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:            Winnie, welcome to the podcast.

Winnie:           Thank you.

Jessica:            My pleasure. What would you like a reading about?

Winnie:           So I'm going to read my message. Okay. It says, "Hello, Jessica. I've always dreamt of being famous. It's always been in the back of my mind that somehow, some way, fame will find me, and I'm bound to be a world star. Imagine my joy when I found out I have a tenth-house stellium with Jupiter and the Sun to boot. I was so excited thinking of the possibilities. Well, now people are actually starting to pay attention to me. On TikTok, I've gotten over a million views in a month, and I'm shaking in my boots. I like that people are listening to me, but also, I want to delete everything because so many people are perceiving me, and I kind of hate it. But it also feeds me to know that people care about me enough to watch and comment. How do I balance growing attention without wanting to rip my skin off my bones? Thank you, Winnie."

Jessica:            I have so many questions about your question. First, I'm going to say people keep privacy. You were born March 2nd, 1998, but it's just in America. That's what we're going to leave it at. Okay. I have a question, and you are not the first or even the 50th person to write in a question saying that you want to be famous. This is my question: why?

Winnie:           So I've been going through it in my head, like what does fame mean to me—

Jessica:            Yeah.

Winnie:           —because for me, I don't want to be like a Beyoncé. I don't want to be like this huge mega pop star. That scares the hell out of me. But I do think that I have certain words or just experiences that may be able to help people. I do like attention. I like people listening to my words and stuff. But I enjoy speaking and people listening to me. I actually think that's probably the bare bones of it. I like talking, and I like knowing that people like hearing me talk. And I think I have something to offer the world in that way.

Jessica:            In the way of talking?

Winnie:           In the way of talking and in the way of messaging, I guess.

Jessica:            Okay. So let me—okay. You're using language in a very social media way. I'm going to pick at it a little bit. So you say talking, and you also reference Beyoncé. Now, Beyoncé is famous for singing and dancing and choreographing and other things in that field. She's famous for a very specific skill set, right?

Winnie:           Yes. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Are you on social media with the fame that you're like—fame, notoriety, these words kind of—they get all smooshy in my brain, personally. But is it for going on TikTok and just talking about your opinions, or are you sharing your writing on a topic? When you say "words," say more.

Winnie:           Okay. Okay. So I like doing cultural critiques, and I like having that go back and forth with people. Normally, what I talk about or what has gotten me a lot of attention is K-pop because that's been something I've been a fan of for multiple years at this point, over a decade. And I think that a lot of times, when it comes to just fandom and how people interact with it, they kind of separate the systems that we live under from the things that happen in fandom or in those spaces.

And so one of the things that I like to do is to be—like if people are like, "I don't understand why this thing is happening or why this person said this," or anything like that—and I'll be like, "Well, if you think about the fact that they are an idol in this situation and the different systems that they work under, where there's fatphobia, colorism, anything like that, then it lends itself to this type of thinking." Or in the sense of, like—it's like talking about misogyny, talking about different types of things in terms of that nature.

And one of my big things was I wrote about how it's okay to like things, and you don't have to be ashamed of liking things because you like them. And it doesn't have to be something that you're doing because somebody else wants you to do it or you feel cringe for doing it because of whatever variety of reasons, right?

Jessica:            Mm-hmm.

Winnie:           I don't know. I know what it feels like to feel like the things that you like or the way that you are isn't the right way you're supposed to be because of a variety of factors. And so I want to be able—as I was going through the journey of trying to figure myself out and being okay with myself, being able to articulate myself towards people in a way that helps them.

Jessica:            Okay. So—

Winnie:           Does that make more sense?

Jessica:            It makes sense, but I'm going to keep asking questions because—

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            And I should reveal this. I personally am mystified by the desire to be famous. When you say that now that you're actually experiencing it, it's like, "Wait a minute. Don't perceive me"—that I get. The latter part I get.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            So this is part of why I'm always like, "Just explain to me the basics of the desire for fame." So I'm taking notes, just so you know.

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            I'm taking notes. And so what I've heard you say what you want to be famous for is cultural critique and your mind, basically, is what you're telling me. You didn't use that word, but your mind.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And also, fame for you is also just about attention and being fed that energy and attention and that it fills you up and you love it. You don't just like the experience of it, but you have an idea that you want it.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. When you are getting feedback—and I know it's TikTok, so it's not all positive, right?

Winnie:           Right.

Jessica:            But when you are getting feedback, you enjoy the process of that?

Winnie:           Yes. Well, it all depends on how far it goes because, for me, sometimes my expectations for how much people are going to interact with my content is not what it does. Let's say I'll make a video, and I think in my head, "Oh, only like 3,000, maybe 4,000, people will see this," because that's like a general number. And then I'll go back, and it's like 90,000, or it's like 100,000, or it's like 150,000. And all of these people are leaving comments. And I don't think I'm an incendiary person, but people have very strong reactions to my words sometimes. And when it's constructive, it's really nice. I like getting that. But when it's not, it's not. And that—

Jessica:            It's awful.

Winnie:           Yeah. Yeah. It is.

Jessica:            It's awful. Yeah.

Winnie:           And it gives me the hives. But even still, after it reaches a certain point—one of the things that really started freaking me out is that I had a video that I thought was just dumb that I just put up there, and then so many people started watching it and sharing it doing all this stuff. And I was like, "Okay. Cool. That's happening." And then I started getting messages from people who are outside of my inner circle who know me who are like, "Hey, I saw you on my FYP. Hey, my friends sent me this. Hey, I did this, that, and the other." And I was like, "Oh, it's real."

Jessica:            Right. Right. It's not just in your phone.

Winnie:           It's not just—yeah. It's not just in my phone. It's not just people typing and having a profile picture. I know they're real people. I can conceptualize that they're real people, but now it's real because you know who I am in general. That is insane.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. Okay. You're giving me a lot more information. Okay. So there's layers. The first thing I'm going to share is that you have a Pisces stellium. You've got your Midheaven, Jupiter, your South Node, your Sun, Mercury, and Mars all in Pisces, and it's all in the tenth house. This placement, this configuration, makes it so that yes, you can garner a lot of attention. You can even garner a lot of praise. And also, people project shit onto you. That's that Piscean thing that happens, is that people kind of see what they want to see. And a lot of times, when there's a lot of Pisces vibes, what happens is people see you as harmless. People like you. People think that you're sweet and cute. And also, people see what they want to see, right—

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            —because you may be those things, but you're also a million other things because you're a person, right?

