Doing 'The Work': Saturn, the Self, and the Transforming Power of Discipline

Author’s Note: I didn’t arrive here through some spiritual calling or dramatic breakdown. Just a quiet sense that things weren’t quite right, and hadn’t been for a long time.

I could see clearly why my relationships kept failing. Not because I didn’t care, or didn’t try, but because I wasn’t in the right place to give them the attention and presence they needed. I didn’t know who I was. I had no idea what I liked, what I wanted, or what really mattered to me beyond keeping everything going. Life had happened around me, and I’d shaped myself to fit it.

So I made a choice. To step back from trying to get love right, and turn inward instead. I decided to be single, and I began therapy. Not because I had some big healing agenda, but because I wanted to understand myself more honestly. To start telling the truth.

Not long after, something shifted. I had what I can only describe as a mystical experience, something that cracked open my sense of the world and pointed to other ways of understanding it. I started reading about energy healing, working with crystals, exploring the idea that there might be more going on beneath the surface of things. It sparked a curiosity that I couldn’t put down.

That curiosity led me deeper, into Jung, into shadow work, and eventually into astrology. I hadn’t thought much about it before. I knew I was a Capricorn and had always felt a bit underwhelmed by that: practical, sensible, slightly dull. But as I explored the symbolic language of the birth chart, I began to realise astrology could do something remarkable: it could show me what was hidden. It could make the unconscious visible. It could map out the shadow.

Since then, I’ve been captivated. I’ve studied astrology seriously since 2020, and I’m still learning every day. But when I look back, I can see that this path didn’t start with astrology. It started with a choice. And I can also see that Saturn’s hand has been in it from the beginning.

The exact turning point came in December 2017, when Saturn opposed my natal Saturn. That was when everything shifted, from the psychological to the mystical. From understanding to becoming.

So when I speak about 'The Work', this is what I mean. And when I speak of Saturn, I’m not pointing to something distant or abstract. I’m naming the pattern I’ve lived. The presence that’s shaped me. The part of life that asks us to grow up: not out of duty, but out of truth.

Saturn is 'The Work'.

And his lessons are available to anyone who’s ever paused long enough to ask:

What is all this for?

And who am I, really, underneath it all?

Image credit: International Therapy Team PLLC

What is 'The Work'?

We hear a lot about 'The Work' these days.

It’s become one of those phrases that floats around in spiritual and psychological spaces, sometimes left vague, sometimes boiled down into a stack of books, a curated morning routine, or a checklist of self-improvement strategies.

But 'The Work'  is none of those things.

The Work is what begins when you start to realise that the life you’ve been living might not be entirely yours. When the roles you’ve played start to feel tight. When the stories you’ve inherited stop making sense. It’s what rises up in the space between I can’t keep doing this and I’m not sure who I am without it.

It doesn’t usually begin with some dramatic event. More often, it begins with a decision. A quiet one. A decision to stop running, stop blaming, stop searching outward, and turn, instead, toward yourself.

That’s when the questions start to change.

• Who am I, really?

• What patterns are running my life?

• How did I learn to love, to cope, to hide?

• What parts of me have I disowned just to fit in?

• What have I pushed down in order to survive?

The work is psychological. Emotional. Quiet. Often invisible to the outside world. It isn’t glamorous. It doesn’t offer instant gratification. And it certainly doesn’t care how spiritually evolved you appear.

It requires presence. Patience. Humility. And a willingness to see things you might rather avoid.

But if you stay with it, if you keep showing up, what it offers in return is something rare:

Integrity.

Depth.

Meaning.

And, eventually, a kind of freedom that doesn’t shout, but settles.

For me, this is the terrain Saturn governs.

He doesn’t initiate us with visions and fireworks. He initiates us through endings, delays, responsibilities, and the realisation that what we’ve built isn’t sustainable, or isn’t true.

Saturn is the part of us that wants to grow into something solid. Something reliable. Something real.

