I have a strong urge to run my mouth. I check myself and I have for years. I had a brief exchange in the forum that prompted me to think about the last time I launched a true. verbal attack. It was in 2000; maybe 1999? I know this, because my son was a baby.
I responded in the forum, “I’ve been on the wagon for 24 years…”
I had never thought about it this in all this time. I also never thought of my propensity to “let it rip” so to speak, in terms of an addiction. I never had an addiction (to rage) but I did speak my mind with no restraint whatsoever. It turns out, what’s in my mind is freakin’ intense. Having grown up isolated with my family – well, they’re like me. I thought it was normal.
People tried to tell me or rather, tame me over the years but nothing penetrated, for more than a decade. Eventually, the message began to seep in. But it wasn’t until someone explained, in plain language, the affect my words had on others. The devastating impact, is more like it. I was specifically told, I eviscerate people, which is bad enough. But I was also told, said people could not recover. The damage I did was irreparable. Graphic metaphors were offered.
I was stupefied by this. I would have like to defend myself, but as always, I could smell the truth. I sat there, quietly, deeply understanding I had to do something about this and it had to be now.
Why? Because I don’t like hurting people. I have never liked hurting people and I don’t care if they deserve it. I am not cut out to deliver “punishment”. When I was acting this way, I was truly just being normal. Sharp mouths run in my family; it can’t be denied. I was literally just talking, normally.
I quit this in that moment, but never realized it until yesterday. I’m serious. This is not something I thought about, post that last conversation on this topic. I changed, that day and never looked back. This is why people can say things to me and I won’t respond or retaliate. I don’t want their blood on my hands!
You’d think I would be backed up with rage, but it’s not the case. I channel my mental fury into writing this blog and being a very sharp, effective counselor.
I’m putting this out here because I think it’s interesting on a few levels, but also to say, your chart (and your background for that matter) does not excuse you from hurting people.
It probably appears, I wave my knife around, pretty well. No. The truth is, I have not pulled it on anyone for near twenty-five years. Further, I don’t think I’ll ever use it in that way, ever again. I can’t say I know where the line is, but I can say, I stay miles on the right side of it. Had I been raised properly, I’d have never used it that way in the first place!
You know how they say, “Stay silent and appear stupid or open your mouth and remove all doubt”? I’m, stay silent and appear clueless or open my mouth and scorch the earth.”
I don’t want the “karma” from that. I’ve learned to retire, right away. “My mom’s calling! Gotta go!”
This is also a good example of the value of honest feedback. Would I have figured this out on my own?
No.
Anyone have a similar story?
What a great post! I grew up suppressing my angry feelings. With Moon, Mercury in Scorpio, i have let my anger get the better of me. It happened recently with this Saturn squaring Jupiter aspect 😒🙄.
I really need to find a way to process feelings and not use words to harm/hurt others.
Feel free to offer strategies
If you sincerely don’t want to do it anymore, that should be enough. Maybe use the addiction model. Get on the wagon. If you fall off, get back on, etc.
Think in terms of controlling your Mars, your knife. If you know you have one and it’s deadly, it’s necessary to handle it, properly or its a matter of time before it costs you, big time. Not easy to see this, when it’s always the other guy on the floor, but I’m sure you see what I mean,
Thank you Elsa. Will work on it and get a better handle on that anger.
Same as Elsa, I grew up isolated. My programmers on my father side were Shouters.
Fast-forward and I’ve been sober going on 14 years. In 2017 I had a spiritual awakening, and slowly things began to shift. I noticed that with conscious breathing, more positive self talk in a conscious awareness, and what makes me, and learning and being curious as much as possible to my patterns and behaviors and cycles led me to astrology and learning my chart.
This was eye-opening, change of life stuff. I’m in my 50s and it’s still not over, and The recent transit made it clear that anger is still an issue.
I’m Learning and with the guidance of Elsa, I’ve understood it’s about life and death with me – to get right with loving myself in order to find more peace with others around me.
