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

Marcello:        Hi, Jessica. Thank you so much for choosing my question. I think I'll just go ahead and read my question since I have it here.

Jessica:            Perfect.

Marcello:        My question is, "Hi, Jessica. As someone that is prone to anxiety, isolation, depression, and dissociation, the older I get, it's easy to understand certain roots as to why. I clearly learned from a young age that it isn't safe to be, quote, 'who I am.' Is there any way to unburden myself from the built-in shame and a learned response to just keep quiet and not make any waves? And does my chart show any insight into this problem?"

Jessica:            That's really deep.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. And we're okay to share your birth data, right?

Marcello:        Yes.

Jessica:            It's November 5, 1993, in Philly, Pennsylvania, 9:09 a.m.

Marcello:        Correct.

Jessica:            And if you're not in the United States, that's Philadelphia. So this is a really deep question, and there's a lot of layers to it. So let me start by asking you a bunch of questions. You know that's what I like to do. Okay. You named some words that are like "anxiety," "disassociation"—do you mean this is self-diagnosed; you're talking about your nature? Or do you have a mental health diagnosis of these words?

Marcello:        Self-diagnosed and my nature for sure. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Do you see a shrink? Do you have a therapist? Do you have somebody who supports you and all that kind of stuff?

Marcello:        So I definitely am looking to go back to that. I only have done that in brief spurts but definitely think I would benefit from going back.

Jessica:            Yeah. And when you talk about this stuff, about having a difficult time and being yourself, is that connected to literally fucking everything, or is it specific to parts of yourself?

Marcello:        See, that's a great question. I feel like it's probably more concentrated in the whole—the fact that I am Gay. But—

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. Are you out?

Marcello:        Oh, I am, but it just—it still doesn't feel like something—I don't know. It's not acknowledged, I guess. I've always been single, so it's just not really out there in that sense. But I am out. Everyone that's close to me knows.

Jessica:            So let me dig at that. Everyone who's close to you knows. So that's your family of origin?

Marcello:        Yes.

Jessica:            You're out to your family. Do you have friends?

Marcello:        So yeah. Friends have known—so, as part of the isolation, I have had some longtime friends that I've kind of unfortunately lost touch with in the past couple years. But yeah, of course, friends would know.

Jessica:            And are those straight people, those friends? Are they, like, friends from high school who are straight people?

Marcello:        No, not even that. One was also Gay, and—well, the other one was mostly straight, maybe arguably Queer, but she is with a guy, so—

Jessica:            Okay.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            So there's layers and layers and layers and layers and layers, right?

Marcello:        Of course. Yeah.

Jessica:            So bear with me here. I'm going to have you say your full name out loud.

Marcello:        [redacted]

Jessica:            So I'm going to start off energetically, okay—

Marcello:        Sure.

Jessica:            —because when I look at you energetically, I see a lot of compression. It's like you have this really—it's actually kind of a beautiful, energetic pattern, almost like a bunch of petals overlapping each other, pushing parts of you down. It's like this really intricate way that you developed preteen times. It's just compression. You just push yourself down. And your inner world—very active, right? You're constantly thinking, processing, taking in information, exploring ideas. Am I right about that?

Marcello:        Absolutely. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. But the kind of space between all of that dynamic, analytic, exploratory energy and pulling it outside—what a space. There's so much space between those things.

Marcello:        Yes.

Jessica:            And I mean, you are really concerned with what other people think.

Marcello:        Yeah. Uh-huh. I knew that would come up. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. Yeah. It's pretty intense.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            And are you yourself a pretty judgy person?

Marcello:        Oh, towards others?

Jessica:            Yeah.

Marcello:        I don't try to be. I don't know.

Jessica:            That's a funny answer. Sun, Mercury, Pluto, and Mars in Scorpio—girl, that's judgy, I'm just saying, which doesn't mean you are—

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            It's that the judgment happens emotionally, and what you do analytically in reaction to those emotional judgments, I imagine, depending on the situation—but most of the time, when we are terrified of being judged as humans, it's because we are judging people, whether it's judging ourselves or judging other people, because you know—

Marcello:        It's like a defense. I'm aware of that, for sure. I know based off my placements, just my own self-reflection—I don't know. I do think I try to give everyone the benefit of the doubt constantly.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yep. Well—

Marcello:        I just—yeah.

Jessica:            —it's like you're doing both at the same time, and one doesn't cancel out the other.

Marcello:        For sure.

Jessica:            I think we have this idea—so you have a Venus/Jupiter conjunction in Libra in the eleventh house. You are so magnanimous. You are authentically like—you walk into a space; you assume the best in people.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            You are willing to meet them where they're at. You aren't judgmental. You are very kind. You have the Moon square to your Venus in Jupiter. It just furthers this part of you that is really emotionally open to other people and their perspectives. The struggle part of this is it doesn't seem to translate to self-worth unless you're being of service to other people.

Marcello:        Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Marcello:        Did you just get that from my chart or psychic ability?

Jessica:            Yeah, from your chart.

Marcello:        Oh. Okay.

Jessica:            It's a from-your-chart thing because all of—okay. Sun/Mercury conjunction in Scorpio in the twelfth—it's right on the eleventh-house cusp to the twelfth. I'm using Campanus house system. So, in a different house system, it might fall somewhere else. But you also have a Pluto/Mars conjunction very neatly in the twelfth in Scorpio. And so this is constantly clocking power. And within that, because it's in the twelfth house, it's clocking powerlessness. And so the Scorpio stuff can have you evaluating where you stand unconsciously, like just reflexively doing it. And that Pluto/Mars conjunction is mean. You're mean to yourself—mean, mean, mean.

Marcello:        Yes.

Jessica:            So fucking mean, right? And so the anxiety and the isolation is in response to how mean you are to yourself in many ways, right?

Marcello:        Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And then you go into the world with your beautiful, shiny Sagittarius Rising, and you go into the world with your glorious Venus/Jupiter conjunction square to your Moon. It's like in the realm of squares, a Moon square to Venus and a Moon square to Jupiter is what a girl wants.

Marcello:        Oh. That's good.

Jessica:            It's an excellent—these are two great squares, yes—

Marcello:        Oh. Okay.

Jessica:            —because they make you—I mean, Venus/Moon square, the downside is it can make you kind of hyper-reliant on compliments, so you need validation in order to know that you're okay.

Marcello:        Okay. I can see that.

Jessica:            Yeah, as opposed to just being like, "Yeah, I'm okay. And whether or not I get along with this person is not a reflection of my value inherently."

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            So that can be the downside of the Moon/Venus square. But in general, it makes you want to be kind and nice to others. It makes you open-minded. It makes you willing and able to socialize with other people, show up for other people, connect with other people. People are inclined to like you. Now, you are so busy not liking yourself that you can't tell. You don't know what to do with it if somebody just—

Marcello:        Oh my God.