He governs the work not because He demands perfection, but because He insists on honesty. On presence. On maturity. Not in the performative sense, but in the deeply human one: the willingness to sit with what’s difficult, and to choose what’s meaningful over what’s easy.

That’s what the work is.

And Saturn is the one who holds the door.

The Guardian of the Threshold

Saturn is always found at the edge of things.

The edge of comfort. The edge of what we know. The edge of who we’ve been.

In classical astrology, Saturn marks the outermost boundary of what can be seen with the naked eye. The last visible planet before the great unknown. In life, He shows up in the same way, at the limit of what’s familiar. The place where things no longer hold together the way they used to.

He doesn’t block the path. He is the path. Or at least the test at the threshold of it.

He appears when you can no longer pretend. When the strategy that’s held you together, coping, pleasing, performing, stops working. When you realise you can’t move forward as the version of yourself you’ve always been.

This is where the work deepens. Not when you’ve figured it all out but when you’re honest enough to admit you haven’t. When you stop trying to bypass the discomfort and instead let it teach you something.

In older traditions, Saturn is associated with discipleship. And a disciple is simply someone who is learning. Not someone who shines. Not someone who’s mastered anything. Just someone who is willing to walk the path, step by step, even when it’s heavy.

Especially when it’s heavy.

Because this isn’t the kind of growth you can fake. You can’t talk your way past Saturn. You can’t buy your way through, or manifest your way around it. You earn your place at the next threshold by meeting what’s here, now. Exactly as it is.

There’s something deeply humbling about that. And something steadying, too.

Saturn isn’t the gate that says no forever.

He’s the presence that asks:

Are you ready to move forward with integrity?

Are you willing to carry what’s yours, and leave behind what isn’t?

You don’t have to feel ready. You don’t have to have it all together.

You just have to be willing to stop running, and start listening.

Pain as Initiation

Saturn doesn’t tend to arrive gently.

He doesn’t knock with a golden opportunity or a flash of insight. More often, He comes through exhaustion. Through illness. Through endings that feel unfair. Through the quiet ache of things not going to plan, again.

He presses on what’s weak. Not to shame us, but to show us what isn’t sustainable anymore.

And this is where most of us want to turn back. Because pain often feels like failure. Like punishment. Like proof we’ve done something wrong.

But what if it isn’t?

What if pain is the invitation?

Not because it’s noble. Not because it’s romantic. But because it’s real. Because it brings us into contact with what’s true, and truth is the only thing solid enough to build a life on.

There’s a line from Liz Greene that stayed with me: “Saturn is only inimical to those who cannot understand the educational value of pain.” It’s not easy medicine. But I’ve come to see the truth in it. Not because I think suffering is good, but because it’s often the only thing that slows us down enough to listen. To notice what we’ve been avoiding. To see what actually needs our attention.

Pain doesn’t make us wise on its own. But it asks us to stay.

To stay with the discomfort.

To stay with the questions.

To stay with ourselves, even when we don’t have answers yet.

That’s when something shifts. Not always quickly. Not always visibly. But slowly, steadily, something in us begins to grow. Not despite the pain, but through it.

This is Saturn’s way.

Not a quick fix. Not a five-step solution. But a kind of strength that forms from within. Quiet. Unshakeable. Built from truth, not avoidance.

That’s when the work starts to change us.

Not by making life easier.

But by making us deeper.

The Crisis of Meaning

There’s a kind of emptiness that doesn’t show up on the surface. You can function perfectly well with it. Keep the house clean. Pay the bills. Show up to work. Support your family. Smile when needed.

And still, underneath it all, feel like something’s missing.

It’s not always sadness. It’s not even always dissatisfaction. Sometimes it’s just a low hum, a quiet sense that you’ve built your life on something that doesn’t quite reach you. Something that looks fine, but doesn’t feel real.

This is what I think of as Saturn’s whisper.

Not the crisis that shatters your world, but the slow erosion of meaning. The quiet question that creeps in at the edges: What is this all for?

It’s a question many of us avoid. Because when life is working, on the surface at least, it feels indulgent to ask it. And when it isn’t working, it feels too painful to go there.

