Welcome to Ghost of a Podcast. I'm your host, Jessica Lanyadoo. I'm an astrologer, psychic medium, and animal communicator, and I'm going to give you your weekly horoscope and no-bullshit mystical advice for living your very best life.

Jessica:            Layla, welcome to the podcast. What would you like a reading about?

Layla:              So what I wrote in—I'm just going to go ahead and read it—is that my dad is dying. He's dying slowly, but he is dying. And it feels like the world is changing quicker than our relationship can evolve. Is it ever okay to let go of the dream that we will repair with a loved one in this lifetime? I'm afraid that I will regret not trying harder, but the division of our worldviews feels like it's growing faster than my ability to cultivate forgiveness. Yeah, I already feel so much.

Jessica:            Yeah. I'm so sorry. That's—it's so many levels. And I have some contextual questions, and you don't have to answer any of them, or you can pick and choose which ones you feel comfortable answering. You say he's dying. Does he have a diagnosis, and the doctors have been like, "You have x amount of months or years"?

Layla:              He is at the point where he's in and out of hospital. He was in the hospital. He got out of the hospital three days. He's back in the hospital. And he could live another ten years, or he could pass this week. He has enough systems that are screaming and yelling that it's time to ask this question.

Jessica:            Yeah. That's real.

Layla:              But he's not actively in critical condition in this moment.

Jessica:            Okay. So you have the benefit of being informed without the benefit of having a fucking roadmap in any way, shape, or form.

Layla:              Exactly.

Jessica:            Chaos. I'm so sorry.

Layla:              Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            It's like chaos on top of tragedy on top of complexity.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And do the two of you live in the same place, the same town, or the same state?

Layla:              No.

Jessica:            No.

Layla:              No. He's on the other side of the country.

Jessica:            Okay. And when you refer to being so different, are you talking about politics? Are you talking about values? Are you talking about—what—yeah.

Layla:              I want to say it's not, but it's the politics.

Jessica:            Yeah. It's politics.

Layla:              I mean, it's so many, many, many things, but at this moment, more than anything, it gets triggered by the politics. And that's what feels like is speeding up faster than I can manage.

Jessica:            Absolutely. Absolutely. So he's on social media?

Layla:              He's on the social media.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Layla:              He's on the—yeah. He's on all the things.

Jessica:            It really speeds things up. It's not just the news. It's not just the times. It's like giving people, especially people who are isolated or older and not tech savvy, access to fucking social media and news, any kind of news—fake news, real news—it doesn't matter. It really does accelerate. And so, in regards to the differences the two of you hold, are they things like he hates women and you're a woman? Like it's specifically at you/to you? Or is it more like everything in the world?

Layla:              It's pretty confusing. It's pretty confusing.

Jessica:            Okay. It seems like that's a little bit of a theme here.

Layla:              Yes—

Jessica:            Yeah.

Layla:              —because it is not blatant things that I can just say no to. It is not like overt racism or homophobia or transphobia or anything that I could point a finger at and be really clear about. It's more that there's an enmeshment with the movement right now. It's not like a straight-on MAGA story, but it's not not a MAGA story.

Jessica:            Is it like MAGA QAnon, or is it MAGA republican, or is it—

Layla:              Oh, it's definitely republican.

Jessica:            Okay.

Layla:              It's like Fox—

Jessica:            It's Fox News.

Layla:              It's like I'm trying to have a conversation, and there's Fox News in the background at the hospital.

Jessica:            Real talk 2025. Yeah. Totally. Totally.

Layla:              Right? It's just like that kind of situation.

Jessica:            Yes. Yeah.

Layla:              But he's like—he's an old hippie. He's a Jungian. He's trippy. He's got many, many flavors of cool. But there has been a hardening.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Layla:              And more than anything, I think what hurts is the inability to say no to the things that I feel really called to say no to.

Jessica:            You mean you're not saying no to him?

Layla:              Like there's an inability in his world to say no to things that are really important to me that we say no to. So it's hard.

Jessica:            Yeah. It's hard. It's hard. Okay. Before we get into your birth chart and I start answering your question, I have another question, which is—everybody has a different kind of relationship with their dad, right?

Layla:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            So did he raise you? Was he a part of raising you? Was he in the house or was he around you as a child? And do you have the kind of relationship with your father where you're like, "No. That's stupid," or, "I don't agree with you, man"? Or is it more like, "This is my dad, and I kind of defer to him and I have that relationship"?

Layla:              Well, so when I was—yes, here we are.

Jessica:            Here we are.

Layla:              When I was younger, it was really like I idealized him and it was us against the world, and I deferred to him. A lot of the things I love about myself come from him. And then, over the years, as I started to live my own life and have more of a political—just experience on Earth, we started to separate, separate, separate, separate. And then, as I started to do my inner work and take responsibility for things in my life, we started to separate, separate, separate more and more. And so that's the thing that's really confusing is it feels like, when I was younger, it was easy to just let things go. And now, when he's in his softest, most feeble, most needing of love, all my pain is up, and I just don't feel like I can do it.

Jessica:            Yep. Okay. All right. Let's dive in. I got so much shit to say. Okay. Hold on.

Layla:              I was going to say you can probably feel all the things.

Jessica:            Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I got so much shit to say. Okay. Bear with me. I'm going to pull up your chart.

Layla:              Okay.

Jessica:            Okay. So we've got your birth chart up here. You were born July 11, 1981, in a place—not everybody needs to know everything—10:19 a.m. Okay. There are so many layers to this. And does he know you're mad? Does he know that you're holding back?

Layla:              Yes.

Jessica:            He knows. It's obvious.

Layla:              Yes.

Jessica:            Everybody knows.

Layla:              Everybody knows.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay.

Layla:              As of recently, I should say. That's [crosstalk]. Yeah.

Jessica:            Recently as in the last year?

Layla:              Last year. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. That tracks. That tracks. So there's so much to say here. Let me start with this. In your birth chart, you've got Neptune opposite Mercury and Mars. You do not like fighting with people. Me and my father disagree; I'm like, "That's fucking stupid. I don't agree with you." You would not. You might think it, but then you would feel bad for thinking it because that Neptune opposition to Mars and Mercury gives you a feeling of devotion to those that you care about. And so being in disagreement—even though you have a Mercury/Mars conjunction. You're disagreeable. You disagree with lots of things. You've got lots of opinions. You are loaded up with retorts and analysis and details—loaded up.

Layla:              Yes.

Jessica:            But that Neptune opposition makes you feel like, "But I don't want to be mean."

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            "But I'm not seeing it from their perspective. If I see it from their perspective, it's actually quite different." So it is not surprising to me that the bulk of your life has been not about saying to your dad, "Hey, I've always agreed with you on this thing, but as I've grown and learned more, I've come to understand that there's something about your belief system that I don't agree with. This is my perspective." That's too much. It's something you can do in writing with a lot of time for revision and working and layers and layers and layers. Are you a writer?

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Yeah. You're great at it. It's a great use of your nature. But you come in with ideas, and then you explore the ideas, and then you pull back from the ideas. And then you go big, and then you go details. And that's how you work out ideas. And in conversation, that's really fucking hard, especially with somebody who's got Fox News blaring in the goddamn background. How do you have a conversation when your baseline assumptions and understanding of reality are so radically different from somebody that you care about?

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            So, that all said, disagreeing with your dad is really hard for you. Also, you have placed him upon a daddy pedestal. That's gross to call it a daddy pedestal, but we'll call it a father pedestal—a pedestal. We'll just call it a pedestal. That's where you've placed him. And that's another part of what's so hard about this because it's not that you're like, "Oh, okay, he is part of the generation that has been radicalized through conventional news because the world changed, but nobody told people of a certain generation." Right?

Layla:              Right.

Jessica:            So, instead of understanding how he is a part of this thing, how he had these ideas always but they were radicalized and kind of teased and stuff like that over time, it's more like you had this person on a pedestal, and then he fell from the pedestal. And so you have the heartache of the fall in addition to everything else.

Layla:              Absolutely, and I feel like that's something that I moved through some years ago and I kind of thought, "Okay. Off the pedestal, into reality. Everything's going to work out now."

Jessica:            Yeah.

Layla:              And just the opposite is true.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah.

Layla:              Yeah. It's harder and harder.

Jessica:            It takes time.

Layla:              And that's my big concern, is that I can feel the crunch of time and this inner inertia to step up and do the work because there are so many other things in there.

Jessica:            So I want you to know that I have words for that. I have advice for that, for how to work with that part. But we're not going to start there, even though that's kind of the meaty stuff. We're going to get there.

Layla:              Okay.

Jessica:            First, I'll say you did the work, and then you know what fucking happened? Fucking Uranus opposite Uranus. You're in your Uranus opposition. So you're still in your midlife crisis transits. Pluto square Pluto—years ago for you. Neptune square Neptune is totally over. But Uranus is still opposite Uranus. And so it's a real "Gah, I gotta do something about this immediately" transit. So this part of you that is actually typically like, "I have to figure this out"—you put the pressure on your own psychology. Your nervous system is frayed, but the pressure is internal.