Jessica:            —walks up to you and is nice.

Marcello:        Sorry. I'm just trying to sit with that. Yeah. It's the getting compliments. It's—but yeah, it's just trying to—I am mean to myself. You're so right. You've mentioned so many things that I wanted to bring up already, but they came up on their own. Sorry. I lost my train of thought there.

Jessica:            No, no, no. You're good.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            So what just happened is what happens with you, so I'm actually glad it happens—perfect—is that you are in the moment, and you're really clear because your intuitive and emotional processing is very deep, and you're clocking everything. And then you go to be like, "Okay. I'm going to express it," because you're clear. You're clear about what you just were thinking and what you were feeling, so you're like, "Okay. I'm going to express it." And what happens is your fucking editor comes online, and your editor is like, "Don't say it that way. Nope. That's wrong. That's too much. You don't have to say it that way. You don't have to connect it to all the things. Wait a minute. Why are you going to say it this way? No."

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            And then you're confused. You're utterly confused.

Marcello:        It turns into fog. It turns into fog.

Jessica:            Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And this is where we look to a couple of things in your chart. Neptune opposite your Moon—so Neptune opposite your Moon, it can create a state of anxiety that's kind of chronic and like baseline anxiety. I'm not in the realm of psychology or whatever, but I wouldn't be surprised if there was anxiety disorders in your family, not just for you—that several members of your family deal with various forms of anxiety.

Marcello:        Oh, 100 percent.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Marcello:        Yeah. I think almost everyone in my family, but I don't think people acknowledge it.

Jessica:            Right. I personally am of the mind that if you have tooth decay, you should get a filling. If you have chronic migraines, you should find a medication. And if you have chronic anxiety, you should find a medication. I am of the mind that mental health and physical health struggles—they're all just health struggles, and finding support and treatment, whatever it might be, is all kind of equal and lovely. So I just want to throw that at you because, from where I'm sitting, some of what you struggle with—it's actually your body's way of processing things. You just have this baseline of, like, "Ahhh."

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            And so there probably are a lot of supports out there for you. I don't know what your access or whatever is to acupuncture. I bet acupuncture would help you leagues because—

Marcello:        Yes, like bodywork and stuff like that.

Jessica:            Bodywork, acupuncture—all of that stuff helps with anxiety. It helps with your body processes, and it helps with your mental health. But—okay. Coming back to what just happened before when you were about to verbalize and then you didn't verbalize—okay.

Marcello:        Okay.

Jessica:            So that Moon/Neptune opposition—you kind of experience a feeling of dissolving a fair amount. So you had clarity, and then it kind of dissolved in the moment, right? And then the other thing that you have is this intercepted Saturn in your second house. That's this guy right here. Your intercepted Saturn in the second house squares your Mars/Pluto conjunction in the twelfth house. This is all very fucking confusing. It couldn't be more confusing for you because having an intercepted Saturn speaks to just how complicated the embodiment of Saturn was for your parents and in your childhood. We can get more to that in a second. But it's also squaring twelfth-house planets, which are also submerged. So Saturn square Mars/Pluto conjunction makes you super mean to yourself any time you seek to be like, "This is who I am."

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            And this is part of why, if somebody comes into your life—you're walking down the street, somebody walks up to you, you're at a party, you're meeting up with friends—whatever—and people don't need something from you, you're at a fucking loss because when somebody's not like, "I need you to do this for me. I need you to be this for me," you have to just make a decision about who to be and how to show up. And you have all of this competing inner monologue that kind of has you doing what you did with me in that moment, where you're like—you're about to rise to the occasion, and then you're like, "Never mind." It's too much.

                        And so, when that happens as a pattern and you're not talking to a psychic, then it ends up making other people be like, "Well, does he not really want to talk to me? What is he actually thinking?" And then their weird personal self-worth issues and defenses come up, and it becomes this self-fulfilling prophecy where, then, people are kind of—get weird with you because they think you're rejecting them, or they don't get what you mean. And then you're like, "Well, fuck it. There's no point in even trying this shit. This is too hard."

Marcello:        Honestly, yeah. And I've been clocking everything you just said lately, and I can see the patterns of it, for sure, which is what even led me to write to you. I know that the Saturn square to Mars/Pluto—that's probably the roughest part of my chart.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Marcello:        But yeah. No, completely agree.

Jessica:            And it is the roughest part of your chart, and it's kind of like the center of your question, right?

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            Even the word "unburden"—you said, "How do I fucking unburden myself?" That's fucking Saturn square Pluto/Mars language right there, like, "How do I unburden myself?" like it's a heavy—

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            You know. And part of what I want to say in response to the specifics of your question is, when we have—and I say "we" because me, too, man. When we have heavy fucking charts, when we have the birth chart that says, "Yeah. You are wired to be attuned to pain and suffering. You experience the burden of humanity. You experienced the burden of being wrong and being right even before you tried"—right? You come into this world with an acute sense of being burdened in many ways, right? So you've probably had this in your nature since you were a kid.

Marcello:        Oh yeah. Yeah. I just think all of this is so deeply rooted since a very young age, these patterns, like the way that I respond or what you said about people—and waiting for my reason or my purpose in interactions, like if I can't serve, then what's my value? What's my place here? It's just feeling like I'm in the right place, or what's the context of anything? I don't know. It's just this feeling of not feeling like I belong, perhaps. I don't—

Jessica:            Yeah. No, that's—

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            That makes—

Marcello:        I don't know if I'm articulating it, but—

Jessica:            You are. You are, and it brings me back to your Moon/Saturn opposition. We will come back to that in just one moment because that's a very common feeling of, "I was born in the wrong time. I was born in the wrong place. I was born in the wrong body. I was born"—

Marcello:        Yes. Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. It's this feeling of being out of time and place and not belonging to yourself, right?

Marcello:        Okay.

Jessica:            Or not belonging to the time or whatever it is. And that Neptune/Moon opposition is, in many ways, in stark contrast to the Saturn/Pluto with this Scorpio stellium because Neptune is a balloon that is constantly floating above things. Saturn is an anvil that makes everything root to the ground. Pluto is the force under the ocean. And so you have this deep heaviness to you at the exact same time as this part of you that's always like, "This is not my fucking timeline. This is not my fucking—why am I in this circumstance? This doesn't make sense to me."

Marcello:        Right.

Jessica:            And so I don't know that unburdening—and I'm not sure exactly how you're using this and all that you mean when you refer to being unburdened, but I am a big believer that we work with our nature to overcome our nature. So, if you are trying to be chill and unburdened, that seems bananas to me. It's not your nature. It's not in your chart. Listen. You have parts of you that are like that.

Marcello:        Sure.

Jessica:            But that's not who and what you are.

Marcello:        Sure.