Winnie:           Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            The other side of that is that you can find yourself in a position where you're like, "I have idealized the experience of fame. I have put the concept"—and the story that you hold about fame on such a pedestal that it is not really relevant to reality.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And I'm kind of hearing that there's a little bit of both of those things happening.

Winnie:           Yeah, because my friends essentially—it was about that same video. My friends had sent, in our own little TikTok group chat, someone making a video, and I saw my face in it. And I immediately thought it was negative. I immediately thought it was negative, which—in hindsight, my friends wouldn't send in something that was being mean to me just in our group chat, but in the moment, I was like, "Okay. Nope. Not going to watch it. Not going to watch it."

Jessica:            Panic. Panic.

Winnie:           Yeah. Yeah. And I was at work, and I had to calm myself down. But I was freaking out. I started shaking. And then I messaged them. I was like, "Hey, guys, I'm not going to watch it. I don't really care what anybody has to—you know, whatever they're thinking." They were like, "Oh, no, it's not bad." And I was like, "Oh." [crosstalk.]

Jessica:            And then you watched it.

Winnie:           No, I didn't watch it.

Jessica:            You didn't.

Winnie:           But I blocked her at first, and then I was like, "Okay. It's not her fault. I'm not going to block her. She didn't say anything mean to me."

Jessica:            Right. Right. And how woo do you go? How witchy do you go?

Winnie:           Very woo.

Jessica:            Okay. Great.

Winnie:           I would say very much.

Jessica:            Excellent, because this is what I can say. There is part of what you're going through which is you're manifesting the conditions that you believed you wanted. And part of what doing that means—whether it's dating someone or—I don't know—saving up money to buy a pair of shoes—sometimes you buy the shoes. You're obsessed with the shoes. You get the shoes home, and they give you an instant blister. And you're like, "Fuck." Right?

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            It's okay if you want this fame. And also, now that you're experiencing it, you're realizing that there's parts of it you don't want and you don't like. And I want to just sit with that for a second because you do have a Jupiter conjunction to your Midheaven and Sun, and you have your Sun conjunction to Mercury. All to say you have a tendency to be like, "It's all this or it's all that." You go big.

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            And so is it hard for you to be like, "I like it and I don't like it at the same time"? Is that kind of a tricky thing for you to hold?

Winnie:           Yeah, just a little bit. A part of me kind of—like if I had to imagine this, if I could just be—like if Paul Revere was a guy in a window and he just screamed out the window, and everybody was like, "Oh, he's saying something out the window," and he's like, "Yeah, I did," and then he closes the window, and everybody forgot he existed until he comes back to the window, and they're like, "Wait. He's back." And I'm like, "Yeah. Okay. I'm back."

Jessica:            And you're Paul Revere in this metaphor.

Winnie:           Yes. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yes. Okay. I mean, you and me both. To step into the world and be like, "Hello. These are the things that I think, and let's talk about it," and then to be able to go off and be anonymous—that's the dream, right?

Winnie:           Yes. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Okay. Also, it's not the reality.

Winnie:           Right. That's the thing. Yes.

Jessica:            So okay. As annoying and counterintuitive as it sounds, I'm going to give you the advice to, when you feel bad about being seen or perceived or known, or bad about shitty comments or whatever—to give yourself permission to feel bad in the ways you do and know that that doesn't actually undo the parts of this that are a yes. The ways that you experience noes are real, but that doesn't change your yeses, necessarily. It might down the road, but it doesn't necessarily. And for you, that's hard to do.

Winnie:           Yeah. Yeah, very—

Jessica:            And it's hard to do with dates, too. It's hard to do with everything, no?

Winnie:           Yeah. Yeah. If I already had made the decision, then I'm like, "Well, that's what it is," which always made me laugh because I'm very mutable. They always talk about muted people are so versatile or whatever. But once I made my decision, it's like, "Well…"

Jessica:            It's done.

Winnie:           [crosstalk].

Jessica:            Well, because you have a tenth-house stellium, and also, you have a Pluto square to your Midheaven, to Jupiter, and to the Sun. And so you're as extreme as they come for a mutable person, right? And that's that Pluto in Sagittarius, that Gen Z Pluto in Sagittarius. Sagittarius is all about the truth, and Pluto is this intensity. And so it can give you this very intense relationship to truth. So, "If this is my truth, it's my fucking truth, and that's the only truth." And if one thing comes through to upset this idea, it can make you feel like shit, basically.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Unfortunately, right?

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And so okay. So I'm going to give you real witchy advice in a minute. But first, I want to say I don't want to move too quickly past practicing being with the yes and the no gives you your own energy because what I see happens for you is I guess what you already described. You're like—you see something that you're like, "Oh hell no. I don't want to see that video. I don't want to see somebody talking shit about me." The way you described it, what I could see energetically when you were talking is that you left your body. You flew the fuck out your body, and you really experienced deep Piscean panic.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. It's terrible because when you do that, not only is that just a bad practice—it makes you feel terrible—but it also makes you more vulnerable to psychic attack, to other people's opinions. It just makes you more vulnerable because you're no longer with yourself; now you've left yourself. Does that make sense?

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And if you're going to be in public and enough people listen to you, people are going to disagree with you, and they're going to do that sometimes by being like, "Huh. That's interesting. I disagree," and then the rest of the time, they're going to be people on the internet, and they're going to be like—all caps. And that is just like—sometimes it's really mean, and sometimes people come for you energetically when they do that.

Winnie:           Right.

Jessica:            And because you have so much Pisces in your chart, I imagine you actually feel it when people come for you energetically.

Winnie:           Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting to me sometimes because I somehow—my friend calls me—she's like, "You're not a typical Pisces sometimes," because I have so much righteous anger that sometimes when people come against me, I'm like, "No. I know what's right. I don't care what you're saying. That's wrong. I know what's right." And it'll get me. And then, other times, they could even say something that's only kind of half negative, and it's like—and my whole body just starts shaking.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Winnie:           And I'm like, "Okay. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe I don't know what's going on. Maybe I really shouldn't have been saying anything in the first place." And so then I have to force myself back to be like, "Relax. This isn't actually the end of the world." That's the type of spiraling. I'll go, like, "Oh God. Okay. This is the end of the world. I gotta delete everything. I gotta turn everything off. I have to go into the shell and just protect myself because everything is coming at me." And I have to remind myself when I'm in those moments where I'm freaking out so much, like, physically, one, this is happening on your phone.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Winnie:           If you turn your phone off, it's gone. You're not being attacked. No one's actually coming for you. You're not actually being chased or anything like that. You are in the real world right now.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Winnie:           Like, "Yeah. Okay. I'm fine."

