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

Lorena:            How do I show up for my friends and family when they are spiraling? So many people around me are suffering right now. It feels overwhelming. I live in LA, and with the fires, the raids, and all the political stuff happening, it's been really affecting everyone around me. People are lashing out against each other—friends, family. And any time I hang out, it turns into a therapy session. So how do I show up while I'm also still recovering from burnout? Yeah.

Jessica:            And when you say everybody is lashing out, are you part of everybody in this context? Are you lashing out? Or is it more like people are lashing out against each other or against you?

Lorena:            People are lashing out against someone else.

Jessica:            Okay.

Lorena:            And I just hear about it, and then it turns into a therapy session.

Jessica:            And are you the therapist in the session?

Lorena:            Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. And are you a therapist in real life as well?

Lorena:            No.

Jessica:            Okay. Just checking, you know. And another question before we turn to your birth chart is you mentioned that you're recovering from burnout. Do you mean life, or is it specific to the fires or the raids and all the fucking scary, crazy stuff?

Lorena:            No, it's personal.

Jessica:            Okay.

Lorena:            Yeah. I'm first-generation Mexican American. My parents are from really rural parts of Mexico, and yeah, it was just really hard growing up in that environment. But then, on top of it, there's the patriarchal society obligational stuff that I had to really work through as an adult because there's these social obligations that I totally took myself out of. And so there was this constant guilt of not being that for my family. And I'm finally now, at this stage in my life, in my 40s, doing what I actually want to do because up until very recently, I was always doing things for other people.

Jessica:            I see. Okay. Let's go to your birth chart. All right. So we are looking at your birth chart now. You were born April 21 of '83 in LA at 10:42 p.m. local time. And I know this maybe feels like a side question, but I need to ask before we go, are you partnered?

Lorena:            Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. And what's the right pronouns for your partner?

Lorena:            He/him.

Jessica:            Okay. Great. And is he a part of this?

Lorena:            No, but he has to deal with me feeling stressed and overwhelmed by everyone else.

Jessica:            He is your support system?

Lorena:            Yes.

Jessica:            And is he a good support system?

Lorena:            Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. Great. Congratulations. That's huge. Okay. There are so many layers of what we need to be looking at. I want to just kind of start just acknowledging some things in your birth chart and about both your nature but also your childhood and your upbringing. And you were born in LA, but your parents—had they just moved right around when you were born?

Lorena:            No. They came in the '70s, but they never assimilated to American culture, so they're very much still stuck in their own traditional ways. So it feels like I grew up in Mexico.

Jessica:            You know what? I see that. You have a beautiful Uranus/Jupiter conjunction in Sagittarius, and it's opposite your Venus, but it's in the twelfth house. And so, yeah, you were raised in, like, another country is what it looks like, within the country that you're from.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. And even though your parents did move here for opportunity and for having a different kind of life, you have Saturn and Pluto conjunct each other in the tenth house opposite your Sun. So they tripled down on everything. They brought everything with them, and they were like, "This is the only reality that's real. This larger culture is not ours." There is a clear articulation of this in the chart. And were you raised with religion?

Lorena:            Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. It looks like religion in your upbringing was used for morality and for community and for a sense of what's right and wrong and how you're supposed to be, kind of very Saturnian, very Plutonian, rules-based. Is that right?

Lorena:            Yes.

Jessica:            And do they not speak English or do they not speak much English?

Lorena:            I mean, they speak English for going out. But at home, it was always Spanish. I didn't learn English until I was like ten years old.

Jessica:            Oh, wow. Okay.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            That's cool. I mean, I said that's cool because I was like, "Oh, that sounds cool to me." But I look at your chart, and it doesn't look cool for you. You have a Mercury/Chiron conjunction, and it's square to the Moon. And so that indicates that language was both values-based in your upbringing—it was like there was a reason why they did not integrate, and language was a part of that—and that it really made you feel isolated, and it was actually a hard thing for you.

