Getting a fire under your butt

Do you really, sincerely want to make changes in your life this year? Like, are you at the place where you realize you need to stop doing X and start doing more Y, or you're just unhappy with overall trends and you want to make some shifts so that a year from now you're looking back on you from today and shaking your head with disbelief at how much progress you've made?

Here's one way to do this: identify the target area where you want to make sustained behavior change, and figure out what energy you have at your disposal in this area, then figure out how you *typically* use this energy, and brainstorm *different* uses for this energy, then try different ideas to see what works. Like if you have a bunch of Capricorn energy, you could be wandering around critiquing everything and giving new meaning to the word "myopic"....or you can become master of your own domain by directing that energy inward, getting organized, and making sure you remain aware of controlling YOUR universe instead of everyone around you. Got Taurus? Get yourself a routine that you're comfortable with instead of just being lazy. Gemini? introduce variety to areas of your life where you can afford to lose focus, so that when you need to concentrate, you can.

You have to work backwards a little bit by looking at your own energy and what is causing what (you can spend time solving the wrong problem if you identify the wrong thing as causing the behavior you want to change--ask an expert). You can also watch transits to specific energy chunks to see what comes up when the sun, moon, Mercury, whatever, etc., hits it.

Everyone in my immediate family has their moon in some aspect to Pluto (we all have different aspects, too). You know what that is in its base form? Tantrums. Holding grudges for longer than it takes Styrofoam to decompose. You know what else it can be used for? Changing your habits overnight. Being a natural psychologist. Understanding other peoples' motivations. Being really useful in a crisis, because you'll just respond without freaking out. Just because you're prone to tantrums doesn't mean you have to have tantrums forever, and stopping using an energy for a certain activity frees you up to use it a different way.

What you can't do is adopt energy you don't actually have: it's not sustainable and you'll make yourself miserable. When I was younger and dumber, I tried to emulate the enthusiasm of someone who has a lot of enthusiasm (Leo moon, Sagittarius rising). I ... have a Capricorn moon. Nothing I'm gonna do is going to change the fact that I'm more *comfortable* being reserved. But, like I said, younger and dumber: I lasted two weeks trying to be a cheerleader for shit I didn't believe in. Now, when I need to muster enthusiasm, I engage the Sagittarius energy that I do have, knowing that I can sustain it in short bursts, but it's more of an inner-facing energy than an outward-facing one, because it's in a water house (meaning it's going to operate on the feelings plane). How I hack this: I do something to make myself FEEL ridiculous, so then I'll act ridiculous.

You also cannot cut off energies you don't like. Let's say you have a Mars-Saturn conjunction in your 4th house, and you can be...mean...at home, and you'd like to stop doing that. Great. You can't just say "I'm gonna stop" and not find something else to do. Mars-Saturn needs a job or it will either keep doing what it was doing (being mean) or build up tension somewhere emotional (4th house!). So: take up cake baking, home renovating, thorough house cleaning, helping elderly family members, running a restaurant or hotel, fostering dogs, or anything that engages nurturing something in a home-based or food-based environment. Or watch your blood pressure go up.

So while you can't change your nature, you can adjust the hell out of it.

Happy New Year!J