May you find your loving space & practices to help you, guide you to more peaceful places inside✌🏽✨💕
Thank you Mila. I am in my late 50s also.
Rekha – i learned long ago that anger happens when we are hurt, when our boundaries are violated. Maybe you can work on setting clearer boundaries for those around you?
Or maybe you need someone to help assess your boundaries? Are they too high of an expectation? Like you are mad at something that is only tangentially related to you? Do you have someone close that can help you ground yourself in a healthier set of boundaries?
I did that and rarely get angry since i learned the connection between boundaries and anger.
And i have mars/saturn in cancer so my anger was harmful.
Hope this helps
Indeed, that is a great point. I have had trouble with boundaries in the past. Time to revisit that concept and reassess. I think upcoming new moon in Virgo is a good starting point
So, so well said!! Boundaries and anger are so linked! Thank you.
oh, I used to yell at my son. He nearly destroyed me. I am very sad about how unhinged I got He did forgive me. He became a marine and said he wished we were harder on him. I’m the one who has to forgive myself.
What happens to your famous “the knife is yours to use” when you get stabbed, in that case with words,
first? Just curious…
It’s the same thing. If you stab me with words, or whatever, I still have that energy. I just don’t turn it around on you, because if I did, I would hurt you at a level, way out of proportion.
I do something else instead. I let it stir me and I use the energy in ways that benefit myself and other. There are trillions of options!
“I let it stir and use the energy in ways that benefit me or others.” My story is happening now—in process, and it feels like progress. Taking a stand on an issue that made someone in comfortable because it was an act that said, “No to a racist act invisible to most, but not to me.”
I walked away.
The thing I did is stirring me. I process my options, turned my art from 5×8 inch drawings to a wall size mural. Images and words in the language of my ancestors. I discovered I’d made a mistake in the spelling. No one here would know the difference; no one corrected me. But karma is ancestral; they watched, I heard them.
I admitted I was wrong (to myself, my god and one other person) AA modeling.
My husband helped sand out my error. I mixed new milk paint. As close as I could get to the other letters, but not the same. The metaphor of my error is there. Not harming myself or others, this may open new forms of expression for “taking a stand.”
Love this Approach Elsa❣️
Have been trying a new approach with neighbors: do no harm✌🏽
Good!! Because harming neighbors is highly inappropriate. Good luck!
I’m not as mentally aware… in this new space, place we live closer and I can feel my neighbors intuitively. Recently I realized they can feel me too!
I just have to be more mindful/aware – when I get angry – hurt myself or my home, I hurt others (this case neighbors). Learning to produce, work and take creative action…
Maybe during these transits its what the males have a hard time with – societal Mars, too much social programming to ‘just do it’ and not enough ‘sit still, get calm and be creative’
Whereas, feminine energy is too much planning/in the head… and needs to just get out there, create, innovate, mess up and get physical like men do.
Please disregard any and all of my comments –
I have mars in cancer in the 11th and anything that communicates out of me doesn’t sound or come out right .
Namaste : peace this upcoming mars transit✌🏽🙏🏽
Yes. I’m hurt by people talking behind my back so I feel like I want to tell them, not talk behind their back. I want to be honest with them. It ends up exactly as you say…and then I never hear from them again. lol, when keepin it real goes wrong
What a brilliant story that demonstrates our tremendous ability to change (if we really want to).
This blog entry has the right ingredients to inspire others to follow suit 😎.
Gosh resonate with this … keep trying to retire … getting a bit closer, maybe it’s with one person at a time … mastering the individual trigger buttons to a degree … still got a way to go, think it is a case of getting back on the wagon … think Saturn opp moon is making me try and beat this more, have joined a weekly meditation group – which helps – think it functions similar to an AA group! … this:
” I’m, stay silent and appear clueless or open my mouth and scorch the earth.”
I don’t want the “karma” from that. I’ve learned to retire, right away.”
Will join my post it reminders! TU Elsa!
