Controlling Your Impulse To Shoot Yourself In The Foot

Do you struggle to control your impulses? It’s pretty common to see a person shoot themselves in the foot. There are so many ways to do this!

You may shoot at the wrong time, or shoot at the wrong person.
You can two both these things, simultaneously.
Ouch!

There are people who do this, habitually, throughout there entire lives. Mars is involved, of course. A person can have a hair trigger. In other cases, it’s more of a Piscean thing. A person’s arrow is misguided or their anger misplaced.

However it happens, I’ve noticed that people who do this rarely apologize. They choose (consciously or otherwise) to live with consequences, even when the consequences are crippling.  There get all righteous about whatever it is they’ve done. You can’t reason with them, not that anyone is going to try anyway.  The person may not wish to be lonely, but this is often the result, over time.

Some people do catch on. I work with people like this pretty frequently. All the sudden they see it – cause and affect.   When this happens, provided a person wants to change; they have to learn new skills.

The upside is, this is a fixable problem. You, yourself, are in control.

People don’t want to discipline their impulses but if you can learn to do this, it makes an enormous difference over the course of a lifetime. Do you shoot first, think second?

Here’s Taj Mahal singing Mississippi John Hurt’s, “Frankie & Johnnie”. Listen to it and ask yourself how many times you’ve pulled a Frankie.

This is a Mars thing, but it’s also a “pride” thing.  With the Sun in Leo conjunct Mars today, I thought this might be a good time for this.

Have you ever mowed someone down in error?  Have you ever gone back and make it right?

23 thoughts on “Controlling Your Impulse To Shoot Yourself In The Foot”

  1. I have, actually.
    With Mars in square with my Moon, things can really be explosive. Transit Pluto hitting my moon from the 12th house (Mars is very close to my 12th as well), have kinda kinked out the worst of it from 2013-2015, and from then it hasn’t felt like my Mars-square was quite that harsh. Because I had it worse 😉

    But yeah, I DO actually care a lot about whether or not I’ve affected people with my Shoot-first-ask-later approach through life. Moon in Libra being that way I guess. We just want to be liked SO MUCH that we worry incessantly about teeny details – and then forget the big stuff, ending up putting our foot in our mouth (Mercury in 8th house Scorpio – my speech cut to the bone sometimes). So yeah, I try not to say too much when I don’t know the people I’m with. Not always a success, but … I try 😉

  2. I have… when I was younger and I probably didn’t apologize. I have Aries rising, Moon Square Mars and Mars opposite Uranus. I was a firecracker. I hardly do that now. Age has simmered me down. My Mars is in Taurus so If I act out now it’s because I’ve hit my limit. I respect people who have self control so I try to have it as much as possible.

  3. Yes, yes, to your questions Elsa. I have an Aries moon but thank God, it’s conjunct Saturn, this has saved me a million times – halting my anger and firing power and helping to digest rage, squaring natal merc in capricorn has helped with building useful strategies that have without doubt saved me from pelting bullets and being pelted. Lots of Libra and venus in 10th house, ideal for apologizing, post factum.

  4. I tend to learn from observing others mistakes more easily that I do my own because it’s harder to look at my own mistakes objectively, especially in the moment. So while I do have that hair trigger impulse — Mars in Aries aspected by Uranus and Jupiter — I have learned, mostly through observing the behaviour of other people, how to behave in an upright way, because I tend to prefer the good in people over the bad –i like to see people do the right thing.

    I’m quite Jupiterian and Jupiter and Mars are aspecting and in their own signs (final dispositers) — translated, in astro language — have a strong drive and impulse(Mars) to fight (Mars) for Justice (Jupiter) and I can be crazy and impulsive (uranus) about it to, so I dont always think before firing. My strong sense of justice can go one of two ways — at its base level, it can be used to get even, forgetting all consequence, only focused on the eye for an eye… or it can do the right thing (jupiter is a benevolent planet after all). I can detach (uranus) even, and remember what I have learned objectively (uranus) by learning what is right (jupiter) and what is wrong.

    I mostly have control of myself now-a-days — I have learned to detach and see situations objectively. Trial and error. I also continuously remind myself “this to shall pass” in the heat of the moment. All feelings are temporary — if I can sucessfully ride out my fury, without lashing out, i always give myself a pat on the back — its progress! It gets easier all the time, but I’m sure I’ll still never be perfect.

