I am always somewhat taken aback when people say "handle", "manage", "use", "control", "transcend"....an aspect.
It is my opinion -- and it is only that -- that we do not handle or transcend the aspects in our chart (the map of our destiny.) We live with them.
With time, persistence, conscious purpose, or the ever-popular and catchy word "intention," it may be that we can succeed in converting the more negative expressions of an aspect into more positive ones, but to say we have "used effectively" or "transcended" these aspects seems a bit ambitious to me.
Here is a fact about astrology. It works. It predicts your character and destiny accurately. Anyone with an open mind and the expertise needed to read a chart in its development over time can see this. In other words, each of us is born to a destiny, which we will live out with or without our consent. The path of destiny may lead us through a Rose Garden, or the Land of Milk and Honey. But just as often it leads through the Swamp of Despair. This observable,demonstrable fact is a pretty big bump in the road for the theory of free will.
I can't fly at will like a bird, or swim the oceans like the wandering whale. I can't get a U-Haul and move my kit to Windsor Castle and expect a big housewarming. I can only see and live life from my human perspective, a very limiting constraint; I am not and cannot be a tulip. I am born into a certain time in history, and that time binds me to its nature. I am a man or a woman and can't be the other. I am European, or African, Asian or "Pacific Islander," and these facts of inheritance limit me further.
It should be clear to anyone that free will, if it exists at all, is a very limited free will. It boils down to choosing between vanilla and chocolate. The people of the Sixteenth Century did not have that choice, and, we exclaim, here is proof of my ever-increasing free will.
I wiil use this gift to control my aspects, to transcend them and become even greater than I am. Lotsa luck, Kilroy.
"Dealing" with aspects is, most effectively and realistically, learning something about their nature, causes, effects and accepting them for what they are. In effect, handling your aspects amounts to seeing their expression in your own character and learning to love yourself just as you are.
If you manage to do that little trick (well, it sounds easy enough), then and only then are you in a position to "change" anything. Changing is not as easy as accepting. But change can't occur until there has been acceptance.
Spiritual growth is the result of or concomitant with growth of Consciousness (Awareness of Reality.) Delusion is a powerful barrier to spiritual growth. If we can't see reality for the smoke of delusion, we can't become aware. Most of us like to think we are This when we are really (at least some of the time) That. Ask me and I'll tell you what a good guy I am; ask my enemies and you may hear a different story. But I don't believe my enemies. For as long as we continue to delude ourselves about ourselves, our lives will continue along the path they have followed since before our memory.
A friend of mine believed, deep within herself, that she had let her younger sister down over the course of their lives. She looked carefully at all the past events and actions, and concluded that logically and rationally she had not let her sister down. But her deep feelings would not listen to nor accept logic and reason. She still felt guilty, as much as ever. How do our feelings (over which we have very little control in our natural state) influence the "determination" to overcome (transcend) our problem aspects?
In my personal chart there is a partile and applying quincunx between Moon and Uranus. Arc distance is 35'. The two planets are under the dominion of the same ruler, therefore similarly determined (or inclined). Moon is Lady of the Horoscope, and therefore highly influential in the life. Because the aspect is partile (exact) it indicates something in my nature that is very strong, and also shows catalyzing and fortifying events/conditions very early in life, and thus is deeply imprinted on my psyche. Do you really think I am am going to go to the spa, wash off this old aspect, and have the trainer rub me down with some mysterious essential oil guaranteed to "change the aspects of my personality"? I'm in my 8th decade of life now. Moon and Uranus are still there; they aren't going away. They together will cause certain kinds of events/conditions in my life until the day I die.
And I simply can't change that aspect. It is far too deep, too powerfully rooted in my being. Better than fight against it is to learn its meanings and expressions, to look in the mirror and recognize it as part of my self, to accept and love that part of me, and to learn in just what sort of situation the aspect is of benefit to me and the world. To wish to change the consequences of this aspect is a vain hope. Some things must be, even though we would will it otherwise.