Turning 30 isn’t the first major milestone in our adult lives–at least not if you ask astronomy. Somewhere between 27 and 29, your Saturn Returns, making you ask the questions “who am I and what am I doing with my life?”

These questions might feel like you’re stranded on the dark side of the moon, but just as the planets shake things up they also remind us there is a light side to everything.

What is Saturn’s Return?

According to astrology, it’s the first time in your life Saturn completes a full orbit of the sun. Unlike the Earth, which makes this loop yearly, it takes Saturn about 29.5 “Earth” years to complete one single orbit.

Since Saturn is the planet of structure, maturity, and responsibility, harsh realities arise when it does.

Is this good or bad?

Honestly, both. Your Saturn’s Return can be a bit of a wake up call…or a hard slap across the face. But as the yin and yang of life tells us, difficult times pave the way for better days.

Who really knows why–but there is a sort of pattern. Ever hear of the mid-life crisis? And when does that happen? Around 60 years old. Saturn’s Return II, baby!

So what am I supposed to do about my Saturn’s return?

Just go with the flow.

Allow yourself this time to sit with your pain, and then strategize a way to soothe it–or remove as much as you can–going forward.

Following my 29th birthday, I had some major demons to grapple with in Saturn’s wake. Did I still want to live abroad? Get married? Live the lonely #laptoplife?

What are you holding onto that’s too heavy?
Put it down. Move forward.

After spending almost 30 years building for this point, it brought a lot of pain to think about letting it go. But the thought of spending the next 30 years building roots from a place that didn’t feel completely right in my soul was painful. I had no choice but to face pain in the short term with the intent that it would open the way to a happy life.

For me, as it is for many, Saturn’s Return is a time for letting go. It can help reveal where we go for comfort (in people, places, and states of mind), and which battles no longer feel worth the fight.

It’s a time for coming to grips with the truth that we all struggle, but what we struggle with is up to us. If you’re not fighting to beat the demon that stands in the way of your best most happy life, then what’s the point?

Take stock of the person you are, and be totally honest with yourself: what things can I change?

When Saturn Returns crashing through all the walls of your life, you have a chance to re-route down the path that calls you.

The light side of Saturn

As much as this time is about shedding the things in your life that don’t serve you, it also helps clear the cobwebs so you can remember all the things about yourself and your life that you love. This is the light side.

After the devastating realization that the decisions in my life weren’t making me happy or making me into the best person I could be, I took a huge swerve down a new path.

I moved home and started taking the heavy steps toward a new career.

It’s no use going back to yesterday. I was a different person then.

Alice In Wonderland

Letting go and starting anew were some of the most beautifully heartbreaking moments of my life. It also helped me step into the most fulfilled state I’d ever found myself in.

Like the fall harvest, when something in you dies, a harsh winter follows with promise that something more beautiful will bloom.

“Everything you want is on the other side of fear.”

In the cycles of our lives, Saturn’s Return is most definitely the spooky season. Of course, spooky can be spectacular if we have the guts to face it.

If another path is calling you, take the leap of faith. Don’t just face the fear, but run towards it.

Leaving so much of my old life behind left me feeling sad and confused for a while. But in that time, I rediscovered what lights up my life.

With the fresh eyes of distance and time, I came home to a cold winter, an opportunity to see life in a new way yet again. The more I explored the nature of this place I found myself, both within and without, the more I uncovered all the things that makes me light up from the inside.

I put my love of chatting and researching into action as a substitute teacher at a local high school. All my adventures in life, all my countless internet sleuthing hours, finally feel like they amount to something. I get to translate my life lessons into the classroom, and get the adventure of academics (and exposure to the turmoil of teen-hood) all over again.

But both the dark and light of this adventure calls me. One day, I was tasked with teaching physics. How could I figure this out? Who could help me so I can help them?

When the last bell rings for the day, I often feel like a better person than who woke up. That’s a life worth living. That’s what we should all be chasing, no matter how old our birthday says we are.

As your Saturn looms, explore what sets your heart on fire, and be sure to also take inventory of all the tangible and intangible things you collect and have collected. Which ones stay? Which ones do you dump?

Don’t be afraid to lighten your load. There are some incredible things waiting if you make room to carry them.