I’ve been a residential real estate broker for 16 years. One of my favorite parts of my job is the process of working with my partners to stage a client’s home before putting it on the market. It’s tangible and tactile; I can see the changes and the progress and bring a vision to life in a concrete way.
Invariably, by the time we finish the staging process, the homeowner has a new appreciation for their home. Sometimes it’s so great that they decide they don’t want to sell.
The path to get there isn’t always so smooth, however. At first, a homeowner might be resistant. They like the way their home looks. They chose the art on the walls and the paint color and the furniture layout. Home staging can feel like a repudiation of a their aesthetic and a rejection of their values, even when they can objectively see the need for it.
And the staging process itself can be disruptive and exhausting. It involves decluttering, rearranging furniture, and sometimes even replacing furniture.
The process often creates a tension for the homeowner between their desire to command the highest possible price and sell their home most effectively and their desire to keep their status quo.
All change is disruptive, especially when it hits us at our core values.
Yet friction is a necessary part of the process: of growth, of determining what we value, and of what we are willing to do to live aligned with our values.
Venus Square Uranus: From Friction to Freedom
This friction between what we value currently and what has been our status quo is one piece of the energetic dynamic at play today, as Venus in Leo squares Uranus in Taurus.
This square is the opening chapter in a story that will play out over the coming months. In a few weeks, Venus will station retrograde in Leo, and it will form this square to Uranus twice more before it departs the fixed fire sign.
When we know that something will repeat a few times, it’s a good indication to watch what unfolds so we can see what patterns emerge.
Here’s what to look for:
Venus and Uranus Significations
Venus is the planet of relationships, money art, and beauty — what all of these ultimately speak to is what we value and what we deem worthy of our investment. That investment may be financial, but it doesn’t have to be. Venus’ association with assets and resources speaks more broadly to these themes: we invest our time, talents, energy, attention.
More specifically and personally, Venus speaks to our our self-worth and values: what we value and deem worthy in ourselves and others.
Uranus is the planet of revolution. It brings change — often in an unexpected an jarring way. It bucks tradition. It throws off the status quo.
On the surface level, Venus square Uranus may manifest in the desire for freedom in a relationship or a career change. The deeper theme is that it pulls focus to a change in what we value and what we deem worthy of valuing in others and ourselves.
How do we value ourselves?
What talents, inner resources, assets, do we value most highly?
Round 1: Creating Awareness
To be clear, nothing is forcing you to change. The planetary action merely reflects what is already happening. Our values and beliefs are already changing as a natural part of growth and evolution.
The square brings it into our view so we can see it better, acknowledge it, and integrate it.
And yet even though it’s been changing, it can feel like a jolt to see it and acknowledge it. We may resist accepting what’s there, like a concession we aren’t ready to concede.
We may even resist the awareness itself.
The Inherent Challenge of Changing Our Values and Beliefs
In Leo and Taurus, the two planets are squaring off from fixed signs. There’s stubbornness here. Both of these signs value loyalty: loyalty to how things have always been, and loyalty to the people who gave us what we value — whether it’s a physical object, or our beliefs about who we are, what our value is, and what we deserve.
In helping clients declutter their homes, I’ve seen this tension play out repeatedly. Whether it’s an inconsequential trinket or a family heirloom, letting go of the things that other people gave us can feel like a betrayal to the person who gave it to us.
This is no less true when it comes to the intangible stuff we hold: our beliefs, our values, our approach to how we create a life.
Your values and beliefs came from somewhere. People instilled those in you. As you gain life experience and grow, those beliefs and values might change.
To embrace those changes can feel like you’re being disloyal to the people who instilled those values in you, like you’re turning your back on your lineage and discarding tradition.
The friction is real. It can be emotionally taxing and physically draining.
And it can create a cognitive dissonance that might prevent you from even allowing yourself to have awareness of the way your values have changed in the first place.
Your Agency
Of course, we always have choice and agency.
I never force a client to stage their home. There’s always an alternative: they can settle for less money and a longer time on the market.
Here too, we have options. We don’t have to accept the changes in our values. We can continue to believe our old beliefs — or at least pretend we do — and operate according to those beliefs.
But to choose that alternative is to betray ourselves and our deeper knowing. It’s to settle for living a life not aligned with our highest truth.
Breaking Free From the Bondage of Misaligned Values
In Leo, Venus is a little more self-focused rather than people-pleasing. Venus is infused with boldness here, and a willingness to go after what it wants without always needing to shore up everyone else’s emotional needs.
And Uranus is ultimately here to liberate us.
What is more constricting than living in the bondage of beliefs and values that aren’t aligned with our truth?
As Venus squares Uranus for this first time, watch for what unfolds. Pay attention to the ways in which you’re being asked to confront a change in your values or in how you value yourself.
Notice where you are resisting the change that is already underway.
Notice where you are resisting awareness itself.
Venus square Uranus may be uncomfortable, but ultimately it can liberate us from the stagnation of living in outdated values and belief systems, and propel us forward into the next chapter of our lives.
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