This week’s highlights: Sun is in Virgo, and Mercury goes direct.

“I can’t stand our naked walls,” I told my husband about a month ago. We moved to our new house last September. Like all our previous houses, we turned it into a harmonious, beautiful, and cozy home, yet some spaces remained unfinished and needed our attention.

This week, a piece of art we bought on our recent trip to upstate NY arrived. We also bought a little painting by a local artist. Finally, our bedroom walls vibrate with new life. As soon as I wake up and look at our new art, I feel gratitude and delight. 

The new art was like a fresh breeze that motivated me to clean and organize our son’s room on the last day of his summer break. I wanted him to have the same freshness I felt in our bedroom. My husband helped me move our son’s bed to remove the carpet that covered his room’s floor. I vacuumed about half a dust tank and found many lost toys under the bed. Then I went drawer by drawer, cleaning every box and shelf, sorting my son’s little objects, and deciding “keep or throw”. By the end of the day, the room was sparkling with newness and cleanliness, and I went to sleep with a deep sense of contentment.

It’s not only our house that felt more beautiful, clean, and organized. I covered the walls of my inner world and cleared up the dust from my psyche. My thoughts and emotions felt sorted out. I can see clearly now, and joy flows through me more naturally. 

I am sharing this with you not only because the sun is in Virgo, the sign of cleaning and organization, but also to make the point that happiness does not come only from within.

To explore this radical idea further, I’ve started reading a brilliant book by Abigail Shrier, Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up. In the introduction, Abigail poses a question I’ve been asking myself for a while: How is it that the first generation of kids who were raised consciously by parents who wanted them to be happy and were sensitive to their emotional needs, with so much spirituality, therapy, and abundance, is the most depressed and anxious generation ever?

I still haven’t read the entire book, but I have some ideas. One of them presented itself to me this week as I read a post by a friend who said happiness only comes from within and does not depend on external circumstances.

In her book, Shrier points out that many young people today don’t want to work. When they go to work, they don’t want to play by the rules; they don’t understand why they are expected to get to work on time to do things they don’t always like to do.

Why do you work towards achievement if you believe that happiness only comes from within? Why aim to be successful? Why bother making money?

My dear friends will have to forgive me, but happiness does not only come from within. It is a combination of inner work and external circumstances. You can indeed have all the riches and success in the world and still be unhappy because you didn’t do your inner work. But when you only try to look for happiness within and neglect to take care of your outer world, you suffer, no matter how much spiritual work you do.

Virgo is here to teach us this: We need to make money to buy healthy food, go to acupuncture, and have time for meditation and yoga practices. We need a pleasant, organized, clean environment for physical and mental health. We need to work and do things that bring us joy, like participating in a meal train program in our neighborhood, making our compost, paying the bills, buying local art, and organizing our drawers. These are external things that support our inner happiness. 

My beautiful home makes me happy. Every feng shui practitioner will tell you that your home greatly influences your inner happiness and ability to fulfill yourself.

This week, ask yourself what external truths make you happy. Is it your work, partner, family, friends, or home? Be grateful for them. Acknowledge that they are a valuable source of happiness. Then check if anything in your life needs some good Virgo fixing, sorting, organizing, and cleaning. Can you bring a new sense of beauty and organization into your inner world through your outer world? I’d love to hear what you think.

Have a wonderful week,

With love,

Yael