Lorena:            Yep.

Jessica:            Yeah. I'm sorry. So I want to first start with your burnout before we get into the specifics of the horrors of LA in 2025 or the United States in 2025. In your birth chart, you have your Ascendant conjunct your South Node conjunct Neptune, all in Sagittarius. And so, for you, emptying yourself out to devote yourself to your perception of other people's needs, ideas about the world, and preferences always leads to really quick burnout that is felt by you physically as well as psychologically.

Lorena:            Yep.

Jessica:            Yeah. I'm sorry. You have a North Node conjunct your Descendant. And so figuring out how to have authentic intimate relationships where you're truly yourself with the other person and you show up for them and they show up for you is a huge part of your soul's journey in this lifetime, which is confusing because on the surface, you're really good at that. You're really good at developing relationships and being in relationships and emptying yourself out for relationships. But the thing is you're not meant to do that.

                        True intimacy requires boundaries. And in the last couple of years, Neptune was squaring your Ascendant, and it's still squaring your Neptune. And so I'm guessing for three, four years, you have been feeling the psychological, spiritual, and physical effects of not taking care of yourself in order to kind of prioritize other people's preferences and needs in relationships.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. So, again, let's just hang out with—man, I'm sorry. That's really hard. And the Neptune transit—it will be over in January of 2026, which means it's not over. Sorry. Also, Saturn squaring your Neptune at 29 degrees of Sagittarius is not over. And so this really big issue in your birth chart of giving yourself the grace to have limits and boundaries, even while you love people in kind of a devotional way—that's how you know how to love people; also, that's your training. It's both. This is like a very hard transit.

                        Neptune square Neptune is one of those transits that is like part of the midlife crisis transits, and it happens to everybody. But in your chart, it's particularly sensitive because of how it's connected to such deep spiritual issues because your South Node is there, and also your Ascendant. And so this larger theme that you're going through now with your family of—they're going through something truly fucking terrifying. Are you scared for them personally? Do they have papers, all that kind of stuff?

Lorena:            Yeah. I mean, most of us have status, like green cards or whatever. I think it's just the psychological trauma that we're all going through.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Lorena:            I think what's also been happening is that we have Trumpers in our family, too.

Jessica:            Oh my.

Lorena:            Yeah, and I—

Jessica:            That blows my mind. Every time I hear about that kind of thing, it blows my mind.

Lorena:            I know. And this is something that I've been talking about a lot with my friends, who are also a first-gen—you know, from immigrant families. They usually have one person in their family, or sometimes multiple. And so it's just been so hard for all of us because some people are just in total denial, and other people are grieving because it's bringing up [indiscernible 00:09:27]. I know for my parents, they're just in denial. They don't even want to talk about it.

Jessica:            Wow.

Lorena:            If it comes up in conversation, my dad is very quick to have an answer. And I think it's just his way of coping, you know?

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think you're right. It's their way of coping.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. There's a lot of layers to this. I'm going to have you say your full name out loud.

Lorena:            [redacted].

Jessica:            Ground me into this. What are you really asking? What would be helpful for me to look at or speak to or give you advice around?

Lorena:            I think I just—I go through these moments where I feel guilty, I guess, or ashamed. And I'm trying not to be, because all the things you're saying make sense to me. But I still feel guilty, even though—

Jessica:            Guilty about what?

Lorena:            Giving myself the boundaries that I need in order to—for me to be okay.

Jessica:            Yeah. So let's hang out there for a second. What's a good example of a boundary that you feel like you kind of need to have but you feel fucked up about?

Lorena:            I don't check in with my parents. I avoid them—

Jessica:            Okay.

Lorena:            —if I feel like I'm going to get triggered by something that they say or what they're doing because they tend to dump all their problems on me.