    1. I have T Neptune exactly on my Merc. I read back over this a couple times like damn..i can see where i started off with a complete thought and it evaporated or something…like 3 or 4 times in the 3 paragraphs above. Neptune/Mercury = cool thoughts with no form… funny, i have someone close to me with the square and they do this veering off thing all the time. i understand why they do it a lot better now.

      This transit is weird. Lol

  5. Many times. Mars conjunct Moon. I have had to learn and contain my own impulses from blowing up bridges. But it’s still difficult emotionally to overcome. Thank goodness my Mars is in Taurus–it slows it down a little. But when it blows, it’s like Mount St. Helens. ?

  6. anonymoushermit

    I knew an Aries rising woman like this. I forgave her the first two times. The third, I cut her out of my life.

  7. Sometimes I see someone just SHRED their foot. And I think, OW! That’s going to hurt in the morning.

    Then I recall this man I knew when I was young. I met him when I was 15 years old, tending bar. A biker dude. I ran to him some years later…I was probably 21 at that time. He was missing an arm!

    He told me he was lying on his bed, drunk as snot, when he decided to shoot his arm. He said he could see the pieces of it on the ceiling…whoops.

    He laughed when he told this story, thank God. Because I laughed, he was funny. But he was in the bar drinking OJ. He carried a cane and used the hook to pull things near him. For example if he was going to punch you, he would put his cane around your neck, pull you close and then thump you with his stump.

    ::laughs::

    It was hilarious, really. But I never forgot what I saw that day, nor what I learned.

  8. Avatar
    ScottishFoldSoul

    I’ve shot my mouth off more times than I can count but would far say more often at the wrong time than the wrong person. Nothing is lonelier than being in the company of those whose sanity depends on their need to assert their way is the only right way. I don’t tell other people how to think and don’t tolerate it in my direction either.

  9. Right on time… I just quit one of my jobs this morning. The owner of the store I worked at, made products for and did bookkeeping (plus a hundred other things) hasn’t been valuing me and cut my hours without telling me. A small cut but a cut nonetheless and without regard to discuss it with me. Ok fine. So I found a third job. I went to tell him last night and he flipped out because now I’m taking control and cutting my own hours. He would rather me leave than cut hours. When I went to talk to him this morning and see if he would be a grown up about it, we had a blow out. I left to the tune of “Who do you think you are?” and “If you walk out then don’t come back.” He can figure out how to make his own products and how to help his customers alone. He did not apologize or care that I’m the single mother sharing a bed with my 13 year old son. I need to be working and I am a great worker. He shoot himself when he blew up at me. I have other jobs. I’ll be fine.

      1. He could have had me there to train and participate in a mutually beneficial transition for an undefined amount of time. He could have done anything other than yelling at me. Instead, he lost his mind and I don’t feel bad for him. I have pride too. I don’t think my pride would have outweighed my ability to reason but shots were fired and I cannot allow someone to get away with treating me or anyone else badly because their mom gave them a store.

        I keep thinking about him saying “Who do you think you are?” I think that’s a great question. I am the woman who has made you money. I am the one who has helped create a relationships with your customers, the one who understands your products and makes them, who supports the store and gives her creativity in exchange for zero benefits or PTO. The one who works every Saturday instead of taking her kid to the park. The one who needs three jobs when you sit there are your ass and do nothing. I’m the one who is done with your childish spoiled brat tantrum over me needing to provide for myself and my son. And maybe right there, that’s MY trigger. I think it’s for the best though and I guess I’m also righteous and unapologetic too.

        1. He sounds like a complete ass and you are now out of that cage, and take your great work ethic and skills to a much better place. I knew someone like that – he alienated his staff, they left, and his business folded in a year.

        2. Hmm…my boyfriend asus the same words last evening when Î left him: “Who do you think you are!?” After 3 years of relationship, living with him and his brother in the same apartament, taking care of them, cleaning, cooking, etc. We had a big fight yesterday. Leo Mars square scorpion moon..

        3. Wow Tara. This may not help right now but I take my hat off to you. You sound far more mature, intelligent & a way better person than he will ever be. Your morals, ethics, the standards you choose to live by, will only result in teaching your child enormously. Well done. You also sound like you have the business skills to do something on your own for yourself. I have only respect for people who act as you have done.

  10. Yes I most certainly have, and regrettably so. Mercury opposite Mars/12th (almost exact.) Mind you, I now have to live with the consequences..

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