by Jan Spiller
Also, not allowing the energy of the other person’s words to penetrate their thinking freezes the ideas, not allowing them to expand into a higher form. This prevents resolution because the other person can’t work out a solution with them—it just becomes a battle of wits. Without the framework of a conscious connection with a Higher Power, the source for that “third point” that is on a higher level than either person’s original idea is blocked. As a result, the closest intimacy these natives can come to is an objective understanding of the other person’s position—creating a resolution that both people feel deeply good about is not possible.
Gaining true resolution requires a healthy, vital exchange that is not premeditated or constrained—both people freely sharing their thoughts as they arise. When the native allows this ingredient of spontaneity, it gets the energy moving and brings their conversations—and their relationships—to life. This is because in order for a relationship to progress, the energy needs to be free-flowing to create vitality. In the native’s relationship, the energy tends to get bogged down. Since they don’t trust the natural spontaneity of the process, they unconsciously try to slow things down with their overactive mind. They think they need to understand everything that’s happening in order to make sure it’s “safe.” But the end result is that both people tend to lose touch with their feelings, which of course blocks the intimacy they seek.
These dynamics lead to one of Sagittarius North Node people’s greatest relationship hurdles—their reluctance to make promises or commit to anything in the future. An overanxious mental state makes them feel that things could change, including their feelings toward the other person, so they’re always fearful about making plans. For instance, if their partner says: “Let’s go to Paris next summer,” they don’t want to commit, even if they really care about the other person and have a great relationship. Naturally, their partner feels the native’s hesitancy—it hurts their feelings and creates distance in the relationship.
Underlying this issue is—again—the native’s tendency to discount their intuition and let their overactive mental processes take over. So their best bet when they hear “Let’s go to Paris” is to trust their very first spontaneous “knowing” of what is correct in the situation. Then it’s important that they don’t second-guess themselves with all of their “logical” pros and cons.
One of this nodal group’s lessons is learning to see life more as an adventure, and to follow their heart instead of their mind. However, it can be difficult for Sagittarius North Node people to take this risk. Reliance on their mental construct usually creates success for them in the outside world, since their decisions are mostly materially based and their logic evokes logic in others. Also, unresolved patterns from past lives focusing on “selling” rather than “substance” results in confusion about how to navigate their relationships.
For instance, when they are out of touch with their intuition, they may rely on logic alone to choose a mate, and get so distracted by their compulsion to “sell themselves” to that person that they don’t tune in to whether or not the relationship will actually make them happy. But if they don’t get in touch with their own personal feelings and beliefs so that they’re operating from a higher plane, later on they may regret their choice. When these people base their lives—even their most personal family relationships—on left-brain logic, it blocks intimacy, because others don’t feel they can relate to the native on any other level.
Another factor that affects their relationships is that these people have active minds, are often very intelligent, and tend to feel that they’re smarter than everyone else. In order to manipulate how others see them, they either use logic to demonstrate their mental superiority or deliberately underplay their mental abilities so others won’t think they’re full of themselves—which is another form of a “white lie.” As a result, the other person often feels tricked into supporting the native, who may use their mental agility to appear helpless in order to gain control of a situation.
Until these folks claim a foundation of true substance on a spiritual level, playing these “mind games” is the only way they know how to gain a sense of security. When they “win,” they temporarily feel secure and think that they’re on track. But what really happens is that the other person just gets tired of the game because it’s so superficial.
There can be no intimacy without a deep exchange of significant ideas about what’s real and true for both people. But Sagittarius North Node people tend to avoid depth and substance because they fear entering unknown realms. However, it is only the realm of Truth that can bring them the peace of mind they so earnestly seek. Until they develop this personal connection with Truth, these folks may stay stuck in a superficial, materialistic realm, with a very limited perspective about what’s actually important. Intimacy is blocked because their partner can sense the native’s lack of connection to their inner core, and without that there’s a whole range and depth of personal connection with others that can’t happen. This is why aligning with a spiritual path and practicing prayer or meditation is an important part of their destiny.
Overcoming the Self-Defeating Habit of Manipulation
Sagittarius North Node people believe that if they can keep their relationships light and happy so that others are laughing and having fun, the other person will always want to be around them. Then the negative outcome they fear—the other person won’t like them or will leave—won’t happen. They’ll do anything—tell jokes, stand on their head, suggest card games—to keep the other person feeling happy.
However, the truth is that this actually blocks intimacy, because the native is playing the role of “the clown.” The clown doesn’t have any real relationships, and it isn’t who the native really is. This role is just an unconscious mechanism the native employs to keep the other person connected so they can feel secure. As a result, life becomes a series of temporary distractions from whatever is profound and meaningful, so there’s no true connection or depth in the relationship. This blocks intimacy for the other person because they can feel they’re relating to a role rather than a real person. They enjoy being with the native, but it’s difficult to develop a real bond and they don’t feel truly understood or acknowledged.