Jessica:            Yeah. I'm so glad we're talking about this. We're right where we need to be. Avoidance will make you feel guilty because avoidance isn't self-care. You may assess your situation and give yourself permission to not reach out to them, which looks the exact same from the outside as avoiding them. But because you're not giving yourself permission to say, "I'm not going to reach out to them today because I can't cope with it in a healthy way, and I'm giving myself permission to have that limitation"—because you're not giving yourself permission/you're not owning it—instead, you're just kind of holding your breath and waiting for the 24-hour period to pass, another 24 hours where you're not reaching out to them kind of thing. Avoidance provokes anxiety, right? Avoidance provokes anxiety.

Lorena:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And so I'm not saying you need to text, you need to call, you need to physically show up. I'm not saying you don't or you do. But I am saying avoidance will result in anxiety. Avoidance is Neptune, and Neptune is conjunct your South Node. And so prioritizing Neptunian behaviors bites you in your sweet, little buns. It's not the move. So let's, again, stay here for a minute. Do you feel or does your family feel like you should be checking in daily, or is this more about weekly? What's the frequency?

Lorena:            Maybe weekly. Yeah. I go weeks without talking to them sometimes.

Jessica:            And you're in the same city?

Lorena:            Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay. And do they want to be talking to you weekly?

Lorena:            Yeah, I think so, because then my mom will finally call me and she's like, "You haven't called in a while." It's like, "I've been busy."

Jessica:            Yeah. But it's not just that you've been busy. You've also been avoiding them because you don't know how to deal with them.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. So let me grab my cards. Okay. My question for you is should we talk about how to tolerate being in contact with them, how to have a boundary around not being in contact with them, or both?

Lorena:            I guess both.

Jessica:            I agree with both. I agree with both. But I wanted to give you a choice because part of what the pattern is is you feel fucking suffocated and trapped and like you don't have a choice, and it sets you off.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. So I wanted to start off our conversation with you having clarity that you want to be able to do both things. You want to be able to tolerate having conversations with them or maybe even being together and sharing a meal with them. And also, you want to be able to not fucking call them every week or give yourself permission to be like, "I was going to call them today, and today is not the day," because of whatever reason.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Let's start with how to be in contact with them with boundaries. Are we talking about the phone, primarily, or being together physically?

Lorena:            Both, but mostly the phone.

Jessica:            Okay.

Lorena:            I was in the neighborhood last Saturday, and I could have stopped by. But I chose not to because I was avoiding them, you know?

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay. That's fair. And did a part of you want to see them? Not did a part of you feel like you should see them, but did a part of you want to see them?

Lorena:            Yeah, part of me wanted to see them. But then another part of me was like, "Oh, I don't know in what mental state they're in. And am I emotionally prepared to deal with whatever thing they're going through that day where they have to dump all this trauma onto me, and then I have to just sit there and listen and be patient and be their therapist or whatever?"

Jessica:            So this is an absolutely crazy question, but if you're in their living room and they start dumping a lot of trauma on you that you just don't have the capacity to hold, could you say to them—not have you or would you, but could you say to them, "I really love you, and this is such a big deal. But I can't really talk about it right now," and then change the subject? Could you do that? Would that work?

Lorena:            I don't feel like it would work with my parents, especially my mom. Well, actually, my dad is not the one that dumps things on me. He's totally avoidant.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Lorena:            It's mostly my mom.

Jessica:            It's your mom.

Lorena:            And I think that's the problem, is that the dynamic in their relationship is not healthy, where my dad just checks out and then my mom is the one just spiraling and just like, "Blah," you know, saying—

Jessica:            Right. And she needs to talk to someone, so you're that someone in that moment.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Are you aware of three things that your mother finds interesting that are not this topic, like church? Is that something she finds interesting, or movies or—I don't know. Are there things your mom finds interesting?

Lorena:            Probably church, but I'm anti-religion.

Jessica:            Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lorena:            So that's one thing that we don't talk about.