                        In the past year, uncharacteristically, you're like, "I have to do things, guns-a-blazing. I gotta get in there. I gotta change things up. I've got to say something." It's gotten to be more external because that's part of how this transit functions. It wants you to change your life. The thing is the crux of your question is about, "How can I love my father when I'm pissed, when I don't like him, without betraying myself?"

Layla:              Absolutely.

Jessica:            That's the question.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And so, for me, this kind of teases out the question of what is love, even? What is love? Is love agreeing? Is love getting along? Is love obedience? A lot of men would say to their daughters, "Yeah, agree with me. Be obedient. Let's get along. That's how you love me." I mean, it's like an old-school, patriarchal attitude. You are a Cancer. Your Moon is in Scorpio. You love deep. You love wild, right?

Layla:              Yes.

Jessica:            You love with abandon.

Layla:              Absolutely.

Jessica:            You fucking love. Yeah. And so this putting of your dad on a pedestal that you did when you were too little to think about it, this way that you love being so intense, so devotional, so protective—you're very protective of who you love, eh?

Layla:              Absolutely.

Jessica:            Yeah. This whole fucking setup for you isn't sustainable. It isn't sustainable with your friends. It isn't sustainable with movements and projects. It's not sustainable with the people you date, and it's not sustainable with Dad. And the reason why it's activated right now is because your dad is the OG. This is the roots of the tree that is your life, right?

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And when you date, do you date hes, shes, theys?

Layla:              Hes.

Jessica:            Hes. Mm-hmm. And are you in a relationship currently?

Layla:              I am, yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. And how long have you guys been together?

Layla:              Nine years.

Jessica:            Congratulations. A long-ass time.

Layla:              Thank you. It is a long-ass time.

Jessica:            And do you have kids, human children?

Layla:              We do.

Jessica:            Okay.

Layla:              We have two.

Jessica:            Okay. We will come back there. Don't let me get distracted. Okay. The thing with love is there are so many behavioral-based instructions on, how do you love Dad, husband, kids? Many of them are second nature to you because you are protective, because you are like a serious mama bear. You really do have all of these things in your nature that work for you, and they work with how you love people. And it's not sustainable with your dad. And because it's not sustainable with your dad, I'm guessing it's not totally sustainable in your marriage.

Layla:              Yeah. I'm finding that across the board.

Jessica:            Across the board.

Layla:              During the last two years, it's like everything has switched, and everything feels upside-down. The places where I'm usually "go after it," suddenly I'm pausing. And in the places where I'm usually quiet, I'm now screaming.

Jessica:            Yep. So the reason why this is associated with your midlife transits is because if you are hungry during our recording—you know, we're doing a reading. You're hungry. We'll deal with it later. But the recording keeps on going. It's a good reading. We keep on doing a reading. Eventually, I'm going to hear your tummy rumble because the same feeling unattended becomes something different over time. Does that make sense?

Layla:              Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. So what happens during the midlife crises is you spend your life—your 20s, your 30s—doing what you can and not doing what you don't want to or you can't. And then the midlife crises come up, and it's just like everything inside of you is like, "Learn how to do the new thing. I can't keep on not feeding myself when I'm hungry. I have to figure out how to feed myself before my stomach is rumbling and I feel terrible."

                        So we know from the kind of thing that is happening with your dad that the way that you empty yourself out in order to fill your cup with somebody else's needs is a way that you have loved that has brought you happiness and has empowered you to have relationships. And it's not sustainable. That cup should be filled with you, and there should be a second cup. I mean, "should" is a big word, but okay, I said it. Ideally, there is a second cup, and that second cup is filled with your love for the other person. But you must fill your own cup.

                        And what's happening with your dad, outside of the mechanics of, like, "What the fuck? I don't fucking know, man"—you know, outside of the Fox News mania that is too easy to have that conversation—but on a deeper level, what's happening with your dad is, because you have such a deep habit of betraying yourself in order to be loyal to him, now that that's not fucking possible, you don't have a skill set. There's just, "What do we do? There's nothing I can do. I guess I'm not going to love him." And that's not, of course, how you feel, but that's how you feel. It's very confusing.

                        So your North Node is in Leo. On a soul level, you've come here to learn how to love, how to experience love inside of you, filling you up, and how to share it in a really big, wild, fucking fire-signy way. Now, how much fire do you have in your chart? Checking, checking, checking. Only Neptune. Oh, Venus in the twelfth house also. So not the fieriest person in the house, even though we're both totally in red, so we're imbibing it; we're bringing the fire to the conversation, right?

Layla:              Definitely.

Jessica:            Okay. Now I'm going to make you say your full name and then his full name—your dad's full name—and we're going to beep both names out.

Layla:              My name is [redacted].

Jessica:            Say your father's full name.

Layla:              [redacted].

Jessica:            Are your parents married?

Layla:              No.

Jessica:            Yeah. They feel like—

Layla:              They would—yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Separate entities completely. Okay. Great.

Layla:              Two complete different universes.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. That feels right. Okay. Your dad doesn't want you to change.

Layla:              Definitely not.

Jessica:            Your dad wants you to remain the way you were. He's changing. He's just kind of settling into probability, right?

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            He's filling out an old chair that he's been sitting in for too long, and it's got a dad-shaped indentation in it. And he's just filling it. He is threatened, like really deeply, existentially threatened, by you being different. And you have an on/off switch. It's like outrage and defensiveness or pity and sympathy.

Layla:              Yes. Oh fuck.

Jessica:            Yeah. Sorry. It's okay. It's good. We're here. We're here. We're here.

Layla:              Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Right. And the pity and the sympathy is like—

Layla:              It's not good.

Jessica:            It's not great. It's not great. It's not the worst.

Layla:              It doesn't feel great.

Jessica:            No, of course not. It doesn't feel good. It's not even actionable.

Layla:              No.

Jessica:            So the core issue is you have not accepted who he is. If you accept that he is this guy, and this guy could have been a lot of really cool things—he genuinely has a lot of very cool qualities about him.

Layla:              Absolutely. Yeah.

Jessica:            But over time, before he got sick, before Fox News became as bad as it is, he did the thing that boomers—he's a boomer, right?

Layla:              Absolutely.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. He did the thing that boomers got a really bad rep for. He went from hippie to yuppie to something stuck.

Layla:              Hippie to yuppie to cranky.

Jessica:            Cranky. There you go. It's Pluto in Leo. It's Pluto in a fixed sign. It gets stuck really easy, right? And in particular over time. So, when he was your age—you're in your early 40s, right?

Layla:              44.

Jessica:            44. Yeah. By the time he was your age, the sticking was starting to really stick, right? And this is the thing that happens after the Pluto square to Pluto. Your dad is sweet and tender and ruthless and cruel.

Layla:              Yes.

Jessica:            He is both. He's all those things—plus, plus, plus. But the little girl in you, the Neptune opposite Mercury/Mars in you, wants him to either be cruel and relentless or kind and sweet. It's very hard for you to tolerate that he is both of those things; he's all of those things, sometimes in a single fucking interaction.

Layla:              In a single sentence. Absolutely.

Jessica:            Yes. Yeah, where you're like, "What in that soup do I focus on?"

Layla:              Yes.

Jessica:            You know what I mean? And because you have a deep habit of focusing on the other person's needs, you feel like you have to do that; you have to see it from his perspective. And you're too old for that shit. You've grown up too much. It's not working. But you don't have a new strategy.

Layla:              100 percent.

Jessica:            So the strategy is not through a behavior primarily. It's like you're trying to take your boat and put it in a new body of water, but you're nowhere near the water. You are landlocked, right? So the work here is to accept that your dad does not want to change, and he does not like who he is. He likes who he is slightly more than you do but not a whole lot more. I mean, you can tell, right? He is—you say cranky. I feel like that is a gentle word for what he's shifted into. Does that make sense?

Layla:              Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. He's a goddamn curmudgeon—

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            —not with a fun sense of humor curmudgeon. He's stuck. He's stuck.

Layla:              He's angry. He's just really, really fucking angry all the time.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Layla:              And it's really angry. It's hardened anger that is really difficult because it comes out through the political conversation, and then there's just nothing I can do to stay in the room. Even though I know all this other stuff is going on—

Jessica:            It doesn't matter. I mean—

Layla:              Like you say, what's a—like, how to make [indiscernible 00:20:38]?

Jessica:            Do you have a pattern with your dad where you can say to him, "I don't want to talk about this with you"?

Layla:              The problem is—yes, and I've been doing that. But now, the thing that happens is it's like I'm doing jiu-jitsu. We start a conversation, and I'm like, "We're not going to get into this. We're not going to get into that."

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay.

Layla:              And then by seven minutes in the car, I'm off the phone because somehow we went from here to there, and I'm like, "There's no way I can stay here."

Jessica:            There's nothing to—yeah. So have you ever had a cat?

Layla:              Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. Have you ever had a cat who liked to jump on the table?

Layla:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Okay. Me, too. The first time a cat jumps on the table, it's fucking adores-able. You're just like, "You want to be close to me. You're so cute." And then, the fourth time, you're like, "Now I have cat feet all over my fucking table," right?

Layla:              Totally.

