STOP TRYING TO WIN THE ROOM
THE ART OF BEING TRULY YOURSELF
WINNING OR EVOLVING?
SOME NOTES ON INTEGRATING YOURSELF WITH THE WORLD
I notice that since I have gotten off all social media and now contribute only to Substack, there is a big sigh of relief throughout my whole body.
I loved posting on Instagram. I loved reading about my friends, viewing endless animal videos, and learning some recipes!
And it also became tiring to wade through all the seeping anxiety of people posting to gain traction.
You could feel it beneath so many of the posts:
Please notice me.
Please validate me.
Please keep me relevant.
Please prove that I still belong.
This is not a criticism of anyone. I felt it in myself too at times.
Social media began as a place where we shared our lives. Somewhere along the way, many of us began presenting our lives for continuous public evaluation.
Now, instead of scrolling, I am enjoying learning FRENCH and reading thrillers!
My French is not impressive. No one is applauding me for reading another murder mystery. Neither activity is building my brand.
And perhaps that is precisely why they feel so good.
They belong entirely to me.
DO YOU WANT TO BE LOVED—OR VALIDATED?
With the Sun and Venus in Leo opposing Pluto in Aquarius, we are feeling the deep tension between wanting to be completely, authentically loved and wanting to be collectively validated.
Leo says:
See me.
Love me.
Celebrate the unique fire I came here to express.
Aquarius says:
Do I belong?
Does the group approve?
Am I contributing something relevant to the whole?
Neither desire is wrong.
We need the warmth of personal love, and we need the dignity of belonging. We need to feel special, and we need to know that we are part of something larger than ourselves.
The trouble begins when we abandon our authentic expression to secure collective approval—or when we become so consumed with being special that we lose our relationship to the whole.
Then we start ping-ponging between the two poles.
We perform for the crowd and then resent the crowd for not loving the real us.
We declare that we do not care what anyone thinks and then secretly check to see who responded.
We try to stand out, then panic that standing out will get us rejected.
We conform until we disappear, then become furious that no one truly sees us.
THE THIRD POSSIBILITY
Carl Jung taught that when we can remain inside the tension of opposites—rather than reflexively escaping into one pole or the other—a third possibility can emerge.
Not a watered-down compromise.
Not half self-expression and half conformity.
Something genuinely new.
What if you could become so completely yourself, with such confidence in your creative spark, that you experienced your individuality as a form of belonging?
Look at the night sky.
One bright star does not diminish the stars around it.
It adds itself to the canopy.
It does not need to become less luminous to belong to the constellation. It belongs because it offers its particular light.
Perhaps this is our work now:
Not to win the room.
Not to disappear into the room.
But to bring our unmistakable light into the room.
REMEDIES FOR THE TENSION OF OPPOSITES—BY SIGN
Read for your Sun and rising sign.
PISCES
Feel the pull to blend in, dissolve into other people’s needs or mistake collective anxiety for divine guidance. Step away long enough to source your wisdom in solitude before offering yourself to the whole.