But Saturn goes there.

Not because He wants to tear things down for the sake of it, but because He knows surface-level functioning isn’t the same as living. You can be perfectly adapted to a life that doesn’t speak to your soul. And that’s not health. That’s survival.

Saturn doesn’t ask us to cope better. He asks us to live more honestly.

And that honesty often begins with admitting what doesn’t feel meaningful anymore. What no longer fits. What’s been stretched thin through years of pretending.

This isn’t about abandoning your life. It’s about coming into right relationship with it. It’s about alignment. About letting go of the versions of yourself that were built around performance or protection, and making space for the one who’s been waiting underneath all along.

That’s the deeper call of Saturn. Not discipline for its own sake, but discipline in service of something real. Something lasting. Something true.

And that kind of meaning doesn’t arrive all at once.

It’s built.

Choice by choice.

Layer by layer.

Through devotion to your own becoming.

The Work as Devotion

Doing the work isn’t about fixing yourself.

It’s not about chasing some ideal version of who you could be. It’s not about becoming impressive, or enlightened, or above it all.

It’s about showing up. Again and again. Especially when it’s hard. Especially when it’s boring. Especially when no one’s watching.

It’s about choosing not to abandon yourself.

Not just in the dramatic moments, but in the quiet, everyday ones: the washing-up, the difficult conversation, the thoughts you think when you first wake up. It’s about staying in relationship with yourself when you feel lost, unsure, or stuck. Staying with your values. Staying with what’s real.

This is the heart of Saturn’s teaching.

He doesn’t offer shortcuts. He doesn’t hand out breakthroughs. What He offers is time, and the exact material you need to grow, whether you like it or not.

He offers a structure strong enough to hold your becoming. But you have to build it. Choice by choice. Brick by brick. In a way that feels honest. In a way that can last.

Liz Greene once wrote that Saturn is “our greatest friend, source of strength, and bringer of light”, but only when approached with depth and understanding. I’d add: only when approached with sincerity. With a willingness to take yourself seriously. To believe your life is worth building with care.

There is a joy on the other side of this work. But it’s not the fleeting kind that comes from getting what you want. It’s the deeper joy of knowing that you’ve become someone you can trust. Someone who’s lived with intention. Someone who’s stayed.

That’s what Saturn teaches, in the end.

Not punishment.

Not perfection.

But presence.

And the quiet, steady freedom of a life lived in truth.

Closing Thoughts

Doing the work isn’t a one-time decision. It’s a path. One you walk over and over again, often in circles, often in silence, often unsure if you’re getting anywhere, until one day, you realise you’ve become someone who can hold more truth than you could before. Someone steadier. Someone more whole.

That’s what Saturn teaches us.

Not through perfection, but through presence. Not through ease, but through endurance. And not as punishment, but as a gift, the kind that takes time to unwrap, and even longer to understand.

If this essay has stirred something in you, if you recognise yourself in these questions and qualities, then I invite you to keep going.

In this companion piece, How to Begin the Work, I explore what this looks like in real life: how we meet our patterns, how we stay with ourselves when it gets uncomfortable, and how small choices slowly build something lasting.

And if you’re curious to explore your own Saturn, where he sits in your chart, what kind of growth he’s asking from you, you can read Getting to Know Your Saturn, a guide to locating and interpreting your Saturn placement using traditional astrology. Or book in a reading with me and we'll take a look at Saturn in your chart together.

Because this isn’t just my story.

It’s yours too.

And Saturn is already walking beside you.

A note on AI & my writing:

I use ChatGPT as a writing assistant—not as a writer. These are my thoughts, ideas, and words, shaped by my lived experience and deep love for self-work, self-awareness, the spiritual journey, and astrology. AI helps me refine, structure, and nudge me toward better phrasing, but the voice you’re reading is mine. I use it as a tool to help me put into words everything I believe is valuable in sharing my insights. Honesty matters to me, and this is simply one way I bring my thoughts to life.