Doing Exactly What You Don’t Want To Do In Order To Be Free

girl in glass cageIf you’re anything like me, there are certain things you complain about regularly.  Maybe it has to do with a relationship or your job or your family or whatever. I’ve been thinking about this a long time.

I want something to change in my life, or someone. I can give you an exhaustive list of reasons why this change should happen. Because it’s fair, because it’s right, because I’m right…

So much horrific stuff has happened in my life, I learned long ago that compromise is necessary. It’s not realistic my view on things would always be right so I started accepting situations a long time ago, so I could work through various problems.

I found I could get through a lot of things, and often beyond them in this way. I’ve also noticed people remain stuck.  It’s stubbornness sometimes. Other times it’s a control thing. You want someone or something to change before you’re going to budge. Classic power struggle, I suppose.  So this has worked for me but as of now, it’s not enough.

Now I know what I’m doing is radical, because when I told the friend I complain to most about this idea and she gasped. Not a little gasp, either. It was a “no one would do that”, gasp.  This validated my feeling that I was committing to something unusual.

I explained my change of behavior might impact other people (in a good way) but my primary reason to make this effort is to see if I can do… number one. But if I COULD do it, what will that mean?

I think I will feel a lot of power, frankly.  It takes courage to go against everything and really everyone’s advice which frankly, is not that valuable.

I don’t mean that in a disrespectful way at all.  The reason the advice is not that great is because I’m quite an odd person in an odd circumstance. I’m pretty secretive too, so when someone wants to advise me, they are going to have do so, mostly blindfolded. How good can the advice be given the limitations?

My decision is made. “I’m not going to…”

Well, yes I am. I have changed my mind!

I am also taking my own advice here. Saturn square Uranus begs us to try new things and break the rules…  my own rules!

I mentioned opting to act smartly rather than stupidly in one of my newsletters. It’s a Mars in Gemini thing. I asked myself, what I would do about my chronic, unsolvable problem if I were not an idiot? This was the answer that came to me.

I’m going to do exactly what I can’t do and what I refuse to do. I’m pretty confident, I’ll smash my personal prison in the process.

The way I see it, this action will transform me into a person who can and will.  I like that a lot better than being a stubborn fool.

Has it ever occurred to you to turn 180 degrees in order to resolve something?

24 thoughts on “Doing Exactly What You Don’t Want To Do In Order To Be Free”

      1. Thanks Elsa , you did help me do , what I never wanted to do, or felt like doing.

        I did a whole 180 /360
        And it changed the outcome for the better.

        It has also changed my perspective in general about doing the best thing, even if NOT the right thing for you.
        The outcomes for such altruism may not always work out.
        But usually they do.
        Good begets good.
        Or something like that!!!

  1. This was so good and insightful Elsa! Loved every word and this morning, it came at the right time, I guess. I need to make a hard decision that I’ve been avoiding for quite a while because I’m stubborn and scared, but I need to do it, tho I said I won’t do certain things, well, I changed my mind. 🙂

  2. To get to the other side of Saturn – liberation /Uranus – we invest Mars in what we “must do” as individuals.
    With Chiron in Aries and the Mars New Moon square – we are presented with quite a healing opportunity about the right use of Mars.

  3. I was thinking about the same thing… this week, a guy told me that I’m always dissatisfied… and he is right, no wonder that things don’t go the way I’d like… I will definitely change that!

  4. You’re just amazing, the way you look at things sort of sideways. Also hilarious!!
    …”I asked myself, what I would do about my chronic, unsolvable problem if I were not an idiot.” That cracked me up, plus it instantly felt like something I need to ask myself at least a million times and start to finally break out of the repeat cycles on endless loop. Thank you for the aha!!

    1. You’re welcome! And thanks for the compliment!

      We really do convince ourselves, there’s nothing we can do. In all case, this is crap, though at times (and people HATE this), you have to change the way you see something in order to move on.

      Further, the media we’re saturated with teaches us the exact opposite so it’s no wonder by complaining is one of the number on pastimes around the world. We just ruminate on how bad it is.. as if this will help!?!

  5. Elsa: “The way I see it, this action will transform me into a person who can and will. I like that a lot better than being a stubborn fool.”