These people tend to have lengthy, “logical” conversations in their mind about the other person: “If I tell him ___, THEN he will think ____…I can’t tell them…I don’t see any way out…” It seldom occurs to them to simply reveal the truth of the situation or honestly share what it is they are experiencing. However, using their finely tuned logic to convince, coerce, or manipulate the other person so they will be “on the same page” can backfire.
For example, I had a client with this nodal position whose boyfriend, at the beginning of their relationship, didn’t want to commit to monogamy. He tried to share how he felt about it, but she responded with: “Monogamy is only logical because of all the sexually transmitted diseases going around.” Although they both agreed not to have other lovers, she never listened to find out how he actually felt about it—she just got him to accept her logic. However, because he was not at a place in his life where he was ready for a monogamous relationship, eventually he did sleep with others, and my client ended up with an STD.
Until these people become conscious, they often lack a commitment to revealing Truth and may withhold sharing their honest opinions and feelings to avoid hurting another’s feelings. They have no problem telling white lies and even make promises they don’t intend to keep, in the name of social graciousness, tact, and good manners. For example, once when I returned a rental car, I told the owner of the company: “Look, when a tire goes flat, generally the rental company handles it. When I had to pay for it, it left a negative feeling about your company.” This honest feedback from a customer gave the owner the option of reevaluating this policy. However, my Sagittarius North Node friend who was with me urged: “Just don’t say anything. It will just cr
eate a bad feeling.”
Sometimes these natives will tell lies when it’s totally unnecessary and often about something quite trivial—just to manipulate the way another person sees them. However, this type of dishonesty has a ripple effect and tends to damage more than just the one relationship that’s directly involved. A white lie told to one person often ends up creating a moral dilemma for someone else.
For instance, one client overheard her Sagittarius North Node boyfriend tell a friend who lived in another state that he hadn’t returned her many calls because he had been in the hospital with a broken arm. This put my client in an uncomfortable situation when she had to speak with this friend at a later date, and she was asked about her boyfriend’s arm. And it certainly damaged the trust my client felt for him when she heard him lying just to avoid saying he’d been too busy to call. These people are learning that even a little white lie can have huge consequences, because when the other person learns the truth, it creates twice the problems that might have been caused if they had been honest initially.
Besides the obvious issue of trust, telling white lies also blocks intimacy, because when others notice their lack of honesty, they may feel entitled to withhold the truth from the native as well. Over time, their relationships become superficial and meaningless. When neither person can count on anything as being true, neither person can risk getting deeply involved on an emotional level. This habit also shows a disregard for the other person’s right to have accurate input. These people are learning that sharing the truth with others—and being open to hearing their truth—is how both people can learn and grow.
And if all this isn’t enough, white lies create clutter in the mind that stimulates excess thinking—which is the last thing these people need! When a lie is told—or the truth withheld—that information has to be stored in case there’s a situation where the lie has to be repeated, or something else altered to be congruent with it. When the truth is told, the situation can be released. This creates space, freedom, and peace of mind. And when they’re straightforward, the karma of lying doesn’t create unpleasant experiences in their life later on.
For example, a Sagittarius North Node client agreed to have lunch with an old boyfriend she hadn’t seen in years. She didn’t tell her current boyfriend because she was afraid that he might feel bad or think something was going on. These natives try to control what others think about them, but they don’t see it as controlling. To them, it’s just a small lie that prevents potential problems. But in the end, this behavior blocks intimacy. In this situation, it showed that my client lacked trust that her boyfriend would recognize it was okay for her to see an old lover. It also undermined the development of the relationship because it didn’t give her partner the chance to demonstrate his trust in her.
I had another Sagittarius North Node client who, in his early twenties, was dating a woman he really cared about. However, when he went out of town for a couple of weeks he hooked up with another woman for a brief fling. When he told his girlfriend, she broke up with him. From that experience he concluded that there were certain things you either don’t bring up or you tell white lies about them. He took this as a life lesson—a common conclusion among this nodal group—and felt quite comfortable with telling white lies from that point on.
Even though this policy may seem to make their relationships work more smoothly, it blocks the creation of true intimacy. For one thing, a lie is always accompanied by feelings of guilt. In this situation, even if my client had told his girlfriend a white lie, it would have created distance between them. Consciously or unconsciously, he would have always felt a sense of guilt that would have kept him from being fully present with her. When the native tells a white lie, their partner senses that they can’t get close to a part of them but doesn’t understand why—so they end up feeling confused and hurt.
