Maturing the Baby in All of Us

PRESENT

I learn so much from problems in my writer’s groups.

In my town lives a moderately successful author I’ll call Jane. She’s written nonfiction, horror, and erotic paranormal romance, and she’s been published by one mid-size and several tiny publishers. Her work has been nominated for several awards and won once.  I’ve known Jane for twenty years, and her work has improved by leaps and bounds in the time I’ve known her.

Unfortunately, Jane is so hideously inappropriate in a social setting, it’s terrifying.

Jane can be a nice person. She has a lot of enthusiasm for the craft of writing, and she knows more about self-promotion than I will ever be able to learn or absorb. It’s possible to have a great time with Jane, and it’s possible to have a terrific critique meeting with Jane at the table.

Notice I said, possible. Not, probable.

Jane needs to be the center of attention at all times. She simply hasn’t absorbed social norms like when to stop talking, or when to let another person guide the conversation. Jane needs to be right about everything. She has started two wars over the use of the word was that became heated and went on for half an hour. When others are talking, Jane will fidget and sigh until they are done and she can cut in and monopolize the conversation (again).

Jane can be very sensitive. Everything hurts her feelings, yet these were the comments I received as nice people I miss left my writer’s group one by one:

_{"I'm fighting cancer, and I just can't handle the stress of being around her anymore, so I'm not coming back." "If she tells me one more time that SHE’S published, I’m going to hit her." "She monopolizes the table." "She doesn't know when to shut up." "All she does is brag, and I'm sick of  listening to it." "Everybody can tell Jane has a confidence problem and needs some help, except Jane." "She makes me so angry." "I'm sick of her."}

This week she submitted a story that was an obvious, blatant knockoff of Jurassic Park, saying she was going to submit it for a special issue of a magazine. The three of us left were bewildered, unable to believe that a magazine would accept a story that was such a blatant rewrite of a bestselling novel and movie, and we said so. Jane showed us the guidelines for the issue, and, believe it or not, that was indeed what they had asked for. 

Then she got all hurt over it, that we would assume she was that stupid. An email war resulted, and we no longer have to tolerate Jane at the group.

The question is, why did I tolerate her for so long?

I have these thoughts about that:

1.)    I don’t know how to be assertive, stand up to other people, enforce rules, and shut other people up when they are acting like Neanderthals. (As such, I probably am not the best person to be running a writer’s group. I’m only running this one because someone else stepped down and it was going to go down the tubes if someone didn’t step in and save it.)

2.)    This person is just like my mother. And I’m in some way addicted to her approval and to helping her feel better and fit in.

My mother used to behave exactly the same way. And I knew why. My mother had abusive parents, and she just never got over it. I was perhaps the closest person to my mother, and I saw how badly she felt about herself and how much she suffered.

I was so moved by her pain, I was just fused with it. And a tiny child has no other way to get her needs met except to try to fix the parent.

I tolerated my mother’s behavior forever, wishing, always wishing, that she could find some peace, see that she didn’t have to struggle so much for other people’s attention, validation, and approval, and begin to feel and behave like normal people. And I was doing the same thing with Jane. My mother has never changed. She's never gotten better. 

Neither has Jane.

And I was doing the same thing with Chi.

It just upsets my little child’s mind so much that we live in a world where many, many people are so painfully damaged and so limited that that they just cannot, will not, introspect, see the unnecessary pain they are living in and causing to others, and deal with themselves and get well. 

It’s clear that people like Jane aren’t at all happy, and they spread that unhappiness to others everywhere they go. And that is the truth. In our town, just about everyone who’s been in the writing community for a while has their own personal Jane story, and each one is worse than the next.

Jane really is damaged. Jane really is limited. She’s been this way the entire twenty years I’ve known her. I’ve tried to confront her about this twice, and the news just slid off of her like water off of a duck’s back. Instead of seriously entertaining anything I had to say about how she affected others in the group, she found something to hit back at me with. Just like she always does. Just like my mother always did.

People like this aren’t going to change. They just don’t have the stuff. 

One interpretation of Chiron in the eighth house, which I unfortunately have, is that you keep on picking up wounded birds, wounded birds. And the birds don’t ever get well, and they end up wounding you. And that’s certainly what I’ve done. My stupid mother… the guy before Simon … Simon. (Only Simon fooled me. He wasn’t damaged and limited, just widowed and grieving. I kept waiting for him to get better and decide I was too young, too fat, and not smart enough, and leave me, but he didn’t.)

This occasions a very sobering thought for me.

Chi’s chart tells me that he does have the stuff. He has a choice about what he's going to do and how he's going to live the rest of his life. He’s got a one in three chance of becoming self aware around these childhood issues of his, and buckling down and doing the work. 

But … what if the truth is really going to be that other sixty percent?

What if Chi really is this damaged, this limited, this sick? What if he’s as bad as Jane is? 

What if he just decides to stay asleep, as sick and as stubborn as my mother, forever looking for others’ validation and asking/demanding them to “make” him feel better?

That’s what my mother does. That’s what Jane does. 

That’s what I’ve done (“I can’t survive without RELATIONSHIPS with other people!!”)  

And, so far, that’s what Chi does. 

We’re all still five-year-olds, looking to other people and depending on their behavior in order to feel okay, and "doing stuff" to try to get the response out of other people that we believe we need.  Including some pretty antisocial behavior.

