Yet responding to both Chiron in Aries and to Mars retrograde in Aquarius will call for asserting oneself, standing out, being different, and addressing the results. This takes courage, which is the opposite of conformity.
We live in times when everyone is expected to make everyone else feel safe, secure, and this odd thing called comfortable. Yet this does not work together with people asserting who they are against the norms of society, or their micro-culture. We have to choose: We either welcome or tolerate difference, which means tolerating what we don't like; or everyone is expected to fall in line.
As someone learning, growing, and self-actualizing, the comfort of other people is not your business, and it cannot be a factor that hinders your progress. For example, if a person is coming out as trans, how other people feel about that is not the point. The point is they are doing what they need to do.
Within the bounds of civil conduct (acting lawfully and with basic respect of others), you are free to conduct your life as you wish. You do not have a responsibility to protect the "comfort" of others or to ensure that you don't make them "uncomfortable." You are only required to respect their rights.
Even a mainstream program like Alcoholics Anonymous teaches that you cannot control what other people feel, so there's no point in trying.
Nobody has a right to tell you who you are, what you should wear, who you should associate with, how you're supposed to act—nor, most significantly, how you're supposed to think. But you can be sure that someone will: When someone asserts their individuality, there is almost always some pushback, and sometimes a lot.
The most important place to watch for this is in your personal relationships. Within a couple situation, one partner will often be threatened by any sign of growth or awakening consciousness in their partner. Any time the identity of one person in a relationship begins to shift, the mental structure of the relationship can be threatened. This can lead to jealous episodes.
Unless you're someone who has an agreement with your partner to grow and to honor one another's individuality, there is likely to be some flak. This can involve resistance to anything from going to community college, to having opposite-sex friends, to wanting to take a trip. People can resist when you want to deepen your spiritual path or evolve your political thinking.
This puts pressure on many people in relationships to suppress change, growth, their opinions, their deeper needs, and their desire to be an independent person.
This scenario also happens in families, where people are under all kinds of pressure: to do what their father did for a living, to be in the family business, to stay in the same town, to get married, to be straight, to not go to college—or just to be miserable like everyone else.
Sting summed it up beautifully in the song "History Will Teach Us Nothing."
If we seek solace in the prisons of the distant past
Security in human systems we're told will always always last
Emotions are the sail and blind faith is the mast
Without the breath of real freedom we're getting nowhere fast
Or as he offered in another song: Be yourself, no matter what they say.