Jessica:            So what I'm trying to say is you get to be intense. You get to be somebody who needs a lot of time and space alone to process the fucking intensity of the world and people because you feel everything. You are allowed to be somebody who is heavy.

Marcello:        Yes. Definitely.

Jessica:            And the only way to do that without being burdened by it is by first cultivating permission for yourself, like self-acceptance.

Marcello:        I guess that's where therapy would help me get to in a more consistent way that's practiced, for sure.

Jessica:            Yeah. So, because of your Sun/Mercury conjunction, you do process things verbally, which is a bummer to hear because you hold yourself back from talking a lot.

Marcello:        Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Marcello:        That's true.

Jessica:            I see. I see. And so do you write?

Marcello:        Sometimes lately a little bit, but—and my thoughts do come out so much better when I do that.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Marcello:        It's just I get so stuck in my head. I'm just like, "Oh, I'll just process up here," and I never do that. But when I do do that, I think the thoughts come out way more clearly.  I don't know what it is.

Jessica:            It's Mercury/Sun conjunction. It's going to be writing or speaking. That's what it is. It's—okay, so other things in your chart kind of pull you away from the speaking. I would say that writing—

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            And are you in the comment section online a lot?

Marcello:        Reading, not really writing.

Jessica:            Not writing. Okay.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. So what I'm going to have you do as a practice—and when I say a practice, I mean literally you're going to practice it. Either it works for you or it doesn't. And you don't have to be perfect at it. You don't have to be consistent, although I think consistency would help you, but if you can't make that happen, you can't make that happen. I want to encourage you to, a couple times a day, grab your phone. Grab the notes in your phone, and bullet point, if you want, or full-on paragraphs, write out what you're thinking or what you're feeling about something. It could be something you saw online that you're ruminating on. It could be something—you know, interaction you had with somebody in your family. It doesn't matter what it's about.

                        And then you can delete it because I know you're weird and private. So delete as soon as you write it. If you want to write it on a piece of paper, crumple that piece of paper up, burn it with a Zippo, it doesn't matter to me. It's not about keeping the writing. It's not about creating documentation of your opinions. It's about building the muscle of articulating—like, committing words to your perceptions, to your feelings, without writing them in stone. I'm not recommending you write anything in stone. None of this is about commitment.

Marcello:        Okay.

Jessica:            It's about a practice of articulating your thoughts or your perceptions, even your feelings.

Marcello:        I would think part of that comes back to just getting my feelings out there. Well, I don't want to ever feel judgmental or mean, like if I'm—but if I'm just expressing my feelings about any given thing, it's just—

Jessica:            Okay. This is—

Marcello:        I don't want to feel mean.

Jessica:            You don't want to feel mean. Okay. So this is actually really good. I'm so glad you named that.

Marcello:        Yeah. That's just part of it.

Jessica:            Yeah. No, but it's a meaningful part. When you are figuring out how to discern your own opinions, you've got to be like—okay. Let me use this example. Okay. So some famous person wore a dress, and your feed online—everybody's fucking talking about this dress. And in order for you to discern, "I like this dress. I dislike this dress. I like these parts of this dress. I don't give a fuck about what dress a famous person is wearing"—whatever it is that your opinion is, if you're authentically discerning, you are considering the options. You're considering the meanest options. You're considering the most ethical options. You're considering all the options. That's the process of discernment. It's allowing yourself to consider all the options. Where it gets mean is if you stay attached to a mean option, right?

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            There is something really important that I'm trying to get at here, which is that if you don't allow yourself to discern, then you'll never figure out what you truly think.

Marcello:        I almost feel like there's too much discernment in my thought process, and it's—I almost feel like I don't want to be misinterpreted, or I don't want to feel like I didn't—like you were saying, with consideration, I don't want to feel like, "Well, I didn't consider this." I want to—I am considering so many things, even if someone asked me a fairly simple question. I can totally see that.

Jessica:            Right. Okay.

Marcello:        I don't know.

Jessica:            So that's not discernment. That's rumination.

Marcello:        Oh. You would call that rumination?

Jessica:            I would call that rumination, and let me tell you what the difference is. Partially, it's perfectionism.

Marcello:        Oh, yes. Yes.

Jessica:            You're looking for the perfect—you are cycling through every possibility because you cannot tolerate being wrong, and wrong might mean mean or unkind or ill-considered in some way, ill-informed in some way—whatever the motivation is, whether we're talking about a dress or a political opinion or whatever.

Marcello:        Right. I'm always trying to be like my own publicist.

Jessica:            Yes.

Marcello:        I don't know. It's so—

Jessica:            You're obsessively fixating on every possible iteration, right? That's rumination.

Marcello:        Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Discernment is more of an exploration where you're discerning, like, "Okay. I like"—I'm using the dress example because it's stupid and unimportant, because I do think this compulsion to have the right opinion would come up even with something ultimately important—a dress—right?

Marcello:        Sure.

Jessica:            You might discern, "I like this hemline. I don't like this hemline on this person. Is that mean, to say I don't like the way this looks on this person?" Well, you could sit and—

Marcello:        I don't think so.

Jessica:            Right. I would say not, and I can also see, in the right circumstance, you could ruminate and be concerned that somebody else would think that it was, so maybe you're not going to say that. Right?

Marcello:        Yes. That's true.

Jessica:            So the first step—and, I think, an incredibly important step—is developing a practice where you can discern and identify your actual opinion. Then you can use your diplomatic skills. You have a Jupiter/Venus conjunction, Venus square the Moon. You are diplomatic. You can use your diplomatic skills to, based on your opinion, decide what to communicate. But what you're trying to do is everything all at once.

Marcello:        Yeah. Uh-huh.

Jessica:            And so you're not actually getting the benefit of the depth of all that Scorpio in your chart because you're trying to pair that depth with Venus and Libra—because your Venus Jupiter conjunction is in Libra—with that Venus/Jupiter in Libra's ability to be like, "Here's the opinion that everyone can digest."

Marcello:        Exactly.

Jessica:            "Here's the opinion that doesn't ruffle feathers." You are allowed to be a heavy-handed fucking Scorpio stellium and also somebody who is empathetic and diplomatic and doesn't want to—you're not looking for controversy. You don't want to deal with the fallout of a controversy. That is not your ambition. However—

Marcello:        Until it becomes this thing that no one's ever addressing, and then I feel like I have to address it. And then it's like—

Jessica:            Right. You're the only one who can, right? That's kind of that feeling.

Marcello:        That's how it feels.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Marcello:        I'm like, "Well, no one's actually—everyone's tiptoeing around these things," at least as far as a family dynamic.

Jessica:            Yeah. So, in that situation, you have probably had the chance to ruminate for years before you assert your opinion, right? So with family stuff.

Marcello:        That can happen, yeah, or probably has happened.