Jessica:            No, of course, of course, of course. But I'm curious. So that's the only thing she's interested in?

Lorena:            I don't know. My mom had a really hard life, to be honest. And she's not a happy person. There's things that I still don't know that she went through that she won't talk about, physical abuse, emotional abuse, the trauma of coming here in the '70s when there was straight-up racism. It's just she's had to deal with so much.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Lorena:            And I look at her, and I just feel like she's not a happy person, like she just carries that pain with her all the time.

Jessica:            Yeah. So I think you're right, first of all. I want to just validate, yeah, I don't think she's a happy person. And your chart articulates that both your parents suffered through a lot of trauma, and some of that trauma was abuse, and some of it was systemic. The systemic component to the trauma is written in your chart, which means that you went through hard times. You endured abuse. You suffer through systemic trauma as well.

Lorena:            Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. And you have had more resources than they did. Some of that's because there's an internet now. Some of that's because of the choices they made to give you options. That said, your mother's unhappiness is not exclusively because of her trauma. It's partially because of the choices she's made.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            12-year-old you felt that she had to defend your mom because your mom was this vulnerable person who needed protecting. But 42-year-old you actually, technically speaking, knows that your mom's happiness is partially because she has not prioritized how to be happy. She has not prioritized changing or evolving. And I am not saying this to be like, "Well, then fuck her." That's not what I'm saying, to be clear. But what I am saying is you and I started talking about—okay. You go into your mom's living room, and then all of a sudden, it's a deluge, right? She's just dumping buckets of difficult stuff in your lap, and you just get just—how can you even function, right?

                        And there's this young part of you that feels like, "Because she's sad, because she has a hard life, because she's had a hard life, I'm not allowed to have a boundary here. It's not possible for me to change the conversation. But more than that, I'm not allowed to change the conversation."

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            I want to just acknowledge that that's not true, but it is how you feel, and it's how you've always felt. You are allowed to have a boundary. You are allowed to be healthier than your mom and to want to continue to be healthier and happier. And technically speaking, she wants you to be happy and well and safe, right? She does want those things for you, eh?

Lorena:            Yeah, I think so.

Jessica:            She just doesn't want you to ever break—there's just, like, a family way of being, and she doesn't ever want you to be different than that family way of being, which means when you do act in ways that are healthier, it feels like a personal affront to her. It feels like you're taking something away from her somehow.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            From my perspective, it's really important that you don't act like your dad and pretend that everything's okay when it's not, which—not talking to them, avoiding them on purpose, is doing that even though you're torturing yourself the whole time. So it's not like you don't talk to your parents for two weeks and you're relieved because you've had a break. It looks like what happens is you don't talk to them for whatever period of time, but you're feeling guilty and anxious about it the whole time, so you don't even get the benefit of space—

Lorena:            Yeah. That's true.

Jessica:            —which is just kind of like, well, then, what is the move here? So I want to come back to how to have boundaries with your mom. And I am a fan of picking three topics—and this might take a lot of innovation and labor from you, but finding three topics that you could change the subject to because I think saying to your mom, "I don't want to talk about that," is not going to work.

Lorena:            No. Not at all.

Jessica:            Not at all. But saying to your mom, "I saw this thing"—I mean, I'm just seeing—is she into saints?

Lorena:            She is, yeah.

Jessica:            She's into saints—because I keep on seeing saints. So saying to your mom—and this might be too triggering and not the thing for you, but, "I saw this thing about this saint. Could you explain it to me? Because I think that the person telling me about it didn't know the real story." She'll change her subject instantly. Instantly, right?

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            So that's the lowest-hanging fruit for your mom, like—

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            —talk about saints, right? And are saints a triggering topic for you?

Lorena:            It is, because it's all tied to Catholicism—

Jessica:            Right.

Lorena:            —which I actively left.