In this situation, the way the native handled it could have affected the outcome. Rather than a blunt disclosure, if he had used the gift for communication and smoothing things over that this nodal group developed in past lives, he probably could have been honest in a way that drew her closer rather than pushed her away. For instance, he might have shared that seeing other people while he was away helped him to realize that he wanted a monogamous relationship with her.
However, an even better outcome would have been to listen to his conscience in the first place and not had an affair when he already had a girlfriend he cared about. These people are learning to value the inner strength and joy that comes from listening to their conscience and acting in alignment with their ethics, morals, and higher principles.
Superficial Adaptations vs. That Which Is Real and Meaningful
In their relationships, Sagittarius North Node people have a tendency to look to the other person, expressing only those parts of themselves that they think will “work” for their partner. For example, maybe a man with this nodal position is looking for a wife. He knows that he likes women who take care of him—but he feels insecure. Do women prefer men who take charge, run the family, and handle the finances? Should he try harder to express those aspects of his personality?
The native doesn’t let others see the expression of their natural and authentic nature; instead, they present a superficial adaptation that they think will create harmony in that situation with that particular person. As a result, they are constantly needing to shift their position depending on the other person. This blocks intimacy because there can be no depth to the relationship if their partner doesn’t know who the native really is.
These natives also have the belief that if they don’t keep the energy with their partner light and happy, the relationship will dissolve. This fear (for them) of the unknown realms of Truth and authenticity blocks intimacy. When they feel the conversation becoming more serious or profound they tend to pull back and change the subject to bring the energy back to a more superficial level. Any distraction will do: shopping, playing cards, watching television, going to the movies—as long as they can avoid anything with depth or substance. Part of this dynamic is due to the native knowing that their minds are hyperactive and that they think too much. In fact, they tend to admire people who are more easygoing. Since they see themselves as being overly serious, they think that if they let the other person also become too serious, the relationship will get dull and dry and their partner will leave. This is one reason they joke around so much and deliberately try to keep things lighthearted and superficial.
So when these people walk into a situation that’s a little heavy, they almost always try to lighten the mood—which can cause problems in their relationships. For example, if someone comes to them with a problem and they make light of a situation that is serious, the other person is likely to be upset. Their partner feels “not seen” when the issue is discounted by superficiality that doesn’t allow for a deep exchange of Truth. This blocks intimacy because the other person’s response is usually to withdraw.
For these natives, their best bet is to switch gears and really pay attention when another person is upset about something. If they think a situation is lighter than it actually is and make a mistake in their approach, it’s best to just say: “I’m sorry—I didn’t realize how important this is to you.” If they’re tuned in, they can tell in the other person’s eyes when the matter is serious. An appropriate response might be: “I’m listening now. Please tell me what’s going on.”
They need to stop being flippant and show their willingness to have a serious conversation. If they don’t, their partner will withdraw because they feel the native doesn’t really care about where they’re coming from. For these people, going beyond the limits of light superficiality and caring enough to handle a situation differently works to create intimacy. They are learning that it’s safe and healthy to engage with others in discussing more serious issues if their intention is to actually create resolution. It works best when they don’t allow themselves to become trapped in
their mental habit of perpetually mulling things over or get hung up in attachment to specific words.
Sometimes Sagittarius North Node people spark debate because they insist that others use exactly the same words they do to talk about something. Partly this is due to many past life experiences as teachers. When they share information, they want to be sure the other person has understood them accurately, so they correct them if the words are “wrong” or a certain part of what they say is “incorrect”—i.e., doesn’t exactly match what the native told them. They can become very dogmatic, which of course pushes others away. Another part of this dynamic is that the native is “teaching what they need to learn.” When the other person accepts exactly what they say, the native feels like their ideas have been validated, and they can believe their own perceptions on a much deeper level. They are learning to trust their own connection with Truth, without needing the agreement of others.
Another issue that can negatively impact their relationships is that they enjoy gossiping. These people are very personable and like other people. They want to know what other people are doing—not in a malicious way, but more as a kind of pastime. They like it when others tell them what’s going on with them, and they like spreading the information. When they share gossip and it elicits an emotional response from others, it makes the native feel important and allows them to experience an intense mental connection with another—again, on a “safe,” superficial level.
At the end of the day, this habit prevents them from establishing deeper connections because it makes others afraid to share anything meaningful with the native. They fear their secrets will be exposed—not out of ill will, but just because the native can’t keep their mouth shut. And ironically, the native thinks: “Well, if I’m gossiping about others, others are probably gossiping about me”—so they don’t reveal their private self either. Without this essential sharing of self, their relationships remain on a superficial level and a sense of loyalty and safety never develops. It is to their advantage to cease the practice of gossiping.