Very relatable. Mars in 3rd square Jupiter/7. Throw in a Scorpio Asc and I learned we have to protect others from the damage we can inflict. What starts as a self-protective measure can so swiftly be honed into a deadly weapon that others are not equipped to handle – leaving damage that far surpasses what was initially done to us.
Wow,that rings bells, sometimes the silent scorpionic smouldering anger can be hard to deal with … often a sting in the tail, of its not me, it’s you … there’s nothing up with how I’m being, you are creating a problem saying this… this might not be what you meant, it could just be my spin on a scorpio AC with a few planets there… I think it did start out as ‘self protective’ but has almost become default way of being … like a low grade, slightly below radar- but not, ‘bad vibe’, that is my experience of it but I think they would beg to differ! … gosh the habits and holes we get in one way or another.
Uranus rising in Scorpio helps me detach from taking extreme measures – though paired with that 3rd House Mars (in Uranus-ruled Aquarius, no less) it can give a sharp and shrewd ability to verbally dissect/shred. On the flip side, simply being direct (M3) has also been misread as aggressive or attacking, to many.
The scorpio Ac I’m thinking of also has uranus rising …the detached theme might figure in what I experience … 3rd H mars sounds a balancing act regardless! …. from reading your post I’m also realising that it’s my mercury (in taurus) square their mars (in Leo) which is the constant challenge I need to navigate better … ideas welcome! Lol!
I see this as both handling my Mars and handling my Mercury:
– I have Mars conjunct Saturn in Scorpio which could manifest in its shadow side (too much yang, harsh, etc.) but I am prone to internalizing it – so, depression ; I’ve been working on externalising Mars, softly, step by step – difficult!
– I have Mercury (Cancer) quincunx Neptune (Sagittarius) (and would have loved it to manifest in sth like “neptunian singing voice”): it sets a strange veil on my communication where what I say/write sometimes becomes “mixed communication, which could bring confusion and sometimes misunderstandings”
(like for example when I was a kid I would say sth which seemed clear, harmless and about sth very specific at school and kids would laugh because it sounded as if I said sth completely different, and they were right, I just could not read/hear what I was saying in any other way than the way I naively meant it). It took me long to realise this, since then, whenever possible, I’m ‘filtering’ my speech/writing several times before I press send/say it (and still sometimes the various other meanings that might stream just elude me). It’s like my very specific message gets phrased in a multiple-possible-meanings way : ) (not fun)
Ty for sharing – It resonates – Mars conjunct Nep in 3rd H and bc I grew up oldest in a largely Spanish spkg home, when school time came I lost it and only spoke English-
Yet it seemed to confuse mind and I often struggled to come up with the words I needed and I would transpose them in a sentence and I lagged with comebacks and couldn’t keep up with some of the kids much less make friends.
I was alone – no siblings cousins to support me- younger sibling equally as needy – and it was like bullying but Pluto in the First house must have scared them bc they didn’t push me too far. Just avoided / ignored me.
And thank you!
My sister, like you, has a Mercury Mars conjunction in early Aries(closely conjunct my Mars at 1 deg Aries in my ninth house… actually sesquiquadrate my Scorpio Moon at 16 degrees conjunct Neptune in the fourth).. She has that same problem…she has Neptune in the tenth house and is a pretty good songwriter…in fact she wrote a song called “My Mouth is a Smoking Gun” which is on Youtube… It is pretty good… She is Pisces with a definite twelfth house influence, so struggles with conscious awareness of this problem, despite the song and its title… Our chemistry exists as instant ignition…. And then… A bonfire….
I just realized I’m pretty old. In the old days, we had to be “nice.” Not too hard with Libra rising, but I am a Scorpio sun. So I became a powerful writer, even getting letters to the editor published from the age of 13. (3rd house Moon & Venus). Nowadays, I so appreciate people who are direct. Please, just spit it out!!! For example, I love the acquaintance I asked if she was in love with her new husband. Her reply? With a sigh, “Well, I’ve been married 4 times!!!”