by Jan Spiller
These folks are learning that when their harmony is disrupted due to the way someone is treating them, then their approach to that person needs to change. It may be that they need to raise their voice or otherwise firmly let the other person know what they expect in the situation. They are finding out how to support others in being responsible for learning their own lessons. Whatever the other person is experiencing is a direct result of the energy they are putting out, and only by having to deal with the effects himself or herself can their partner grow and change.
The native is also responsible for their own process of self-discovery, and part of that is noticing what does and does not work in the way they approach their relationships. For example, one client with this nodal position had a small business. Wanting to create harmony in the workplace, he was very supportive of his employees—praising them for their work, handling situations where he felt they were upset, and going out of his way to be fair with them.
Over time, their egos began to surge and they became disrespectful. He finally realized that it was his business, and he was paying them to SUPPORT HIM, not the other way around. Once he became willing to accept responsibility for his own harmony, he told them what he needed to happen in the workplace. He let them know that he wanted a positive atmosphere, with no gossiping or negativity, and he wanted the customers treated with respect. Those employees who were willing to support his goals remained, and those who wouldn’t or couldn’t were replaced. The result was that his business began to thrive, and my client again felt harmonious.
Aries North Node people tend to value harmony above all. Consequently, they try to prevent those who are close from experiencing disharmony. They are learning that not everyone has harmony as their primary value. For instance, the other person may value internal conflict as a stepping-stone to gaining new insights and finding a higher resolution.
Generally, if the other person is upset for any reason, the native feels resentful. After all, they went out of their way to help the other person feel harmonious and their partner isn’t cooperating! This dynamic blocks intimacy. Their partner feels violated because they don’t have the space to be upset, and the native feels violated because they ignored their own inner harmony in order to help their partner feel harmonious—and now they’re upset anyway!
Since these people think the other person has to be harmonious in order for them to be harmonious, they often conceal the truth about how they feel, not saying anything that would hurt their partner’s feelings. However, this blocks intimacy because the other person can’t trust them to tell the truth about how they feel and what they really want in the relationship. Because of this insecurity, their partner may begin to withdraw. The other person would much prefer that the native be honest so they could work problems out together—as equals. This would build true harmony in their relationships and allow the possibility for intimacy to be created.
However, until these natives build a stronger personal identity and start taking responsibility for maintaining their own inner harmony, they usually stay constantly tuned in to the other person, monitoring their moods. This makes it difficult for their partner to simply experience themselves without the native being in their space. Sometimes the other person just wants to be left alone rather than being “changed” in order to meet the native’s needs for harmony.
The unconscious, underlying issue is that Aries North Node people often live vicariously through their significant others. If their partner is upset, even if it has nothing to do with them, they take it personally. If their partner starts to cry, they cry—there are no boundaries. The other person ends up feeling that it’s not okay to be upset because it’s so upsetting to the native.
One reason people want to partner with another is so they can share their individual feelings, thoughts, and experiences and help each other grow. For example, the exchange could be as simple as the native just telling the other person: “When you yell and scream like that, it’s upsetting to me”—rather than trying to appease them. By giving them an honest reflection of how their expression is affecting the native, they can help their partner to gain greater self-awareness.
However, in order for this to occur the native must let others be themselves and take responsibility for their own moods. The idea is for them to spend time alone to discover what they’re feeling as a separate individual. Then something new will happen. Maybe they’ll notice that what they felt when they thought their partner wasn’t harmonious was that they felt out of harmony themselves.
Once the native becomes aware of their own internal state, they can experiment with honestly sharing their feelings with their partner. For instance: “I’m feeling confused today—how are you feeling?” If their partner is also experiencing confusion, it may just be a current mood in the atmosphere. And by each sharing their own individual experience, both of them can end up feeling better.
Replacing Rigid Concepts of Fairness with Realistic Acceptance of Self and Others
Aries North Node people tend to sabotage themselves and their relationships due to their ideas concerning “fairness.” They think that others are like them, that everyone “plays fair”—and when others aren’t fair, they often have trouble sticking up for themselves. This is partly due to past lives where they served as peacemakers and diplomats, keeping the peace at any cost.
In this lifetime, their innate sense of diplomacy can lead to repressing their urge to assert themselves in their own best interest. If they can’t see how to deal with something diplomatically, they may just walk away rather than risk a confrontation.
For example, an Aries North Node client was approached by a seminar leader, who invited her to come as a guest and said, if she liked it, she could be part of the team giving the seminar. However, at the end of the evening, he asked her to pay for the seminar. Instead of saying anything, she went ahead and gave him the money. However, after that, she never returned his phone calls, even though she had liked the seminar and it would have been a good business opportunity for her.