Jessica:            Yeah. It looks like it. And also, with family dynamics, listen. You can be 60 years old, and the dynamics that happen with your sibling—they might be brand new because you're both now in your 60s, but they're also the same shit that's been happening since you were five, right?

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            That's the thing about family of origin. We develop our relationships over the course of time, and so we have space to ruminate. For those of us who ruminate, you can ruminate on that relationship and that dynamic for decades.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            And so, when you feel that there is a service that you can perform, then your perfectionism is about creating justice as opposed to being diplomatic. But in your day-to-day interactions, your perfectionism points you towards diplomacy and getting along with people, right?

Marcello:        Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. We have different parts. We have different parts. So, in this situation with, let's say, family of origin, when you're like, "I need to stand up for fucking justice, and I'm the only one who's going to do it. And I'm going to name the things," in that situation, you have been ruminating a really long time. And you have been able to cycle in and out of discernment. So sometimes you're discerning what's right for you and what you believe and what are the situations, and other times, you're ruminating. You do both things.

Marcello:        Sure. Yeah.

Jessica:            In a social interaction with somebody at the fucking café or somebody you just kind of know from around, there's not time to do all of that. And so this is where, again, developing a practice of identifying what you actually think requires you to be willing to consider your negative opinions and beliefs, your petty bullshit beliefs. You are allowed to have pettiness in you. The thing about being a kind person, a nice person, an ethical person, a spiritual person, is not to be without petty bullshit inside of you. It's to not center it in your actions.

Marcello:        Okay.

Jessica:            So this is something I see for folks who are from Jesus-based religions—there's lots of them—is that there's this thing about your thoughts. Your thoughts are supposed to be pure. This is like a cultural thing that I have because I'm Jewish, and so within Judaism, you're supposed to wrestle with your thoughts. You're allowed to have really critical, negative thoughts.

Marcello:        Sure.

Jessica:            And so I want to just hold that some of this is cultural for you, right? So it's not, per se, religious. It's the culture around the religion. It's the dominant culture we live in. You're not supposed to have bad thoughts. But I want to invite you to explore your negative thoughts. I want to invite you to explore your resentments and your pettiness and the parts of you that are mean and bitchy. And I'm saying that because I'm looking at your chart. It's in your chart—and not to rest there, not to be like, "I'm entitled to being an asshole," or anything like that, or even to beat yourself up for having those thoughts, but to be like, "Oh. Okay. So the garden is full of beautiful flowers. The garden is full of food. And there's also weeds in the garden. And look. An animal shit in my garden," and to allow yourself to identify all of the things and to figure out what you want to do with it.

                        Some weeds you can actually leave alone; they're not a big deal. Sometimes shit turns into compost, and sometimes you need to get out a shovel. Sometimes you need to pull those weeds by their roots. But in order to really give yourself space to figure out what is in the garden of your mind, you have to be willing to hang out there without being like, "Uh-oh. There's a weed. Raze it all to the ground. I saw a spider. Burn the whole garden."

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            Give yourself space to have mean thoughts. One second. I'm hitting the Tarot. I'm hitting the Tarot. Hold on.

Marcello:        Oh. Awesome. I love Tarot.

Jessica:            Okay. So what happens—so, if you fuck with the Tarot, I just quickly threw some cards and saw—okay. When you actually do this, when you actually are like, "Okay. I'm just going to hang out with my negative thoughts"—hangman. Something in you kind of—again, we're back to the dissolving. An anxiety response emerges, right?

Marcello:        Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Honestly, at this point, it's just almost like a physiological response for you. It's like you hang out with these really strong negative thoughts, and then the anxiety pops up. It's just like action/reaction, action/reaction. Some of it is just a deep habit groove.

Marcello:        Oh yeah. It's very, like you said, physiological nervous system, I think. Yeah.

Jessica:            It really feels that way. It really feels that way. So we can look at the psychological underpinnings, but I feel like that's five steps down the road. The first step is there is a deep groove, and when you sit with really powerful or critical thoughts and opinions and feelings, anxiety pops up. And that anxiety—it makes you disassociate, and now you've lost the whole fucking thread because it's just like that thing that happened in our interaction earlier where you start with a strong opinion, and then all of a sudden, you're like, "I don't know what I was saying. I don't know."

Marcello:        Literally. Yeah.

Jessica:            Literally. Yeah. Literally, that's what happens.

Marcello:        It's like I was holding a balloon, and I somehow let it go. That's how it visually looks. I don't know.

Jessica:            Yes. Yes. Yeah, that's classic, textbook Neptune/Moon opposition. Okay?

Marcello:        Oh. Okay.

Jessica:            Yeah. If you fuck with astrology—and I don't know if you look at natal aspects. My favorite natal aspect book is by a woman named Karen Ham—

Marcello:        Oh. Wait.

Jessica:            Oh yeah. You're going to write it down? Oh, do you have it? Woo. Okay.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            Good on you. Okay.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            Karen Hamaker-Zondag's book, Planets in Aspect. So you've looked at her Moon opposition to Neptune placement?

Marcello:        I have read it.

Jessica:            Reread it when we get off the phone.

Marcello:        Reread it? Okay.

Jessica:            Yeah. She also has a great book on the twelfth house you may want to look at because you have a twelfth-house stellium.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            But the thing I want to come back to with the anxiety piece is I am not sure—when I look at your chart and when I look at you energetically, you have anxiety responses and anxiety impulses and anxiety habits, and also, I don't know if you have clinical anxiety or not. And I do think that when we have clinical depression or clinical anxiety, we can and should do lots of self-care things and also get medical support. The medical support, I think, is an important part. I don't know if you have judgments about that insecurities about that. But I just want to—

Marcello:        Like taking medication?

Jessica:            Yeah, taking medications that support the physiological part of the anxiety response.

Marcello:        Yeah, I guess I do. I have tried to take the medication in the past. I know people say you're supposed to stick to it for like six weeks, but to me, I don't see how it's like a means to an end. I know it works for people. Great. But I don't know. Maybe it's just the idea of it, the idea of the dependency on it, maybe, I wrestle with.

Jessica:            So I'm going to speak to that for a moment just to say, listen, it might not be for you. Not everything's for everyone.

Marcello:        Yeah. I agree.

Jessica:            I'm cool with that. And also, the Saturn square to your Mars and square to your Pluto is, "I'm going to lift myself up by my fucking bootstraps. I'm going to fucking do it myself. I'm not taking shortcuts. I don't need any kind of med to help me, because I will power through." Yeah.

Marcello:        Right. It's like this weird—is it like a pride thing? I don't know.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. It's rugged individualism.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            It's like self-reliance. It's—listen. You don't have Saturn square your Mars and your Pluto and not have this sense of, "I should be able to do it on my own."

Marcello:        And in my own way and—

Jessica:            Yep, at my own time.

