lit up with an unexpected glowing review from a client. She said I was the intuitive, magical and missing piece for bringing her branding to life. It honestly left me even more disoriented. Two completely opposing reflections staring back at me at basically the same time.
Eventually, after continuing to sit with it, I knew the truth. What my collaborator had claimed I did wasn't accurate. But the discomfort I felt in that moment was real. And that's okay. After all, I'm only human.
My chart helped me make sense of why the situation hit me so hard.
My Taurus Midheaven doesn't do well with this kind of thing. My reputation matters to me. How I’m perceived professionally, and how I’m seen in my work, needs to be clear and accurate. These aren't matters of ego for me, they're foundational. They’re structural to how I show up as a business owner in the world. When that gets challenged it doesn't just sting emotionally. It hits something deep in my core.
And then there's my Libra Moon, which means rejection doesn't just sting, it reverberates. It borrows from every other time I've felt unfairly judged or cast aside, which, unfortunately for me, has been a lot. This has been a recurring theme in my life, one that I would have preferred not to sign up for. I've done enough healing work to recognize that response for what it is: a trauma response. Old pain getting loud because something in the present rhymed with something in the past.
And then there's my Aquarius Sun. My commitment to making the world better through community, collaboration, and genuine abundance isn't just a brand value, it's one of my core beliefs. I don't just say I believe in community over competition. I mean it in my bones. I believe we are all more powerful when we share resources, lift each other up, and show up for one another. So being on the receiving end of the exact opposite of that, especially from someone who claimed to share those values, didn't just hurt. It felt like a fundamental contradiction. I was being told one thing and shown another.
I know my chart doesn't excuse me from hard feelings. But it helps me understand them. And understanding them is what keeps me from letting them run the show.
As I processed the situation, I remembered the podcast suggestion. I knew the episode was powerful the first time I heard it, so I went back and gave it another listen. And wow, I'm so glad I did.
In the episode, Sarah talks about lateral violence. It's the phenomenon where people from marginalized groups direct frustration and harm toward one another because it feels too risky or too costly to direct it toward those actually causing them harm. Women are particularly susceptible to this pattern. It's not always a conscious action. It's what happens when pain has nowhere healthy to go, so it lands on whoever is nearest and most visible.
She also talks about dysregulated nervous systems. How when someone is contracted, stressed, running on old wounds and unhealed material, they filter everything through that state. Coincidence looks like crime. Similarity looks like theft. Someone else's success reads as a direct threat to their own.
This isn't an excuse. It's a context. And context matters. For me, it reminded me that this situation is not actually about me. It reminded me that I have become a projection screen for someone else's unprocessed baggage. Yes, what happened was painful. But, ultimately, it wasn't personal.
This situation even has a name. Feminist writers have been documenting it since 1976. In an essay called "Trashing: The Dark Side of Sisterhood" published in Ms. Magazine, author Joreen described the phenomenon of women being punished for who they are as opposed to for what they do. Standing out. Building. Being visible. These are all reasons to be ostracized by other women. Imagine my surprise when I realized women are still hurting each other in this exact way today.
Community over competition isn't just something I say. I believe it wholeheartedly. But living it when it costs you something is a different thing entirely.
Abundance mindset isn't just an idea. It isn't something you just see in a caption on Instagram. Abundance is a practice, one that ebbs and flows and you have to adjust to at various stages in life. And sometimes that practice gets tested by the very people who claim to share it with you.
When you are a creative service provider, overlap with others in your space is inevitable. It's not malicious. It's a fact of life. Two people can offer similar services to similar audiences and there will still be enough work for both of them. The right clients find the right person. That is not a threat. That is just how healthy creative ecosystems actually function.
Scarcity thinking makes coincidence look like crime. It turns similarity into sabotage. And when women do this to other women—when we direct that contracted fearful energy sideways instead of examining where it's really coming from—we are doing the work of the systems of oppression (patriarchy, capitalism, etc) that were designed to keep us all small.
And it isn't just historical. I met someone recently who said something that hasn't left me. She said that this kind of infighting among leaders stagnates positive movements. That every moment spent in suspicion, in drama, in lateral hostility is energy that could have gone toward building something that lifts the whole community. That the real cost isn't just personal, it's collective. We lose what we could have created together. We lose the trust that makes real collaboration possible. We lose the rising tide that makes the world a better place.
Nearly fifty years after Joreen first brought up this dynamic, we are still losing women's creative communities to this pattern. It is time to stop.
But here's the actual work. My work. The thing my chart keeps asking of me.
My Aquarius Sun demands that I see the bigger picture even when I'm deep in my feelings. My Libra Moon pushes me toward fairness, even toward someone who wasn't fair to me. And my Taurus Midheaven reminds me that the most powerful thing I can do for my reputation is to keep showing up as exactly who I am, a vibrant Leo Rising that refuses to stop shining bright.
I'll be honest, being the bigger person is exhausting. It's a role I've often had to take in life and I don't always like it. In an alternate universe there is a version of this story where I lay out every receipt and I make sure everyone knows exactly what happened and why my accuser is wrong.
But that's not this universe. That's not the path forward for me.
Sarah says that you know you're alchemizing when you can take deep pain and turn it into something that helps other people. When the wound you receive becomes the work. When the hard thing becomes a lesson you can pass forward.
The path forward for me is writing this all down. Feeling the situation fully, and choosing to move forward with grace. The person who wronged me definitely doesn't deserve it, but I do. And ultimately, that's what matters most.
The community I am building deserves it. The creative ecosystem I want to live and work inside of deserves it. And, the world at large deserves it too.
I know who I am. My work is my own. My integrity is intact.
Sometimes the universe prepares you for something you don't see coming. And when it arrives, you have a choice. You can spiral. Or you can transmute it.
And if even one person reads this and walks away with a new perspective, or simply feels less alone in their own experience, then it was worth every uncomfortable feeling that led me here.
That's the alchemy. And that's exactly what this essay is.
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