Jessica:            If you do not train your cat earlier, the cat is always going to jump on the table, but you just have to consistently take the cat off the table. Your dad is the cat. You did not train him early. You're coming at this late, so he's always going to jump on the table. He is always going to talk shit you don't want to talk about. He's going to persist in being the man he is, if he lives a day or a decade. He's not interested in changing. I speak to you as a psychic. I could be wrong, but I will tell you change doesn't—I mean, sometimes change happens through calamity, but there's always choice.

                        Your father has made a series of life choices over the course of several decades that double down on, "It's not my fault," and, "I don't want to," and, "I shouldn't have to." The man is not—he's not interested in changing. And that doesn't mean he doesn't love you. I have to be emphatic about this.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Your dad loves you. So he says something that just slits your heart open, but he's like, "What?"

Layla:              Exactly. And I think that's where it becomes really difficult as everything's speeding up in the world because people always say, "Well, just don't talk politics." But the amount to which things in the headlines are affecting my day-to-day life is happening so fast that—I know he loves me. It's just it's this desire to be understood or just to understand that that's painful when you say the thing that actually affects my lived experience.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Layla:              And then I just kind of lose interest. [crosstalk].

Jessica:            Well, why would you talk to—yeah. Why would you talk to somebody who's just like, "All you can talk about is the weather"?

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Bottom line, your father is not capable of accepting the reality of who you are. He doesn't get it. He does not understand, and he's not taking pains to understand your experience. Right? We call it politics. Is ICE politics? Is ICE politics? Because to me, it doesn't seem like fucking politics.

Layla:              No.

Jessica:            I guess when it's in the Senate and they're deciding how much money to give ICE, that's a political conversation. But when you see masked men attacking people on the streets, that's not fucking politics. That's called an emergency.

Layla:              Absolutely.

Jessica:            That's something else. But if all you're doing is you're sitting on the couch and you're watching it on TV, then it might be politics to you because it's just something that's happening in that city to those people. But that's not your experience.

Layla:              No. Not at all.

Jessica:            That's his experience.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            At core, the decision you need to make is, do you want to try to change his mind?

Layla:              Definitely not.

Jessica:            Okay.

Layla:              I've decided I don't want to change his mind. Now I'm just trying to live with how I'm comfortable and what to do if I'm not doing that.

Jessica:            Okay. Great. So here's a thing that you have dealt with in seven million ways in your life. You say, "Okay. I've made the decision. I know I'm not trying to change his mind." I applaud this decision because it is not reasonable, it's not realistic, and it will absolutely destroy any hope of you having a relationship with him before he passes. Agreed. Okay? And it's not for lack of trying. For the record, for any judgy bitches, you have tried. I see it.

Layla:              Thank you.

Jessica:            We have to make a decision sometimes. You have to have a boundary sometimes. Okay.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            But here's the thing that's happened to you seven million times. You make the decision. You're perfectly clear until the mood shifts, and then the mood shifts, and then the mood shifts, and then the mood shifts.

Layla:              Yes. Yeah.

Jessica:            And you revisit the question 700 million times.

Layla:              Yes. Yes.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm.

Layla:              And then I can't believe the thing that came out of my mouth because why did I do that again?

Jessica:            Yep. Yep. You see a compelling social media post about why you should always argue with your parents about fucking politics, and you're like, "What the fuck is wrong with me?" And you're undone. And so we're back to this core theme, acceptance, right—is that you haven't accepted that you only have bad choices, and you've made one. You don't have a good choice here. Of your options, none of them are going to make you happy. So you're making the best choice you can make for this relationship.

                        Now, if I believed—and please tell me if I'm wrong—that you didn't really care about politics or social justice, you leave everyone to handle themselves—that's not you, right? You are engaged in trying to make the world safer and better. Am I right about this?

Layla:              Consistently. Yes, absolutely.

Jessica:            That's what I see. So it's really important, when moving towards cultivating acceptance of this, that you don't allow yourself to get too pinwheel vision. Your Mercury in Gemini—and it's not just Gemini; it's like 29 degrees Gemini. It's fucking peak Mercury in Gemini shit, right? So you're looking—I don't know if you can see my office is—it's a pegboard. It's lots of little dots. It's like you're standing on one side of a pegboard, just trying to see the view through each of the individual dots, and you're trying to take in all the data. And it's too many details, right? And each detail invalidates the last one, so it makes you bananas.

                        So what I'm getting at here is that in order to accept the decision you've made, on a core level, you must accept who you are. It's really hard to do. It sounds easy, but it's very hard to do. You are a person who tries. You are a person who loves your dad. You are a person who wants to shake your dad until something falls out. All the things are true. And at this stage of his life, it is really important to you to try to preserve a loving connection because you don't want to have regrets after he passes. And as you said, it is imminent, on some level imminent. I'm not predicting.  I don't know how to predict death. I'm not seeing anything, but just using your wording, right?

Layla:              Absolutely.

Jessica:            If you were to really accept that, then (a) you'd be fucking sad, and then (b) you would want to kind of run to your dad and have a nice interaction that made you feel better, and then (c) you'd be like, "Why'd I fucking do that? This doesn't work." Right?

Layla:              Yes.

Jessica:            So it's time instead for—you accept he's not long for this earth. You know that you'll regret it if you don't find a way to share love with him because you have love for him. And he is not your fucking friend. He is not the guy that you're like, "Oh my God. He's amazing." He's a man who drives you bananas—

Layla:              Bananas.

Jessica:            —and that you disagree with on 89 percent of things.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            If you can accept those things, what the next step is is to feel sad and to not try to feel better, because your pattern is, "I feel sad, and then I rush to him so I feel better." So let's interrupt the pattern. So you hang out with, "I'm sad. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place." Is there a question? I saw a little something on your face.

Layla:              Yeah. So what comes up when you say that is I feel like I did the pattern of going back to him for many years, and I've kind of stopped that pattern of going back to him and being in acceptance for a couple of years now. But if I'm really being excruciatingly honest, there is some feeling that if I accept—really, truly accept—who he is, it feels like the forces that be that are trying to drive us into fascism—I know this sounds insane—

Jessica:            No.

Layla:              —but it feels to me like the forces that are trying to take us under and destroy all the things that I care about and my people and my movement and my values—that there does feel like there's some resistance to accepting that.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yep. Yeah.

Layla:              And it doesn't make any sense, but it's very real in my body—

Jessica:            Yeah. It's very real.

Layla:              —like I have to fight it, like I have to fight it on all these levels.

Jessica:            Yeah. So okay. Let me just—I want to hang out in this for a minute because this feeling is very specific to this situation, but it's also—you've had this feeling of "I can't completely accept the negative thing because I will be destroyed or it will destroy us" before, right?

Layla:              Yes.

Jessica:            So, while on the one hand—I mean, I'm not going to disagree with you. I mean, on the one hand, there's that. On the other hand, because I'm looking at your chart and I'm looking at you energetically, I know that this is also a place you go. Right? This is a place you go. You've got a Pluto/Sun square. You have hardwired into your nature, "Everything is a race for survival"—

Layla:              Absolutely.

Jessica:            —"and at any time, I could be demolished or you could be." Right. And I mean, it makes you a great writer. It makes you a great activist. It makes you a great friend. You know? I want you there in an emergency.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            But the real thing that is underneath that story that you just told me—which is not a false story, but it's not a true story—is, "If I let go, then it's done."

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            If you let go of your attachment to your dad being this guy who you could regard as a hero, who you could let love you and be safe—

Layla:              Not—yeah. That's what I experience, is as I tiptoe into what you're describing, I just feel so fucking unsafe. It's like all of it is in the room. It's like it's all coming through him.

Jessica:            Yes, and that's true. And also, your dad is pretty powerless. And regarding him as a powerless old man is its own fucking heartbreak.

Layla:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            It's its own pain. Acceptance is not consent. Acceptance is just awareness. So, as you accept the man that he is is in some ways the man he always was and in some ways not the man he was—"This is who he is, though, and this is who I am. And I see red when he starts talking about this bullshit, and I don't like him."

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            "And it makes it really hard for me to love him when I don't like him."

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            If you can give yourself the grace of being in that soupy fucking mess, then the next time—and by the way, do not pick up the phone when he calls you and you're driving, okay? Mars is the car.

Layla:              Oh, fascinating. That's the only time I talk to him.

Jessica:            Terrible fucking idea.

Layla:              Interesting. And that's where we had a huge blowout where I lost it.

Jessica:            I'm not surprised. I'm not surprised.

Layla:              I lost it. All the way over the mountain, I lost it.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm.

Layla:              I lost my voice for like a week after that.

Jessica:            I'm sorry and also zero percent surprised. And this was in the past year, right?

Layla:              Yes. This was the thing that made me realize something was going on.

Jessica:            Yeah. The reason why you like talking on the phone while you're driving is partially because you got all that Gemini shit; you love to multitask. But it's also because your intensity is siloed in another direction, and so you think, "Oh, this will be easy." Right?

Layla:              Yes.

Jessica:            It's never fucking easy just because you're driving, though. But what happens is you are not as well defended and well boundaried when you're driving, because you're busy, because you're navigating survival—your survival, the bird, the people in the other car—whatever, right?