Marcello:        —I'm smart enough to get through it myself. I don't know.

Jessica:            Yep. Yep. Yeah. All of those things.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            And I want to say, sure, you could do it that way. It's the hardest way for no reason whatsoever. You know what I mean?

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            And so I want to just say to you, listen, I like hiking. I like taking walks. And I started taking walks recently. And so I had these pair of shoes for hiking, and they were very uncomfortable. They actually didn't make me feel good when I was hiking. So you know what I did? I bought another pair of shoes, and I didn't think, "There's something wrong with me. There's something wrong with my feet. I'm not well suited to hiking." I just thought, "These shoes aren't good. I'll get another pair of shoes." And guess what: they didn't work either. And now I'm on my third pair of shoes. They're not great for me either. And at no point am I thinking this is a sign that I shouldn't hike or there's something wrong with my feet. I just think, "Oh, I haven't found the right shoes yet." You get that. You get that.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Same thing is true with meds. There's not a singular treatment for anxiety. If you do decide that you want to explore medication—which, again, I am not attached to and I'm not trying to convince you at all.

Marcello:        Sure.

Jessica:            But because you have a judgment towards it and you have this push-pull around it, I do want to say you have to find the right doctor, and they have to find the right treatment.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            And you can say to a doctor who's like, "I want to start you on ten milligrams"— I don't know what ten milligrams is. I don't know anything about medicine, but, "I want to start you on ten milligrams of this thing"—you can say, "Okay. I'm really hesitant to take a medication. Can we start at five?"

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            And ask them, "What's the pros and cons of doing that?" You can push back against doctors. I encourage you to push back against doctors because it'll make you feel more sense of control and more sense of like you are participating in your own treatment. And that might help this part of you that is not anxious because the part of you that's like, "I'm rugged. I'm going to handle everything," doesn't suffer from anxiety.

Marcello:        Oh. Yeah. That's true.

Jessica:            Right? Neptune is the anxious part. Saturn is the "I'm going to do it all by myself" part.

Marcello:        Right.

Jessica:            So it's easy for Saturn to tell Neptune, "Suck it up, Neptune." But Neptune doesn't know how to suck it up. That's not Neptune's nature. That's Saturn's nature.

Marcello:        It's like the victim. It's like—right?

Jessica:            Yeah.

Marcello:        Okay.

Jessica:            It's the victim, but it's also escapism.

Marcello:        Escapism.

Jessica:            It's also disassociation. It's also hypersensitivity, such that you feel everything all the time and you don't have good energy boundaries, and so everything seeps in. So the anxiety stuff might be like, again, clinical anxiety. And I don't know anything about clinical anxiety. But it can be—and they can exist at the same time and often do for folks—that you're just feeling fucking everything because Saturn says, "Develop a thick skin." Saturn literally governs the organ of the skin. Neptune says, "What is skin? What is body? What is time? What is real?"

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            And so to use the logic of Saturn to support Neptune can work if it's done in a supportive way to Neptune. But what you're trying to do is be like, "Shove it down. Suck it up. I'm going to fix this on my own." But you're actually not letting people help you, and you're not taking help. And so you're not fixing it on your own as a result.

Marcello:        Completely. Yeah.

Jessica:            So I'm going to slow down for a minute here, and I'm just going to take a pause and encourage you to take a pause. And I want to ask you, do you have any other questions for me? Have I actually been answering your question—that kind of stuff.

Marcello:        Oh, for sure. I think everything we've talked about has stemmed from my question.

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay. Good.

Marcello:        It's just—I guess it's almost like, what resolution am I trying to get to? I'm trying to answer that for myself, the specifics.

Jessica:            I don't think it needs to be specific.

Marcello:        True.

Jessica:            I know you think it needs to be specific—

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            —but I want to hold space for you're asking a really complex and nuanced question.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            And it's not just about a specific thing, which is why it's good that when you were talking before, you kind of talked yourself out of talking, and then you were anxious. You were like, "I'm confused.  I don't know what I'm saying." That is actually perfect. And we could essentially be doing an hour-long reading about that moment because it was an example as opposed to a specific, right? And so I want to just kind of, then, bring it back to a couple of things.

                        The first thing is astrology specifically allows us to understand our parts and to understand that your Venus/Jupiter part is so happy to be around people and happy to be of service and happy to connect and does not like to fucking cause waves. That Moon square to the Venus/Jupiter—it makes you actually want to have people in your life. It makes you social. It makes you want to have emotional connections that are really lovely. It doesn't necessarily make you want to have deep ones, but it makes you want to have lovely ones.

                        And then, by contrast, you have a fucking Scorpio stellium in your twelfth house, including Pluto and Mars conjoined each other. OMG. And that makes you only want depth or nothing at all. If it's not deep and if it's not real, why bother?

Marcello:        Literally. Yeah.

Jessica:            Literally, right?

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            It has you really, really, really hard on yourself. It has you having a nature where you are critical. You're critical of yourself. You're critical of people. You're critical of places. And that's not the only thing you are, but it's worth naming because Venus/Jupiter isn't critical. Venus/Jupiter is, "Everything is lovely." And Scorpio stellium is, "Everything is hard and heavy, and I'm going to evaluate all the fucking parts." Right?

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            It's deep. It's roiling. And that stellium makes you intensely private and introverted. Venus/Jupiter—very social. I mean, the eleventh house is the most social placement you could have. And then the rest—the whole, entire rest of your chart—is introverted. So it's a confusing thing for you to have because there is a part of you that is social, and then there's the rest of you that's like, "I actually need a fucking break from the humans. The humans are so peopley, and they're so hard." And they engage these parts of you that you have a hard time navigating.

                        Because Saturn is square to your Pluto/Mars conjunction, it furthers that perfectionistic part of you. And you can be so hard on yourself that you edit yourself out of a sentence or edit yourself out of flirting with someone. Yeah, of course I mentioned—man, you can just explain away a feeling or a moment with a guy in such a way that you never get to have that spontaneity that you are so capable of and that you so desire—and you don't, and you do, and you don't, and you do, I would imagine.

Marcello:        No. Yeah, it's—yeah. It's just so true. I'm just kind of blown away.

Jessica:            Yeah, well—

Marcello:        Yeah. I don't know.

Jessica:            —it's what we're here for. We're here to blow a little bit away.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            And then you've got this twelfth-house stellium, and additionally, you've got Neptune and Uranus, actually, opposite your Moon. And so what's really important here is that you move through emotions really quickly, but Neptune and Uranus both govern anxiety. Uranus is nervous system activation, and Neptune is panic, like "I don't know what's real and what's not real" anxiety. So you—lucky, lucky you—

Marcello:        They're on top of each other.

