On stopping

I'm a recovering Plutonian, which is a big part of why I write about Pluto and Plutonians a lot. Of course, whatever energy you're born with is energy that you have to contend with for the rest of your life, but Pluto (or anything, for that matter) doesn't force you to deal with it in the same way or using the same methods. You can grow and evolve and decide to leave old patterns behind at any time.

It was in college that I realized that I was ruining my own life by holding on to resentments, so I decided to stop. That's all it took: the decision to stop. I once asked someone with a strong Pluto how he quit smoking and he said "I just stopped." You don't really need assistance when you have this much emotional energy at your disposal, you simply decide to use it differently. (The problem occurs when you apply this methodology globally: if you are Plutonian, you must remember that other people do not have your wherewithal and it's not nice to force them to try to keep up.)

What I have found amongst my Plutonian brethren is that the more self-aware you become and the more you understand the subconscious emotional forces that are motivating you, and really look at them, the more you can empower yourself to change and leave old patterns behind. Said another way: just learn to be really honest with yourself, and find someone else you can talk to honestly (or several people, even, but I understand trust is a factor). It's really cathartic. Exposing the truth to light is the remedy to suffering in darkness every time, and I don't care how bad that truth is. This is true for anyone, because we all have Pluto in our charts somewhere, but it's especially true for those of you who have Pluto on one of the 4 chart angles we care about, or Pluto tied up with your sun or moon somehow. It can feel like you're compulsively trapped in endless psychological bullshit otherwise, and that you're at the mercy of forces you don't understand.

I have a 7th house Pluto (with Saturn) so the people I attract to me are Plutonian as hell. Occasionally, I get an evolved one, but my life has seemed like a revolving door of people who have big feelings, blame me for them, and then have some kind of explosive event that leaves me alone to deal with the fallout. One Plutonian method of solving problems is bridge-burning: you stack your issues on the other side of a bridge and then you set it on fire on your way out. How well do you think this works? You're just sending your feelings into your subconscious where you can't process them by deciding to “cut off” your feelings. They don't really go anywhere. And you're doing damage to another person in the process, which is the only thing I'll say in defense of myself, since this has happened more times than I would like to think about*.

It's a problem I don't have a solution to because it keeps happening. I understand the behaviors because I have done them myself, and I know that this is not the way to peacefully sleep at night: taking out your problems on someone else and expecting to feel better. In a lot of cases, the fact that I exist has been the problem in the first place, so for them to pretend I don't exist hurts, frankly. But they only pretend I don't exist most of the time, and then check up on me occasionally to see if I'm still alive. I know that game, too. I've played them all. I get it; I'm personally retired from it. I'm also not going to fight against someone's stated or obvious wishes that I get gone. So: this is not the place to look for absolution. It's an inside job and it always was.

It's a nice life over here on the other side. If you're willing to look deeply at yourself, you learn to see other people a different way, not as opponents or enemies, but as flawed people trying to make it work for themselves, just like you. You realize that weakness isn't a cardinal sin and that a bad mood isn't the end of the world. You also quit probing people emotionally (or otherwise) to find out what they're about and what their limits are. I recommend the "live and let live" lifestyle: it's much more peaceful. The more you understand yourself, the more you understand the people around you. It's a gift if you can reverse the energy that otherwise feels like a diabolical treadmill to nowhere. All you have to do is decide to stop.

*I will still burn bridges, but there will be warnings before anyone sees any flames.