    Ditto here, and me too, no more being a stubborn fool.
    He said he’d complete these projects, but he has a lack of integrity, as they are still not done and he’s too busy checking out all the time. So I’m doing them, one by one, I’m completing them, becoming empowered in myself as I slowly get them done. Not to mention happy, because this stuff is getting taken care of, even if it’s by me (breaking my rule that I won’t do it). And he’s stewing about it and wondering why there’s no dinner on the table.

  6. Enjoyed this.
    Changing the way to view a problem is also a way to overcome your own personal fear that holds you back.
    Mars in Gemini is square my natal Mars/Pluto today, so deep strategic thinking in process to move forward ‘my way’. 😉

  7. Yes! I feel like I’m dying to old parts of myself once again and I used to want to run somehow but I’ve learned to sit with the frustration anyway while aligning with the person that’s breaking her own chains. You can’t change others but if and when you let yourself take the reigns over yourself things and people do also change or you become more unbothered or they fall away.

  8. Elsa!! I’m seeing this late but perfect timing for me. I’m in-between jobs. And homes. Staying with family. (Never have before) Completely changing careers after 30 yrs. In a new relationship. It’s different this time. I’m not 100% in. Which is good and new for me. Yesterday I decided to volunteer for the hurricane victims. Which means I’ll have to travel and temporarily relocate. He’s not thrilled. I’m doing things different than ever in my 52 years. Maybe this is my way of changing “my chronic, unsolvable problem (s) if I were not an idiot” in all aspects, career, home, relationships and my own fears. Morphed to the max! Thanks for this!

  9. my younger stubborn (as you noted) self would have totally disagreed with you, but my wiser-learned the long hard ways self agrees

  10. Yes. I have started to surrender. I think they call it radical surrender. Allow it and stop giving it my attention. Focus on something else until the situation dissolves from lack of attention. Offer no resistance.

    The last big thing took about six months of not focusing on it to finally move out of my experience.

    I have something else like it that I don’t know what to do about, and it has resisted my attempts to resolve it in the way that makes the most sense. I’m waiting for an opportunity to resolve it now in some other way that I have not considered yet.

  11. Avatar
    Hildegarde's Noviciate

    I’m out of my apartment in a month. Rent has increased dramatically where I live. There is assistance if I go it alone. I hung on to this friendship for the last 3 years and it has cost me. For the other too. Time to move on. This will be hard given how impossible it’s been to move on at this period of my life (2nd Saturn Return). The recession looming(so they say). I’m choking on fear and depression. I simply want a roof over my head in a safe place, a dependable safe car, safe clean local food and a job that pays for all this. I think that’s a simple and, quite frankly, a pretty common desire out there given some of the feedback here

  12. I like this take on things Elsa, sometimes the high road does not work. I have decided to use my formidable and enraged Mars to stamp out a pest, and take the consequences. It’s overdue.

  13. I’m not really understanding this post. If I am reading it correctly, you are saying, change course if things aren’t working, don’t do the altruistic thing or the thing that others advise, don’t feel like a victim. So what do you do? Is this a way of saying take care of yourself, be spontaneous or is it something else?

    1. I’m sorry if I was not clear. I am saying that when you are stuck, it’s common that you are stuck because there is something you DO NOT WANT TO DO and that exact thing needs to be done, so that you can move ahead.

  14. At first I did not understand this post. After thinking about it, I still want to do what I want to do which is blow my ex husband’s abuse right out of the water – scorched earth, publicly. I would lose my son. I have already lost my daughter due to the fact that she was monopolized by him from Day One. I have 7 pages of single-spaced, 8-1/2×11 text of “I forgive you for…” all of it true. Abuse, fraud, betrayal, defamation, parental alienation. I made a decision to do something that destroyed my life 42 years ago, and it is the “gift” that keeps on giving. The triggers never stop becaues I didn’t just walk away from everyone (I mean my children). Sometimes I wish that I had. Just completely started over. THAT would have been doing the thing I didn’t want to do. Of course, my name would even bigger mud than it has been for the past 40 years.

    I have done what I have NOT wanted to do, for over 30 years now. It hasn’t worked. What that is, is staying quiet. Being the bigger person. Taking things lying down. Being the person who is the afterthought or not even thought of. Being defamed and shunned and not able to do a thing about it. Taking crap, accepting crumbs, being ignored.

    When does it end? Does it end with scorched earth? Maybe not, but the truth will out.

    So I think your idea, Elsa is good in theory and works for some people (you and some others). I don’t think it always works. That’s not a criticism. It’s my experience.

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