Peace isn't worth losing yourself

On October 10, 2026, we have a New Moon.

In tropical astrology, it occurs in Libra, a sign traditionally associated with relationships, cooperation, negotiation, justice, and the search for balance.

That's part of astrology's symbolic language.

It doesn't mean the Moon produces specific psychological behaviors or that people will relate in a particular way because this transit happens.

But symbols can serve as questions.

And Libra leaves us with a particularly interesting one:

What do we call balance?

Because sometimes we think a relationship is balanced simply because there are no arguments.

But absence of conflict doesn't always mean presence of well-being.

Maybe it just means someone stopped talking.

Imagine something bothers you.

You want to say it.

But before you do, a thought appears:

So you keep it to yourself.

Once.

Maybe that was fine.

But it happens again.

And once more you tell yourself:

Then again.

And again.

Until one day you have an apparently calm relationship...

but you start feeling resentment toward someone who may not even know everything you've been holding in.

That's the point where peace can start costing too much.

Because one thing is consciously deciding:

And quite another is:

Psychologist Dana Crowley Jack developed the concept of self-silencing.

In her book Silencing the Self: Women and Depression, published by Harvard University Press, Jack studied the experiences of women who tended to hide needs, feelings, and opinions in order to maintain certain relationships and avoid putting them at risk.

Her original research was particularly focused on women and depression, so it wouldn't be accurate to turn the concept into a universal explanation for all relationships.

But it opened a question that remains deeply relevant:

What happens when preserving a connection requires someone to constantly leave their own needs out of the conversation?

Subsequent research has studied self-silencing in different contexts and found associations with psychological distress and relational difficulties.

That doesn't mean staying quiet once will make you sick.

Or that expressing everything you feel is always healthy.

It means something much more nuanced:

turning the disappearance of your own needs into a habitual strategy for preserving a relationship can come at a cost.

Maybe no one directly taught you to silence yourself.

Perhaps you learned by watching.

Being a good partner meant enduring.

Being a good daughter meant not talking back.

Being a good friend meant always being available.

Being a spiritual person meant forgiving quickly.

Being "mature" meant avoiding conflict.

Being "good" meant not disappointing.

And then we started confusing love with unlimited availability.

Patience with tolerating everything.

Empathy with forgetting ourselves.

Peace with silence.

But a relationship where only one person can express what they need isn't necessarily balanced.

Even if there's never an argument.

Research on emotional regulation requires us to be careful.

It wouldn't be accurate to say:

Sometimes not immediately expressing something can be perfectly adaptive.

Maybe you're too upset.

Maybe it's not a safe place.

Maybe you need to organize your thoughts.

Maybe you simply decide something isn't worth a conversation.

Psychology doesn't tell us we should verbalize every emotion in real time.

What research on habitual emotional suppression has found is that when it becomes a frequent pattern, it can be associated with worse interpersonal outcomes, such as lower relationship satisfaction or less sense of support.

That's why the question shouldn't be:

But rather:

That difference changes everything.

We fear the consequences.

Maybe you want to say:

But your real fear is:

You want to say:

But you're afraid to discover:

You want to say:

But underneath there's:

You want to say:

But what appears is:

So the problem isn't finding the words.

It's being willing to discover what happens after speaking them.

And sometimes we prefer to hold onto an imagined possibility rather than get a real answer.

October 10 is also

World Mental Health Day.

The World Health Organization's campaign for 2026 emphasizes listening to people with lived experience and allowing their voices to carry real weight in decisions that affect them.

WHO is talking about systems, policies, and mental health services.

It's not specifically talking about couples.

But the idea leaves me thinking about a much more intimate question:

Because listening should also include listening to ourselves.

What do you want?

What don't you want?

What do you need?

What can you no longer hold?

What are you doing solely to avoid disappointing?

What would you accept differently if you weren't so afraid of losing someone?

During a New Moon, we usually write what we want to attract.

This time I want to propose something different.

Instead of asking:

ask:

Take a sheet of paper and divide it into four parts.

Write what you express outward.

Now remove the automatic response.

Maybe it's:

Here the most important part might appear.

Don't judge the answer.

Just look at it.

Maybe you need time.

Maybe a conversation.

Maybe to write first.

Maybe to set a boundary.

Maybe to ask for help.

Maybe to choose a safe place.

Maybe to recognize that in certain relationships, speaking directly isn't always safe.

And this last part matters.

If there's abuse, violence, coercion, or real fear for your safety, "just say it" isn't necessarily good advice.

Protecting yourself matters too.

Sometimes spiritual language can also become, unintentionally, a form of silence.

But you can try to understand someone...

and still acknowledge they hurt you.

You can forgive...

and not go back.

You can love...

and set a boundary.

You can be compassionate...

and say no.

You can want peace...

and have an uncomfortable conversation.

Because maybe true peace isn't about avoiding any tension.

Maybe it's about being able to remain within a relationship

without having to disappear for it to work.

This New Moon occurs symbolically under Libra.

And maybe one of the mistakes we make when talking about Libra, harmony, and balance is thinking that balance means:

everyone is happy.

But there's probably no life where no one is ever disappointed with our decisions.

Setting a boundary can be uncomfortable.

Changing your mind can be uncomfortable.

Asking for more can be uncomfortable.

Saying something hurt you can be uncomfortable.

And yet it may be necessary.

Harmony that depends on one person staying permanently silent has a price.

And maybe it's not balance.

Maybe it's sacrifice.

You don't have to start with the most difficult conversation of your life.

Start with something small.

Instead of:

Try:

Instead of:

Instead of immediately accepting:

Instead of making up an excuse:

It seems small.

But if you've spent years automatically prioritizing everyone else's needs, saying one honest sentence can feel enormous.

This is probably the most uncomfortable part.

When you start speaking after a long time of staying quiet, some relationships may feel different.

Someone might be surprised.

Someone might get upset.

Someone might say:

And they might be right.

You used to accept things you're now reconsidering.

You used to respond immediately.

You used to say yes.

You used to avoid certain topics.

Changing a dynamic also changes the relationship.

And we can't always control where it goes.

That's why giving voice to our needs requires more than communication.

It requires being willing to learn the truth about which relationships have space for our whole selves...

and which ones worked better when we took up less room.

Maybe this New Moon doesn't need you to manifest another perfect relationship.

Maybe it needs a different question:

Can I exist fully within the relationships I'm trying to preserve?

With needs.

With boundaries.

With disagreements.

With preferences.

With a voice.

Because no relationship can promise total absence of tension.

But there should be room for both people to be real.

And maybe that's a much more interesting way of thinking about balance.

Not:

But rather:

I want you to complete just one sentence.

"To keep the peace, I've been staying silent about ______."

You don't have to share it.

It can stay with you.

But read it.

Because maybe what you need to manifest this New Moon isn't something new.

Maybe it's reclaiming a part of yourself you've been leaving out of the conversation for too long.

MÍSTICO was born around the Moon, symbols, rituals, and things we can't always explain.

But I'm increasingly interested in a spirituality that doesn't distance us from our own lives.

One that can look at the Moon...

and then ask a difficult question.

If this article helped you recognize something you've been keeping silent for a long time, you can voluntarily support my work with a tip.

That support allows me to keep researching books, studies, traditions, and tools to create texts that don't just stay at pretty words.

And if you don't want to today, reading, commenting, or sharing also helps sustain this space.

If you decide to support it financially, thank you.

Not because you owe me anything.

But because you're helping maintain a place where we can remember something:

peace should include you too.