What keeps you from claiming your space in the spotlight?
It’s not easy to be a contrarian or to create paradigm-shifting work. Especially if you’re inclined to be a people-pleaser.
The planet Venus represents our values, among other things. During Venus retrograde in Leo, Venus’s apparent motion backward invites us to review and reassess the values that are driving us in life, and where our values might be keeping us stuck.
Often, when we feel stuck in an area of life it’s because we have an inner conflict within our values: living according to one value seems to put us at odds with something else we value equally.
What Happens When Your Bold Authenticity Creates Disharmony?
In addition to being about values, Venus is the planet of beauty, art, and music. It’s the planet of love, relationships, union, attachment.
Venus also represents our creativity and our creative work.
In Leo, a sign that’s about visibility, Venus can be bold and dramatic. It invites us to claim our space in the spotlight.
This can be empowering, and also it can be a place of potential conflict.
As the planet of love and relationships, Venus seeks harmony. It represents the part of us that seeks to avoid conflict; it desires peace and harmony among all people.
Venus is the people-pleasing part of us.
Leo is a sign of authenticity. It brings out the part of us that want to be true to ourselves, to express ourselves fully.
What happens when your fullest, most authentic expression of yourself creates disharmony or conflict?
Not necessarily because you’re intending to instigate conflict — that would be the role of Mars — but simply because it’s the nature of life that you can’t be all things to all people.
If you are called to do groundbreaking work; if you’re here to change the current paradigm; if your creative work is contrarian or outside the lines of the status-quo; if you tend to do things in your own way, and if your message is contrary to the prevailing consensus of the time, you are likely to ruffle some feathers.
If the nature of your creative essence is to venture outside the box, but you want to make everyone happy, then you’ll sacrifice your self-expression for the sake of harmony.
You’ll hide your best work. You’ll shun the spotlight.
And even if you don’t consider yourself a trail-blazer, it’s an inevitable reality that not everyone will vibe with your message. Some people will tune out, some will walk away, and some will actively dislike it — and, by extension, you.
If you have a strong Venus archetype within you — that is to say, that you believe it’s part of your purpose to forge peace and make everyone happy — the idea of upsetting people is contrary to that conflict can keep you small.
Authenticity vs Attachment
It’s common to hear the cliché response that “what other people think of you is none of your business.”
Although well-intentioned, it often doesn’t feel true.
If you have a regular job, what your employer thinks of you is relevant. If you run your own business, what your clients, customers, and prospects think of you is relevant. If you make art or create for commercial purposes, what people think of your work is relevant.
Within each of us is a small child who believes our safety is on the line if we dare to fully express ourselves.
Dr. Gabor Mate positions this as the conflict between authenticity and attachment.
At some point, you may have learned that you needed to sacrifice part of your authentic self, you would lose the social bonds that kept you safe. For example, as a child, if you cried or had a tantrum, said something inappropriate or unacceptable, or behaved in a way that your caregivers didn’t approve, you might be admonished, which you perceived as a loss of safety.
We survive in life by becoming part of a group. If we buck the consensus, ruffle feathers, or initiate conflict through our authentic expression, we risk losing status within a group.
In the battle between authenticity and attachment, attachment wins every time as long as we are living in the paradigm that tells us that we must choose between authentic expression and attachment.
It’s pure survival.
And yet to subdue your creative self-expression with the goal of make other people happy is the antithesis of authenticity.
In fact, it can feel like no less than a death; killing a part of yourself that longs to be seen.
The Resolution: Finding Safety Within
If you’re staying small out of fear of ruffling feathers or creating disharmony, you must get out of the binary belief system that authenticity risks your safety.
This begins with identifying the beliefs you have about the potential consequences of authentic expression, then rewiring those beliefs.
It also requires the work of cultivating safety within yourself, so that you know that you’ll be ok even if your creative projects or your message ruffle some feathers or don’t gain wide acceptance immediately.
It’s not enough to simply tell yourself that you’ll be safe; the nervous system isn’t easily tricked by affirmations. This requires a somatic process — actually creating safety within your body.
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