Your July 2026 horoscope! What's in store for your 2nd half of 2026?
+ How to stop being a people pleaser
How to stop being a people pleaser
Real advice from therapists and women who’ve been there, done that
I used to think being nice and liked by everyone was my superpower. I’d try to smooth over tension before it surfaced and anticipate other people’s needs before they voiced them. It made me a reliable employee, a “low-maintenance” friend, and sometimes even the family mediator. But I felt exhausted, resentful, and weirdly disconnected from myself.
Like many women, I scored high on agreeableness without ever taking the test. Turns out, women consistently rank higher than men on both agreeableness and neuroticism in the Five Factor Model of personality. These traits don’t mean there’s something wrong with us; they just mean we tend to be more adaptive.
But in midlife, especially as more of us trade in our corporate titles for solopreneur ones, while also caring for our families and hopefully exploring our hobbies and interests, we’re starting to see how this pattern (saying yes when we mean no and prioritizing everyone but ourselves) holds us back.
In the age of AI, boundary-less hustle, and working for ourselves, unlearning people-pleasing isn’t just about personal growth; it’s about building a sustainable and healthy lifestyle that works for you.
If you’re here because you’ve hit your breaking point, or you’re quietly wondering why you feel so stretched and still not enough, you’re not alone. That’s why I turned to two licensed therapists and a real-life former people-pleaser to uncover what people-pleasing costs us, why it’s so deeply ingrained, and how we can finally stop doing it.
Why is people-pleasing so damn common (especially for women)?
According to Kate Engler, couples and sex therapist, there are no biological markers that make women more prone to people-pleasing than men. But because women are socialized to be the caretakers of relationships and attentive to the emotional well-being of those around them, they often fall prey to this practice.
Many of us were raised to be agreeable and accommodating, praised for being the “good girl” or “team player,” especially in male-dominated spaces. “This is exacerbated by the social, emotional, relational consequences women face when they aren’t ‘pleasing’ to others,” Kate says. “It feels a bit cliché to say this at this point, but sadly it’s still true.”
Adam Grant, the popular organizational psychologist, researcher, and Wharton professor, writes in the New York Times about how women must use “weak language” to get recognition, raises, etc., and that we’re penalized if we use the same “strong language” as men. While the article isn’t solely about people-pleasing, Kate Engler brings to our attention that it is all part of the same, bigger issue.
“As women, we are conditioned to people-please from a young age, says Sarah D. Rees, CBT therapist and founder of the Therapists Corner community. “We are rewarded for being helpful, agreeable, and putting others first. There’s not a problem with being kind or considerate, but when it becomes automatic and at the expense of our own needs, it can quietly take a toll.”
Happy July!
What’s in store for the second-half of 2026 for you?
By Mandy Wilde
This month we are asked to consider what we feed and how we let ourselves be fed. Cancer season turns our attention inward toward the tender architecture of nourishment, and the parts of us that both hold and provide. The body parts ruled by Cancer include the chest, breasts and stomach. Because this sign is so woven with the instinct to nurture, it also governs the womb, the diaphragm and the lymphatic system. These are the places where we metabolize not only food but feeling. It is where we store what we have been given and sometimes hold far longer than we should. July also gifts us the clarity of a Mercury cazimi and the New Moon in Cancer. It then opens into the Full Moon in Aquarius and Jupiter’s cazimi in Leo. Enjoy this bright and generous month!
Key astrological dates in July 2026
July 12 Mercury cazimi in Cancer (retrograde clarity)
July 14 New Moon in Cancer
July 22 Sun enters Leo
July 23 Mercury stations direct
July 29 Full Moon in Aquarius
July 29 Jupiter cazimi in Leo (abundant blessing)
Aries (March 21 – April 19)
July invites you home, Aries, into the parts of yourself you usually rush past. Cancer season settles into your fourth house of home and family. This is the deep emotional bedrock beneath everything you build, and for a sign as forward-leaning as yours this can feel like a pull toward the interior that your nature does not always know what to do with. Your chest and your belly are the body’s barometers this month, so when something domestic or ancestral stirs, you may feel it as a tightness beneath the ribs or butterflies in the stomach.
After nearly eight years of Chiron traveling through your sign and tending the deepest wound of who you are allowed to be, the wounded healer has now moved on into Taurus. This is good news as you may feel that relief of something finally loosening its grip. When the New Moon in Cancer arrives on July 14, you are offered a tender and protected beginning around your sense of belonging. The Full Moon in Aquarius on July 29 shines a bright light on your friendships and the communities you move through, asking you to notice where you feel genuinely held among others. The Jupiter cazimi in Leo on the very same day pours an abundance of creative joy directly into your life. Let yourself receive the largeness of it, Aries.
Taurus (April 20 – May 20)
Cancer season moves into your third house of communication, Taurus. These are your thoughts and daily exchanges that make up the texture of your life. During July, you may find your mind unusually busy and your conversations tinged with more feeling than usual. The chest and the stomach hold the weather of this month, so notice whether a difficult exchange settles as a knot in your belly or a heaviness across your breast that lingers longer than the moment that caused it. Chiron the wounded healer has now entered your sign for a long stay. This means the deepest and oldest tenderness around your sense of worth will slowly rise to the surface to be met. Receive this passage as the gift it is, even when it aches.