Layla:              Oh. Yeah. Interesting. Wow.

Jessica:            Yes. So I'm going to give you—do you live near trees or mountains or—

Layla:              Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Great. I had a feeling you were in nature. Okay.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            So, instead of doing what you've been doing, you get on the phone with him when your feet are on the damn ground and you can clock some nature—mountains, trees, river, whatever you like. I am not saying let him rob you of the beauty of connection to nature, because that's where your head goes a little bit. I am saying fill yourself up with your connection to nature and your well-resourced system that exists when you're not on the phone with your dad, and bring that part of yourself to him. That part of yourself is highly skilled in bearing witness to people being fucking off their rockers. That part of yourself is really good at watching a toddler throw a tantrum and let it run its course until they're ready to go take a nap. You're great at that.

Layla:              That's so fascinating because, usually—now that you bring it up, I think the cycle that I get into is something will happen in the news, and I'll either feel aversion to it or I'll feel—you know, something happens in the world that draws me to either make a decision not to call him or to call him.

Jessica:            Yep.

Layla:              But it's a whole thing that I do that's already tied me into the story of his place in the world versus being my father. He's like something that I need to protect against, not someone I want to care for.

Jessica:            Right, someone you want to connect to.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            The truth is you're doing something—and how old is he now?

Layla:              Probably 77, 78.

Jessica:            Late 70s. Okay.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Something that's so hard as our parents age is understanding that they're grown-ass adults fully accountable for the lives they've led, and also, they do not have the power they once had. Now, there's exceptions. When I look at your dad— I don't know how much power he ever had in the world but—sure as hell does not have a whole lot of power right now.

Layla:              No.

Jessica:            And so he's louder. He's more stuck. He's more fervent because what has he got? Armchair, TV, hospital. Armchair, TV, hospital.

Layla:              That's it.

Jessica:            I used to date somebody who worked at an AIDS hospice, and she ran the kitchen. And I remember that she said that so many of the people who were there to die—their biggest complaint being there was the food because it was the only thing they could control. It was the only thing they could send back. It was the only thing that they had choice around, really, because they were going through loss of life.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Now, her sharing that with me—she had a lot of empathy. She didn't take it personally—or maybe she did. I don't remember, but that's how I heard it, is that she had a lot of empathy. The problem with you is I tell you this, and then you have this empathy for your dad, but it's actually not empathy; it's sympathy. It's pity. And now you've lost your boundaries. I watched your boundaries just collapse at your feet.

Layla:              Yeah, dissolve, like—yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah, just down like sand or water just at your feet. What this tells us is that you don't know how to allow yourself to have empathy for, "He is a scared, little man barking," because it's hard to regard your dad, who is this guy who was your dad your whole life, be at the end of his life one way or another. Again, he might live to 90. He might live past 90. I don't fucking know. I shouldn't have put a number on it. But you know what I'm saying.

Layla:              I know what you mean. Yeah.

Jessica:            It's like he might have decades in him, but either way, he doesn't have the same worldliness that you once assigned to him. And that's your grief.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And nobody knows how to process that. How do you mourn somebody who's still with us? Why would you? What's wrong, right? It's so messy.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            So, within this, the question becomes, can you say—and here's the thing. You can't just fucking say it. So what I'm going to say, you can't just say it; you have to mean it. Otherwise, there's no point in saying it. Can you say when your dad starts talking about the thing he saw on ICE or you call him up and are like, "Do you know what fucking happened? Old man, defend it"—now, don't do that, obviously. But let's say he brings it up. He is the cat, and he is jumping on the table. He's talking about the thing that you say no. Can you say to him, "Dad, I really love you, and I'm not going to talk to you about that. Dad, I really love you, and I couldn't disagree with you more, and I couldn't think you're more wrong, and I'm not going to fucking talk to you about that"? Maybe you don't say "fucking," but okay. Is that something you could do?

Layla:              I think if I have my feet in the earth and I'm really not in my fight mind, not in my—

Jessica:            Yeah.

Layla:              —then maybe that's something I could get to. I feel like, right now, it's harder for me than I would like to admit to get to the "I really love you." I do. I love him like crazy.

Jessica:            I know you do. I know.

Layla:              But "I really love you" is harder to get to. I think I probably need to or want to find that, find ways to find that and come from there.

Jessica:            So let me give you a piece of advice about how to find it. The next time you're in your car and you're like, "I'm going to call that fucking old man and tell him why he's wrong"—okay. What you're going to do is you're going to pull up the notes in your phone, and you're going to use talk-to-type. And you're going to create a series called Angry Notes to My Father. Fuck with the title. And you're going to start saying it, giving yourself the gift of catharsis without the consequence of having a conversation with somebody who cannot hear you, who you actually want to learn how to have new conversations with.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And honestly, the best thing you might be able to do with your dad is, "Did you see the latest episode of"—blah, blah, blah. That's probably your best bet with your dad at this point.

Layla:              Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            And you can't have that with your dad if you don't also say what you need to say. But in life—and this is so important—there's what you want to say, and then there's what you want the other person to hear. What you want to say to your dad is, "How can you not love me enough to see this?"

Layla:              Yes.

Jessica:            "How can you be so toxic that you believe that?"

Layla:              Yes.

Jessica:            But what you want him to hear is a complex breakdown that he can understand of what's actually happening socially and politically, how we got here and how it directly impacts more than half the country.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            That's actually what you want him to hear.

Layla:              And how he should take a little personal responsibility for it.

Jessica:            How he should take responsibility, how he should think—

Layla:              A little bit. Just a little bit. Yeah.

Jessica:            —how he should feel, and how he should behave. Right?

Layla:              Yes, 100 percent.

Jessica:            Okay. Yeah. So understanding that when you talk to your dad, you're not listening to him, might ease the blow of the fact that he's not listening to you.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And this is why acknowledging the love part, if you mean it, is your best move. If you don't mean it, find the words that are authentic. So it might be, "I really care about you, and I do want to find a way to talk to you that's enjoyable for both of us." It might be, "I worry about you. I only want what's best for you." That might be the most honest thing you can say today, right? You might be seeing red, but finding that part of you that loves him and not abandoning yourself as you hold it—because even as I said finding that part of you that loves him, you automatically dropped some of your boundaries. Could you feel it?

Layla:              I can.

Jessica:            Yeah. It's wild. It's like you associate love with, again, pouring yourself out, filling yourself with them.

Layla:              Yes.

Jessica:            Is your dad a narcissist?

Layla:              Yes. How long did we get into this?

Jessica:            I know. Well, I mean, you're well trained.

Layla:              No, I just mean—yes, like I really—

Jessica:            Yes. Yes. No, I get it.

Layla:              Coming to understand that has helped me a little bit, but not only is he a narcissist, but I really have had to reckon with how many of those I've called into my life.

Jessica:            Of course you have.

Layla:              And so it's not just about, you know, over there doing that. There's a couple places where I have to—

Jessica:            I mean, I assume your husband is narcissistic because why else would you feel at home with him? If you have been so well trained that you've come to believe that love means, "I'm 2; you're 1," then when somebody's like, "No, no, no. We're both 1," you're like, "What's wrong with you?" you have to go with the person that feels like home, right?

Layla:              Yeah. And what I'm really grateful for is that my partner at home, my husband, definitely has similar qualities, but what's different is that he's extremely dedicated to waking up and doing the work.

Jessica:            Great. Perfect.

Layla:              And so it's a fucking roller coaster, and it's exhausting.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Layla:              But it's going somewhere—

Jessica:            But it's a conversation. It's like a dynamic.

Layla:              —[crosstalk] show up.

Jessica:            Great. I love it.

Layla:              But I have other people in my life who I cannot get rid of who are narcissists and—

Jessica:            Why can't you get rid of them?

Layla:              Like my child's father—

Jessica:            Your child's father.

Layla:              —that has similar [indiscernible 00:43:08] that I can't get rid of it, or like a super cool version of it. So I think one of the real layers is that, as I'm working through acceptance of my dad and where he's not going to change and—I'm having to work through the layers of all the other people in my life who are not going to change. And then I'm fucking tired, and then I'm just like, "I just don't want to deal with any of you." And because I'm in midlife and it's almost perimenopause time, I'm kind of just giving less and less fucks.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Layla:              And I think that leads me to my original question—was just like, is it okay to give up? Part of me wants to give up.

Jessica:            Okay. So let me come back to that. Neptune is currently squaring your Mercury, and then it's going to oppose your Jupiter next year starting in the spring. It'll oppose your Saturn starting in the spring. That feeling of wanting to give up is not going to go away.

Layla:              Oh man.

Jessica:            You're in a period in your—this is your 40s. This is the next several years of—you know, whatever it is. It's going to be—Neptune opposite Saturn starts March of 2026. It'll last two years—a little bit over that. The desire to give up in you comes up right around the same time when your dad became more rigid when he was your age.

Layla:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            How did that age? Not great.

Layla:              Not well.

Jessica:            Not great. So this is the thing about the midlife crisis—

Layla:              That's deep.

Jessica:            It is fucking deep. Yeah. I know. I'm sorry/you're welcome. Both, right?