Other issues arise around “fairness” when the native isn’t clear in terms of his wants and needs in his relationships. Then, if others don’t meet his expectations, he may decide they aren’t being fair, and present a list of demands in an angry way—taking the other person by surprise. A more successful approach is for the native to be up-front about their needs for support at the beginning of a relationship, and to honestly express needs as they emerge.
For example, before hiring a new employee, the native might say: “Two important values for me are punctuality and a positive work environment. So I need you to be on time every day and maintain a positive attitude. Is this something you can do and are willing to do?” If the employee initially agrees and then falters, instead of complaining that the new person isn’t being fair, the native needs to take him aside and remind him that if he wants to keep his job, he needs to honor their agreement.
Another issue is that Aries North Node people often neglect to determine if they and the other person are able and willing to meet each other’s needs before becoming deeply involved. Some basic things that a person wants in a relationship are not negotiable, and some people’s needs are just not compatible. Discovering this requires clear communication right from the beginning, and can prevent a lot of strife.
For instance, I had a client with this nodal position who went with her husband to a marriage counselor, who asked them both what they wanted in the relationship. My client said: “I want more intimacy,” and her husband answered: “I want to be left alone.” If she had been willing to realistically accept who her husband was and what he wanted, they could have each moved on with their lives at that point. But my client got stuck in the idea of how “unfair” it was that her husband wouldn’t give her what she had been giving him, so they went through five expensive and painful years of counseling before ending their marriage.
These natives can b
e very “tit for tat” in their giving and in comparing themselves with others, and this unhealthy orientation to fairness can lead to manipulation. For instance, an Aries North Node child might say to her parents: “If it were Bobby or Sally, you’d let them do it!” Or when one client says no to babysitting for her Aries North Node daughter, the daughter says: “Well, okay, Mom, but you spend a lot more time with my brother’s son than you do with mine.” My client has her own life. She’s always happy to babysit when she’s free, but doesn’t like feeling manipulated. So when her daughter responds this way, it blocks intimacy.
These people may even be jealous of the attention the people they’re close to give to others. Another client’s Aries North Node husband is jealous of the attention she gives their children. He measures it by the amount of time she spends with their children—he doesn’t think he gets his “fair” share. This dynamic blocks intimacy: The native feels resentful and usually begins withholding from their partner to get even; and the other person pulls back because they don’t like feeling controlled and manipulated.
This is a self-sabotaging habit, because instead of experiencing what others do for them, the native tends to stay lost in their mental comparisons. This just reinforces the notion that others don’t value them and “life isn’t fair,” because in their relationships the only thing they think is fair is if the other person gives the native exactly what the native is giving them.
However, this takes the spontaneity and joy out of giving. It makes others feel obligated to give to the native in specific ways, when they might like to reciprocate in a different way that’s more natural for them. And the native can’t experience the joy of receiving in their hearts if in their minds they are always watching to see if the other person is being fair.
Aries North Node people are learning the value of noticing how the other person is reciprocating, to avoid feeling like the relationship is all one-sided. As they release rigid definitions of fairness they can gain a clearer awareness of whether someone is reciprocating in their own way, or not reciprocating at all. In the first instance, the native can choose to grow by being open to accepting who the other person is and what they are giving, and by authentically letting them know what else they want or need in the relationship. And if someone isn’t reciprocating, the native needs to put aside the unrealistic hope that the other person will somehow “catch on,” and actively teach them about reciprocity.
Being assertive about their immediate needs is a good place to start: “Look, I need some help here.” They are also learning to communicate authentically about what kind of reciprocity they want on an ongoing basis to find out if the other person is able and willing to meet their needs. By taking the risk of revealing what they want, either way the native wins. If the other person’s response shows they really aren’t interested in giving back, then the native knows to stop giving to that person. However, if it’s just that the other person didn’t understand about reciprocation or didn’t realize what the native wanted, it opens the way for them to do their part so that the relationship can be enriched with a flow of love and nurturing energy.
Taking Action Based on Personal Desires, Instinct, and Self-Discovery
Aries North Node people usually look happy—they’re always trying to please others and keep things harmonious. They may have a smile on their faces, but inside feel miserable. When their lives are only about others, it makes them sad on a deep inner level. They keep suppressing their own instincts in order to be “nice,” but their relationships will never yield the joy they seek until they become separate and enact their own individual identity.
These natives don’t want to be totally enmeshed in a relationship. Sometimes they even gain excess weight, unconsciously creating a barrier so that others don’t get too close. It’s very difficult for them to figure out how to maintain their own individual identity within the context of a partnership because they’ve been co-dependent in so many past lives.