Jessica:            Respect. Will not push you back there, not at all. But this is a good example of how your mom is actually not as complicated as, in the moment, when you're with her, you feel that she is. You don't need to tell your mom, "Hey, lady. You're dumping your shit on me, and I can't breathe. This isn't working for me." But you can say—I'm trying to think of what else really distracts your mom. Your mom likes gossip, yeah?

Lorena:            She does, yeah.

Jessica:            She likes gossip. But that would be harder for you because you'd have to know about gossip to ask her about gossip, and it would have to be not depressing gossip, which—she likes depressing gossip, so that would be hard. Does she like movies? Does she like TV?

Lorena:            She loves TV. Every time I go there, the TV is on.

Jessica:            Okay.

Lorena:            But it's usually some sort of news thing, which is not good.

Jessica:            Okay. News is not what you want to talk about with your mom?

Lorena:            I mean, we do. They'll complain about Trump and all the stuff. That's kind of a low-hanging fruit [crosstalk].

Jessica:            It is another low-hanging fruit piece. But this is where it's like your tolerance for the news isn't consistent is what it looks like. Am I seeing that correctly?

Lorena:            Yes.

Jessica:            So sometimes you're like, "I need to be informed," and you are informed. And sometimes you feel like you're falling through quicksand, and you just can't fucking metabolize it at all.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. So news is not the thing. Is she interested in dogs?

Lorena:            I guess I don't know. They have a little dog that they care for.

Jessica:            And did they rescue that dog or adopt that dog?

Lorena:            My sister got a dog, and she was incapable of taking care of it, so then they gave it to her—she gave it to them.

Jessica:            I see. I see. I see. So—because I'm like, if you found a website full of cute dogs that need rescuing and they had sad stories about where the dogs had been, could you, once your mom starts going on a tirade, pull up your phone and be like, "Before I forget, I saw this thing, and I thought you would be really touched by it," and then you show her pictures of dogs, and you read the stories? What I'm trying to say is your mom only knows how to connect around calamity.

Lorena:            Yes.

Jessica:            So is it the calamity of Jesus? Is it the calamity of this terrible thing that happened to your cousin? Is it the calamity of how she feels about why you didn't call her? She just likes calamity.

Lorena:            Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. And sometimes you feel bad for her about that, and sometimes you feel bad for you about that. But there's not a lot of room in your mother's house for feeling bad or both of you at the same time—

Lorena:            Yes.

Jessica:            —because there's a stage, and only one person sits on the stage. There's only one microphone on the stage.

Lorena:            And it's usually her.

Jessica:            Oh, it's always her. It's always her, unless you lose your shit. And then you feel bad later.

Lorena:            Yeah, which has never gone well.

Jessica:            No.

Lorena:            I went many years without talking to my family.

Jessica:            Yeah. With your chart—when somebody has a Sun/Pluto opposition, a lot of times, you are happiest and healthiest and have the best boundaries with your family of origin when you live in a different time zone, away, not in a different part of the same city. In a different time zone. So the fact that you have taken great amount of space from them, honestly, I would say has probably been really healthy for you.

                        Here's the "but," and it's a big "but." These are exceptional times. And taking space from them didn't seem to result in you having boundaries with them. So what you did was you took your hand away from a flame that was burning you, but you didn't learn how to control or turn off the flame.

Lorena:            Yes.

Jessica:            So now you're walking back into a house that's on fire, and you're still burning.

Lorena:            Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. I'm so sorry. Also, this is very hard, but it isn't complicated: change the station on the TV show that is your mom. And I don't mean to minimize her, but you know what I'm talking about, right?

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. That's it. So you need to think of three things. Listen. I don't want to fuck with your religious trauma and all of that, and also, the easiest way to change the station on your mom—it will work 100 percent of the time—it is saints. It's surefire with her to get her to talk about the story. Has she ever really talked about the story behind any given saint?

Lorena:            Oh my God. All the time.

Jessica:            It's like her thing. It's her thing.