Jessica:            And I'll let you know that both of the things you just described are Pluto. The Pluto of being so self-righteous where you're like, "I know I'm fucking right. I don't care what this other person says," just being all in on yourself or all out on yourself where you're like, "I'm disintegrating. I can't"—both of those are Plutonian responses. And you're absolutely right. You turn off the phone; it's over. It's not real. And also, of course it's real.

Winnie:           Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            If it wasn't real, it wouldn't be fame. The reason why it's fame is because there's thousands of people paying attention to you.

Winnie:           Right.

Jessica:            Right? And those people are real people, and they do go off, and some of them just keep scrolling and they don't think about you until you come across their feed again, and other people may be fucking obsessing on you. Right? And those are real people. So is your question, "Should I want to be famous?" What is the question that I should be really speaking to?

Winnie:           So I'm at this juncture in life where I'm trying to figure out, "What do I actually want to do? What do I actually want to pursue and put my life into?" because I've been through so many different routes of things, and it always seems to come back to being a, quote unquote, "creative." And so I'm like, "Okay. So what does being a creative actually mean to me? What do I actually want that to look like?" And I think that being a creative, for me, means that I want to create things, and I also want people to see it. I want people to react to it. I want people to have it. I kind of have this sense of, once it's out of me, it's out. And however people react to it is how they react to it. But I created it for a reason. Whether they get that reason or not, whatever, but I want it to be out.

                        And so to be able to do that in whatever facility I may do it—because I'm still trying to figure out, what does that mean? I like writing. Do I want to be an author? Do I want to be a blogger? This TikTok thing is more so something that's just like, oh, okay. I'm kind of gaining an audience. People like me. They like the words that I'm saying and stuff like that. So maybe that could pivot to something. But what is something?

Jessica:            So we are talking about career.

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            My Capri-daddy instincts were right.

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            Excellent. Okay. Good. Okay. Listen. You're great at inspiring people. You're a natural educator, and you know how to bring energy and generate energy, yeah?

Winnie:           Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think so.

Jessica:            Okay. Yes, you are. Okay. Yeah. Also, Sun/Mercury conjunction. Talky? Writey? Talky? Either one, right? And sometimes both, as we're doing with TikTok. This is really important, what I'm going to say to you.

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            Career is obviously very important to you, right? You've got a stacked tenth house.

Winnie:           Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Also, your South Node is in the tenth house. You have not come here to be famous. Sorry. You've been famous. Now, I'm not saying you can't or you shouldn't be famous. I'm not saying that even a little bit. But fame for fame's sake is likely to not really serve you over the course of time, and there's a reason why, because if you're not driven by your North Node Virgo, if you're not driven by creating a life that has rich habits, that empowers you to have your day-to-day feed your brain and feed your heart—if you don't have those things, if those aren't the primary things, then no amount of attention is going to satiate you. You'll be like the hungry, hungry hippo. And that is an awful way of being, of no matter how much attention, no matter how much engagement you get, you still feel like, "Why? Why? Why don't I have more?" Do you enjoy writing?

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah?

Winnie:           I see myself as a writer. That's something that I feel like is.

Jessica:            It's core to who you are. I agree.

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. Good. I agree. I see you that way as well. You do not need to know what the career is at this moment. You just don't. You just don't.

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            But you are in a place where there's a momentum in your life where you are both developing an audience but also having life experiences where you figure out how, if, and you do like it and how and if you don't like it. Right? Both of those things are happening. This is my recommendation.

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            Continue to experiment with building on other platforms. Maybe that's Substack. Maybe that's Patreon. Maybe that's something I don't know about. But you can post on those platforms to people for free, or you can generate an income, depending on whatever you choose to do and whatever your audience will hold.

Winnie:           Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            But it empowers you to keep your audience. The problem with having a big audience on social media is that if the social media company caves, there goes your audience. How do they find you, right?

Winnie:           Right.

Jessica:            And so I want to encourage you today to start thinking about, does your Linktree or whatever you're using—I hate that I keep on using the names of companies. I'm really not trying to give them—whatever. But you get what I'm saying. You make sure it links to something where it's like your own website, your own Substack, your own Patreon—whatever. Do you have something over there?

Winnie:           Yeah. Yeah. I do have a Linktree. I do have a Substack. I haven't been writing on it. I think I write in seasons.

Jessica:            Absolutely.

Winnie:           I also write when I'm a little obsessed, a little covered in limerence about someone, and that—there was a season for that, and that has passed.

Jessica:            So I'll say this. Whether you fuck with Substack or Patreon, they have video. So you could be posting your same exact content on that platform, and you could be doing it for free just so you get a bigger subscription because some people just spend their time on those platforms. You can also, if you wanted to, have simply a mailing list. And you could just—there's a lot of different ways of doing it. I am not a social media—I'm not like a—

Winnie:           Right. Right.

Jessica:            You know what I mean. What I'm trying to get at is, how can you think about having a place that even if Meta or TikTok goes down, you can still have people access your big brain and your voice? Right?

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            So, whether that's through video or it's through writing, I'm not positive it matters completely. You know what I mean? For you, at this moment, I actually think you're in this stage of creatively exploring different ways of being and how it feels.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And the "how it feels" part—it's exceptionally important because if you try to power through the ways in which it feels bad, you have too much Pisces in your chart. You'll just burn it to the ground one day. You'll just drown it in the river. You'll leave it behind.

Winnie:           Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Listen. If you walk away, that's great. But the impulse to drown it in the river is a—it comes out of your Pluto. It comes out of your survival mechanism. So, if you're having a greater sense of, like, "Okay. I'm going to give myself a year or two to experiment with different ways of showing up creatively and different places I can build an audience," and just see how it feels—because if you do that, what it kind of looks like is the same thing will happen that's already happened in your life where you're like, "Huh. This is gelling in this direction." And then you'll just know what comes next.

Winnie:           Yeah. I actually have to allow myself to do new things and not be scared of that. Somebody was like, "You know, you don't have to write the next great American novel every time you write. You could just write, and it could be kind of bad, and that's okay. And you could also"—

Jessica:            It's just about having a writing practice.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And this is the other thing, is that you can make a video and then take the text from what you said, and now you have a piece of writing that you could publish on its own. You could tighten it up, or you could expand upon it and be like, "Hmm. Do I want to actually change this paragraph and add this thought?" because you know you would. You know you would.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            You always have more to say.