Layla:              Yeah. Yes.

Jessica:            The thing that is so hard about, first, the Saturn Return, then the midlife crises transits, is that there comes this time cyclically, through the generations, where you're like, "I've worked so hard. I'm out. Peace out." And the problem with that is it is based on the presumption that these bitches be fucking with you, and that's why your life is fucked up, as opposed to the presumption, "I have come here in this fucking life with all this shit that I've encountered, and I myself am accountable to myself."

So giving up—you're in Neptune transits; you're going to want to give up. Nobody doesn't want to give up during a Neptune transit. Don't feel bad about it. It is the fucking nature of a Neptune transit because Neptune is not material. Neptune makes us want to disappear. It makes us want it to go away, just make it stop. Pluto—

Layla:  That doesn't make as much sense as it used to.

Jessica:            It doesn't. It doesn't. And in particular, Neptune is opposite your Mercury, so it's opposite your mind. You're like, "I don't know. I don't know."

Layla:              Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. First time in my life.

Jessica:            Yes.

Layla:              First time in my life that I say, "I don't know," about anything. I always know everything.

Jessica:            Yep.

Layla:              And I don't know a lot of things right now.

Jessica:            So a big part of what this period has been teaching you is the consequence of not having boundaries. So it teaches you how to have boundaries by compelling you towards the consequences of not having them.

Layla:              Definitely.

Jessica:            Yeah. Super fun.

Layla:              Super fun.

Jessica:            Yeah. Not at all.

Layla:              I mean, it is getting a little bit fun because I have started experimenting with, you know, saying a thing, and that's kind of fun.

Jessica:            It is. It can be. Okay.

Layla:              There is a little bit of fun.

Jessica:            Good. I like that. I like that.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            I mean, the—

Layla:              But inside, and in particular, especially with my dad's situation, it's hard.

Jessica:            It's hard. It is hard.

Layla:              In other places, I feel like I'm getting muscles and getting stronger, and it's kind of fun.

Jessica:            With family of origin, it's always the hardest. And also, nobody's chill with, "Oh shit. My father is at the end of his life," even if you don't really care for their father.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            But you do really care for your father.

Layla:              I do.

Jessica:            So the answer to your question of, "Can I just give up?"—the answer is no. I mean, listen. You can do whatever the fuck you want, but I don't advise it, okay?

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            You are going to spend the next three years just up to it in boundary lessons.

Layla:              Wow.

Jessica:            Yeah. I'm so sorry.

Layla:              Okay.

Jessica:            And you've been in it for years.

Layla:              I was going to say I feel like I've been in it for—

Jessica:            Years. For like four years. Yeah.

Layla:              Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. So why is it that the Universe was like, "I know. We'll give her 700 million years of boundary transits back-to-back-to-back at this age"? It's because of your childhood. Have you heard of your childhood? Have you met your mother and your father and your childhood? So now you're at this age where you've done all this work as an adult, consciously and intentionally, to heal, to evolve, to grow. And I guess your transits knew that the next stage of evolution, to truly integrate and synthesize that work, would be these transits where you have to—you don't have to do anything, but the best-case scenario here is that you deeply and on an embodied level learn the difference between pity and empathy. You learn the difference between love and obedience. You learn the difference between navigating your needs and constantly being authentic.

                        Do you have to constantly be authentic in order to navigate your needs? Spoiler alert—the answer is no. But you tell yourself, "Yes. I owe them the authentic truth." But do you owe the authentic truth to someone who has proven to you that they are not trustworthy? In that case, you are emptying yourself out. You're pouring them into you. And then you're like, "But what about me?" Does that make sense?

Layla:              It makes so much sense.

Jessica:            So when we're talking about your ex, your child's parent, that person—

Layla:              Oh yeah. That's a whole other—

Jessica:            I see. I see. It's, like, yelling at me it's so strong.

Layla:              It's really hard.

Jessica:            He has proven to you that he is not respectful. He is not consistent. He does not listen. And when he listens, he misconstrues. The man is very fucking hard to deal with.

Layla:              Biggest challenge of my entire life. Really hard.

Jessica:            I believe it. I believe it.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And I'm sorry.

Layla:              And there, I am fucking enjoying learning how to put up some boundaries.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. It's because it's—

Layla:              It's hard, but I can feel it.

Jessica:            Yes.

Layla:              It feels good.

Jessica:            There's no love at this point, not like with your dad; there's love, so it's more confusing.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            But I will say this. With your ex, asking yourself, "There's what I want to say, and there's what I want to hear. How can I reframe what I want to say to be better at communicating what I want him to hear?"—because in that relationship, that's actually viable, okay? Does that make sense?

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Because there are ways that you sometimes express things to him because you think it's the right thing to do, and you want to do the right thing, to model for him the right thing.

Layla:              Oh Jesus, [crosstalk].

Jessica:            It doesn't work. It doesn't work.

Layla:              No.

Jessica:            So, instead, practicing, "Oh. Okay. There I am again. I'm trying to model for him good behavior so he's a better person. But I'm not his fucking mommy. I'm not going to do this shit no more"—so, instead, what you do is—bear with me. Sorry. Hold on. Do you have a grandmother you were really close to?

Layla:              I have a grandmother who [indiscernible 00:50:06] my psyche. I don't know if I would say we were close, but she was a big figure. She's alive.

Jessica:            And she's alive; she's not passed?

Layla:              Yeah. I have an ancestor that was—she passed when I was seven.

Jessica:            And what's her name?

Layla:              [redacted].

Jessica:            Was English her first language?

Layla:              English was her first language. My mother's side of the family—my mother passed away, and her side—

Jessica:            It's your mother I'm seeing.

Layla:              It is my mom. Yeah.

Jessica:            It's your mother I'm seeing. It's your mother I'm seeing.

Layla:              Yes. That makes sense.

Jessica:            Okay, because I think we're going to just—

Layla:              And we were very, very, very, very, very close.

Jessica:            Okay, okay, okay. I just said—I don't remember what I said, but I said something that I was like, "Oh, that doesn't sound like the way I talk." And so I was like, "Oh, okay." So your mom is here, and your mom had a hard time with your dad.

Layla:              My mom had a very hard time with my dad.

Jessica:            Okay. Do you mind if I check in with your mom?

Layla:              Please.

Jessica:            Okay. Will you say her name? And we will beep this out.

Layla:              Yes. Her name is [redacted].

Jessica:            Okay. So you have a practice of calling your mother in, eh?

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. I'm going to say something that's going to sound weird. But stop, because your mom is already in. And what you're doing is you're calling her in deeper, deeper, deeper, and it's actually creating some confusion for you.

Layla:              Well, it's interesting because I said yes to you, but I don't actually have a conscious—I don't consciously call her in, but I have—

Jessica:            Do you talk to her?

Layla:              I do feel her quite a lot.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Layla:              And I do talk to her.

Jessica:            You talk to her in your head. That's the calling in. That's calling in.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. It doesn't have to be more complex than that. It's like you want your mom. You really want your mom. You want your mom. You love your mom. And your mom is so like you. She thinks at the speed of light. She's just pulled in a million directions. And so, when the two of you overlap, it actually makes it a little bit hard for you to pick one lane because she's with you. She's like, "Or…"

Layla:              Wow.

Jessica:            And your mom's presence energetically is—it's, like, in you. It's in half of your body. She's so in your field that I wonder if, when dealing with your dad, you're partially feeling your mom. He's not the man she knew at all. Your mom is so intense—okay. Wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait.

Layla:              My mom is so intense.

Jessica:            Your mom is so intense. She's awesome. I really like her. But her way of communicating—she dives directly into your body. Was she also like that as a person, just up in your space?

Layla:              So—

Jessica:            Okay.

Layla:              —so blunt.

Jessica:            Yes.

Layla:              Blunt and sharp.

Jessica:            Yeah. And she wanted intense connection, real connection.

Layla:              No small talk. Zero.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

Layla:              Only the real or don't bother.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. I got that. Okay. So your mom is, like, diving into my body to show me stuff, and she does that with you. So, again, you have this experience of being loved by people who are invasive of your space.

Layla:              Yes. Yes.

Jessica:            That's love to you.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            So it makes sense why you went with that first guy. That fucking guy, man. That fucking guy. Okay. But I get why he would have felt like home because—so invasive. So invasive. Do you have an altar for your mom?

Layla:              I would say she's a big part of my altar.

Jessica:            Okay.

Layla:              But I don't have an altar for her.

Jessica:            I would separate them. Separate them. Put just—

Layla:              I don't have an al- —yeah.

Jessica:            You don't have, exactly, an altar?

Layla:              I don't have, exactly, an altar for her. But she's really involved in my art and my altar-making [crosstalk].

Jessica:            I see that. She's so involved in every aspect of your spiritual life and in your emotional life. She passed, but she didn't leave you. She never left you.

Layla:              Wow. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. She's really there. And she has never—"never" is a big word, but she's showing me that she isn't worried that you are—you know where to find her. You know where to find her. She's right there for you, and she's not going to go away. She's going to hang out for the rest of this life for you. And she's good with that. That is easy choice for her. But I'm giving you really challenging advice, and your mother is not in disagreement with this advice, although it is not her advice; I want to be really clear, okay?

