One useful trick is to imagine that your squares or oppositions are trines or sextiles. Same planets, just different aspects. What would your life look like if you were to work toward the more empowering interpretations?
Another strategy is to think through how the opposing or squared planets opperate in your life. Let's suppose that someone has the sun in Virgo opposite the moon in Pisces. Virgo is a perfectionist and feels happy when she is improving something. Pisces is highly impressionable, a psychic sponge, with a deep-seated "go with the flow" philosophy of life and a rich imagination.
How does each get its needs met? One way is to "side" with either planet (oftentimes the more personal planet in a pair) and then imagine the other planet as its wise teacher or coach. Virgo coaches Pisces about turning that imagination into beautiful art work. Pisces coaches Virgo about letting go of her need to be perfect because she is just fine the way she is. Both of them are happy when the person takes up yoga.
Squares generate a certain amount of inner pressure to manifest the two planets. This is why squares often indicate what people do really well, even if they find the activity stressful, because they have a constant urge to develop the energies that the planets represent.
Again, it is important to find empowering interpretations. Neptune is the modern ruler of drugs, alcohol, undiagnosed illnesses, mysticism, and the ocean. Mars rules one's aggression, athleticism, assertiveness, and violence. So if someone has Mars square Neptune, she could obviously engage in some pretty self-destructive behaviour! But maybe she lives by the ocean and takes up jogging (Mars) along a beach-front path. Or sailing or sea-kayaking. A Mars square demands a martial expression, but now she has something that satisfies both it and Neptune. Or maybe she turns her Neptunian mysticism into an alternative therapy for injured war veterans (Mars.)
The sign, house, and ruler of the house cusp obviously give a lot of clues as to which solution out of many will feel right to the individual.