Jessica:            Yeah. They're right on top of each other. You were born in '93, so you're part of that generation. And they're both opposite to your Moon. And so you process emotions so quickly—Uranus—but amorphously—Neptune. And this is where how your nervous system functions, how you support your nervous system, is directly linked to your experience of anxiety. Even though I tend to—I imagine you have more of a panicky anxiety than a nervous system dysregulation, but again, I don't know because they're right on top of each other, that Neptune/Uranus. You have such a strong twelfth house, which is Neptunian, right?

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            So that gives you more of a Neptunian vibe. But if you were a witchy herb girlie, I would say nervous system-supporting herbs would be really great for you. This is, again, why I think acupuncture would be so good for you, because of the way that your chart is written, right?

Marcello:        Okay.

Jessica:            That North Node in the twelfth house speaks to your need for supporting your mental and spiritual health in this lifetime.

Marcello:        Absolutely.

Jessica:            Yeah. It's super annoying, though, because you're like, "Psych meds bad. Doctors bad. I don't want to talk about my feelings"—also, that's your fucking North Node. So that's apparently the assignment. The assignment is to figure out how to be present with the truth. Now, having a North Node in Sagittarius speaks to there being a singular truth. Now, the truth is actually nuanced. It's contextual. There's actually a lot of truth that we can acknowledge at once about a singular thing. And also, the truth is the truth. And that's a really hard lesson for North Node in Sagittarius people.

                        And this is all wrapped up in everything we've been talking about. It's like, how do you discern what the truth is from your perspective and tolerate your awareness that, contextually, it would be different for other people?

Marcello:        Right. Exactly, like kind of sharing that viewpoint, not—I don't know if it's not being offended or—not discredited, just—obviously, we all don't have the same viewpoint, but even just my own—I believe in astrology. When that gets kind of perceived as, "Oh, well, that's stupid," or, "How could you even"—it's just very—I don't know. It just, like—it digs into me.

Jessica:            Yeah. It's like crushing. It's crushing.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            That's, again, Scorpio stellium, Saturn squaring Mars/Pluto. And what I want to hold is that is how you feel, and you have a right to feel that way, and also holding space for, "That's this person's view, and it doesn't actually minimize my view, and I don't have to justify my preferences and opinions." So I will say, as a professional astrologer, I've dedicated 30 years of my human life to astrology. I have friends who really think astrology is stupid. And I don't care, because for me, we can have different opinions as long as you're respectful of my life and of me in general. If you are respectful towards me but you hold a different opinion, I'm okay with it.

Marcello:        Sure.

Jessica:            The thing is I trust my discernment around being able to tell whether or not I'm being disrespected. And I think that, again, this is a struggle for you because you are seeking to be diplomatic and figure out how to react to people and interact with people at the same time that you're trying to sort through all of your deep feelings and thoughts. And it's not realistic to do all of those things at once if that's not what you're already doing. You know what I mean?

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            It's like you want to learn how to walk before you start running marathons. And what you've always done is try to do everything all at once—

Marcello:        Okay.

Jessica:            —and then you kind of oppress yourself. So the opinion about astrology is actually a really good one because I don't think a single person is alive who likes astrology who hasn't encountered people who roll their eyes at us. That's a thing. That's a fucking thing, right?

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            And I know most people get defensive, and they want to defend it and all of that kind of stuff, to which I always want to be like, "Also, don't." People always in interviews ask me, "What do you say to people who don't believe in astrology?" and I always say the same thing. You don't have to believe in astrology. You don't have to like astrology.

Marcello:        Right.

Jessica:            I like a lot of—I like crocs. I have crocs in so many colors. And are crocs objectively beautiful? No. Do I like them? Yes. And am I comfortable with people that I love thinking crocs are hideous and embarrassing? I am comfortable with that.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            And it's really about giving yourself permission to be different from other people.

Marcello:        And it's all connected. It's just connected to the Gay thing.

Jessica:            Yep.

Marcello:        It's just—it's all the same thing. It's just people judging something before they even know even the first thing about it.

Jessica:            Yep.

Marcello:        And it's just—

Jessica:            Or they know lots of things about it, and they're still judgmental. Somebody else's judgments about being Gay, about astrology, about crocs, are a reflection on them and never a reflection on you. Do you understand what I'm saying?

Marcello:        Yeah. Oh, logically, yeah.

Jessica:            But that's the thing—there's a logical understanding, and there's not a belief. And so this is where, as you develop a willingness to have an opinion and to allow yourself to own that opinion and not beat yourself up about what it means and whether or not your opinion is valid for other people, then you can hold it more lightly. "This is my take." And then, when other people have an opinion that is judgmental or shitty or just different from you, then it's easier to tolerate you being like, "Oh. Okay. That's just their opinion, and it's actually not—it doesn't define me."

Marcello:        Sure.

Jessica:            And the truth is you cannot be into astrology or be Gay and be accepted all the time and everywhere. Neither of those things are going to work in life. You know what I mean? It's just not realistic.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            And the question is, can you accept yourself? Can you give yourself permission to be different or to have strong convictions, strong preferences, that other people do not get?

Marcello:        Or can't even begin to even start to get or aren't even willing to look at and hold and be understanding, too?

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            And again, that's a reflection on them.

Marcello:        For sure.

Jessica:            And that information—you need to use that information. So, if somebody doesn't like crocs, as an example, okay. Whatever. It's like, fucking who cares, right?

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            But if you actually—if somebody is like, "I don't understand being Gay," or, "Okay, fine, but as long as I don't have to see it," well, then you need to shift your expectations and your trust of that person. The data itself is not enough. You also need to use the data. And if somebody is disrespectful about something that is core to who you are—like being Gay, being Queer, is core to who we are because it's who we love; it's not just who we have sex with, right?

Marcello:        Right.

Jessica:            It's who we love. It's very important. If somebody can't hold space for that, isn't authentically respectful of it—they're tolerating it—if you understand that, if you discern that, then the next step needs to be—it doesn't need to be anything, but I'm going to say "needs" in this moment, even though that's a judgy way of saying it—changing your expectations, changing your trust of that person.

Marcello:        Yeah. No, that's so true.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Marcello:        I mean, I—obviously, there's the saying people show you who they are instead of telling you who they are. That's clear.

Jessica:            Yep.

Marcello:        I just think it's—yeah, it's more of holding people accountable, which I do think I try to do. If people try to—I don't know—maybe treat me a certain way, I usually try to treat them the same way. And then I don't know if it's like a twelfth-house thing, like projection on me, like, "Oh, well, you can't act that way." I don't know. That's just a whole 'nother topic, probably, but—

Jessica:            The thing I would say to this is boundaries.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            So, if I have friends who don't like astrology, it's all good. If I have friends who think that everything I do with my life and my spiritual and intellectual pursuits are baseless, then they don't respect me. And then it's not just about me reflecting that energy back to them because that's tit for that. It's about recognizing I can't have a trust-based relationship with this person because I can't trust them to regard me with respect.

