How to Not Get Anxious About Upcoming Astrological Transits

Saturn is really not that bad, I promise.

Happy December!

Today we are talking about how you can apply astrological transits to your own life in a constructive way, rather than overly fixating on certain dates or getting nervous about specific events in astrology that you may hear about on social media.

In general, there tends to be a lot of dooms day predictions floating around online, surrounding topics such as Pluto in Aquarius, Venus Retrograde, or the Saturn return. Earlier this year, I posted a carousel on Instagram when Saturn entered Pisces and what that transit means for every rising sign, and people freaked out in the comments section, because there is such a negative connotation surrounding Saturn. Some of you have even told me that you’ve had to stop looking at predictive astrology, because it was making you worry too much. Hearing this makes me sad, because when used properly, astrology can be so helpful in understanding the timing of your life. That’s what I love most about what I do. 

Below, I will have given some tips on how to adopt a more productive approach to difficult astrology, rather than thinking that you are a victim of planetary transits. If you are a practicing astrologer, these pointers might also help when you are conveying to clients how they might cope with a stressful period coming up in their chart. 

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Astrology simply reflects what your intuition is already telling you. 

I can not stress this enough, but astrological transits are reflecting what what you already feel inside. They aren’t telling you anything you don’t already know. For instance, if upcoming transits to your chart are showing that changes are about to happen at work, you likely already sense that coming. There may be talks at your company about roles changing in the near future, or you could feel the urge to start applying to new jobs. 

It’s important to remember that the planets are not causing anything in your life to happen and they’re not going to take you completely by surprise. Sometimes though, there will be a singular, external event that takes place that sums up the underlying feelings of a particular transit. For example, maybe you have a major falling out with a friend right as transit Saturn squares your natal Venus (huge transit for friendship breakups fyi), but in hindsight you may look back at that time period and see that you were already in a period of retreating within and getting clear on what relationships were important to you. That falling out was an external event that represented what you were already feeling internally. You already have the answers within yourself, but it is helpful to be able to look at your transits or solar return chart and be validated for feeling a certain way. 

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Difficult transits serve a purpose, and they always have an end date.

I’m looking at you, Mars and Saturn. There are certain planetary transits that give you a really hard time, and there’s no avoiding it. Rather than counting down the days until transit Saturn has moved away from being conjunct your natal sun, or until transit Mars has finished its square to your natal moon, you may want to try leaning into the planetary energy that is being presented to you during that moment in time. For instance, Saturn transiting your sun is not going to be a fun, light, social energy, and can often have you feeling frustrated, burned out, and weighed down by various responsibilities. With Saturn transits, you will want to get your life in order and provide greater structure for yourself. Your social life may not be the most fun for about a year long period, but you could figure out more of what you want to commit to in the long term, as well as shedding yourself of habits, relationships or mindsets that have outstayed their welcome. Once you accept that you’re going to have a year of hard work rather than trying to resist it, a Saturn transit might flow more easily.

Similarly, maybe you have Neptune transiting over your Midheaven (as seen in the diagram below) and you feel so confused about your career and can’t figure out what you need to be doing. You’re dissatisfied with your current situation at your job, but you have no clue about what type of work you would want to pursue next. With Neptune transits to your MC, you’re usually not following a linear path to success. Slowing down and finding a creative outlet or a greater sense of spirituality may in turn help you to find a career path that you feel more emotionally connected to. 

A transit chart with Neptune transiting over the Midheaven angle for about a 2-3 year long period.

While tough in the moment, difficult transits are where the most personal growth takes place, and in hindsight you're often thankful those tough periods happened, because they likely served to push you in a different direction that you would never have discovered otherwise. And the beauty of astrology is that it helps you to identity when those heavier emotions and difficult situations may lift. After a year Saturn will move away from your sun, and you will feel noticeably lighter, and after 2-3 years, Neptune will make its way away from an angle like your MC. These challenging circumstances won’t last forever. 

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Future tripping is a waste of energy. 