                        What I'm recommending that you do is that you create an altar—and I don't know if you have a formal altar. Maybe it's just a shelf where you set intentions. What I want to advise you to do is to create a separate altar for your mom. And the reason why—so just photos of her, maybe writing, anything special from her—is because this is a practice of energetically separating from her, not pushing her away, not rejecting her, not minimizing her, but separating you from her because if you're separating you from Dad, you have to separate you from Mom. That's how it's working for you.

Layla:              Interesting.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Layla:              And it's—wow.

Jessica:            I know. I know.

Layla:              That's wild.

Jessica:            It's not a—see, this is the thing, and your mom just showed me this. This is not a value judgment or a rejection; it's just having boundaries. "Boundaries" are not her word, for the record. Your mom is not about boundaries, okay?

Layla:              No.

Jessica:            She is not about boundaries. But she's been here for this reading, and she's in with you all the time. And she understands that this is something that you need to figure out how to do for yourself and that—she understands that if you can do it with her, you can do it with anybody because—

Layla:              Wow.

Jessica:            —you love her love so much.

Layla:              I do. I do love her so much.

Jessica:            So, if you can have a boundary with her love without calling it rejection of her, without feeling like it's mean to her, then you can do that with your dad, and you can do that with your crummy ex, and you can do that with anyone. So she understands that she's—her love—yeah. You can throw all the boundaries you want. She's going to love you through them. She doesn't care. Does she want to be literally sitting on your head all the time? Yes, she does. She does. She does. She wants to be a hat you never take off.

                        But if you separate and you say, "Hey, Mom, I'm going to call Dad now. I need to be alone," if you say, "I am going to practice being energetically on my own today," your mom will be like, "This is"—I don't know why I want to say "cool beans," but that's what I'm hearing. It's just like she's "Cool beans" about it. She's cool. She doesn't feel rejected by you. Your mother doesn't feel rejected by you. Your dad has a fragile ego.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Your mom doesn't.

Layla:              No.

Jessica:            You could tell her—she doesn't—does she not cuss?

Layla:              A little bit here and there, but she doesn't need to cuss.

Jessica:            But she's not like a big cusser.

Layla:              She's so intense, she doesn't need to cuss.

Jessica:            Yeah. That makes sense because I was about to cuss on her behalf, and she was like, "No." You could tell her to back off. You could tell her, "I'm going to not talk to you," or whatever, and she'd be like, "Okay. You'll be back. You love me." She's cool. She's cool with it. Ah. She says you're like that with your kids. Every little thing they say and do is not a treatise on how they love you. You know that.

Layla:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Is that correct?

Layla:              Yeah. Yeah, that is correct. Yes, 100 percent.

Jessica:            So your mom—you knew she was going to pass before she passed?

Layla:              Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Layla:              [crosstalk].

Jessica:            Sorry. I'm having so much heat. Did she have a heat-related issue with her health?

Layla:              She had a brain tumor, so it was dramatic.

Jessica:            Very.

Layla:              There was a lot of heat, and she—it was a dramatic experience, her—

Jessica:            I'm so sorry.

Layla:              It was quite mystical in her way she died.

Jessica:            Your mother is—

Layla:              Of course, she's a really incredible being.

Jessica:            I mean, if this is a dead person, show me an alive person who's half as alive as your mom. My God. Your mom is very, very alive. You know what I mean?

Layla:              Yes, I do.

Jessica:            She's vibrant, vibrant.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And hold on. I just have to take a pause and have her leave my body a little bit more. See, this is the thing, though. Even though your mom is such an amazing ally, she's really invasive.

Layla:              She's really intense.

Jessica:            It's just her way of loving. She's just really—yeah. It's not just intense. She wants to dive into my body to show me things. It's enthusiasm. It's not cruelty. She's not trying to push past my boundaries, but she's like, "This is the best way. It's funner. It's better." That's just your mom's attitude. And you love being swept away by somebody else's intensity and weirdness. You're a fan of that. And I can see why you would be, because your mom was so—just wild and loyal, like you.

Layla:              Yes.

Jessica:            Just wild and loyal.

Layla:              Wild and loyal.

Jessica:            And she consents. She is okay. She's good with you having boundaries with her. She wants you to practice saying to her, "I love you. Please hang out over there right now. I'm going to talk to my dad. I want it to be private." Just see how it feels.

Layla:              And how would I know when she is? Because I don't even think I know.

Jessica:            She's always there, 100 percent of the time.

Layla:              But I don't think I would even know when it would be good for me to ask her to step aside, because it feels—

Jessica:            Okay. So, if you need to concentrate, that's when you say to your mom, "I love you. Not right now." So you can imagine her energy being like a hat that covers your head, and the energy pours from the hat into your body. That's your mom.

Layla:              Yeah. Very interesting, because I've had some—my ability to concentrate the last year or two has been a lot less as I've been doing my inner work and kind of opening myself up.

Jessica:            Yep. Yep. Your mom is in. That's the problem.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            You plus your mom is like the attention of a fly. You guys are too stimulated. You're too smart. You're too many directions all at once. It's like a Muppet on The Muppet Show at the beginning credits. It's just wild out here. So how could you concentrate? So, if you need to concentrate—

Layla:              That's so true.

Jessica:            Yeah. Oh, I see it. Oh, girl, 'tis not subtle. Your mom is great. And—okay. You can just visualize it like taking off your mom hat. Place it lovingly on the altar. You can visualize it; you don't have to physically be near the altar. It's all energy. And set the intention, "Mom, I love you. Right now I'm going to focus. I gotta focus on my banana brain cells. You keep yours over there." It's a boundary. Your mom will care zero percent. She cares about you. She's not going to be harmed by this. But my prediction is you will struggle to have a boundary with your mom, even if it's a theoretical boundary in your mind. And that's a great place to start because if you can't have a boundary in your own thinking, how are you going to do it in your behavior?

Layla:              And I didn't know that it was her, necessarily. But it makes a lot of sense in terms of having trouble with my dad because a lot the issues that we didn't chat about, but I'm sure you can feel them, is it's really coming to terms with their relationship that has made it so hard for me to talk to my dad.

Jessica:            Yep. Yep.

Layla:              So I can imagine stepping out of that intentionally might make it easier for me to love him.

Jessica:            It will make it easier for you to be clear about your boundaries because, right now, you've got her rage plus your rage.

Layla:              I was just going to say—I was just about to say I have her rage—

Jessica:            In addition to yours. Yes. Yes.

Layla:              —that she felt when—I didn't even realize that, but when she was embodied, she had a rage towards him. And I feel it in my body now.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. And some of it's yours, but some of it's hers.

Layla:              Yeah. Totally. But there's a different flavor.

Jessica:            There is a different flavor. So, the next time you're going to call your dad or the next time you find yourself obsessing on what you would say if you were going to call him, be like, "Okay. Mom, I'm going to take you, pop you on your altar. Love you. Love you. Okay? But I'm going to do me now on this one."

Layla:              Wow.

Jessica:            Practice having the boundary with her. The other time that I'm being shown by her that you could use less mom is when you're parenting your child that has tantrums. Is there—one of your children has tantrums?

Layla:              One of my kids is a bit of a tantrumer, but I'm not usually—he's my stepson. I don't usually have to step in with that, and I'm actually the one who can get him to just kind of be like this.

Jessica:            How old is he?

Layla:              He is about to be 13.

Jessica:            Okay.

Layla:              But he would start having some tantrums.

Jessica:            That's what it is. When he becomes more of a teenage boy—

Layla:              Yeah. Yes.

Jessica:            —it's going to be more of a trigger for you. And that's when you want to take your mom hat off.

Layla:              Yes. He reminds me of me then, and yeah, he can get me—yeah.

Jessica:            He might even remind you of people that you have a hard time with, you know?

Layla:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            I mean, are teenage boys most people's favorite, even teenage boys' favorite? No. You know? It's just like it's—teenage girls, teenage boys—it doesn't matter the gender.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            It's just teenage hormones—nightmare. Your mom says that if and when this child triggers you—

Layla:              Yes.

Jessica:            —you take her hat off, and you put it away—

Layla:              Interesting.

Jessica:            —because you are better at staying calm. You are better at defusing bombs. Your mom is like, "There's a bomb. What should we do? Should we throw it? Should we rattle the bomb? Should we dissect the bomb?" And you're just like, "Let's defuse the bomb and then think about the bomb." So you both have a lot of interest in the bomb.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            But yours is like, "First, peace, then intrigue." Your mom's like, "First, intrigue, then intrigue, then maybe peace, probably intrigue." Your mom's just all over the place. I mean, she's very fun.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            She's very fun. But this particular phase of your life, you're needing just a little bit more of your own space. So do you have to feel her in order to have this boundary? No. Make it a habit. You can say, "Mom, or anyone else who's not really well suited to help me out in this moment, I need you to just clear the deck a little bit so I'm left with my own energies so I can figure this out."

Layla:              Fascinating, because I used to be really good at defusing bombs, and I'm kind of not finding that ability recently.

Jessica:            You mean recently like the last year?

