Saturn and Self-Esteem: It’s Not What You Think

This is not going to be one of those articles that regurgitate mythology. Authors like Liz Greene and Howard Sasportas have done fantastic work in bringing mythology alive in a modern context. Rather, this article is going to present a hypothesis about how Saturn actually assists us owning our Sun. There is in fact a lot of similarity between the two, but in this article I am just going to share with you one aspect in which these two archetypes work.

First, a few thoughts about the Sun and its archetypical sign, Leo. Leo strives to demonstrate its self-confidence and self-esteem. To put it simply, the journey of Leo is to demonstrate consistency in the belief of oneself. We could easily call this self-esteem. Self-esteem is the reputation you have with yourself. Self-esteem is the cumulative effect of what you think about you. It cannot be and has nothing to do with other people. It is all about your relationship with yourself. The best self-esteem, the most sustainable and resolute, producing of self-confidence, is that self-esteem that does not compare itself to others.

Clearly, self-esteem is an integral part in living our life, and feeling fulfilled in ourselves first, and in our ability to go out there and discover our purpose in the world and even create it. These are all Solar and Leo themes.

Traditionally, Saturn is the planet that Judges. After all, it does have its exaltation in Libra (the Scales). In the Greek mythology of Saturn or Kronos, we have a god that castrated his father Uranus and began a new dynasty of Titan elemental gods. This marks the beginning of a definition of chaos and the observance of time (chronos). In a sense, we are always carrying this beginning in us – when we are aware of time, we are experiencing a definitive aspect of our life and our being that is embodied, that is bound to a set of imaginations and perceptions we have accepted as reality. When our awareness is not aware of time, and we are simply enjoying the raw authenticity of our being, that is Uranus and time ceases to define us and our experience of life. However, we ARE part of this world and whether we like it or not, we have a certain responsibility to it to play our part and negotiate our purpose in and through it. Yes, Saturn makes us aware of the reality and consequences of our actions in time, and these are things and themes in life which we have to face, which make us stronger and more resilient, hopefully in a holistically integrated manner.

So, what does Saturn have to do with Self-esteem? Well, it comes to that word used for Saturn by the Greeks; Kronos, chronos, time. Saturn is concerned with how we spend our time, and how we spend our time over a long period of time. What do we do with our time, what have we been doing with our time for the last several years? Not to get caught up in the past too much, let’s consider this question in the context of the present moment. Now. “What should I be doing right now?”. That is the voice of Saturn. The voice of Saturn in our being is the voice of our conscience.

People with high self-esteem – where do they get it from? Are they born with it? Most people are not. As we said, self-esteem is the relationship you have with yourself, the thoughts you have about yourself. Is your sense of yourself informed by your possessions (cars, wines, money, houses, etc.)? Well what happens when you lose those things? Is your sense of yourself informed by your relationships? Well, what happens to you when you lose those relationships and people move on? Real, sustainable self-esteem must be informed by the feeling of being okay in your own skin and bones and life, if no other reason that it cannot be taken from you. The best self-esteem in fact comes from you believing in yourself that you are doing the best possible thing for you, while first doing no harm to others. That is a truly Solar way of leadership and aspiring toward goals in life. People recognize such quality of personality as Leader.

Of course, the only way to be completely comfortable in your skin is for you to be completely okay with your conscience. Simply because, not being okay with your conscience Saturn voice, degrades your ability to be magnetic because it undermines your self-will and self-actualizing solar qualities of being. People that have Saturn issues have a big problem with their conscience, which produces or reinforces low self-esteem, which creates a defeatist attitude in life and then we see all the typical doom and gloom keywords for Saturn manifesting in life. But the root of it is the relationship between conscience and will, between the personal Saturn and the personal Sun.

But this is only half the story. There is something else that destroys the good we can have in life from proper self-esteem. This is the negative Sun quality of Pride; when you inflate the sense of yourself and ask others to fulfil you or believe they should. The truth is in life no one owes you anything. This is great truth remedy that Saturn brings to the proud person. If you want something, you work hard and consistently for it. If you want to keep it, you use it for the benefit of others first. Humility is knowing you are worth exactly what you provide. That is all. Think about leaders that have demonstrated inviolable self-esteem, and you will find there is also true humility. There is a misconception that humility is timidity and meekness. It is not. Humility is only for the courageous because it is very easy to be self-inflated but it takes courage to carry on polishing yourself to improve and grow.

So, Saturn and the Sun can harm each other in a cycle of pride and low self-esteem. Have you seen those people who have low self-esteem but also don’t ask for help because of pride? But the point is that the personal Sun and personal Saturn parts of our being can also be worked on and effort put in to correcting the internal dialogue we have with ourselves and base our sense of who we are by how much of ourselves we are putting into what we do. It’s not even about the results.

To sum up, then:
>> The best self-esteem comes from you believing in yourself that you are doing the best possible thing for you, while first doing no harm to others.
>> Humility is knowing you are worth exactly what you provide, and it reinforces your self-esteem by maintaining an attitude of aspiration.
>> Self-esteem is an integral part in living our life, and feeling fulfilled in ourselves first, and in our ability to go out there and discover our purpose in the world and even create it.

Being okay with our conscience reinforces our self-esteem. Maintaining humility ensures the sustainability of personal power.
This is how the personal Saturn reinforces the personal Sun, and vice versa.

“First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win” – Mahatma Gandhi.