Instead of understanding that we’re adults, we don’t need other people, we’re supposed to take care of ourselves, and that it’s our job to be able to feel okay on our own, regardless of how other people do or do not treat us.

What if Chi, like my mother, like Jane, is just not capable of the introspection and the WORK needed to get over the dastardly childhood wounding and get the fuck well??

Because that’s all I have been doing the past three years. Introspection, looking hard at childhood and how I was wounded, looking at the erroneous beliefs about myself and about the world that I formed because of what happened when I was little, how they are causing me to pick sick people who refuse to get better, and how I need to fix that.

THAT’S what all people need to be doing if they’re going to fix their relationships and their lives and find happiness.

But very, very few people do.

It’s just too hard for them. Too difficult. Too, too scary.

No, far better to hit someone else below the belt instead. Far better to numb out in a book or TV or excessive cleaning, or self-denigration. Far better to wrap oneself around someone else’s problems--especially a child's--instead, ignore your own, and then tell yourself you had no other choice. 

I did this right up until yesterday with Jane, all because I still look at myself as a child. A child who needs other people around or she can’t survive, a child who will do anything to cling to sick people who won’t do their own internal work. A child still trying to "do it for” them, so I don’t have to be alone.

Sick people who won’t do their own internal work: That’s been Chi up to now. He can talk a good game, and he sits in group therapy every week, but if it’s a choice between involving himself in fixing his own childhood issues or running off to involve himself in his kid’s or other relatives’ problems, what does he choose to do?

Is this going to be Chi forever? If it is, the only course of action is to run for my life.

What Astrology has to Say About All This

Looks like we might be about to find out. I didn’t hear from Chi this month … but that transit was only the beginning salvo of a veritable firestorm of affair transits that are starting now and just piling and piling on over the rest of the spring and summer. Two months from now looks like a hot point.

According to my chart, I’m supposed to have learned my lesson by now. Uranus moving off Saturn: I was supposed to have changed my mind about something very important. I had this sense for three years of rushing and rushing to discover all I could about this by a certain date. THAT was the date. 

I think I made my deadline.

Of interest:

Valid during many months: This rather subtle aspect indicates a time in which you will be more courageous and determined to stand up for those things which you feel are vitally important. If you have had a hard time turning your dreams into reality you should now be able to find concrete ways of expressing yourself which more closely reflect your true nature.You will probably come to recognize more clearly those areas in your life which are primarily concerned with fulfilling the expectations of others. 

This is a very good time to consider carefully whether the obligations you have taken on are truly your responsibility. If you have been carrying other people's burdens - possibly in the hope of gaining their affection - you could come to the painful realization that you have been deluding yourself, and that others have only taken advantage of your willingness to help. It is not too late to change such behavior. This will help you to stop wasting your energy in such a futile way, enabling you to devote more of your time to developing your own talents.

Transit selected for today (by user):
Chiron sextile MC,  ,
activity period end of May 2017 until end of February 2019

Isn’t that what I’ve done my whole entire life, starting with my sick BPD mother??

Valid during several months: On the negative side, this can be a time of furious conflict with others. Recent actions by you or by other people may have created energies that lead to anger, rage and general disagreement between you and others. If you have not been careful to enlist people to your side in any work that required your individual initiative and if you have alienated them thereby, you may find now that the forces of opposition have become too great to control.

The other side of this transit is quite different and much more positive. It can mean a time when some activity you started in the past is brought to a triumphal climax. However, you had to face a challenge that tested the validity of what you were doing. If you survived that challenge successfully, you will now enjoy the fruition of that effort.

Transit selected for today (by user):
Mars opposition Sun,  ,
activity period from 20 May 2018 until end of September 2018

Wonder what that activity I started in the past might be? Healing from childhood? Ending this practice of taking in wounded birds and trying to heal my mother, perhaps?

If he shows up on schedule, that would be the test of whether I’ve accomplished that or not. Do I just NEEEED that beautiful dream of being with someone supportive forever-and-ever-like-mommy-and-daddy so badly, I believe it when he shows up and holds it out again?

Or do I recognize someone who HASN’T DONE HIS WORK, and just say no, walk away, and INSIST THAT HE DO HIS WORK?

Interestingly enough, our Davison states that if I’ve accomplished my work, that’s the only way our relationship doesn't fall prey to the same issues stalking Chi's with Rory right now. And I can see a split in my transits right now: Those that talk about good foresight, planning, and ethical standards, and those that talk about a troubled relationship that starts now and breaks up horribly (again) in two years.

Mmm, okay, it’s just a horoscope, but these same events and topics are reflected in all three of our charts, and transits, for the next six years.

I’ve studied these for so long, I’m beginning to see two different timelines in each one, two chains of cause and effect. 

I always wondered how horoscopes allowed for choices in human behavior, and if they did, then the branching timelines ought to be reflected: What if we choose A here? What if we choose B here? Then what?

And it turns out, they're there.

We just don’t see it, because astrologers typically look at only two or three years of transits at a time!

There might really be something to this idea of a doing whole life progression, after all.

More on that later. I’m going to use Rory as an example, since I can see how all her transits from 2014 to now have worked out.

***Next—Rory’s timelines, and how they illustrate the effects of her choices.