Setting Boundaries is Self-Care

Today Venus, the planet of love and relationships, comes into an opposition with Saturn, the planet of rules and restrictions.

The planet Venus symbolizes love and relationships; it wants to forge connections. It dances into a room to mix and mingle, seeking beauty and harmony. Saturn is the planet of austerity, restrictions, rules, and contraction. It wants none of that. It greets Venus with a cold shoulder and a cold heart.

Today Venus moves into an opposition with Saturn, a set-up that feels at odds with its nature.

Where Venus makes advances, Saturn rejects.

And yet as challenging as Saturn can be, it’s often our greatest teacher.

In this case it invites us to explore our relationship to boundaries, specifically our relationship to boundaries in relationships.

If you struggle with setting and enforcing boundaries in relationships, you are not alone.

You can blame (or thank) evolution.

We are hard-wired to connect. Being a part of the community, a member of the tribe, historically meant safety. The fear of rejection is a fear of death, because in ancient times, to be rejected by the group was practically a death sentence.

Even today, in theory more evolved, we need community to prosper and thrive.

Studies show that people who are lonely, or whose social circles are too small, have higher cortisol levels, which puts their heart at risk (among other issues).

Perhaps in part because of this wiring, we may be loathe to keep others away.

This doesn’t mean our motives are only self-serving. We care about others and we want to make them happy. It’s a natural instinct.

And … it can go too far.

If we’re always saying yes to others then we’re not saying yes to ourselves. When we say yes to others at the expense of the space we need for our work and play, we sacrifice our own well-being.

Sacrificing our own well-being for the sake of others is martyrdom. It’s often viewed with admiration in our culture, but it’s a disease with real physical symptoms that can be deadly.

We need the limits and restraints of Saturn.

Boundaries are a gift: a crucial form of self-care.

When we set clear boundaries we create a guardrail to our our own well-being and protect the space we need for our best work and rest.