Mars In Cancer - Mars' Debilitation Point And Difficulties With Expressing Anger And Self-Assertion

Mars in Cancer - Mars' Debilitation Point and Difficulties with expressing Anger and Self-Assertion

These are the results of my recent work on a lifetime of stored up anger, that I'm trying to heal from and embrace. That is a difficult process when you have natal Mars in Cancer. If you have this placement, even though these are my personal conclusions, you will relate to all the emotions described here, and there is a big chance you had a similar family dynamic.

Friendly reminder, that I use Vedic Astrology and the Sidereal house system, but my Mars is in Cancer in both Tropical and Sidereal anyway, so even if you use Tropical Astrology, it should be relatable for you.

If you use the Vedic Nakshatra system, check your Mars in D9, remembering that D1 and D9 energies compliment each other. My Mars is in Cancer literally everywhere, every possible chart arrangement, D9 as well. The difference is, in D1 it's in Punarvasu in the 10th house, but in D9 it goes into Ashlesha in the 4th house, which makes it struggle, since Ashlesha is the exact debilitation point of Mars, and the 4th house is a very uncomfortable place for this planet. If your Mars in D9 is for example in Scorpio, you will struggle less even if D1 Mars is debilitated. Yes, I like to analyse Nakshatras in D9, even if it's an unpopular opinion.

Since my Cancer Mars is also conjunct Moon, it puts it especially into focus in my chart, the Moon being the main placement of emotional processing and a key chart factor in Vedic Astrology, but this conjunction also gives me a little more easiness handling the Cancer Mars, since the domicile Moon placement eases up the debilitation. This placement for me is also Vargottama, and carries through all possible house systems, so I am THE poster child for this planetary position. I hope my other fellow Cancer Mars people benefit from my experience, and the fact that my Moon conjunction makes it easier to work through it. Hopefully, I can give you that edge through sharing my conclusions, so you can heal even if Mars is really struggling in your chart.

A side note regarding gender roles, which come into focus here due to Cancer being such a feminine, protective sign.

If you are a woman with this placement, my heart goes out to you, because you struggle extra. The same way this society is cruel towards men expressing their sensitivity, which I find to be very wrong and I actively work against, nurturing the vulnerability of every man I come into contact with, the same way women's anger gets socially demonised. What is an angry woman called? An angry bitch, a psychotic freak on PMS. An outcast. A beast, unattractive, "unladylike". She may be good for a one night stand, because she will be a freak in the bedroom and some people may have a fantasy to "tame her", but she is not considered a good, long term investment. Women's anger has become uncomfortable, which puts us women on a shame spiral, the moment we feel like expressing it during a fight. We live with the stigma of shame simply for experiencing the feeling of anger. Then, we live with the fear of people creating stories about how insane we were, how irrational, simply for asserting ourselves, expressing our power and not letting someone step over us.

Women know this. Women are raised and conditioned to be aware of this fact in the back of their minds, and whenever the moment comes to healthily express their anger, they fold internally, feeling the pressure of complete social exclusion crushing them. If you have this placement, this can be a big struggle for you, but you also have a unique opportunity to step into your feminine power, which is not about intimidating or undervaluing anyone in general, or men in particular. It's about not letting yourself be mistreated by anyone, and letting go of the belief that mistreatment is normal. It's about an unconditional, fierce validation of your emotional experience.

As a woman with this placement, Mars represents men in your life. As a man, you will embody this energy more directly. This can go two ways, most often you get both energies mixed at the same time as an expression of human complexity. The first archetype is a man, who expresses the difficulties presented in all the points you will find below, so someone avoidant, struggling to protect and provide due to his fears, or avoiding all confrontation himself. The second archetype is a more evolved energy, which is a man fuelled and directed by protecting, nourishment, caretaking and building with, and for his partner. This masculine energy will not run, but take initiative to actively take care of any conflict, that might present itself. This is someone very much in touch with both the emotional and practical side of reality, defending and protecting a healthy family dynamic and an emotional well-being of women in his life, instead of neglecting it. This is masculine energy that faces all actions and reactions appropriately, depending on the situation.