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            And so that might be a practice for you, and it might be a practice that you start off as a journal so you're not constantly posting. Or you might make it into a Substack or something, right? The thing about your particular passions is you could just as easily end up becoming a professor. Have you thought about that?

Winnie:           Yeah. I know exactly what you mean.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Winnie:           Yeah. Me and academia have a pretty twisted relationship because of my ADHD and my kind of just-found-out-about dyslexia, which should have already been known. But now it's like, "Oh yeah. That's what that was." And so getting through school was like pulling myself from bottom of the ground. And I would always have teachers who would tell me, "You do the work so well. When you're in class, it's amazing."

Jessica:            Right.

Winnie:           But other work, like trying to turn in lab reports, trying to keep things in context and stuff like that, when it comes to, like, the physical work, it's so much harder for me. And so there is a part of me that would love to maybe go and get an MFA in creative writing or go into academia, if academia was as the fantasy of what I would like it to be and not like the capitalistic hellhole that it is.

Jessica:            Absolutely. So you have something called Uranus in the ninth house, and that placement—basically, it makes it so that traditional, quote unquote, "higher" learning—not a great match. You need an alternative learning environment that empowers you to learn in a way that is deeply Uranian. So it's this, then that, then this, then that, then that, then this, then that. It's like taking a tempo that really works for you. And I believe there are alternative learning environments. Now, am I encouraging you to go to college? I fucking hate university. I'm not a fan. I'm not encouraging you to do that because I also have Uranus in the ninth house, so I'm just like, "I don't fuck with that."

                        But a professor has historically meant in a university. But there are more and more alternative ways that people are learning and more and more ways that you can create a curriculum or offer some sort of learning. You can do teaching in a different way. And if anyone's going to come up with it or if anyone's going to join up with something that is alternative, it's going to be you. So I just want to keep it on the table. Do you know what I mean?

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Keep it on the table because if it's going to gel, it will just gel for you. That's kind of that Jupiter/Midheaven conjunction. Things kind of come together. Opportunities just kind of present themselves. And if you make use of them, it's fun for you. I mean, it doesn't always work, but it is fun for you. And so you're going through a Neptune transit currently, and also, Pluto is conjoined your Neptune.

                        And so, because of these things, this is not a good time for you to figure out what you want to do for a living or how to do it. But it is the time to leave all the doors open, and in the context of the things you're interested in, again, that's just going to be get your own mailing list. Make sure that all of your audience isn't only on one platform so that you're relying on that one platform, right?

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Now, will you say your full name out loud?

Winnie:           [redacted].

Jessica:            So the way you're describing how you feel when it goes sideways on you, when you don't enjoy it, is underplaying how bad it feels.

Winnie:           It feels really bad. It feels like I'm dying a little bit.

Jessica:            Like you're dying. Yeah.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Like you're disintegrating and like you're dying, like you're falling apart, and like you're never going to be okay again.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            So I gotta say that needs more care because what I'm seeing you're doing is holding your breath until it passes—very Piscean of you. But if you're going to actively pursue this, if you're going to continue to invite this, this is not good. This? This is no bueno. So we're going to talk about which tips for protecting yourself, okay?

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            But you've been online enough to see that people get famous because of whatever, and then all of a sudden, they have millions of followers. And then everything in their life falls apart, and then they disappear from online spaces. You've seen this, right?

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            That's for a reason, because fame is not all good. I mean, fame is pretty heavy a burden to hold.

Winnie:           Right.

Jessica:            And some of your fantasy about fame is not based in the reality of what it means, and some of it is not based in the reality of how it feels to you. I want to be clear I'm not saying don't try to be famous or fame is bad. I'm not saying that. Does it make sense why I just said that to you?

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. Good. Okay. Good. You're starting to—I saw your little Pluto heels digging in, being like, "You're not going to fucking change my mind on this." If you're going to be able to navigate this stuff in a healthy way, you have to be able to "and also," to hold it with both hands. And right now, you're double-fisting trauma or double-fisting, "Yes, I want this," instead of being able to hold it with each hand to "and also"—"Yes, I choose this. Yes, I want this. And also, here are some negative consequences that are attached. And also, it's worth it. And also, this is not fucking healthy. I can't do this. If I get bigger, is this going to get worse? And also, I want to get bigger." My friend, you must practice, okay?

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Do you smoke weed?

Winnie:           Edibles.

Jessica:            Okay. Your face.

Winnie:           I don't like smoking.

Jessica:            Okay.

Winnie:           Smoking—no matter what, it makes my chest hurt really bad. So I just can't smoke anything.

Jessica:            Panic. Yeah. Yeah. But you eat it.

Winnie:           Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Routinely?

Winnie:           Twice a week.

Jessica:            That was a great set of sounds that came out of you. Okay. I'll just say this. If you are like, "Oh shit. I have a video that's taking off right now," maybe don't eat weed today. The reason why we do any kind of substance is to feel different, right? That's the whole point, is to feel different.

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            And when you feel different after eating any kind of THC, what ends up happening is your Pisces stuff—you just kind of gently ease away from the burdens of the here and now in the meat suit, right?

Winnie:           Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And that means you're not as well defended. So you might feel better in the moment of the buzz, but as an energetically porous person, you are like a bit of a loofah sponge, you know?

Winnie:           Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            What happens is it makes you more vulnerable. It just makes you more vulnerable, and it doesn't actually serve you. So I would say on days where you don't feel sensitive are your best days to imbibe as opposed to eating it because you feel off. So tell me, are you currently eating it because you feel off, or are you—yeah, you are. Yeah, you are.

Winnie:           Well, some days, if it's a good weekend, I'm like, "It's Saturday. I'm not doing nothing."

Jessica:            Okay. It's just because it's Saturday. Right. It's not feeling good or bad. It's probably a limited time that you're going to want to be eating THC. You know what I mean? It's just the negative consequences are not really—I mean, have fun. I'm not mad at it, but I just can see with your birth chart it's not ideal for you. It's just not ideal.

                        Here's some practices I'm going to give you, and they only work if you're not high, unfortunately.

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            Okay? I mean, you can try to do them high, but that shit doesn't really work. For you, because you have so much Pisces, the thing to be mindful about is that you can do imagination exercises and feel like you're doing energy work, but for you, you have to really kind of set the intention of getting in your meat suit because you're really powerful; you have so much access, but you could just as easily end up doing just imagination exercises. And because you can kind of tap into other realms, you can visualize what is happening as opposed to working with the energy of what is happening. Does that make sense?

