Astrologer and Cut columnist Claire Comstock-Gay reads the stars as Madame Clairevoyant.
Maggie Gyllenhaal, a Scorpio.
Photo-Illustration: by The Cut; Photo: Getty Images
Early this morning, the sun and Saturn (in water signs Scorpio and Pisces, respectively) work together to bring a sense of security to your life. But rather than making you feel stuck, like you’re missing out on adventures, this is the kind of stability that helps you to make bigger and more exciting moves, because you know you’ve got a strong foundation to fall back on. You can take on new challenges because you know you have the strength, determination, and community support to see them through.
You want the people around you to admire you for your courage and strength, for your ability to take charge of a challenging situation and move through the world fearlessly. Sometimes, though, you suspect that the only person who really appreciates your best qualities is you; you worry that your bravest actions and most valuable contributions go unnoticed by others. But today, none of that matters: Your inner strength is always there for you, whether or not anyone else recognizes it, and all you have to do is tap into it.
Ideally, all of your relationships will add to your life; your friends should make you feel more confident, more loved, more like yourself than you’d feel without them. This isn’t always the case, of course — you’ll invariably encounter some people who drain your energy and leave you feeling vaguely insecure — but just because it’s “normal” to be disappointed, that doesn’t mean you need to settle for relationships that leave you feeling less-than. It’s not selfish or unreasonable to want more.
For most people, confidence doesn’t just appear fully formed. Rather, it’s something you need to build over time, taking on new challenges and proving that you can rise to the occasion. What’s easy to forget, though, is that it’s not enough simply to mount your confidence — you also need to put in the effort to maintain it. If you start avoiding challenges and always opting for the path of least resistance, all that strength will eventually start to ebb away. So today, hold onto your hard-won confidence by using it to take on new challenges.
Trying new things can be awkward enough as it is, and when you know that others are witnessing you stumbling and making mistakes along the way, it gets all the more embarrassing. A part of you worries that you’re doing something wrong by even trying to get outside of your comfort zone; it would be so much more dignified to simply accept that you are who you are, and stop aiming higher. But today, remember that it’s natural to feel a bit restless, to want something more, so give yourself permission to grow.
You find it annoying when others make you guess what they’re thinking — you want your friends to be straightforward with you, and you try to do the same in return. The trouble is that even when you want to express your feelings openly, it’s not always so easy. Your emotions can be strange and opaque, even to you; it often takes time and effort to figure out how you truly feel. Today, don’t get discouraged if you’re feeling a little confused right now — just be patient with yourself. If you put in the effort to self-reflect, clarity will come your way eventually.
Occasionally, there are situations where it’s genuinely impossible to satisfy everyone involved. Making another person happy would require making you miserable, and vice versa. At a certain point, all you can do is accept that things will never work, and walk away. Today, though, it’s probably not time to give up just yet. Instead of letting yourself off the hook by imagining that there are no good solutions, keep trying, at least for the time being.
It’s almost always easier to sit idly by instead of taking action, to give up instead of pressing onward. Striving for a goal you care about is exhausting, and it can be heartbreaking when things don’t pan out the way you’d hoped; sometimes, you wonder whether it would be better to save yourself the potential heartbreak by refusing to try at all. But today, you’ll be reminded that while opting out might be easier, it’s also unfulfilling. You’ll feel better about yourself when you put your skills to work.
Sometimes, it’s hard not to fixate on your flaws. You worry that you’re lazy or selfish or mean, that you’re somehow irredeemably “bad.” But today, try to think less about the person you fear you are, and more about the person you want to be — someone who’s smart and courageous and fun to be around. Everyone has traits they aren’t proud of, but there’s more to you than your worst qualities. Agonizing over your shortcomings won’t get you anywhere; try to put your energy into nurturing the parts of your personality that you actually like, instead.
If you ask enough people for advice, you’ll probably eventually find someone to tell you what you want to hear. But today, don’t keep searching until you get an answer you like — if you’re asking somebody you trust for their opinion, actually listen to what they have to say. Deep down, you probably know when someone is right, even if it’s annoying and inconvenient. Instead of fishing around for ways to make your life simpler, you’ll ultimately be happier if you accept the truth and figure out how to work with it.
When you’re not sure what you want, it can be helpful to work backwards by eliminating the things you know you don’t want. It’s much easier to point to the lives that clearly aren’t for you, the types of careers and relationships you feel an instant aversion to. You might still be unsure about what sort of person you want to be, or how you want to live your life, but at least you can narrow things down a bit by crossing out the options that are clearly wrong.
If you’re going to bother setting goals for yourself, you want them to be exciting and genuinely ambitious. You don’t see the point in working hard for meager results, or in wearing yourself out just to live the same sort of life as everyone else. Today, just remember that even if your dreams are lofty, some of the steps to get there will feel mundane and uninspiring. Every moment of your life won’t be thrilling or groundbreaking, but over time, all the little moments can still add up to something great.
Plenty of people seem to associate optimism with naiveté; they act like maintaining an attitude of relentless negativity is the only really mature way to carry yourself. But while that mindset might work out well enough for others, for you, pessimism isn’t motivating, or even particularly interesting. It only drags you down. So today, give yourself permission to hope for the best, to imagine what life might look like if everything were to work out. A little optimism can help you keep going; don’t let anyone convince you that you have to get rid of yours.
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