Lorena:            I mean, it's her thing so much so that any time any of my brothers' kids were born, she would make it a point that if the kid was born healthy, she would go visit this one saint in Mexico.

Jessica:            I see. Interesting.

Lorena:            And it's intense. People literally crawl from the entrance of the church to the altar as like a sacrifice for the prayer.

Jessica:            Damn. Okay. Yes. Okay. So this is your emergency record. You're falling, and you don't have a topic in your mind. You say to your mom, "I saw a statue of this saint," and you just have to have a list of saints in your mind. And be like, "I just can't remember the story of this saint. Mom, will you share it?" She will share it. She will stop talking about anything to share about the saint. And as annoying and activating as that might be, if you did it on purpose and if it's changing a really bad conversation, it'll work. It's like a—in a pinch kind of situation.

But you can—not easily, but you can find two or three other things that are likely to capture her attention and get her to change the station on what she's talking about. And I give you that homework, to think of those things. And you may even have a sibling that you could talk to about this.

Lorena:            Kinda. They've been spiraling, too. That's actually what triggered me communicating with you because one of my brothers has been spiraling to the point where he checked himself into a rehab place.

Jessica:            Oh, poor guy.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And he's spiraling just in terror of what's happening right now?

Lorena:            I think it's just systemic, you know?

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah.

Lorena:            And he's had a hard life, too. But it all stems from my parents having a hard life, you know?

Jessica:            Yeah.

Lorena:            And so I just—yeah. I just had to deal with him earlier this week, and it was so hard. Yeah.

Jessica:            I'm so sorry. And when you say you had to deal with him, what does that mean?

Lorena:            I just had to listen, and the thing is I want to be there for him. But it was like I didn't sleep well that night. That's when I wrote to you, and yeah, it's just emotionally exhausting, you know?

Jessica:            Yeah.

Lorena:            And I feel bad for him. He's had a hard life. His wife passed away three years ago, and she was really sick for a long time. He gave her his kidney, and it still didn't work.

Jessica:            Oh God.

Lorena:            She passed away, and it was just horrible. And his kids—one of his kids is living with my mom, and they've been having problems. But it all stems from the trauma of my family, you know—

Jessica:            Right. Yeah.

Lorena:            —which is like a bigger, global thing, you know?

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So this brings us to something really important, which is, when you listen to somebody you care about's pain or their trauma, when you are present for their suffering, what you do without even thinking about it is you take in their energy, and you strive to experience things that they're sharing with you. So, if your brother says, "I can't keep my head above water," all of a sudden, you can feel it. You can feel how he's falling apart, how he's having a hard time staying above water. Is that right? You can really feel what people say when they're sharing it?

Lorena:            Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Lorena:            That's exactly how I feel.

Jessica:            Yeah. It's this fucking Neptune, man. It's this Neptune. And this is, again, part of your childhood trauma. You were raised to be devotional in the way that you love and to take in and on, like a good girl, other people's feelings and need and suffering.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And that's the way you were kind of raised and trained to be relational with other people. And this is part of why I asked you at the very beginning, "Does your partner actually take care of you?"—

Lorena:            He does.

Jessica:            —because the fact that he does means you've done a lot of work on yourself—

Lorena:            Yes.

Jessica:            —because you could very easily be with somebody who's like, "You take care of me, okay? All the time, every day." I'm guessing you've dated that person.

Lorena:            Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Lorena:            I've had a lot of bad relationships.

Jessica:            I bet. I bet. But the fact that you are not there right now is such an important reflection on how you've grown, and it tells me that you have the capacity—at least with your boyfriend, when he tells you about his shitty day or some shitty thing that's happening, you do have the capacity—maybe it's not 100 percent, but you have more of a capacity than you do with your family to be like, "Okay. This is what's happening with him, and I can just listen. I don't have to take it on."

