24 thoughts on “How To Control A Conversation”

  1. You bet those work!!! Under pressure my Mars/Mercury in Scorpio talks just like they suggested. The silence part is particularly effective and I’m naturally a slow talker (though when talking to friends I laugh a lot like you do, Elsa). Great advice!

  2. Elsa, your eyes are shining so much today! 🙂

    I usually talk low and say very little, so people tend to listen because my verbal appearances are so rare! haha But in a crowd I will be the last to be heard because other people talk much louder than I do. When there’s a lot of people talking I simply give up because no-one will listen.

  3. Yeah, that was great advice. I’m gonna try it…..

    (You know, I’m suddenly realizing that I’m commenting on your blog every day!)

  4. Oh dear. I suppose I am the “weaker” party but then again, I didn’t become popular by keeping my mouth shut. There are few things I hate more than awkward silence. If there are not people talking I like to draw them out because everyone has something interesting to say (well most people) and everyone likes to feel like people take an active interest in them. With Mercury conjunct Venus, who needs command when you have friendliness?

  5. Charlotte – I agree. I have Libra and I get the “nice”. But this was a conflict negotiation and I was a teenager up against 3 men representing a large corporation sent in from out of state to run me over.

    I have MARS conjunct Mercury rather than your Venus conjunct Mercury so that pretty much explains it.

  6. It’s interesting… every place seems to have its own rules. Each culture, each situation…

    In June I moved to a new neighborhood, a new building. Since that time I’ve been dealing with some really noisy neighbors. Now, I have Sun Mercury Mars conjunct in Cancer… and I would go downstairs all nice and friendly and neighborly ask them oh please could they turn it down. I’d really appreciate it!

    Usually was met with defensiveness and stares as in: how dare I ask such a question. How dare I invade their noise with my desire for quiet…

    Not sure what my point is….

    Maybe that a Mercury Mars conjunction in Cancer is kinda like Mercury Venus in any sign… (And I do indeed have Venus envy.)

    So my landlady (Virgo Sun, Mars in Scorpio, not sure what else) comes over finally and yells at the noisemakers and wants to continue to do so…. leaving my Cancer self wanting to hide, having been exposed as a complainer…

    Well, right now it’s quiet…

  7. well, that works a lot better with men than women.
    and it works really well, usually.

    hm. and the pitch of my voice usually reflects my seriousness level- the lower the pitch, the more serious my thoughts. never thought about that.

    i have such a difficult time talking to other women. they overload my head with minutia and that taurus mercury memory wants to hold it all in while at them same time i can’t wait to purge ’cause there’s really only so much i want to carry around- i just want to keep the essentials. the useful stuff. which is virgo, i guess?
    and i talk too slowly. i think… ponderously. hard to keep up the pace with someone blazing along- by the time i figure out what i want to say about topic A they’re already on topic Q!

  8. When I was working in sales, my manager once told us that when there is a pause in conversation, for instance after we have asked for the sale, the person who talks first loses. Now, just because the customer talks first didn’t always get me the sale, but it was a lot better than filling the silence with chatter. But sales is a confidence game.

  9. Love it, love it, love it. There is a book by Carol Gilligan called ‘In a Different Voice.’ A lot about this stuff. I heard about it first from Jane Fonda, who in an interview was detailing the changes in the pitch of her voice at different points in her career (it got deeper as she got what she said was her own voice).

    I have Aries/Mars in 3rd (communication) so it pays to slow down. I had to learn that-being the youngest kid in a large family full of talkers/yellers/discussers it was speak up or get lost forever. I still struggle with the balance. It’s hard to change what comes naturally, but awareness is the first step, right?

  10. Great Advice!

    When another is completely going off or losing their cool, when finished, I find looking at them calmly and saying, “Oh, I never thought about it that way” and then walking away is also effective.

  11. Sorry- I wasn’t referring to keeping your pecker in your pants. That may be good advice for some, but it is not the advice I intended. I was corroborating your advice about shooting off ones mouth….BANG!…Ooops I did’nt need that foot anyways.

  12. What if you’re just trying to have a conversation with someone you just met at a bar or something, an acquaintance, or a friend and the conversation starts to trail off? I freak out when there’s awkward silence and start to try to find something to talk about. Sometimes, when the talk is running smoothly, I start speaking quickly and with great urgency (something I noticed with an Aries girl I met recently, we both just babbled away energetically), when it’s not, the same thing happens. Is it such a good idea to put off trying to salvage the conversation and just let the other person pick it up if they want to? Do you “win?” Or is low and slow only good in competitive, rather than friendly, conversation?

  13. Avatar
    Little Miss Hermit

    Wyrdling said: “[…] the pitch of my voice usually reflects my seriousness level”. It’s the same with me:)

    I usually speak quite slowly, because I’m thinking as I’m speaking:) If I take part in a fast-paced conversation, I have a tendency to later forget much of what I said (even if I remember what the others contributed!?!), probably because I didn’t have time to get really involved in the first place. Just a superficial stream of blabber…:P Not my preferred style or environment. Still, I get something out of what’s been exchanged – when I rehash later:D Spoken like a true introvert:)
    Mercury, Pluto, Mars and Venus conjunct in Libra, sextile Neptune. Mercury and Pluto trine Jupiter in Gemini, and Mercury trine Moon in late Taurus.
    Like the cookbook interpretation would say, I can be very eloquent when I’m upset!;)

  14. Elsa, is that video from today or what? Holy cow, you’re just sparkling and happy. And that red was the perfect colour to wear! You look great!

  15. what astrologically would indicate the quality of someone’s voice? i’ve heard people w taurus and libra have nice singing voices.

    i’m thinking maybe ascendant and mercury? i say that because i have mercury conjunct jupiter in leo…but i have an earthy voice (cap asc?).

  16. i have a third house venus, which i suspect impacts my voice. that, and the training i got eons ago when i worked for the phone company.

  17. haha, that’s really good advice actually. i’m thinking of telling that to the speakers in my debate team for one of my bio classes @ uni.. i was watching a different debate in my lecture today prepared by students in the class and i noticed that when a girl would go up and speak in a very fast, high-pitched voice i was less likely to be tuned into it ( not to mention i missed little bits of information from trying so hard to hear just what she was saying period ) and when a guy with a loud, booming voice would go up, he may have made a similar type of argument but more people were likely to understand it and even perhaps agree with his perspective. I mean, maybe this is an sociological effect kinda thing, where the majority of the head honchos in our society are male and thus we unconsciously are more likely to take them seriously.. but its good to be aware of if you’re female and you want to get a point across to a group of people.

  18. I learned this too from being involved in some legal proceedings. Emotional displays do not work. Poise sure does. And never fight for your chance to speak. It’s amazing to me how I was eventually able to take command of a courtroom by simply bringing my energy down. Not smaller, but down. I learned to never be a beggar of my grace from others. It’s hard some times in the face of absurdity (and by that, I mean people who can’t reason to save themselves) but there is another level where this kind of energetic stuff works on. It does have a little bit to do with power too I guess. Power over yourself.
    Really good advice Elsa. Thanks for the reminder.

  19. Thank you for reposting this gem in your newsletter. How I wish I’d have had the opportunity to watch this when it first posted. But it’s never to late to express one’s sovereignty 🙂

Leave a Reply to moonpluto Cancel Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

 

Scroll to Top