Winnie:           Yes. That makes a lot of sense for me personally. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. I bet. I bet. So the first thing I would do is shield. The shielding I would recommend is when you post. And this is not so that people can't see you. Obviously, you're posting because you want people to see you, right?

Winnie:           Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            It's about shielding so that people can't see—you said it really well. You're like, "I want to be famous. I want people to see me, but I don't want to be perceived." Right?

Winnie:           Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And so what we're talking about is the difference between doing shit and getting attention, and somebody knowing the real you, being able to access the private, true, intimate part of yourself that is reserved for just you and your close people.

Winnie:           Right.

Jessica:            What you want to do is shield that. And have you fucked with boundary work and shielding?

Winnie:           Not in a witchy sense. More so just like a practical sense of just being like—because a lot of my writing—I'm really good at writing my own pain without having to truly express it.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Winnie:           I can go into vivid, beautiful detail because I think my suffering is pretty when I write it out, because it is. It's nice. But I have to tell myself, like, "Hey, you actually don't have to let everybody know the horrible, torturous things that you have going on in your head or in your life in the—you don't have to express it, or you could just"—

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. You can also fictionalize it.

Winnie:           Yes. There's also that. And so, in the sense of just having just basic boundaries, just being like, "I don't have to do this if I don't feel like it's good or I don't feel like it's going to make me feel nice or I'm going to pressure myself because somebody else wants me to do it"—I can protect myself at least in that way of hearing my body and being like, "No." I don't—that's okay.

Jessica:            Okay. We're going to add a layer.

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            A very, very, very important layer.

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            So you've seen Glinda the Good witch, right? You know Wizard of Oz?

Winnie:           Mm-hmm. Yes.

Jessica:            Do you prefer circles or squares?

Winnie:           My first thought was triangle when you said that, even though that wasn't an option.

Jessica:            It wasn't an option.

Winnie:           So I'm going to say circle.

Jessica:            But do you really prefer triangles?

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            That's fine. So, first of all, can you feel your body?

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. Great. Can you feel your abdominals, the core and center of your body?

Winnie:           Yes. They're tight right now.

Jessica:            Great. Good. Okay. You feel them. Okay.

Winnie:           Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            The reason why I asked you if you can feel your body is because that helps you to get in. And the reason why I asked you to tap into your abdominals and your core is because it's the center of your body, and it's great to have access to that. So then I'm going to ask you to visualize—and you can fuck with this as you need, okay?

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            But you know how Glinda the Good Witch had this magical bubble around her?

Winnie:           Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Yours is a fucking triangle, and it's really big. So you could raise your arms up over your head and wave them, and you wouldn't hit the walls or the top of the triangle. But you have this big-ass, beautiful triangle that is a little bit of a bubble. Can you visualize that?

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. So what you've done—

Winnie:           [crosstalk].

Jessica:            Yes. What you've done is you've visualized it, and you've put it in front of you and to the—what is that? That's the left. You visualized it, and you put it in front of you to the left. Okay. So you need to breathe.

Winnie:           Oh.

Jessica:            Okay. You're holding your breath. This is a Pisces trick, Neptune/Pisces trick. When you're holding your breath, you're not in your body—facts. So, when you're holding your breath, you're kind of pulled back and watching. So what I want to have you do is just take a deep breath. Just really breathe. Okay. It's a little better. Okay. What I'm going to have you do—when I put my hands together, just visualize one popping, like a big-ass fucking triangle popping all around your system. Make it fast because that's going to be easier for you with your Jupiter.

                        Okay. You did it, and then you pulled it back. So here's what's happening. This is good. I'm glad we're doing this as a team.

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            What you're doing is you're tapping into your capacity to do energy work, and then, instantly, your brain comes online. And your brain's like, "Did I do it?" or, "I gotta hold it," or your brain— I don't know what you're thinking, but you're pulling yourself back. I know this sounds weird. You're sitting right now, right?

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            Move your butt.

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            Move your butt so you can actually feel your butt. Just move a little bit to the side. Feel your butt. Okay.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            I want to encourage you to do something a little stupid.

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            I want you to know that so that you can replicate this later if you're having a hard time. Do you have a weird thing about doing this exercise?

Winnie:           The only thing that went through my head when you said, "I want you to do something a little stupid," was just the thought of it's really hard for me to do stupid things in my mind.

Jessica:            Yeah. That makes sense. Okay. That makes sense because you're so in your head that your noodle doesn't want to fall into the sauce. But the sauce makes the noodle better.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            So what I'm trying to say is you can live out of your brain. There is nothing wrong with that. But you have seven million planets in Pisces. So it's like the Universe was like Hogwarts, and you were like, "I don't really like magic." What? Fuck J.K. Rowling, but you know what I'm saying, right?

Winnie:           Yeah. No, I know exactly what you're saying.

Jessica:            Okay. You have access to working with energy, and even if you don't fucking work with energy, it turns out that you're really sensitive to energy and you're right now only getting the negative consequences of your sensitivities when you feel like you're fucking dying because you're having this experience with some random stranger online.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Listen. You've got such strong Pluto aspects. I know that me telling you to do something and watching you do it is not your favorite thing. I respect you, okay?

Winnie:           Okay. You're right.

Jessica:            That said, I'm going to give this bit of homework.

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            And I'm not going to look at you physically. I'm looking at you energetically. Okay.

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            You're going to breathe, and your job is in through your nose, out through your mouth. If you want to flip that, I don't care, but breathe. Breathe. Sorry. This is really—you don't like being told what to do. Am I seeing this correctly?

Winnie:           Sorry.

Jessica:            Don't be sorry. Don't be sorry. But it's fucking you up because I'm giving you instructions, and every time I give you an instruction, there's something inside of you that's like, "No."

Winnie:           My friend had just told me—she was like, "You know, the crazy thing about you is that I could tell you something eight times, and you'll be like, 'Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.' And then, one day, you'll come back to me, and you'll say the exact same thing that I told you eight times. And then you're like, 'I can't believe I had this thought.'"

Jessica:            You really struggle with it, and there's reasons why from your childhood. Fair enough. But I'm going to give you instruction that you can follow at home or not, okay?

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            I won't watch you do it now. You can try an exercise where you visualize—and again, you have to be in your body. If you're holding your breath, it's not working, okay? Rules. You can visualize energy. I see a gold-orange—not quite copper, but a golden orange light, energy light of rain, just raining all over you and around you. You're doing this thing. I have to tell you. I'm sorry. I know you don't exactly want me to look, but you totally want me to look. It's confusing.