Layla:              Last year, last two years.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. It's these transits. It's your midlife crisis.

Layla:              Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            There's a difference between defusing bombs and acting like it's okay that someone blew you up.

Layla:              Totally. As soon as that came out of my mouth, I was like, "[indiscernible 01:04:48] exactly."

Jessica:            Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. What this is is you no longer being okay with your light being blown off by the bomb. That's what's actually happening. So you are still good at defusing bombs, but you used to just wrap your body around the bomb and take all the impact, and now you're not willing to do that.

Layla:              So well said.

Jessica:            You're welcome.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            I mean, your mom is like—I don't know if she was always like this, but so "live or let live." She's like, "Do whatever you want. You're great." She's just very cool with whatever. And I mean, your mom loves you, and she's there with you. And I want to just say, because I don't want to be in any way cavalier, your mom doesn't have any messages for you. She said everything she needed to say. The two of you had this beautiful relationship where it felt realized to her. She felt like your love, your friendship, your parental dynamic—it was realized. She never felt hurt or harmed or confused or insecure or anything with you. Yeah. Were you the only child?

Layla:              I wasn't the only child, but I was ten years older than my siblings, so in many ways.

Jessica:            She kind of grew up with you, in a way.

Layla:              Yeah. She grew up with me.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah.

Layla:              She had me young, and we grew up together.

Jessica:            And you—

Layla:              And we are very similar, she and I.

Jessica:            Oh, that's—anyone who met one of you would now that.

Layla:              Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            The two of you—I mean, you could have grown up to really resent her. She's aware of that. But instead, you just got her.

Layla:              I did.

Jessica:            You got her, and you—

Layla:              Especially towards the end.

Jessica:            Yes. Yeah. She doesn't need me to say something to you. She knows how to make you feel loved, and she's like—you know how it is. Sometimes you just feel something in you, and you're just like—life. Something shifts in you, and maybe also your body temperature goes up a little.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            That's your mom.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            That's your mom. I mean, I started to be really hot when she came in. I mean, she came in hot. She comes in hot. She comes in hot.

Layla:              She comes in hot.

Jessica:            She comes in hot. And she's fun, and you would look at her and you wouldn't think, "Oh, that's a weird lady." But my God, she's a weird lady.

Layla:              Yes.

Jessica:            A weird lady.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Love a weird lady.

Layla:              She's fun, but madness fun.

Jessica:            Yes. Yeah. Yes.

Layla:              The best—creative, wild.

Jessica:            She's a Muppet.

Layla:              Like you said, wild.

Jessica:            Wild. She's wild. Yeah.

Layla:              Yeah, she's wild.

Jessica:            Yeah. And when your dad was with her, he was his best self, and it lasted 15 seconds.

Layla:              Less. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Layla:              Wow.

Jessica:            Your mom is not focused on helping you with your dad. She doesn't care about helping you with your dad, to be honest.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            The thing I like about your mom—she's not going to lie to you. She's like, "I'm not going to help you with that."

Layla:              Mm-mm. Nope.

Jessica:            And then she's like, "Smile. Love you. Bye."

Layla:              Yes. Yes.

Jessica:            She's not to help you with your dad. She doesn't like your dad.

Layla:              She had enough of that. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Layla:              She had enough of that. Yeah.

Jessica:            She's cool with you telling your dad to fuck off.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            No. She actually doesn't like it when I cuss.

Layla:              That tracks.

Jessica:            Huh. Okay. Yeah. She's like, "No, no, no, no. That's too far." But she's okay with you being mad at him and holding his feet to the fire.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            It doesn't serve you, though. I mean, it literally hurts you. And so I want to just come back to your central question to say, as you cultivate acceptance for your own self, you can come to realize that you are really well resourced as an adult. You are. You have a lot of tools. And you, like everybody else, remembers to use them half the time at best, right? With your dad, you actually have the tools to cope with him. But (a) you don't want to; you want him to change so you don't have to change, so you don't have to accept the sad parts of who he is and where he is, when he is. And you're scared because, once you change in this way, you will have outgrown your matrilineage and your patrilineage.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And that's devastating. Sounds great on paper. Everyone wants to heal, heal, heal. But when you're actually on the precipice of evolving past inherited conditions, it feels like the loneliest, most terrifying thing in the world. It's like an existential loneliness. Yeah.

Layla:              Ding, ding, ding.

Jessica:            That's how you know you're on the right path. Isn't that fucked up?

Layla:              It's fucked up.

Jessica:            That sadness and fear is how you know you're outgrowing shit that your parents never figured out how to outgrow. Boundaries are not a thing on either side of your family.

Layla:              Yeah, not even close.

Jessica:            Nowhere close.

Layla:              Like, so much learning around boundaries. And I'm so glad that we're talking because it really is nice to know that I have a couple more years and that the wanting to give up is part of it so I can learn how to be with that, because the wanting to give up is not something that I'm used to.

Jessica:            Yeah. The transits that are coming for you—the Neptune opposition to Jupiter is a transit that occurs—and it starts in late January of 2026. This transit sucks, honestly, because it can make you super idealistic. This is not a time for fucking ayahuasca. This is not a time for doing any kind of consciousness-raising drugs. Do not, if you can avoid it, because Neptune opposite Jupiter makes you wildly porous and gullible.

Layla:              Interesting. I do a lot of—interesting.

Jessica:            You do a lot of ayahuasca?

Layla:              I do.

Jessica:            Okay. That's probably why I mentioned it.

Layla:              I mean, not comparatively, but yes, a couple times a year and with a community, in a container, but—

Jessica:            I'm going to give you advice that you should feel free to not take.

Layla:              Yeah. I hear you.

Jessica:            I want to just really hold space for—you are a grown-ass adult. You get to make your choices. You know what I mean? I'm not attached to being right or you taking my advice. Take what works; leave everything else. Also, if you've listened to me give a lot of readings, I don't usually mention ayahuasca—

Layla:              That's true.

Jessica:            —so I must have picked up on that ayahuasca in your field. So ayahuasca is not my ministry. It's not my work—you know, whatever. But the thing about that particular substance—and is that the only one you do?

Layla:              Some mescaline family—the cactuses are more my favorite.

Jessica:            Okay.

Layla:              And it's a lot less than I used to.

Jessica:            Yeah. But it's still in there.

Layla:              But it's still there. Yeah. It's been a big teacher for me.

Jessica:            Oh, I bet. So the thing about these things traditionally is there are years and years of intensive preparation and then years and years of changing your life and dedicating to integration.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            But the way that people use it in the West—and probably in many regions of the world just in 2025—is you take it; it changes something quickly. You feel better. And then the changes wane after about six months, after about a year, so you take it again. Or some people just take it monthly, weekly—whatever. When you go through Neptune transits, as you have been for the last several years—and you've got two really big ones coming for you—it makes you more permeable. And so, when you take something like ayahuasca, the way that I as a psychic can see ayahuasca in people's field is big, old holes. It just looks like big, old holes in the field. And the thing about those holes is—

Layla:              Wow.

Jessica:            —wisdom can come through and all this stuff can come through, but so could anything else. You have a hole in the front of your house, and your best friend can walk through it with dinner, and so can stranger danger, right? When going through Neptune transits, the most common thing people do is something like ayahuasca. You go on a cleanse, and you stop eating enough food. You pour yourself into something or someone that requires that you basically abandon yourself. These are common Neptune behaviors. It's the opposite of what you should do, but it's the common thing to do.

                        So what I'm going to advise you to do instead is cultivate a grounded spirituality that is centered around being present in this timeline and integrating behaviorally. That's your best move under these transits.

Layla:              Interesting, because for the last two years, I've not sat down many times that I thought I was going to sit to drink. I just have drank a lot less than I ever have, a lot less medicine, and I have intuitively, for the past two years, not really been called in the same way. I do feel more called to the cactusy plants, though. Is that a different energy? Because that's like more of a heart-based, more body—it feels like it's different.

Jessica:            That's interesting. Okay. So there's like three different answers I'm going to give you. One is trust yourself.

Layla:              Yeah, for sure.

Jessica:            The other one is I am of the mind that all of these spiritual facilitators are meant to help us to find the energy inside of ourselves. They're not meant to be lifestyle things. Now, I'm a triple Capricorn asshole. You can disagree with me, right? There's different ways of being a person. But I genuinely feel like you can take ecstasy, MDMA—whatever—and experience love in a way that you never have. Maybe the cactus does that for you as well. If you keep on returning to the substance, that means that you've not integrated the lesson on yourself. You haven't accessed that thing that's already inside of you that the substance helped to flower, but the seed was already there. Right? You're not cultivating the seed if you're doing the drug again and again and again and again and again and again. Instead, the seed tends to stay in a similar state of growth. That's my take.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            So that's like a broad view. And then the third thing I'm going to say is, yeah, my advice is don't fucking do it, because of the Neptune transits. So do what you want to do. Trust yourself. This is my broad view. And then, finally, as an astrologer—

Layla:              I hear you saying—yeah. I hear you saying Neptune transits are happening and take that seriously on all the levels.