Of course, if you are a man with Mars in Cancer, and you struggle with embodying the healthier, evolved version of the energy, this post is not meant to criticise you. Same for women with this placement, who experience struggles with men. The point is to understand the psychological dynamic, that originates always in a childhood home, that shaped a specific expression of masculine energy. If a man runs from confrontations or struggles asserting himself or caring for his partner, he has trauma that makes him do so. The point here is to understand the Mars in Cancer energy and heal it, regardless of the gender experiencing it. Of course, as a woman, you are not obligated to accept abusive men in your life, but understanding this placement should bring you peace nevertheless.

Struggles that come with having a Cancer Mars:

1. Processing anger in the heat of the moment during a confrontation.

Mars in Cancer being in the 4th in D9 is the reason, why I'm now processing my anger in solitude, concerning events that date from months, days, even years ago, because when I was in the heat of the moment, I used to have a tendency to simply freeze, feel paralysed and not know how to proceed when someone makes me angry. Or I would default towards my intellect over my anger, which made it easier and more comfortable for me. What is worse, in public, I put on a social façade because adulting required that out of me, and then my anger got stored up in my body, giving me physical pain.

I know this may feel very difficult, but you have to bring all your energy, attention and presence back into the situation during a moment of conflict. Every time, that you let your authentic emotion of anger course through you and flow out through you, you will feel a weight off. It takes practice, but it's doable. You can't turn back the clock, but sit with yourself and give yourself time to explore and heal all the residual anger you have built up from past encounters.

2. Feeling like your anger is shameful, invalidated or unacceptable.

Feeling like you have to hide your anger because it won't be heard or accepted is one of the biggest painful aspects of reality with this placement. Healing comes from realising, that you should express your anger even if it displeases someone, if you know that your reasons for it are fair. Sadly, many people don't want to take responsibility for their bad behaviour, but you need to accept and validate your own anger, internally, nevertheless.

3. Struggling to express anger in a just, efficient, measured way, proportionate to the scale of the conflict, because of Moon's overflowing emotions.

One of the main difficulties with this placement is the overwhelming, fluctuating energy of the Moon mixing with the fiery nature of Mars. If you have years of stored up anger, this can lead to disproportionate reactions during heated moments in your relationships. You may find yourself attacking someone for something that hurt you in the past. For example, you may yell at your new partner due to the anger you accumulated in your previous relationship. Make sure to analyse and explore your residual, stored up anger, so that you understand yourself and your trigger points. Then, if someone's behaviour is triggering for you, express how you feel honestly and tell them why. If they're still being rude or unresponsive, express your anger for that too and leave, but at least now you will know you did your best. If you act unfairly towards someone, realise why and apologise, and that will make it easier in the future. This process can be extremely hard to measure accurately, however, which brings me right to my next point.

4. Blurring the lines between healthy anger and self assertion and toxicity.

I will say that very loudly for all my fellow Cancer Mars people in the back. I struggled with that statement myself until literally 10 min before I'm writing this. I probably need to say it to myself some more. Anger and self assertion, if handled well, are HEALTHY and NORMAL human emotions. They don't have to be toxic or harmful. However, excessive self control and stuffing down your anger is ALWAYS toxic and harmful. The fear of anger can be overpowering, but you need to look at the consequences, long term. If you build up years of internalised anger, that can literally lead to physical diseases. You may think you are safe and escaping from something toxic if you stuff down your anger, but you are actually doing long lasting damage to yourself, as well as building your relationships on dishonesty.

You need to build a healthy realisation of your individual healthy expression of anger. You need to change your automatic association of anger with being a toxic person. Anger was given to us as a self-defence mechanism. It can be used in a toxic way, but it doesn't have to. If your association with anger is automatically extremely negative, this is trauma from your upbringing, that you need to heal.

5. Feeling like asserting yourself, even calmly, will lead to conflict.

Yet again, that fear of anger. That happens, when in your family home every attempt at self-assertion ended up with your parents bulldozing your emotions or getting angry with you for being assertive and self expressive. Realise, that a healthy person will respect your boundaries. If someone is angry with you for putting up a healthy boundary and seeks conflict for that, you don't need them in your life.