Winnie:           Yeah. I'm sorry.

Jessica:            No, it's okay. No, no. Don't be sorry. We meet where you are. I am down for that. So, when you go about working with energy, you clamp. Does that make sense to you? You kind of dig in your heels; you clamp.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Working with energy is a practice of receptivity. It's an energetic relationship between you and energy, which means a level of releasing control. I'm sorry. Your face. You were like, "No. No. I'm not fucking doing that."

Winnie:           I hate that so much.

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay. But that's what it is. So this might not actually be for you at this time. Okay. Let's try something else.

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            Have you seen my video on Patreon about connecting to your guides?

Winnie:           I haven't.

Jessica:            There's a video if you put the word "guides" in the search bar. Check that out.

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            There's a video for how to connect with your guides. Check that out. If it works for you, fuck with it. If it doesn't work for you, don't fuck with it. But now that we've met and I'm seeing what comes up for you, I can warn you about two things, which is—make sure you're breathing.

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            If you notice yourself getting really still and your energy is going kind of heavy, then you're, first of all, not breathing, and second of all, you're overthinking it; you're trying to control it. This is not a control exercise. It's a "turn your face to the Sun and let it warm you" exercise. When you turn your face to the Sun, you generally close your eyes.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            You receive the light of the Sun. Do you like the Sun? The Sun feels good?

Winnie:           I do. I enjoy [crosstalk].

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You've got Sun in the tenth house. You probably love the Sun, right?

Winnie:           Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            So it is a reciprocal relationship that you're experiencing. You're having a conversation with the Sun. You're letting the Sun warm you up, and you're like, "Oh, Sun." It's hard for Sun lovers to not feel like we're in relationship with the Sun.

Winnie:           Right.

Jessica:            I fucking love the Sun, too. So this is a practice of turning your face to the Sun. It's not a practice of manipulating energy and making it into something.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            So go forth. Check out that video. It's there. No big deal. If it doesn't resonate, don't fuck with it. Do you know what I mean?

Winnie:           Right. Yeah.

Jessica:            But I do want to say that there's a level at which you are experiencing your sensitivities that psychic hygiene will serve you well. It will serve you well. And so—okay. Here's a simple one. Okay. This one will work. This one will work.

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            Hold on. Okay. Okay. I got it. I got it. So what you're going to do is you're going to get a bowl. It's not made out of plastic. Other than that, there's no rules, okay?

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            You're going to get a bowl. You're going to fill it with water, and you're going to put a pinch of Epsom salt. You have Epsom salt in your house?

Winnie:           Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Okay. Great. Pinch of Epsom salt in the bottom of the bowl. Then you're going to take your hands, your sweet, little paws. And do you ever put your hands together and kind of feel energy moving between your hands?

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. You do that easy-peasy. It's right. That's you.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. You're going to just do that. Get the energy juj-ing through your hands, and then you put the bowl in betwixt those two sweet, little paws you got. And then just run energy in the water. Just light up the fucking water with your energy. The salt is there as a grounding force.

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            And you're going to set the intention as you run this energy that whatever emotional energy, psychic energy that comes from other people to you flows right through you and into the bowl.

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            And then, at the end of the day, don't let your dog drink it. Pour it in the toilet, not down your sink. You never use this bowl for food, okay?

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            This—if you're doing it, like if you're actually doing it as energy work, what it can do is it can help to pull some of the energies that you're feeling from other people—their fears, their attachments, whatever—it'll help to pull it out of you. And there is a part of you that I can see that is worried—will that mean you don't get to feel all the good feelings? And the answer is no. Don't worry about it. You'll still feel great for the parts that feel great.

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            This is just a part of clearing whatever is not in alignment with you, whatever is basically harmful. And sometimes things are harmful because people are obsessing on you because they think you're amazing and have all the answers. Sometimes things are harmful because people are just shitty. Right?

Winnie:           Right. Yeah.

Jessica:            You don't need to track the difference. You just want to clear it through the bowl. Now, I'll tell you the truth. My Tarot cards tell me you're going to overthink that, too. So practice. Fuck with it. If it is noticeable that it helps you after doing it several times, keep it up. If you're like, "I can't tell if this is working, but it's giving me comfort," keep it up. If you're like, "I don't think this is working," or, "I can't tell if it's working, and it's annoying," stop. You're in control.

Winnie:           Right.

Jessica:            Okay?

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            That's the thing to remember. You're in control.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            I think that's really important to you.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Now, we could have done a whole other reading about your control issues, it turns out.

Winnie:           Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, I had this whole thing. I had a realization that the way I like to intellectualize stuff is a coping mechanism.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Winnie:           If I feel—if I understand all the systems, if I understand why people go this way or move this way, if I can read people, then I can't be blindsided by what they do. And if I know why they're acting that way, then it can't hurt. But it does. That's a lie. That's a lie.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. None of that is right. None of that is right. Hey, listen. That's a coping mechanism that got you out of a lot of shit when you were little. It's not like there's no wisdom to it. It's not like there's no truth to that. That belief is predicated on some truth. It's just that no amount of understanding or self-control can stop you from living as a human with emotions. And you are a really, really sensitive person. And so your sensitivities are a strength. They're only a strength, though, if you have some sort of adaptable relationship to them. And right now, you've got a couple skills that you know how to use, and when they don't work, you're like, "I'm going to fucking make them work." Right?

Winnie:           Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            So I'm like, "Hey, do this energy work," and every part of you is like, "Don't tell me what to do. I'm going to do it my way, or I'm"—there's a part of you that just is like, "No. I'm not going to fucking do that," even though there's another part of you that's like, "Yeah. This is a great—why not? I could try that." Right?

Winnie:           Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And so the advice that I'm giving is to spend the next year or two continuing to explore. That's it. Do it on the woo level, like on the witchy-woo level. Do it in the ways that you're doing it with social media and with writing. You don't need to have a single answer. That said, you may discover that you don't actually want fame as much as you want influence. They're actually not the same thing.

Winnie:           Yeah. You saying that just was like, "Yeah. Yeah, I think"—

Jessica:            Your face. Your face just kind of, like, popped open. Yeah. They are different things, right? Some people are really famous, but they're not, per se, influential, or they are influential in ways that you would never really care about it if you were.

Winnie:           Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            You want influence. You want to have an impact.

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            And sometimes you want it to be intellectual, and sometimes you actually want it to be emotional. Right?

Winnie:           Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And that is different than fame. The more people who have access to you—the more famous you are—the more influence you can potentially have. But a lot of people are profoundly influential, but they're not, per se, famous.