Marcello:        Absolutely. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. So, again, it's about first identifying the data, validating your perceptions. The next step has to be boundaries. And nobody with a Neptune/Moon opposition has an easy time with boundaries—or a twelfth-house stellium. So boundaries are the next step. But I think, sticking with your question, the unburdening of yourself is about giving yourself permission to have opinions, developing a practice of being in relationship to yourself so that you can unpack and discern what your opinion is, understanding that part of that process means considering your mean, petty, resentful—whatever—thoughts.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            You don't want to shove food in their mouth and be like, "Grow bigger, bigger." Right? But you want to be able to hang out with them and be curious about them, like, "Is your really mean thoughts—are they a defense because you feel unsafe? Are they because you actually think those things?"—right—

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            —because you're allowed to think shitty things, and you're allowed to be mean in your thoughts. And then, from that place, you kind of struggle to understand, "Okay. What's this really about? Why do I actually think this? Does this mean I really don't like this situation or this person or this thing? And then, if so, what do I have to do about it?"—steps. I want to encourage you to hang out with the steps instead of being like, "Oh no. I'm having really mean thoughts. That means I'm mean or I'm bad," which is what you're currently doing. You're like, "Hell no. I don't want to be like this," so you—boop—and you disassociate, and now you're gone. And so things don't get to evolve and change.

Marcello:        For sure. Yeah. That's the pattern.

Jessica:            That's the pattern. Right.

Marcello:        Yep.

Jessica:            And so hanging out with your negative thoughts—and this is seven million times easier if you have a good therapist.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            But hanging out with your negative thoughts, being curious about them, is good. And I would say type, type, type, handwriting—whatever's easier for you, write it out. Have a conversation with yourself. And again, delete when you're done. Otherwise, you won't be honest because you're private. So yeah. Just write out whatever petty bullshit it is. And I keep on using the word "petty" because Scorpio is petty. You know what I mean? Like, it can be very fucking petty. And that is what it is. Let yourself have that. And as you talk it out with yourself, you can start to identify, "Okay. What am I actually upset about? Once I've barfed out the bullshit part, okay, what's there?"

Marcello:        Yes.

Jessica:            So you've got a lot of Scorpio in you; it goes to pettiness. Me, I've got a lot of Saturn in me; it goes to right and wrong. "This is how it should be. This is the correct way of being." Every zodiac sign has their fucking thing. And so give yourself permission to be who you are, and then continue to honor that you have ethics and you have morals and you have values, and you want to sort through your damaged parts to bring them to healing, which means you accept yourself; you work with yourself instead of abandon yourself when you recognize something is imperfect.

Marcello:        Right. It just fully comes back to the question itself, that that is my hill to climb, like the thing that I gotta do.

Jessica:            Yeah. It is. And it's interesting that you mention hill because physical activity would actually really help you with this. Do you have a physical life? Are you sportsy? Do you take walks, or do you do anything fitnessy?

Marcello:        Yeah—so it's something that I've been meaning to get more into, fitness. It's just very put—I put it off. I do walk, but no, for sure, I need to be more physical. I think that would help me.

Jessica:            Do you enjoy being physical?

Marcello:        Oh yeah. I think—I don't know. I think I'm sort of built to do it. I don't think—

Jessica:            I agree. Yeah.

Marcello:        Yeah. I just—

Jessica:            Your body wants to be engaged. And I think, for you, both all that heavy Scorpioness and the anxious Neptune stuff—you off-gas a lot of that stuff—not all of it, trust, but a lot of it—when you use your body more consistently. I would actually say you might do really well with some sort of—do you do resistance training stuff?

Marcello:        That's what I want to do. I don't currently. I want to do yoga. I want to do more resistance to get more muscle.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Marcello:        Just kind of across the board.

Jessica:            You know, all of that would be good for you. I'm thinking about your mental health, not your physical health. In terms of your physical health, you have to be careful of your joints if you are doing that kind of heavy lifting or whatever. You have to do a lot of stretching, so I'm glad you're interested in yoga because I do think it's like the companion to those other things that you need because Saturn makes your joints a little tight, right?

Marcello:        Oh. Okay.

Jessica:            Yeah. So you want to just be mindful about that—so stretching, stretching, stretching. But I think that for your mental health, having a physical practice, like a physicality practice, is really good. Anyone with a strong twelfth house—using your body is going to be really useful because it helps you to get here.

Marcello:        Okay.

Jessica:            Yeah. Now, did we address everything? Do you have any kind of final question? Did we do it?

Marcello:        Yeah, I do think we addressed the question. Yeah, I agree. I think your advice is stuff that I've kind of been already—I already knew, "These are things I gotta do," like get back into therapy, maybe consider medication, definitely be more physical, definitely to expand socially, get back out there.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Marcello:        Other than that, it's just—I guess just things can kind of feel weird, like with my family and—

Jessica:            So I can speak to that very briefly to say that currently Neptune and Saturn are sitting on your IC.

Marcello:        Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I meant to—I thought this would have came up. I forgot that it didn't.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. And it didn't because we've really been in natal issues, right?

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            Like chronic issues. But are you comfortable with me sharing that you live with your family?

Marcello:        Oh, yeah, yeah, that I—

Jessica:            Okay.

Marcello:        —live with my brother right now.

Jessica:            Yeah. Living with your brother and living in the house you grew up in—yeah, it's probably terrible for you, right? It's probably just not helping you to feel like you can experiment and be really different than you've been. When we're in our—

Marcello:        Oh, of course. Yeah.

Jessica:            —family of origin, it's like we have deep grooves there, and we tend to settle into those grooves. So it's not ideal, but there may be circumstances for as long as Saturn stays on your IC—which won't be as long as the Neptune transit—you may have a hard time finding a place, or money might be tight, or there might be a material reason. But the thing about these transits is they want you to tend to home and hearth. And that's not just about your physical dwelling; it's about your relationship to your family of origin, or if you had a partner, that kind of family can be.

                        But the transit of Neptune at the bottom of the chart—from my perspective, it is excellent for you to work on your relationship to anxiety because the Neptune sitting there really increases anxiety and uncertainty. And so your coping mechanisms have kind of—like disassociating from yourself, hiding from people—might be accelerated. And this transit started recently. It started at the start of the year, basically.

Marcello:        Okay.

Jessica:            Yeah. So it can really accelerate that stuff. And so finding ways of engaging with healthy boundaries around your needs at home is really important. So, if you enjoy living in this situation or it's working for you in whatever ways and you're going to stick with it, I would encourage you to consider how you can shift things. So that might be something as little as move your bed to a different wall. Physically move things around to upset the routines in your thinking and in your assumptions. That might be a good starting place because, again, the physicality can help to trigger other things.

