What Every Zodiac Teaches You About Love

ARIES

Love doesn’t just disappear once you end things with someone. It isn’t a light switch that can be flipped on and off whenever it’s convenient. The truth is that you will always remember the tenderness you felt towards others, but that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. What’s so wrong about holding love for people that are no longer with you? It doesn’t mean that you’re living in the past—it means you know in your heart that, regardless of circumstances, love never dies. 

TAURUS

If you allow yourself to romanticize the past too much, it’ll come back to haunt you. Even if you’re doing something as innocent as daydreaming at work or picturing a past lover before you fall asleep at night. To constantly fixate on memories stalls a person’s growth. If you’re going to romanticize anything, romanticize the future. Think about all of the beautiful things you’re going to accomplish in your life. Live in the unknown rather than the unchangeable. 

GEMINI

Love cannot exist in silence. It can be quiet, sure. Sometimes it’s just a barely perceptible hum in a room, bouncing between you and somebody else, but that doesn’t mean it’s silent. In order for love to grow and thrive, there must be a commitment to open communication. If there are intimacy issues or anything else standing in the way of that, they must be addressed if the love is going to last. Yes, it’s hard to be vulnerable–but it’s so, so necessary.

CANCER

You don’t need to “love yourself first.” Not only is that idea harmful, but it simply isn’t true. Self-love is often a lifetime journey, one that requires effort, time, and care. There’s no reason for that journey to happen before romantic love, and it certainly doesn’t make you unworthy of love in the present if you’re still figuring it out. Allowing yourself to love and be loved by other people is such a gift, and you shouldn’t deprive your heart. You deserve to experience love, now and always.

LEO

There’s a difference between performing love and actually feeling it. Sometimes you may feel the need to act a certain way because you’re in love. You’ve seen movies, read books and poems, and you feel like you know what you’re supposed to do. But when you’re focusing on everyone else’s experiences of love, you’re not making room for your own. Your story is worth sharing, and your story can only be represented if you’re open to feeling it–really, really feeling it.

VIRGO

Timing matters, regardless of how much we like to claim it doesn’t. Sometimes you just don’t meet people at the right time. Outside circumstances can affect love—and often do. This doesn’t mean that you can’t come back to people at the “right” time, but you must acknowledge that sometimes life and love are not on the same page. The sooner you accept that, the sooner you can move on with your life when a relationship is falling apart due to events out of your control.

LIBRA

Loving is a choice. Not who you love, but the act of loving. It’s a choice you have to wake up every day and make with another person, because love is so unbelievably difficult. Intentionality is key, especially on the bad days (and yes, there will be bad days). Even the strongest relationships face difficulties and the only way to get out of it is to choose your partner, choose love, choose to stay together and work things out. It’s the only way to survive.

SCORPIO

Support in romantic relationships must be reciprocal. You can’t have just one person doing all of the heavy lifting, even if that person doesn’t seem to mind it. Over time, an uneven division of emotional labor will work at the hairline fractures in a relationship and turn them into craters. Be upfront with your needs, what you need help carrying, and avoid this issue altogether. You can support one another in a balanced way, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing.

SAGITTARIUS

Changing love’s scenery won’t fix its issues. There’s something romantic about scheduling a getaway when you hit a rough patch, hoping that a change in routine will set you on the right path. However, romance doesn’t always translate to reality. A trip or move may push problems off for the time being, but, ultimately, issues of the heart will have to be addressed regardless of where you are. There’s nowhere to hide when the difficulty lives inside of you.

CAPRICORN

When egos come into play, love cannot survive. You have to lay down your defenses in order for love to thrive. Love was not meant to be trapped behind walls too tall to climb and too deeply rooted to tunnel under. It is meant to be shared, worked through, and understood with another. This may be a big shift if you’re generally self-sufficient, but a relationship cannot be maintained and shaped by one person alone. You must put aside egos and humble yourself.

AQUARIUS

You can’t overthink love or it’ll never happen. Love has been painted as this big, incredible sensation, the root of everything–it’s no wonder we find ourselves wracked with indecision, too scared to make a move and have it be the wrong one. The only solution is to dive in headfirst and try our best. I know it can be scary to go into something as pivotal as a relationship with no plan under your belt, but it’s all we can do. You can’t account for every detail.

PISCES

You must work to see your romantic partners as people, rather than ideas of people. And by that I mean you can’t allow yourself to be rendered sightless by love. Sometimes we get so caught up in its magic that we don’t see what’s in front of us; we see a future that can only be beautiful. Don’t let your dreams convince you that everything is perfect when it isn’t. Recognize that your partners are people, not mystical beings put on this earth to be flawless. You can be critical when needed.