Winnie:           Right.

Jessica:            And I just wanted to give you that, because there are parts of fame that you actively dislike, that do not work for you. That doesn't mean that you can't have the thing you really want, which is influence, impact.

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            And what 15-year-old you decided you wanted—"I want to be famous" or whatever—whatever you decided when you were little, yeah, adult you gets to tweak that and adapt it so that it actually works for the person you are and the world that we live in because—you know, I mean, you've seen the world, right? Yeah. You know.

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. I have no doubt that you will make your impact on this world. I have no doubt that you can be influential. You could even be famous. I don't necessarily recommend that you prioritize fame over influence, though, over impact, unless you fucking want to, in which case, do whatever you want to do. I reaffirm your autonomy.

Winnie:           For me, some of the things that make me happy—like if a video doesn't do astronomical numbers, but there are people in the comments who are like, "I really needed to hear this today," or, "This really"—I actually made a video, and somebody was like, "I actually think I'm going to take this to my therapist. This really helped me." And I was like—

Jessica:            That's right.

Winnie:           —"Okay."

Jessica:            That's influence. That's impact. And it's not about fame or accolades or attention, although that's part of it, right?

Winnie:           Right.

Jessica:            It is really about something else. And that something else, I think, is actually the part that makes the most sense for you. And also, there's nothing wrong with wanting to be famous.

Winnie:           Right.

Jessica:            It's just, for you, if you don't feel like you're building something—there has to be steps where it's a building, right?

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            If you're not building something, you're going to get exceptionally bored. So this is where, again, impact and influence are probably going to be something that you have a lot more curiosity and interest in, which means it's like a slight adaptation, but it's a meaningful one.

Winnie:           Right.

Jessica:            Now, I have to ask.

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            Do you date? Do you date? Uh-huh. Yeah. I asked you the big question.

Winnie:           I like fantasizing. I like making up imaginary scenarios with people who I would never get with in the first place so I don't have to deal with the emotional intimacy of having somebody near me. And I'll just be like—I have such beautiful relationships with my friends because I do.

Jessica:            Yes.

Winnie:           I have such a wonderful relationship with these people. They are the greatest people I've ever met, and I would never—well, I won't say I would never. But because of how long I've gone without ever having a relationship, it's more so like—it's not a thing. [crosstalk]—

Jessica:            That is the most words I've ever heard to say no.

Winnie:           Yeah. Sorry.

Jessica:            No. No, it's good. It's good. It's good. So you don't date.

Winnie:           I don't know how to.

Jessica:            Okay. I agree. You don't know how. Have you ever dated?

Winnie:           I've technically been on one date before, and it was fine. I didn't really like them, and we got [indiscernible 00:49:55], and then we went to this jazz lounge. And then, at the end of the date, we tapped our fuck-ups together, and then I never spoke to them again.

Jessica:            Interesting. Do you feel like you're ace?

Winnie:           No.

Jessica:            I didn't think so either. Yeah. No. Okay. It's just we're talking about your intimacy issues. Okay.

Winnie:           Yes. They're—yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. So all of the things that came up in our reading today when we were talking about energy work, the way that you were like, "Don't tell me. Also, tell me, but don't tell me. But don't tell me"—right? That comes up for you with people you date in real life, not in fantasy life.

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            The part of you that is intensely stubborn and digs in its heels and can have kind of, I'm going to say, some control issues, again, that comes up really intensely in dating life. When you do catch feelings for people, does it tend to be one gender or another?

Winnie:           It's mostly been men, but I also know that I'm not straight.

Jessica:            Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Winnie:           So it's very confusing for me.

Jessica:            Are you in a social world with Queer women, or are most of—

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. So your social world is not just straight people.

Winnie:           Oh, yeah, no. Most definitely not.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. Mm-hmm.

Winnie:           I don't see myself—at least for a very long time, I haven't seen myself as somebody who was a potential romantic partner for someone. Because of how my life has kind of gone, I just never saw that as an actual thing that could happen for me. I could read books. I could read stories. I could do all those things and have fantasies in my head. But the actual execution of that, that's kind of—that's too much. That's a lot of vulnerability, and the way that friendship, even as I'm enmeshed with my friends—it's a type of intimacy that I don't know about, and it scares me. And I don't want to—even the thought of actually having a crush on someone and actually doing the whole feelings thing, I don't want to—

Jessica:            So I'm going to say this. Yeah, you could totally be partnered. You could be totally partnered. You could be really happy in a relationship. I'm not saying you should. I have said that to people. I'm not saying that to you. But I am going to say the reason why you haven't really visualized it is because of how much you would have to change in order to invite that into your life. To have real intimacy would give somebody some sort of power or control over you that you are not, in this moment, excited about.

                        The challenges that you choose to take on in your life are exactly that. They're challenges you choose. Some of them, they're not, but in this case, it is, right? I imagine that you will eventually become quite bored and frustrated if you don't choose this challenge. You are, by nature, ridiculously, like so ridiculously romantic. But you've got your fucking Venus in Capricorn. So you're the most romantic person, but you're like, "I don't believe in romance. Romance is for suckers," at the same time. Does that feel right?

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. That's a tough position to hold. However, if you were to date, I just want to throw a couple things at you.

Winnie:           Okay.

Jessica:            First, have a therapist so you have somebody that you can talk—don't worry about what you're saying and whether or not it's mean because you're going to have to just talk through everything. The other thing is you are allowed to have really intense boundaries around sex, really intense boundaries. Everything in your chart speaks to sex happens only for you—I'm assuming you're not having lots of casual sex with people. Right. No. For you, sex happens in the confines of monogamy and trust, period. There's no other version for you that I'm seeing in your chart. And whether or not that's what the kids are doing these days, fuck it. Whatever. You get to be who you are.

Winnie:           [crosstalk].

Jessica:            Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. And so giving yourself permission to have the boundaries—because here's the thing. You're really good at rules, right? "You're allowed in my house." "You're not allowed in my house." Boundaries—they're more adaptable. They show up in the moment, and things change, and they're—kind of like turning your face to the Sun, they're a little bit vulnerable, and you have to close your eyes a little bit when you do it. Yeah, that's not your favorite thing. That's not your strength. That's not your favorite thing.

