Dec. 22, 2023
I have to be very careful this Christmas with my t-square, because it relates to controlling my weight, and I need to talk this through, so I guess this is my first TED talk on t-squares, which I’ve become obsessed with this year. For the past 10 years or so, I’ve come to associate Christmas with weight loss. Because I’m a stress eater, and I’m stressed at work, I tend to lose weight when I’m on vacation, chilling at home. I also eat out of politeness, so I bend to social pressure when food is offered to me, and honestly, I just love food, and the best antidote I’ve found is not surrounding myself with people.
An apt metaphor for a t-square is an emotional prison with a prison guard (apex planet) who hates you and wants you to fail, and your job is to take this hated prison guard, and integrate his qualities and responsibilities into yourself. A t-square is a representation of three very disparate parts of you that are un-integrated and have very little interest in coming together. So there is tension on three fronts and the need to compromise and honor three very opposite planets’ needs. Each time I choose one of the planets (let’s say I go to the gym to honor my mars), Saturn will have a fit, and I’ll be late for something, or I’ll break my wrists. Literally every time I start a workout routine (mars), I get sick or make a massive weight gain (my most recent experience) or break out in shingles (true story).
So whenever I gain a couple pounds, it fuels my excitement for Christmas when I can be home alone and not be under pressure to eat anything, kind of a convenient identification with Saturn without trying. Last Christmas I conveniently had the flu and I was glad about it because I lost about three or four pounds (but also miserable because of the flu). Especially if I’m single, I get pumped to spend Christmas alone and lose weight, literally what I wait all year for. NO PRESSURE TO EAT ANYTHING! I CAN JUST EAT POPCORN DIPPED IN KOREAN HOT SAUCE AND NO ONE’S FEELINGS WILL BE HURT!! FREEDOM!!! However, I’m in a relationship this Christmas, and we’re going to spend the holidays together – which is great – but he is a chef, and I am so nervous.
My boyfriend loves to cook, and will have three square meals a day- breakfast, lunch, and supper. When we’re not eating, he is contemplating what he will make for the next meal. This is a lot for me, but what reasonable person would have a problem with it? It is the most scientifically-supported and reasonable thing to want and do, so I have no excuse for dreading the parade of meals coming at me for the next ten days.
I have figured out that eating and weight loss are related to my t-square because it involves Saturn (discipline/restriction), mars (my ascendant lord [body]), and Neptune (which rules my fourth house [feelings] and is in my 2nd house of food). Bouncing back and forth between these three planets without fully pleasing any of them is my daily emotional beating. Plus, my mars also has a sextile coming from Jupiter, and Jupiter expands what it touches (ie. my body), so that doesn’t help. Moreover, Saturn is the apex, so he wants to be consulted on everything I do and eat or else he makes me pay, and I detest checking in with Saturn. My Saturn is in Virgo, which I have learned means he wants me to do something painstaking, like record in excrutiating detail what I eat in an app, or use up old leftovers, or take the time to cook when I’m busy and could just eat a few rice cakes.
I think I’d be relatively happy to do these things if they actually gave results, but my Saturn is a tyrant- I can never do enough for him- whenever I do something (mars) where I don’t make space for Saturn to drag it down, he punishes me. If I check in with him, he is happy, but still he doesn’t allow me to get what I want. So I’m just going to have to give it my best shot, and ask my man for recipes that I can plug into my app (Saturn) and journal my feelings (the empty space where the fourth leg of the “stool” should be is my fourth house [feelings]). It’s all work. My boyfriend is more than understanding, but I just know this will not be a graceful 10 days- I’ll spend too much with one planet (let’s say emotional eating), then I’ll jerk around to mars (working out), then back to Saturn (getting discouraged). I know the conventional wisdom around t-squares is that they’re motivational, like the frustration propels a native forward to eventual success, but that has not been my experience. Saturn, please let’s learn how to be friends this Christmas holiday.