Their belief that “I don’t know who I am or what I want” is NOT the truth. It’s just that this awareness has been dimmed from turning their back on themselves to give to others over the course of many past incarnations. However, to gain their independence, the idea is to stop being so busy creating co-dependent energy with others and take time to focus on discovering and developing their own interests.
Ideally, these folks would wait until they feel strong in their own identity before becoming involved with a significant other, since these are the relationships where co-dependency is most likely to develop. And when they do become involved with someone in this way, it’s best to go slowly so they can stay in touch with themselves and maintain their identity as the relationship progresses.
It is through spending time alone that Aries North Node people can reconnect with their inner core and learn to recognize and trust the correctness of their own instincts. And by following these spontaneous impulses, they can learn the process that others already know: how to express their identity by taking action based on trusting their own instincts. Once these folks become aware, they will start to recognize in the moment when an inner impulse arises—thus experiencing further self-discovery as the process of life unfolds.
Sometimes the native fears to share their spontaneous desires with others because they think that if they state what they want, they will be stuck with it forever. They are learning that “wants” are often instantaneous and temporary. One minute someone wants to see a certain movie, then another movie looks more interesting and they change their mind. It’s normal. And even with major commitments, it’s not unusual to negotiate new agreements over time as situations evolve.
However, until these people gain the habit of connecting with their instincts “on demand,” they aren’t always aware of what they want in a specific situation. And when they experience indecision, it’s easy for them to fall back into focusing on the other person and going with the flow of their desires. For example, if the native wants to go out to eat, they would probably have their partner choose the restaurant. If the other person asks them to choose, the native will tend to imagine what their partner would like and voice that as their own preference. Eventually, these unnecessary compromises chip away at their basic sense of self.
This dynamic also blocks intimacy. When the native doesn’t express their own preferences, they not only deprive the other person of a chance to please them, but they prevent themselves from experiencing the love inherent in having their partner honor their desires. Until they begin expressing their wants and needs, they actually prevent the reciprocity they so greatly desire in their relationships.
In fact, it’s so easy for these people to fall back into pleasing others that when someone asks them something, they could say: “I need to think about that” or “I’ll get back to you.” This gives them a chance to get in touch with what they really want.
The issue of indecision usually occurs in all areas of their life—whether to send their child to pre-school, what color to paint their car, etc. On a deep level they instinctively know the “right answer” for them, but they second-guess themselves by enlisting other people’s opinions and considering the issue through their eyes.
For example, for their vacation they’re choosing place A or place B, and they feel instinctively drawn to B. But instead of trusting their inner feelings, they’ll keep asking people until someone says: “I like place B”—and then the native will say “GREAT!” and choose B.
Since in their mind they have taken another’s advice, this process just distances them further from connecting with their own innate knowing. It also tends to block intimacy in their relationships. Because they want to be nice, the native usually agrees with the other person’s advice, but may fail to act on it. Then they feel guilty, and the other person often ends up feeling discounted. Or if the native does act on another’s advice, they may feel angry if they don’t like the results.
A less
on for Aries North Node people is to take time alone to allow their own correct answers to arise from within. They DO actually know; they just need to tune in to themselves and start taking action based on their own instincts of what is right for them. They can practice by making simple decisions completely on their own—like what kind of coffee to order or which magazine to buy. This will stimulate an unused part of themselves, and as it becomes stronger over time, they will grow to trust it. When they begin making their own decisions, they won’t feel so needy and will naturally begin to gain a sense of their own personal power.
However, this process is hindered when these natives allow themselves to be influenced by others’ opinion of them. They can become so concerned with how they’re seen by another that they completely lose touch with their own internal process. If they think that someone perceives them in a way they deem to be unacceptable, they tend to change the way they present themselves rather than look at the feeling or intention that is motivating their behavior. And this blocks the process these natives most need to experience in this lifetime: growth through honest self-discovery.
It is only when they become willing to reveal themselves—and see themselves—through authentic interactions with others that they get a true reflection that can help them grow. They may have unconscious issues with lust, greed, fear, etc.—and they can never heal whatever is on their “shadow side” if they never see it. By disclosing their inner self to another, if the reflection is negative, they have a chance to discover what is driving their behavior and to make vitalizing changes.
For example, I have an Aries North Node friend who has money issues—his approach to money is miserly and incorrect. His wife would often berate him for being so cheap (a negative reflection). His response was to just give her total control over their finances. But putting his image first (he didn’t want to be seen as cheap) and giving financial control to his partner did nothing to resolve his own issues about money. It’s a temporary fix, rather than a lasting growth of character.