                        And that doesn't mean it's not worthy of your care and investigation and that eventually you're not going to have to develop these things. Eventually, you are, I think, okay? And I think you are because you are really romantic. I think you could be very happy in a partnership. I mean, you'd have to change.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            You'd have to change. And you don't have to do it today, and you don't have to change the core of who you are. You'd have to change your confidence and your belief in your own ability to take care of yourself so that you don't get into a destructive, unhealthy situation, or if you did, you could pull yourself out. You have to trust people. Capricorn to Venus in Capricorn, you never have to trust people. You have to trust yourself.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And if you trust yourself, then you can be open with someone because if you're open with somebody and they show you that they're not safe, if you're trustworthy to yourself, then you take yourself out of that situation, right?

Winnie:           Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And that's something that you have done before. You know that you can do that.

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. But you are scared that you will have to do it and you won't be able to do it or that it will be like a traumatic situation instead of a, like, "We went on five dates, and I thought I liked them, and it turns out I don't," which is the most likely situation for you, is that you're like, "I changed my mind." And so I do want to just put all of that out here because we talked about what we talked about. It was a good thing to talk about. And also, if I was queen of the world and I had really thought it through, I would have been like, "No, no, no, no. We talk about dating," because you have hidden this in a box, and you put the box in another box, and then you put the second box in a fifth box, and then the box is somewhere in the house, and you hid it so many years ago, nobody knows where. You've really done a good Jenga job on yourself with this.

                        The thing that I have learned and that I believe is that whenever we hide away a box or we lock a room in our psyches, inevitably, there are other things attached to that one thing. And there is a certain level of resiliency, emotionality, joyfulness, creativity that is in that box because you can't really separate that kind of intimacy and vulnerability from those other qualities. And you actually—I mean, I'm going to use the word "stubborn." I'm going to say you're pretty damn stubborn. Am I right about that?

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            So you're going to do this on your own time if you do it. You know what I mean? Again, I'm not trying to press you. But you are so motivated to be whole and to access your capacity that I just have a hard time imagining that you're going to hit my age and you're not going to have already explored this part of yourself, because it's connected to other parts of yourself that you already have decided you like. And so, for whatever that's worth, as scary as you think it is, it is that scary, and it's also not that scary. It's both, just like fame is delicious to you and absolutely awful. It's both. It gets to be both. What you haven't done is lost yourself. Am I right about that with the family thing? You've not lost yourself.

Winnie:           Yeah. Right.

Jessica:            Even on your terrible days, you didn't lose yourself. And the same thing will be true with intimacy if you decide to take it in or on. That's not what you wanted to talk about. I'm so sorry.

Winnie:           No, I get it. And it's not—I get this—the way things work. It's not the first time it's ever come around, right?

Jessica:            Oh, I bet. Yeah.

Winnie:           And the whole thing is that I used to be such a Pisces hater, low key, because I'd be like—the way people would describe Pisces, I'm like, "I'm not that. I'm very in control. I don't freak out. I'm not a crybaby. I know what I want, and I know how to get it," and all those things. But I also know that there's a part of me that's like, "I have to be like that, because if I'm not, then I'm done."

Jessica:            I agree.

Winnie:           And then there's nothing else to protect me. I have to be that way, or I—what else am I going to do? Crumble?

Jessica:            Well, this is the thing, right? Embracing your nature doesn't have to turn you into a stereotype, and it doesn't change the other parts of your nature that you've already embraced. It's "and also, and also, and also." It's like you are stubborn, and also, you have a hard time holding boundaries, and also, you fucking love people, and also, you do not love people, and also—they're all true. And I could keep going, right? They're all true at once.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And I just see that your willingness to have a creative life and to explore ideas and potentialities is so big and then weird. It's not even—the threading, the hole in the eye of a needle—so tiny is your willingness to experience a certain kind of vulnerability, a certain kind of creativity. That's fucking fascinating. You know what I mean?

Winnie:           Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And so, when something's that interesting, it deserves inquiry. It deserves investigation. Maybe you'll do it this year. Maybe you'll do it in ten years. Whatever.

Winnie:           Right.

Jessica:            But it's worth—I would be remiss if I didn't bring it up.

Winnie:           Yeah. I know.

Jessica:            Okay. Good. Okay. Good. The final thing I'm supposed to tell you is the clearer you are about your values, about your value as an individual human person and the values you hold around intimacy, relationships, vulnerability, and care—and I know you already have values around that stuff because you have friends, right? You have close friends.

Winnie:           Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            But you also have ideas and ideals about it when it comes to dating. You don't have values about it when it comes to dating. You have more in the fantasy realm.

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            So, if you did have any willingness to have shift occur, it would be to contemplate, what are the values you hold around dating? Monogamy is an easy one to start with. It's a big one, I'm guessing.

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. And also, for you, monogamy is not about not having other friends. Monogamy is not about having other emotional intimacies. It is about the sexual part of things and the romantic part of things, right?

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Good. That was the lowest-hanging fruit, and I just plucked it, and I'm like, "Look. You have value." It's a boundary. It's a value—whatever. But I want to just name that for you because it will give you a greater sense of agency around this, so if, God forbid, you met someone that you vibe with and then they asked you on a date, you wouldn't have to block a blessing. You know what I mean?

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            I'm sorry.

Winnie:           No, I get it. I know what you're talking about.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. Good. Okay. Good. The way you looked so sad about it, even though it's really not sad.

Winnie:           No, it's not. But it's deep. It's in there.

Jessica:            It's deep.

Winnie:           Yeah.

Jessica:            It is. It is. It is. But—

Winnie:           I don't like it.

Jessica:            I don't blame you. I don't blame you. And also, as with many other things that have happened in your life, when you actually have the experience, in a way, it's not as hard as you think it's going to be. Have you noticed that so far?

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. You fucking psych yourself up. But in reality, you're just better equipped than you think you are. So, as scared as you are—and you are—on a scale from 1 to 10, you're like a good 9.9; you're freaked out by this—I actually don't think it's going to be as rough on you as you think it's going to be because you are better resourced than you give yourself credit for. When you're thinking about it, you're not very well resourced, but in practice, you are very well resourced.

                        So, again, you just need to trust you. You don't need to trust anyone else. I mean, of course, please trust the person you're dating, but you know what I'm saying.

Winnie:           Right.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Winnie:           Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. All right, my dear. Now, wait. I know I took us off in a direction, but did I answer your core question?

Winnie:           Yeah. Yeah. Honestly, the funniest part is that when you were like, "I think you just want influence more than you want fame," I was like, "Oh. That makes more sense. Yeah."

Jessica:            Yes, it does. Your whole face—you had a real pop in that moment. Excellent. Good. Run with that.

Winnie:           Thank you.