Mercury and Saturn square off this morning, making everybody anxious and hypersensitive. People are quick to jump down each other’s throats and to interpret everything in the least generous light. Do your best not to blame your own bad mood on your friends — they may not be perfect, but they’re doing their best, just like you.

If you’re in a cranky mood today, it might be tempting to dig until you find the reason for it. You want to know what to do differently or who to blame; you want to take action so you can feel better. Sometimes, though, a bad mood comes over you through no fault of your own — or of the people around you. Life is hard, and you don’t have to feel good about it all the time. For now, instead of trying to fix anything, simply focus on treating yourself with gentleness.

When you’re dealing with a thorny problem in your life or relationships, it can be difficult to differentiate clear thinking from wishful thinking. How can you know when you’re genuinely doing the right thing, and when you’re just doing what’s most convenient? Today, give yourself time to think through an issue deeply. It’s important to reject the easy answers that don’t get to the root of the problem. It’s hard mental work, and you might not like what you learn, but your courage and honesty will pay off.

You might not be seeking out conflict today, but it’s likely to find you anyway. Maybe you’ll get drawn into a squabble, maybe you’ll butt heads with colleagues, maybe someone you love will pick a fight. It can be tempting to agree to whatever the other person wants, if only to be done with it, but you’ll be doing yourself a disservice if you’re too acquiescent. Standing up for yourself can be uncomfortable, but if you lean into the awkwardness, you’ll be glad you did.

When you look at your future plans from a distance, they look shining and perfect. But as you start to evaluate them close up, you notice the flaws, the pieces that don’t quite fit, the ideas that are only half-baked. It’s tempting to gloss over the inconvenient details, to imagine that they’ll work themselves out — but try, today, to pay serious attention to the particulars. The small stuff might point to bigger problems, but you still have time to straighten things out.

You’re probably hungry for deep, meaningful conversations today. You know that human connection is one of the best antidotes to stress and loneliness, but today probably isn’t the best day to put yourself out there. It’s all too easy to come across the wrong way, and others — especially those you don’t know well yet — might hesitate to give you the benefit of the doubt. If you want to get into sensitive subjects, do it with people you already trust.

It’s going to be easy, today, to fixate on all the worst traits in the people you love. The quirks that used to seem charming have become irritating, and you worry that even the smallest differences in opinion indicate a deep, irreparable rift. It’s possible that there really are serious issues in the relationship — but, especially if these feelings are new, don’t be too quick to act on them. You might blow small things way out of proportion right now, so give yourself time to decide how you really feel.

Normally, you choose your words with care, considering how they’ll affect people, how they might be misread, how they might strengthen or damage a relationship. Today, though, all that might go out the window. In the heat of a stressful moment or an argument, you’re likely to say the first thing that comes into your head, even if it’s not what you really mean. Try to be mindful, but if you speak without thinking anyway, don’t be too proud to backtrack. Correcting yourself now can save you trouble down the road.

Even if nothing concrete goes wrong today, you might feel your confidence dip. Everything you say seems to come out wrong, or your plans don’t play out the way they did in your head, or your relationships feel vaguely distant. But while sometimes it’s useful to look at yourself with a critical eye, it’s also possible to be too critical. Instead of focusing on the parts of you that you imagine need to be improved, remember your strengths.

Even if you’re normally happy to go along with what others want, you might feel contrary today. As soon as somebody offers up an idea, you’re quick to build a case against it; if they suggest a path forward, you veer in the opposite direction. The more reactive you are, the more you’ll find yourself arguing for positions you don’t actually believe in, so the best thing you can do now is slow down. Remember that you don’t always need to have an instant take: You deserve time to think.

You probably aren’t someone who’s uncomfortable with silence, or who will talk just to hear your own voice. If you speak up, it’s because you truly mean what you’re saying, and you assume the same of others. The trouble is that sometimes, people say things they don’t really mean. Today, especially, people might spout off from a place of anger or hurt or confusion. It’s not your responsibility to brush off any truly hurtful comments — but if you can, at least give your friends a chance to explain themselves, once they’ve calmed down.

There’s a part of you that thinks the best ideas are the most original ones — if you’re not breaking barriers and bringing something brand new into being, what’s the point? But it’s easy to get discouraged with this mindset: You look around you, and it seems like everything has already been done, like there are no truly new ideas left. So try to remember that you don’t need to create unprecedented work, or live a trailblazing life, in order to matter.

There are some days when nothing seems to go the way you wanted. No matter how hard you worked or how carefully you planned, things just don’t shake out your way. Today, you’re likely to take any failures — real or perceived — incredibly personally, blaming yourself for unforeseen developments, other people’s actions, or sheer bad luck. But these things happen to everyone, and they don’t necessarily mean that you won’t succeed if you try again. If your confidence takes a hit, your job now is to build it back up: you’ll need it for next time.

Buy Claire Comstock-Gay’s book, Madame Clairevoyant’s Guide to the Stars, here.