We’re in a Saturn Retrograde cycle until December of this year that started at the tail end of July. As this particular cycle has landed in me, one of the themes I keep coming back to is the theme of hidden agreements, specifically the hidden agreements people make with themselves that hold them back from stepping into the life they truly want to live.
Saturn retrograde offers us the opportunity to shine some light on those hidden agreements and ask ourselves how they are serving us, and make no mistake…They are serving us in one way or another. We may not consciously want those agreements in place, but the deeper levels of identity usually have a reason for putting them into place.
Your hidden agreements can come in many forms. Here’s a few examples of how they show up:
Relationships - You find yourself attracting certain types of relationships, even though on the conscious level you don’t want that relationship type.
Success/failure - You experience a limited level of success in your life, but when you try to go beyond it you end up back where you were.
Money - Your relationship with money is one where you are always chasing after it, or never feel like you have enough.
Take a moment and consider the hidden agreements you have in your life. This is the right time to call them forth and look at how they are impacting your life. While you do that I’ll share a practical example, below, of how I changed one of my hidden agreements.
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The Hidden Agreement with Rejection
In my early twenties, I tried to date women that I knew would reject me. I did this because I had a hidden agreement with myself that it was better to know I would get rejected then get involved with someone and later on have the relationship not work. Once I recognized this hidden agreement for what it was, I realized that trying to date people that would reject me didn’t make sense. I changed the agreement and as a result changed my life.
Yet to change this hidden agreement I had to understand what was at the root of it. Shame was at the root. I had a limiting belief that could never be good enough for someone to date or want to be in a relationship with me. That obviously wasn’t true, but as long as I felt that way about myself it was my reality.
Once I changed that hidden agreement, I started dating people who were attracted to me. I had changed the way I valued myself and it changed my relationships with other people and the world around me.
Hidden agreements operate in the background of your life, influencing your decisions and experiences and shaping the outcomes you experience. Usually these hidden agreements have been put into place by parts of ourselves that are trying to protect us from getting hurt. The problem is that these agreements don’t actually serve us. They may have been what we came up with to get through a tough circumstance, but applied beyond that circumstance, they become Saturnian rules that limit us instead of liberating us.
How hidden agreements can limit your magical outcomes
You cast a spell and get a result, but then the result goes away or it only partially manifests the way you wanted it to. You wonder why…and if your magic is failing. It’s not the magic that’s failing…it’s the hidden agreements that are getting in the way. They kick in and they limit the reach of the magic and the outcome, because that outcome goes against the Saturnian rules you’ve written for yourself.
Change the rules and you change your relationship with magic and the results you get.
That sounds easy in theory. The practical application of it however can be more involved.
First, you need to recognize the agreement and how that agreement plays out in your life. Next, you need to recognize how that agreement is and isn’t serving you and make a decision on what you’ll do with that story.
Here’s a step by step walkthrough of how you can apply this practice to your life.
Step 1 Track how the hidden agreement is showing up in your magic.
When you’re doing a magical working, you want to keep a record of the results that you’re obtaining and also track how long those results stick.
Is the result sticking for a limited period of time, or is it something that has truly landed in your life?
If the result is sticking for a limited period of time, it’s times to find out why.
Complete the following sentence, without over thinking it.
The result isn’t sticking because ___.
Now read what you wrote down. Whatever it is you wrote is the hidden agreement that’s undermining your magic.
Don’t judge it. Judging it will reinforce the shame that’s at the root of your agreement and bind it even tighter to the Saturnian rule you are applying to your life.
Sit with it. Where did this story come from? Our hidden stories always have an origin.
Step 2 - How is (and isn’t) this story serving you?
The reason this story is in your life. It serves a purpose.
What is the purpose that this story serves for you?
What does it justify or rationalize or give to you that allows you to explain your circumstances away?
What is this story protecting you from?
There’s a reason this story is in place, and it’s usually because the story protects you from something.
After you’ve answered those questions, I want you to ask yourself another question.
How is this story not serving you? How is it actually limiting you from experiencing the fullness of life?
Both sides of this exploration. One side is telling you how the story serves you, the other side is telling you how it isn’t serving you. Take both of them in.
What you want to sit with is the incongruity of this story.
On one hand it serves you, and on the other hand it doesn’t serve you. You’re consciously pulling both sides in to create this contradiction that allows you to fully sit with and understand how the story is defining your life.
Now you have a decision to make. Do you want to continue to let this story run your life, or do you want to change the story?
Step 3: Rewrite the story (and the rules it embodies).
You have the opportunity to rewrite the story.
I want you to create a guided path working for yourself where you travel to the most recent retelling of the story.
Allow yourself to vividly recall that story and how it has played out in your life.
Now, retell the story, changing it. What details would you change about that story that would give you the preferred outcome that you actually want to achieve?
Use the same process to revisit at least two more experiences where you have told that story to yourself, changing it each time.
By changing your relationship with the story, you begin to change the way you relate to your reality. In our upcoming live workshop Wanting without Shame, Sheena and I will share how to use the orientation of your desire and shame to transform your hidden stories permanently.
The Connection between Saturn, Shame and your Hidden Stories
Saturn is the planetary force of boundaries and limits, but also the harvest. When Saturn goes retrograde, it calls you to review your stories and your rules and decide which of those are actually serving you and which are just creating needless limitations in your life.
Hidden stories are wrapped up in shame. Shame is that momentary impulse that limits and holds you back and causes you to second guess yourself. It shows up in the results that don’t stick because there’s some part that says, “I don’t deserve this.”
Shame acts as a limiter, keeping you within the specific parameters of your life and telling you all the reasons you can’t succeed or get what you want. It becomes a Saturnian rule enforcer that works through your hidden stories. You tell yourself those stories, the results go away and shame keeps you safe, and in the status quo that you feel stuck in.
But if you want to change that relationship and the rules you need to transform how you interact with shame and its opposite desire. Shame is underneath desire and it write the rules that govern how desire is experienced. embodied and explored.
Wanting without Shame - Alchemize your desire into Reality
In our upcoming live workshop Wanting without Shame we walk you through how to:
Clarify the desire underneath your magical intentions, instead of casting from obligation, confusion, or “should.”
Identify the old selves that distort what you think you want: the self other people imagine you to be, the past self still running old spells, the idealized self chasing comparison, and the present self who can actually cast.
Work with shame, shadow, envy, greed, pride, lust, wrath, sloth, and hunger as information instead of contamination.
Use Love and Loathe tracking as magical data for your practice, business, relationships, rituals, offerings, and creative life.
Create Desire Statements that function as magical source code for spellwork, spirit petitions, sigils, business direction, offerings, and life choices.
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