Changing your personality: What does the chart say?

(If this is not posted in the correct board, my apologies. I wasn't exactly sure which one to place this in so I settled on the Natal board.)

I am currently reading the Top 10 Don'ts in Astrology thread and happened across this Don't:

EJ53 said:

Never use astrology to avoid taking responsibility for your faults......If others find you agressive, it's due to you behaving aggressively rather than because you have a Pluto/Mars/Uranus/Asc conjunction.....Use astrology to identify and change your inappropriate behaviour rather than to explain or justify it.

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To me, this post would suggest that while your chart may say your personality is XYZ, you can eventually (and consciously!) change this. Interpreting that post in this way brought up a few questions:

1. Is it really possible to go against the grain of your chart and completely change (aspects of) your personality?
2. And once you change this personality aspect, how do you see this change in your chart?
3. Which charts can you see this change in? (Natal, etc.)

If none of this thread made sense, I'm sorry. Sometimes I cannot get my words out right, even on the Internet world.

That's one interpretation of that post. Another is instead of using the energy of your configurations destructively, it would better to find more constructive ways to use the energy that you were born with. I can see where such a forceful personality as described by that example can be a great force for good and benefit in the world.

Personalities always evolve. None of us are the exact same person at the age of 16 as at the age of 5, or the exact same at 30 as at 16, or at 60 as at 30... there's always some change. Certain aspects of the personality may remain constant, but how you act can change, what you believe can change, how you relate to others can change, and how you relate to yourself can change.

That's not going against the grain of your birth chart, however. Your birth chart doesn't set your personality in stone. What it does is give you a rough outline of how your personality can evolve.

In the example you quoted, the person with the Pluto/Mars/Uranus/AC conjunction is always going to have those planets front and center in the way they meet the world. That could lend itself to aggression, but they could also use that energy to be a good debater, or take up martial arts, or come up with an innovative method of psychotherapy, or anything else that combines fighter and go-getter Mars, innovative and disruptive Uranus, and the depths of Pluto.

If this is someone currently living, they would have to have been born in the 1960s and have those placements in Virgo--that's the only possibility for a Pluto/Uranus conjunction within the last century and a half--so there would be a note of how they go about being useful to society in how they use their Pluto/Mars/Uranus energy. By this time in their life, either they've channeled that energy into success--could be professional success, or just a personally meaningful kind of success--or they've established themself as a jerk who isn't going to change. If they're the first kind of case--successful with those energies--it could very well be that they were an aggressive jerk when they were younger, but over time they've learned to redirect those energies.

elevated said:

(If this is not posted in the correct board, my apologies. I wasn't exactly sure which one to place this in so I settled on the Natal board.)

I am currently reading the Top 10 Don'ts in Astrology thread and happened across this Don't:



To me, this post would suggest that while your chart may say your personality is XYZ, you can eventually (and consciously!) change this. Interpreting that post in this way brought up a few questions:

1. Is it really possible to go against the grain of your chart and completely change (aspects of) your personality?
2. And once you change this personality aspect, how do you see this change in your chart?
3. Which charts can you see this change in? (Natal, etc.)

If none of this thread made sense, I'm sorry. Sometimes I cannot get my words out right, even on the Internet world.

Click to expand...

This thread makes perfect sense, your words came out just fine.


1. Is it really possible to go against the grain of your chart and completely change (aspects of) your personality?

Making changes and improvements does not 'go against the grain' of one's natal chart. The purpose of our incarnations is to evolve, transcend and elevate ourselves.


My niece has Mars in Aries in her 4th, squaring her Uranus/Ascendant in Cap.

As a teen, she had a volatile attitude problem. She would go from 0 to 60 within minutes. Out of nowhere she would get extremely angry or upset and knock something over and run out of the house.

My sis-n'law used to have me look at their charts, and try to find a way for them to get along better. She had her Moon in Cancer making a t-square to the daughters natal square. So she helped trigger some of the outbursts.

Did I tell her that there was no way out of this volatile aspect and they would continue to fight like this forever?

NO, we looked at solutions. Two main solutions were found which helped tremendously.

One, the 'Moon in Cancer Mom' had to stop being so obsessed with her own emotional feelings and start engaging more with her child. Mom was overly sensitive and had been neglecting her daughter by shutting down when her daughter wanted to talk about serious issues that Mom did not want to hear---like the question of her daughter's sexual preferences and her desire to not go to college.

Two, the daughter had to begin channeling that tremendous physical energy into something productive. She began martial arts and then began boxing. She did that seriously for a few years and I think it helped drain some of her underlying resentment. She eventually went back to school and became an EMT, which she loves. It is exciting and it allows her to be adventurous.

She no longer has volatile outbursts like she did in her teens. I don't think it goes against the grain of her chart that she improved her life. She just found other ways to burn off that Mars in Aries energy.

I think it's possible to study one's chart, recognize one's weaknesses, and then set out to correct them. For example, I have Moon in Scorpio, and when I was younger, I used to have a lot of the more negative traits associated with Scorpio. However, as I became older, I started to consciously develop the more positive traits. I am a lot less aggressive and suspicious then I once was.

Every planetary configuration has multiple meanings. So the key is to identify the empowering meanings vs. the disempowering meanings. This isn't "going against the grain" of your chart. Think of it more like driving down a big Interstate highway with multiple lanes. You don't leave the highway, but you can choose which lane to drive in.

For example, Mars rules a volatile type of anger and aggression, but it also rules athletes. Rather than being at the effect of her bad temper, the person could choose to take up a martial art or, really, any high-impact athletic activity. Being active in a sport converts Mars into an empowering planet.

wan said:

I think it's possible to study one's chart, recognize one's weaknesses by best peptides, and then set out to correct them. For example, I have Moon in Scorpio, and when I was younger, I used to have a lot of the more negative traits associated with Scorpio. However, as I became older, I started to consciously develop the more positive traits. I am a lot less aggressive and suspicious then I once was.

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oh yeah, you're definitely right by saying that! that's for sure. i Know it because i have Moon in Scorpio as well and i find myself in your words! in the past i used to be a lot much more aggressive, with age this seems to go away!