You can never fully know what a particular transit will bring until you’re either right in the midst of it, or it has already passed and you can look back and understand the period you just went through. You can worry about a certain upcoming transit all you want, but chances are whatever comes along will be entirely different from what you expected. Astrology can not show specific events that will take place - transits are only symbolic of general themes that will be brought up over a period of time. For example, let’s say that you are worried about the Nodes moving into your 12th/6th houses, because you’re concerned about health problems coming up. Yes, your health may be a bigger focus during that time, but that transit can also represent a greater interest in spirituality, doing  a lot of foreign travel, being more motivated to exercise, or finding a new job. There are so many different manifestations for how a particular transit may go, so it’s not worth fixating on one possible outcome. 

The same goes for obsessing over particularly positive transits in the future. I am so guilty of doing this. With astrology, you can get wrapped up in thinking about what will happen years from now, and imagining your life then to be so much better then. However, that likely won’t be the case, and once you reach that date in the future, you will again start fixating on the next positive date as being somehow better. It’s always important to appreciate the moment you’re in right now. 

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Reflect on the past to better inform you in the present.

With most transits that come up, you’ve probably already experienced either that same transit or something very similar before. As you grow older, this is even more likely to be the case. It can be helpful to reflect back on when you had a similar past transit occur to get an idea of what you can expect when that type of transit repeats itself. 

If you see a difficult Saturn transit coming up - let’s say transit Saturn is about to conjunct your moon. You can reflect back to 7 years prior, when Saturn squared your moon, or even 7 years prior to that when Saturn opposed your moon, and those years will give you a hint of what you can anticipate with the conjunction about to take place. To give another example, maybe you’re worried about transit Mars entering your 12th house. That is a more frequent transit that happens once every two years, so you can easily reflect back on what happened two years ago to get an idea of what to expect. 

Above, transit Saturn conjunct someone’s Pisces moon in 2024.

Above, transit Saturn squaring the same person’s Pisces moon in 2016.

Above, transit Saturn opposing the same person’s Pisces moon in 2008.

Remember though that as life goes on and these similar transits repeat themselves, you’re always older and wiser and have better coping mechanisms. Referring back to the transit Saturn conjunct the moon transit, I actually have this one coming up in my own chart next year, but I know that I will be able to handle it better than I did at age 22/23 when transit Saturn squared my moon. Though similar themes may be brought back up again, I have a better handle on my emotions (moon themes) and I have new ways that I am able to nurture myself (moon themes again) that I have picked up over the past seven years. So a transit that repeats itself will never affect you in the exact same way. 

It can definitely be more challenging to look at outer planet transits, like Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto because these move so slowly, and the last time a similar transit occurred would have been decades ago. For anyone who has a planet or angle at 0 degrees of a fixed sign (Taurus, Scorpio, Aquarius, Leo), and is anxious about Pluto aspecting this part of your chart next year, unless you were born before 1983 (when Pluto was at 0 degrees of Scorpio), you haven’t experienced this type of transit in your lifetime, so there isn’t a past experience to refer back to yet. In those cases, maybe you want to talk to a friend or someone you know with cardinal sign placements (Aries, Libra, Cancer, Capricorn) who was just very affected by the Pluto in Capricorn transit to help you form a better idea of what that transit may look like. For example, I can look at my mom’s chart when she had transit Pluto conjunct her Sagittarius sun in 1999, and realize that that is when she got married for the second time, so that was definitely a huge, transformational life event for her. That then informs what type of vibe I can expect when transit Pluto conjuncts my Aquarius sun in a few years time. 

Secondly, even if the same difficult transit is taking place again in your chart, it still won’t be an exact repeat of a past time period, because the other transits happening simultaneously will never be the same. For instance, for those of you who might be worrying about the eclipses happening in Aries/Libra, because maybe your life was horrible back in 2013-2015 when they last occurred, realize that the other transits happening back then are not happening now. Saturn was in Scorpio then, now it’s in Pisces. Pluto was in Capricorn, now it will be in Aquarius, and Jupiter was in Cancer and now it’s in Taurus. Aside from the same eclipses taking place, all of the other transits are different.

Okay, I hope these tips helped! It’s important to remember that astrology is all about noticing patterns that keep popping up in your life, and continually learning and growing from them each time around. I also have a fun newsletter on 2024 astrology coming soon for my paid subscribers, so stay tuned for that!