“This is a moment of suffering. Suffering is part of life. May I be kind to myself in this moment. May I give myself the compassion I need.”

~Kristin Neff

Did you have a challenging week? Saturn and the sun held hands very closely last week. This week they are still close, but slowly moving away.

Saturn conjuncts sun is an influence that makes us deal with our limitations. It can sometimes be unpleasant.

Saturn is not against us. It puts pressure on us so that we can turn from coal into diamonds. It is here to teach us something valuable.

With the coming new moon in Pisces, the message is very clear. We need to find compassion towards ourselves and our limitations.

Every morning I wake up when my five-year-old wakes me up. Saturday is the only day I get to sleep in. Today, as soon as I woke up, I got an email from someone who wanted to register to my coming workshop, Align with Your Career Purpose. She notified me that the registration form did not work.

Yesterday, my workshop was promoted on the newsletter of my beloved teacher, Debra Silverman. Hundreds of people were intrigued and checked it on my website. I have no idea how many of them had tried to register and left because the form did not work.

I immediately knew what the problem was. It was an issue I was familiar with but forgot about and did not take care of.

While I was working to fix it, and some other technical issues that surfaced on a very stressful Saturday morning, I had an internal dialogue.

“You should have thought about it. How did you not think about it? How could you forget something so important. How did you not test registration before it was published? You are not professional enough. You are not good enough. You will never succeed because you don’t know to take care of all the little details like you should.”

Sounds familiar?

I am sure it also happened to you that you made a mistake and were judging yourself harshly, beating yourself up for it. I am sure that sometimes you are mean to yourself, like I was mean to myself.

Very quickly though, I caught myself and reminded myself a line I wrote in my new book:

Your happiness does not depend on fulfilling the wants of your ego. Your happiness depends on your ability to be kind to yourself.

I had to find compassion towards myself. I reminded myself of my high standards, high expectations and high productivity and efficiency. I thought about my many achievements. How many things I do well every day. How devoted I am to my family, to my work, to my clients, to my students, to my teacher.

I reminded myself that I was allowed to make mistakes along the way. That throughout every stage of expansion we all make some mistakes. These mistakes are a part of my limitations. They come to teach me to be in peace with myself.

If I cannot find peace with my mistakes than all my astrology, yoga and meditation practices are not working.

Suffering is part of our human existence, and making mistakes is part of it. Our limitations are part of it. Not being at our best is part of it.

We cannot change or avoid suffering, but we can learn to make peace with ourselves, with our life stories, and with the people in our lives.

When you make a mistake, put your hands on your heart and say, “Yes, I made the most stupid mistake, but I love myself. I am in peace with it. I acknowledge that I am doing my best.”

Pisces is the sign of compassion. It is the sign of being connected with our soul. Pisces is here to be in service to humanity by teaching us about kindness. The soul does not care about mistakes. The soul sees mistakes as a natural part of our learning curve.

The Dalai Lama says that if you have an enemy, you should be grateful for it, because having an enemy is the best opportunity to cultivate compassion.

I found that for many of us finding compassion towards others is easier than finding compassion towards ourselves.

To find true forgiveness, we need to go through our anger. To find true self-compassion we need to go through our pain.

Self-compassion does not require that we dismiss our mistakes as insignificant. On the contrary. We have to own our mistakes; we have to acknowledge them. If we hurt someone, we need to apologize.

Self-compassion does not equal being careless or carefree. It’s not about just being okay with whatever we do. No. I felt awful today. I stayed with my pain. I felt it in my body, and I cried it out. 

When we get stuck in a negative dialogue, it takes us away from doing all the things we actually need to do to healthily work with our mistake:

• Feel the feelings associated with our mistake.
• Take the necessary actions to fix it.
• Draw conclusions and learn our lessons.
• Find self-compassion and forgiveness.

When you find self-compassion, then be proud of it. Celebrate it. It is a huge achievement.

On this new moon in Pisces, ask yourself:

• Do I tend to have a negative dialogue when I make mistakes?
• Do I know to cultivate self-compassion while also taking responsibility, learning my lessons, and feeling the pain of my mistake?

Next time you make a mistake, be grateful for it. These rare moments are your chances to develop self-compassion, which is, the number one key to living a happy life.

“If your compassion does not include yourself, it is incomplete.”

~ Jack Kornfield