                        This is a transit that requires boundaries, and Neptune transits always confront us with the consequences of not having healthy boundaries. That's the fucking function of Neptune in many ways.

Marcello:        Yeah, or maybe conversations. Even today, before the reading, I'm just like—there's just so much noncommunication with boundaries and how I'm feeling with shared living space. And to add to that, I am trying—I do want to buy my own place. It's something I'm looking into if I'm able to. I don't know if that looks like something bad to do right now—

Jessica:            It does.

Marcello:        —based off of my transits.

Jessica:            Yeah, yeah, yeah. You don't want to buy property.

Marcello:        Even though I really have a—no?

Jessica:            No. During a Neptune conjunction to your IC, that's not the best time to buy property. So I would typically not advise that, just to be totally frank. But you could rent a place. You could sublease a place. You have a lot of options, and all of them are going to be frightening to you because Neptune kicks up anxiety. Right?

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            And so you just have to make decisions about what risks are the risks you're willing to take. And if what you decide to do is if it's—in your mind, if it's either buy a place or stay where you are, then you have decisions, right?

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            And all decisions are choices, and every choice has consequences. That's life.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            And so the move here would be to identify not just what your needs are around the house, like in your living situation with the people you live with—

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            —but also own, "Okay. So I've been living with this person for x amount of years, and I've never expressed this need. They have no idea that I have this need, and I'm fucking annoyed that they don't know. But some of that's on me. I have to express it," and making sure that when you express it, you don't do it with the weight of all the years you've been sucking it up if the other person doesn't know.

Marcello:        Oh, I agree. And I would try my best to not do any of that. I think it's just like a pattern in the family where people don't express how they feel, and it's frustrating.

Jessica:            Yeah. It is. It is.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            And this is why I said it's not the best time to live with family, because everybody is playing their old family role, right?

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            So it's very hard to be different when you're in a situation—our families expect us to stay the same, to a certain extent, right?

Marcello:        Absolutely.

Jessica:            Yeah. So those are the things to kind of work with and look at. But I would say that those are things to work on. I would also say that you're not just going through the Saturn and the Neptune opposition to your Midheaven. Pluto is trine your Midheaven, and that's a really great time for reshaping the direction of your life. And so, while, yes, you are going through a challenging transit, you also have a really supportive transit. So don't shy away from making changes. Again, Neptune on the IC—not the best time for real estate. Buying a home is not just about buying a home; it's a financial thing. It's timing in the market. It's about return on investment, yada, yada.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            If you are going to try to buy a home, you have to triple-check water damage. If there's any issues with pipes, there's any issues with mold, if there's any issues with water damage, do not buy the house.

Marcello:        Okay.

Jessica:            Okay? I mean, I'm telling you don't buy a house either way, but you gotta do life. You gotta live your life. If that's what you're doing, then just look out for that pitfall is what I would say. And there's nothing wrong with dating. I'm just going to throw that at you.

Marcello:        I know. I wish we had time to talk about that. That's another point.

Jessica:            Yeah. It's another very big thing.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            But the stuff we have talked about is a foundation for all the things, right?

Marcello:        Okay.

Jessica:            And so I would start there.

Marcello:        Maybe my last, final question is, if I go to a therapist, is there any sort of—do you have any recommendations?

Jessica:            Yes.

Marcello:        Because, obviously, I mess with the astrology, the psychicness. But I don't think you can find that.

Jessica:            Sure you can. Do you know how many therapists listen to this podcast? That's, like, so many.

Marcello:        But they are psychic as well?

Jessica:            I don't know if they're psychic as well, but that's actually not necessary for you. They don't need to be the same as you to have your back and respect you and understand you. That's actually really important.

Marcello:        Okay.

Jessica:            So, personally, me—see a psychic for psychic; see a therapist for therapy. That's my attitude. You know what I mean? I love therapy. I'm kind of obsessed with therapy. But I also see psychics. I do them as separate things because therapists are—they offer a very specific service that is actually different than the service of psychics. So I would actually hold those two separate. That said, I would encourage you to find a Gay man to be your shrink—not a straight girl, not a lesbian. A Gay man. That's my advice. If you're asking me for advice, find a Gay man. Learn how to talk to a Gay man really intimately about what's going on for you. And finding a Gay dude who's open to astrology is actually not as hard as you think it is.

Marcello:        Okay.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Marcello:        As a therapist?

Jessica:            As a therapist specifically.

Marcello:        Okay.

Jessica:            Yes.

Marcello:        I'm not opposed to that. I just know that it would shrink the pool of people to choose from, but—

Jessica:            Yeah, it would, which would make your life easier because you have less options.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            Sorry. I'm not—

Marcello:        You're clocking me. You're clocking me.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yes, I am. Yes, I am.

Marcello:        Okay.

Jessica:            So, if there are ten fucking Gay dudes, it's going to be really easy to cut out half of them instantly.

Marcello:        Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            So you'll have three choices. How many choices do you need of therapist [crosstalk]?

Marcello:        Oh, no, I don't. Yeah.

Jessica:            Exactly. Exactly. So find yourself a Gay dude. You're going to be more comfortable if he's older than you. If he's visibly older than you, you're going to like that better. But find yourself a Gay dude. I think that's actually really important.

Marcello:        Okay.

Jessica:            It is easier for you to talk to women than men, so talk to men.

Marcello:        It is. It is.

Jessica:            Yeah. I see that. I see that in your chart.

Marcello:        Okay.

Jessica:            So that's why you want to talk to a man. And being able to talk to a man—remember you're paying for therapy. You're paying for somebody to like you and be nice to you for an hour. It's gorgeous. I love that about therapy. Do you know what I'm saying?

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            You're paying for somebody to really hold space for you. So this is like a perfect situation for you to see what's yours and what's not your—like, what are your projections and your shit.

Marcello:        Okay. Yeah.

Jessica:            So I would recommend that. And in terms of trying out a therapist, here's the move. You look at their website. Therapists' websites are usually ridiculous and stupid, so you can't really judge from that.

Marcello:        Yeah.

Jessica:            You call them. You have an intake and an appointment. You are allowed to have multiple intakes with multiple people. You don't have to worry about hurting their feelings. This is their job, and they understand that you're trying them out, okay? And anyone who gets weird and needy about you choosing them is not a good therapist for you. Moving on. Find someone else. Do you know what I'm saying?

Marcello:        Oh, sure.

Jessica:            Yeah. And you can, these days, go in person to an office, but a lot of therapists will work online, as well, if that's more comfortable for you. So just explore those things, okay?

Marcello:        Okay.

Jessica:            Just explore those things and kind of go from there.

Marcello:        Okay. Absolutely. Thank you, Jessica. I appreciate the reading.

Jessica:            My pleasure. My pleasure.