Ask Aphrodite

Dear Terri, Your Mars (Cancer)- Saturn (Capricorn) opposition is currently being transited by Pluto, which explains why this pattern of “anger in haste, repent at leisure” is growing increasingly untenable and uncomfortable.

One of the key things to realize about anger is that there is always fear underneath. This is so important to acknowledge (maybe not in the heat of the moment): When we are angry we are actually afraid. Anger is your attempt to protect yourself from something or someone you perceive as threatening. However, when you get right down to it, 99.9% of what we react to isn’t an actual real threat. The bank teller’s uncooperativeness, the neighbor’s unwillingness to cut their trees…annoying, yes, and often it is worthwhile act of self-trust and protection to draw boundaries, but ultimately, others cannot harm you.

So, what are you truly afraid of? That is a deeper question for Plutonian work, for investigating the part of you who does feel like other people could threaten your survival. Pluto, survival, issues almost always leads back to our childhood, the time in life when our survival depended on our parents. With Saturn oppose Mars, your survival depended upon the basic life skills competence, structure (Saturn in Capricorn) and emotional safety (Mars in Cancer) they were able to provide, or perhaps not- i.e. the opposition.

The goal, with this aspect, might be to turn your response of aggression (Mars) and need to be in control, out of fear (Saturn) into one of decisiveness (Mars) and patience (Saturn). To turn an opposition, a response based on habitually reacting to others, into a conjunction, one based on choice.

While it’s cool to have this psych and astro-knowledge, awareness doesn’t necessarily lead to change, though, because by the time we’re adults we’ve had years of habitually running the same old record with very little conscious participation or choice. As you said, you go on “automatic”. What to do?

This next piece of advice applies to anyone who wants to change an automatic emotional pattern. We all have them, they’re leftover from childhood and old conditioning. And we can change them.

First, you don’t want to stop having your feelings. You couldn’t if you tried. Repression only makes us crazy. The goal is to get a little better every time, to discover a little more levity and grace each time you encounter your pattern, and the way to do that is to notice and reward the small incremental ways you are moving in a new direction. Let’s say you ripped into a neighbor last week and this week, and this week, while you still called her names in your head, you stopped yourself from voicing them (You ROCK!!!). Or, instead of fighting a same old fight with your arch nemesis, you managed, today, to let it go. (Give your self a mental high-five!!!) Buy yourself flowers. That’s called progress, my friend.

No matter what, don’t shame, criticize or judge yourself. Studies have shown that negative reinforcement doesn’t change a bad habit; only positive reinforcement, the energy of love, changes a pattern. When I was trying to change my own pattern of self-judgment, it was slow going. I recall judging myself harshly after a client session (one of those “I should/shouldn’t have said this…” moments). The next time I had a similar awareness, I noticed the thought, BUT the energy of self-judgment was gone. High-five! Only the awareness remained. Liberated of icky self-judgment, I could actually see that awareness had value.

Every time you subtly shift a pattern, you get closer to releasing it altogether. The trick is to allow your self to experience it more consciously – as soon as you notice what’s happening, whether that’s 2 minutes or 20 minutes into it. The moment you alter your energy and response, notice how good it feels to not go down so deeply into the rabbit hole. Reinforce that awareness with positive praise. Do so, and in my experience, you will bounce back a little quicker each time. Till, one day, it’s no longer a troubling issue.

Jessica, Aphrodite’s ally