The Mercury cazimi on July 12 brings a luminous flash of understanding through a conversation or a message. When the New Moon in Cancer arrives on July 14, you are offered a new beginning around what you choose to tell yourself in the privacy of your own mind. As the Sun enters Leo on July 22 and Mercury stations direct the following day, the warmth moves into your fourth house of home and emotional foundations, and clarity on something you have been waiting for begins to come through. The Full Moon in Aquarius on July 29 illuminates your career and your public standing, bringing a chapter of your ambitions to a point of honest culmination.
Gemini (May 21 – June 20)
After a month of being everywhere at once, Gemini, you may find yourself starting to settle a bit. Cancer season moves into your second house of money and resources. The quicksilver part of you that loves motion is now asked to consider what actually sustains you when the pace starts to slow. This month, notice whether a worry about security sits in your belly or presents itself in your breath as something tighter, because the body will tell you which fears are real and which are simply old companions passing through.
The Mars-Uranus conjunction in your sign on July 3 is in your first house. This could bring about an unexpected restlessness so give that energy somewhere generous to go. Since Mercury is your ruling planet the Mercury cazimi on July 12 is a particular gift for you. Something you have been turning over finally shows you its truth. When the New Moon in Cancer arrives on July 14, you may find a new sense of security around your money and your sense of your own worth. As the Sun enters Leo on July 22 and Mercury stations direct the next day, the mental fog of the past few weeks finally lifts. The Full Moon in Aquarius on July 29 brings a sense of clarity to your beliefs and the bigger questions about how you want to live.
Cancer (June 21 – July 22)
Happy birthday, July Cancer! As the Sun moves through your sign it lights up your first house of self and body making this a powerful time to ask what you truly need rather than what you habitually give. Your ruled body parts which are the chest, breast, stomach, digestive and lymphatic systems are fully activated now, meaning your body is asking to be nourished and allowed to release whatever it has been holding. Notice where you store your feelings as physical fullness and let yourself drain what no longer needs to stay.
The Mercury cazimi in your sign on July 12 will show you something true about yourself or your direction. Consider keeping a journal of things that come up in dreams. With the New Moon in your sign on July 14, you enter a deeply fertile moment to set intentions around the projects you wish to mother into being. The Full Moon on July 29 asks whether your daily work and health routines truly serve the body you live in. You give so much, Cancer. Let this be a month where you also receive.
Leo (July 23 – August 22)
Happy birthday July Leo! Something magnificent is gathering for you this month. While Cancer season holds the first weeks, the Sun moves through your twelfth house of rest, which asks you to do something unfamiliar and retreat for a little while before the spotlight finds you. The diaphragm is your body’s teacher here. It is that great muscle beneath the lungs that supports the breath. When feeling tense, exercise this muscle to find release.
The Mars-Uranus conjunction in Gemini on July 3 brings about an unexpected connection or a jolt of energy moving through a group you belong to. With the New Moon on July 14, you are offered a chance to set intentions around the release of whatever you have been carrying in secret. As the Sun crosses into your sign on July 22 your season officially begins and you feel yourself stepping back into your own skin again. The Full Moon on July 29 illuminates your seventh house of partnership, bringing a relationship better into focus. When Jupiter meets the Sun in your sign that same day, a once-yearly blessing will crown you with so much possibility. Walk into it knowing the months ahead are yours to fill.
‘The Artist’s Way’ changed my life
This 39-year-old book transformed the way I see the world — and as promised, why and how I express myself
I’m not a fan of making New Year’s resolutions. They come with way too much pressure, and they rarely stick. Instead, I’m a firm believer that you can change your life on any day of the year, on your own terms, at a time that feels right for you.
But it was around this time last year (December 22, 2022) that my life shifted dramatically due to a New Year’s–esque commitment I made to myself: I would finally read The Artist’s Way, a book that had been sitting on my shelf for more than two decades.
I can’t remember how this book first came into my life. I probably snagged it from a “free” bin at work in my 20s just because I had heard of it. As a twenty-something in the arts community, the title would often come up in conversation — someone was doing The Artist’s Way, and it was changing their life.
I would listen intently to snippets of wisdom, twirling my hair around my finger while wistfully saying, “I really wanna read that …” And yet, every moving day, my unread copy would get packed into a U-Haul only to collect dust on a different bookshelf, in a different part of town. I’ve lugged this book to seven apartments without ever cracking the spine.
Now in my 40s, I’m happy to report that I have not only opened the book, but I’ve read it cover to cover. I’m amazed at how long this gem has been in my possession without my knowing what was inside. Unbeknownst to me, the answers I was looking for throughout my 20s, 30s, and beyond had been with me all along. A classic case of Dorothy’s ruby slippers.
So spot on. I believe we need to stop praising children for being ‘good’ so they don’t grow up becoming the people pleasers. I wrote about the costs of being a ‘good girl’ too and really resonate. Thanks for sharing!