Self-Commitment

Saturn Cazimi in Aries

And relaaaaaaaaax.🧘🧘‍♀️🧘‍♂️
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I had a coaching session this week.

I’ve had so many coaching sessions over the seven years since I trained as a coach myself, and if you broaden the definition of coaching - which you can, because the way we use this word is so notoriously nebulous - I have received coaching from a vast array of therapeutic practitioners. I have also offered my own services to a great number of these practitioners, and a significant percentage have become friends and colleagues. These relationships have blossomed from the intimacy, vulnerability and joy of our healing encounters, a bountiful blessing of shared connection.

But this coaching session was different.

It was different because it was just about me. I wasn’t trying to befriend the coach. Yes, I can absolutely see us as friends - and who knows, maybe one day we will be - but in that moment, I gave myself full permission for our session to be just about me. So I didn’t need to impress her. I didn’t need to ask her about her day. I didn’t need to know about her life. I could just be with her as she was, someone showing up for me.

I arrived with a question about how to navigate an interpersonal briar patch, a tricky triangle of information flow that left me feeling somewhere in between a rock of betrayal and a hard place of dishonesty. It was a place of spiritual indigestion, and I just couldn’t absorb the the chaotic mess I had so carefully and considerately (albeit unconsciously) created for myself.

So we worked in all of the wonderful ways that coaches do. We uncovered, named and explored themes, issues and sticking points around privacy, compassion, judgment. But what really got me was COMMITMENT. I noticed how I found it easy to give a voice to the caring commitments I had made to other people, even to speak out the promises of peace I had made to Our Universe. I could so clearly see the rigorous social standards by which I was holding myself, a solidly demanding life credo that required me to whole-heartedly honor my well-worded worldly declarations of integrity in the hopes that we could all just get along.

There is a lot to be said for this noble aspiration, but there was something sorely missing from these commitments and it was ME. I was tying myself in knots trying to figure out how to be a good friend, how to be a good human, how to be a good galactic citizen. But the harder I tried, the more stuck I got. How could I be honest if I kept a secret? How could I be compassionate if I held a judgmental opinion?

Until I remembered that my biggest and best commitment is to MYSELF.

Yes, it is true that I am the creator of everything that happens in my own reality - we all are, if you zoom way out - and yes, also, I am not personally responsible for how other people choose to compose themselves. It turns out I don’t need for other people to get along with each other in order to feel comfortable in my own skin, and I don’t need for them to get along with me, either. I just need to get along with myself.

And from this place, it was so clear what I needed to do. Nothing. There was nothing I needed to do to rectify the situation, no action to make it right or smooth it over. My only task - which is a lifelong task - was to do what I wanted to do. And I didn’t want to climb deeper into the briar patch to remove all the thorns, I wanted OUT.

As we soak up the wisdom of life stewardship from this week’s Saturn Cazimi in Aries¹, I want to be clear that the answer is not always to follow the first thought about what you want to do. My initial instinct was to throw my phone in the toilet and hide under the covers. But that’s not what I really wanted to do, even if the idea seemed appealing.

So your duty to yourself is to listen for long enough until you find a way forward that feels truly right, to get below all the layers of fear that can cloud our deepest desire. You’ll know it when your mind sighs with quiet, when your heart relaxes with peace, when your gut untwists with relief. From this place, there is no question about what you’ll do. There’s no question because you took the time and did the work to know yourself, and the reward is self-evident because you now get to do what you want free and clear.

And if you’re looking to get deep down into the purity of what you really came here for, you might enjoy this awesome Aries Equinox Activation with my fantastic friend Melinda Iverson Inn. It’s a chance to consciously breathe in your own sacred fire for the first time, and it’s an energy tool that can last a lifetime. Try it. You might just remember what you want.

Love,

Patrick

1. A cazimi happens when a planet passes through the heart of the Sun (e.g., a solar conjunction). It is time of purification, elevation and divine rebirth. Thank you to the beautiful and wise Cristy De La Cruz for reminding me of this year’s Saturn cazimi! It’s amazing how astrology finds me through friends even when I’m not looking.🪐