Jessica:            Take that seriously. Yeah.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            And also know that if there's ever a time that you can integrate the medicine of anything without imbibing it, it's during fucking Neptune transits. Do you know what I'm saying?

Layla:              Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And so you can communicate with, as an example, ayahuasca, with the magic and the medicine, without ever imbibing it because it's already in your system.

Layla:              Absolutely. I can feel that all the time.

Jessica:            It's in your field, right? I will say there's a lot of different kinds of drugs. Ayahuasca leaves your field very slowly. I see it years after people have done it last in their field—

Layla:              Wow.

Jessica:            —which I have a mixed feeling about, if I'm being honest, because I see some people collect a lot of—it kind of is like wearing head-to-toe black velvet. It's fucking gorgeous. I love velvet. It's beautiful, but it picks up everything. It picks up everything. And the better quality of your velvet, the more you're going to see it because the contrast is deeper. So, when going through Neptune transits, you're already ensconced in velvet, and you're already picking up everything. How do you take off all the cat fur and enjoy your outfit at the same time? I'm giving you a lot of cat metaphors.

Layla:              I hear you.

Jessica:            Are you a cat person?

Layla:              Yes, I am a cat person.

Jessica:            Okay. I am, too. Okay. Good. I was like, "I hope I'm not forcing cat metaphors on you."

Layla:              No, not at all. Love cats.

Jessica:            Fabulous. Okay. Great. Good. Me, too. Me, too. So all to say don't go on a starvation cleanse in this period. This is a time for fortifying your system, feeding it, not denying it. Any substance that involves vomiting or getting sick from it as part of the entry fee—it's not the time for it, period. And also, do whatever is consistent and in alignment with your spiritual practice and your life and all the kind of good stuff. But I would be irresponsible if I didn't share that.

Layla:              And I appreciate it because it's interesting because, about two and a half years ago, I had a really, really rough night with that medicine, where things happened. And I haven't quite come back from it. So I'm not surprised that you picked that up because it is—

Jessica:            Neptune. You are right in the middle between your Neptune opposite to Mars and your Neptune/Mercury opposition.

Layla:              Yeah. Yeah. My relationship to the plant changed, which I think is important to talk about, that that changes. It is like a being.

Jessica:            It does change. And more than that, let us understand that the conversation we're having about your relationship to the plant and your relationship to your dad is the same fucking conversation.

Layla:              Yeah. Absolutely.

Jessica:            Can you give yourself permission to listen to yourself? "This helped me. This healed me. This felt good. And then it felt bad, and it made me scared. And so I don't feel safe with it anymore, so I'm going to have a boundary with it." It's the same conversation. And I think being able to see that reflection is really valuable because maybe you can validate, "Oh, I've had better boundaries. I wasn't thinking about it as boundaries with the plant, but okay. I've had boundaries with the plant, and I've had boundaries with my dad. And I'm going to choose myself more and strengthen those boundaries. And maybe as I strengthen them, I'll adapt them. And then maybe I'll put them away for a while, and I'll call my dad angry from the car, and I'll do ayahuasca." But then you learn, and you adapt, and you heal in that way.

                        And hold on. Your mom wants me to give you advice about how to strengthen your field after—it wasn't the time that you got really sick. You did it again after that. Do you know what I'm—

Layla:              The medicine?

Jessica:            Mm-hmm.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            That time, it did something-=

Layla:              It wasn't that I got sick. It wasn't that I got sick. I just was in the room for some difficult things happening for other people.

Jessica:            I see. I see. It was like a bad experience on some level.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            So you did it again after that, and the time that you did it again after that, something got off for you.

Layla:              Yeah. Yeah. Yes.

Jessica:            So your mom's showing me that. Your mom doesn't have judgment about you using substances—don't worry—because I think she might have when she was alive.

Layla:              Definitely.

Jessica:            Yeah. But she doesn't now.

Layla:              Oh yes.

Jessica:            Okay. So she's showing me there's this whole—it kind of looks like—do you go to the desert to do the medicine?

Layla:              No—

Jessica:            Or do you go to the desert a lot?

Layla:              —but I'm a desert person. Yeah.

Jessica:            You're a desert girlie. Okay. There's a place there where you can put your feet in the dirt. Put your feet there, and ask the earth to fill up your feed and solidify and ground wherever you may be porous in a way that's not aligned with your best interests. This is not something you do with your husband. It's not something you do with your friends. It's not something you do with your kids. This is something you do with you. And you don't bring your mom. You tell your mom to stay home. She's telling me to tell you to tell her to stay home because it's for you, and it's by you. And the level of—and you might need to do it a few times. You'll just test it out.

                        But it's not that the plant medicine turned on you. It's that you got the lessons. You got the teachings. And instead of doing the hard work of integrating it and integrating it and integrating it, you went back. And so it turned a little. But it's not like the medicine turned away from you. It's that, "Okay. So, if you want the lesson of not learning your lesson, that's the lesson. Okay. Cool. That's what you want?" It's not what you want. But that's what your behavior has been saying. And again, I could say the same thing about your dad, right?

Layla:              Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            You're like, "I don't want to fight with my dad, but I just saw the news, and I'm going to call my dad and fight with him."

Layla:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            So it's like there's this really deep habit of—how do you integrate love? How do you integrate interconnection with all beings in practice—not in moments. In practice. You can't do it without acceptance. Every time you imbibe, you have acceptance. You release yourself to the moment. You release yourself to the experience. And you are fucking wide open, right? It's like backpacking in your 20s. And we've done it. We've done it. Your work is to stop teaching yourself things and adding things, but to have faith in the resources you've built up already and start using them when you need them.

                        You can tell yourself that you need more and you need more and you need to figure it out and you need more, but that's not true anymore. It was once true. So, again, we have another place where this theme of your need to adapt to how you've changed—you need to accept who you are. That's kind of, in a way, a cooler problem than the problem that I thought you had based on the beginning of the conversation. Do you know what I'm saying?

Layla:              Yes, absolutely.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Your mother just wants me to say she's going to go now. She talks really loud. Was she hard of hearing? She talks really loud. She just talks loud?

Layla:              Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            I get it. I talk loud, too. She's going to go now. She loves you. She kisses you on all the cheeks. But she just wants you to know that she's saying goodbye now.

Layla:              Okay, Mama. Goodbye.

Jessica:            There's nothing left for you to do for her or for her family, just so you know. They're good.

Layla:              Hallelujah.

Jessica:            Yeah. They're good. Now it's time for you to figure out how to do all the stuff we've been talking about, all the—there's so many layers.

Layla:              So many layers.

Jessica:            So many layers. But this is—like you said, the good news is you have years to figure this out.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            It's not like, oh shit, your transit is over in three months. No. You have time. And you will make mistakes in this time, as will I and as will everybody. Your assignment is to show yourself the same grace and patience that you show other people—not your dad. Everybody else.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Your dad a few years ago and everybody else currently.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            So I feel like that's the spot to stop. Does that feel right to you, or do you have a final—did we hit it?

Layla:              My cup feels overflowing.

Jessica:            Yay.

Layla:              I can't even thank you enough.

Jessica:            That makes me so happy.

Layla:              It was so beautiful, so helpful.

Jessica:            I'm so glad.

Layla:              And so fun. Thank you.

Jessica:            You're welcome. Well, some of that—we have to thank your mom, if we're being honest.

Layla:              Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Your mom is just—she's my favorite kind of too much.

Layla:              100 percent.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Layla:              She's like full-force, brilliant madness all the time.

Jessica:            Yes. Yes.

Layla:              Couldn't care less how you feel about it.

Jessica:            Absolutely, and also so empathetic and so loving and so big-hearted.

Layla:              Yes. Humanistic. Yeah.

Jessica:            Oh my God. Your mom is great. And she's okay that she died. I mean, she's not happy to have left you, but some people really struggle with their passing. Not your mom.

Layla:              Oh, that's beautiful to hear.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Layla:              I can feel that. But that's nice to hear.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. She's—I mean, she's having a blast where she is. She's always having fun, even when she's not having fun.

Layla:              That tracks.

Jessica:            Your mom is just like— yeah. She's like—again, she is so much more alive than most people. And yeah, technically, she's dead, but man, wow, all over the place.

Layla:              [crosstalk]. Yeah.

Jessica:            And you don't need—she doesn't want me to make you feel bad about doing the ayahuasca, so she wants me to stop talking about it. So I will. Okay. Sorry. I will stop talking about it. Okay. But all to say you don't need it anymore. If you want it, do your worst. But you know what I mean.

Layla:              Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            You don't need it, for whatever it's worth.

Layla:              But integrate. The most important thing is integrate—

Jessica:            Integrate.

Layla:              —in real life, love and real life and—

Jessica:            That's the thing.

Layla:              Yeah.

Jessica:            That's the thing.

Layla:              And don't have that be the place that I go to do Neptunian things.

Jessica:            Thank you.

Layla:              It has to be real life.

Jessica:            Yes, yes, yes. That's exactly it.

Layla:              And if I can do that, maybe I can do the other thing. We'll see.

Jessica:            For reals and for reals. My darling, I'm so glad we got to do this.

Layla:              Oh my goodness. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. So beautiful.

Jessica:            So my pleasure. So my pleasure.