6. Running from other people's anger and expression of self assertion, even if it's justified.

A very strong sign of trauma coming from a family home. If you felt, like someone in the family was constantly, unnecessarily aggressive towards you, even healthy self-assertion may be a trigger for you. That might lead you to run away, even if you simply owe someone an apology for something small and you need to fix a minor problem, due to that subconscious fear of someone's excessive anger being unleashed on you. You have to realise, that you are after all a human being, and you will mess up and make people rightfully angry from time to time. People having healthy boundaries and signalling it to you are not a personal attack on your freedom and well being. Again, work with childhood conditioning to see what particular patterns made you afraid to that extent.

7. Running from any perspective of conflict in general, even if it's necessary to clear the air, deal with the problem and move on.

The very unpleasant side effect of this attitude is that if you keep running away from confrontations and solutions, you end up straying from your path. Mars also rules our direction and on the spot decision making. If you chose to run instead of dealing with an issue, you will end up making poor decisions that can have long lasting, harmful consequences in your life, and as a result you will have difficulties focusing on other affairs, because there is a big part of your mind that is still busy running away from the anger and the accompanied problem it subconsciously wants to process. Running from your anger or conflict or repressing these difficult emotions literally paralyses your entire life path, since Mars is responsible for charging forward. Running from your anger will keep you stuck and make you attract new situations, that cause more of your anger, because you subconsciously want to encounter them so that you can heal. Running and hiding doesn't make anything disappear. Deal with the problem, even if it's hard, and the sooner you do it, the better.

8. As a result of all the above, feeling like you need to be protected from anger, liking people who can express that anger for you, or are protective in an angry way, because being under their umbrella takes away the problem of you having to deal with your anger yourself.

I know this may be a hard pill to swallow if you have this placement, but deal with it. The sooner you do it, the better. Of course, feeling the need to be protected and taken care of in a particular way is natural to experience, especially if you are a woman due to the nature of our physical bodies, but living in an illusion, that someone will come around to be your prince charming and take away all the conflict from your life by getting angry at the world for you, while you live your life as an untouchable fairy princess is not something that is going to happen for you, and ultimately is not something that is good for your psychological and spiritual growth. In reality, this is yet another avoidance strategy on your part, which means it doesn't solve the problem. It's ok to crave the positive expression of Mars in Cancer energy in your life, that I described above. It is not ok to completely disown your feeling of anger, hoping it will vanish by itself. What you resist, persists.

9. Your difficult relationship with anger, just like your entire psychology, always comes from patterns in the family home.

Every debilitated placement you have is an expression of a toxic dynamic in your upbringing. Mars in Cancer is no different. Look at how your parents dealt with conflict, how your family reacted to your stance of self assertion and expression of anger. I will give you a brief example from my own family, so that you can observe it more directly.

I dealt with a bad relationship with anger from both sides of my family. My father was using his own anger and self-assertion in a toxic way to bully me and diminish my feelings. That made me view all expressions of anger as toxic, because a primary male figure in my life has used his anger towards me in a toxic way. At the same time, I would be extra bullied for my own anger. My mother, on the other hand, cried and blamed me every time I tried to defend myself for justifiable reasons. That made me feel guilty for expressing my own anger in the right moments as well. As a result, I spent most of my life repressing my anger due to a mix of an intense feeling of guilt, fear and shame associated with the emotions. I would often just wait out the conflict and pray for it to pass because of how unsafe I felt, and then I would feel resentful towards the person who wronged me later anyway. While the other parties had no right towards certain bad behaviours in the first place, hiding my anger was my own doing. Realising the toxic family dynamic and the resulting intense, crippling fear behind my avoidant behaviour helped me start healing my internal relationship with anger, and understand how to use it when justified, knowing that if I worked on it, I wouldn't have to repeat my parents' mistakes.

That is a very important realisation with this placement. If you have a dysfunctional relationship with anger due to Mars in Cancer, you are recreating your parents mistakes, or trying to avoid recreating them.

I hope my writing will help you find peace on your journey. If you are in need of individual guidance, I offer personal astrology, tarot and spiritual healing sessions.