One lesson I took away from behavioral psychology is the limits of punishment for getting the outcomes you want. It has a function—when delivered in a timely and direct way, punishment decreases the behaviors you don’t want. But it doesn’t teach the behaviors you do want. All the punished one knows is that thing it just did incurred consequences.

To teach, to lead, you need a clear vision of what you want and the capacity to communicate it and encourage what you want by rewarding and praising when you see steps moving in the direction of what you want. You can’t just get sullen, withdrawn, and vindictive when you don’t get what you want. That diminishes connection and, over time, encourages covert resistance and disobedience.

Whether you like it or not, a chapter is closing and old ways of doing things are ending. There is suffering and there are opportunities in this moment. Life is not fully beyond your control but you must accept the things you cannot influence so you have more energy to focus toward what you can.

Today is a time to grieve if that feels right, or celebrate if that feels right. Write out what you will and won’t miss about life before this year. Let it become fertilizing ash for the life to come

I am taking a needed vacation from regular posting, and appreciating this moment in which exalted Venus in Pisces is in a friendly connection with flailing Mars in Cancer. Both love an ocean, where Venus is abundant and expansive in her great love for all beings, while Mars is the crab on the beach that will mess you up if you get in his way. He wants safety and sees mostly threat, while she sees what is beautiful and elevated and might overlook the real dangers and faults.

This feels like a moment rich with the opportunity for delusion, and imaginary danger may bring forth real consequences. I want to secure what I love, strengthen my defenses while keeping my heart open. Strong boundaries allow for grace and generosity.

A personal maxim that guides my therapeutic approach is to cease being at war within the self. When we approach every part of us with friendliness and curiosity, taking for granted that it’s trying to help and not giving up until we’ve learned how it is trying to help, so much becomes easier inside. We end up at the desired destination—decreased tension and anxiety, more aliveness—but through a path that initially seems counterintuitive.

So it is that today I want to honor and thank the parts that worry, the parts that see concerning news and imagery and feel troubled about what is to come. They serve their purpose, they serve us in so many ways. And it is also true that there are limits to them, and they can drain us in their worries when there is little to do other than be aware of danger.

When I am with a worried part, I try to listen to its concern, identify any proactive action I can take, and thank it for its service. Today, I was noticing a part that felt deeply concerned by gestures made in a public event yesterday that herald back to an authoritarian government that we fought against almost a century ago. I decided to share my concern in the hopes that it would be considered, perhaps validated, or I could get some reassurance that what I feared was not the trajectory of the country. I went to a government website where in the past I would be welcome to send in a comment, and found there was nothing there. No invitation for feedback, no comments. This strengthened the concerns of my worried part.

If we do not allow outlets to express concern, they will only grow in intensity. Trying to silence, suppress, or ignore that within us that has fear does not make it smaller. May we all grow in our capacity to bear witness to each other’s concerns.

Today the security urge wants to lean away from hard conversations and talking about the wounds that keep us from being ourselves. After a long fierce advocacy, the urge is to retreat into harmony. We can see the ruins of what happens when there is war without love or mercy, and we have reasoned fear it. Today is a day to find solace and strength in sharing your burdens with trusted loved ones and partners of all kinds. What is carried alone is intolerable, but what is carried together is easy and light.

I thought I wouldn’t write anything today, coming off of an illness that had me on the couch watching old scifi all weekend. But I also read a detailed discussion of the horrific allegations against an author who was once very influential to me, and all day have had these thoughts about how life finds a way to kick you in the teeth.

Today the moon and Mars join in Cancer, on a day when the moon is full. This feels like a harsh moon, in which you may indeed find the monsters hiding in the dark closet in your bedroom, where you want to feel the most safe, the most comfortable. There’s a drama here, a shock, and the urge to block it out or respond with the greatest drama.

Comfort itself might be a problem. There are so many ways to soothe and distract. So many temptations to make someone a hero and lift them out of critique. So many ways to deify people and give away our power, and then to be shocked when they don’t use their power in our interest.

Today feels like an important day to allow in grief, guilt, anguish, and anger. Not to blast them all over everyone around you, who may not deserve it, but to hold it up with care. This too is a part of our humanity, worthy of love. We may not know what to do about the outer situation, but we can acknowledge for ourselves what hurts, what disillusionments come. Try to make sure your pain is understood before it is soothed.