                        So we're going back to your brother conversation, which is connected to your mother conversation. It's really about you being able to tolerate being present for other people's trauma without taking it in. Your belief is that that's unkind.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And so here's what I would say. If I'm sitting here and I'm telling you terrible things that have happened to me or something awful that I'm going through or something terrible that I'm coping with and you are really listening to me and being present for me, then you're not actually feeling what I'm feeling, because if you were feeling what I was feeling, then you would collapse, right? So then you'd be where I am. Then you can't actually be a support to me because now you are where I am.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            People often say about my job—and me giving a reading is really different than dealing with family, but people often say to me, "Oh, how do you not feel really terrible after giving readings to people who are going through difficult things?" And I think that bearing witness and being present and having empathy is a kindness, but I can't really do those things if I myself collapse under the weight that you're carrying.

While, in the moment, you always feel like the only way to be truly kind and loving is to take in and on the other person's shit, it's actually possible to practice staying in your body, having boundaries, and having empathy for the other person because if you can do that, then what you can also do is hear what's going on with your brother today and then not be so destroyed by it that you can actually reach out and text him tomorrow, because the way you're dong it now is fucking you up so much that you've got nothing left. It's stealing from all of your relationships. It's stealing from you.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And so, as you are in your Neptune square to Neptune, as you are in your Saturn square to Neptune, you are in this very specific once-in-a-lifetime experience. At the same time—and it's around boundaries, and I'll come back to that sentiment in a moment. At the same time, Pluto is hanging out in your fucking first house—place of identity—and it's forming a T-square to your Saturn and your Sun. It's squaring your Saturn, and it's squaring your Sun.

                        So you are going through your own terror. You are having your own survival issues, and your sense of safety and your sense of normalcy is getting fucked with alongside your family members, alongside your community members.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            You are also feeling the profound pressure of the consequences of not changing. The way that you have handled processing trauma, processing fear, and your family in general isn't sustainable. I mean, you know that. You wrote the question because you know it's not sustainable.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And the answer is boundaries.

Lorena:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Okay. So do you have a hard time speaking up for yourself?

Lorena:            Yes.

Jessica:            So it's like you have it in your head what you'll say, but then when you're actually in the situation, you just clam up.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Sorry. I got it. My throat started to close up, and I was like, "Oh." Your body is saying, "No, bitch. No. I will hide. I will avoid the conversation. I will just be quiet and wait for it to pass."

Lorena:            Yeah. Well, I mean, I was conditioned to do that.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Lorena:            I mean, my mom was conditioned to do that, and my mom's mom was—I mean, that's part of the patriarchal—

Jessica:            Yep.

Lorena:            —bullshit that my family has had to deal with that I always think is tied to religion and colonization and all this terrible stuff—

Jessica:            Yes.

Lorena:            —and why I'm so anti-religion, because I feel like it messed us up in a way that it's still affecting me to this day.

Jessica:            Yep, although I can't help but wonder, are there not feminist saints that you could sneak-attack your mother into telling you the story of? That's easy for me to have that question because I don't have the religious trauma, but there's gotta be. No? Doesn't that have to be?

Lorena:            To be honest, I don't know that many saints aside from the few that she's told me about. So I feel like hearing this from you makes me feel like I need to do a deep dive into doing some research and finding all the saints.

Jessica:            Yeah, and maybe even don't deep dive; just Google "feminist saints," "anti-patriarchal saints," "saints for the poor," "saints against colonization," saints that you would actually want to hear about. And then know enough about them to be like, "I heard x and y. Mom, can you tell me this story?" And it might actually be of value to both of you.

                        But back to this voice thing, there's no way through it other than through it. There's so much happening inside of you, in your family, in LA, in the United States, and in the world. And it's all fucking compounding on itself within you and within these relationships, which you pretty much said in your question, right? You're like, "Everything's falling the fuck apart, and everybody's fighting, and everything is falling apart."

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And if you are going to continue to be in relationship with your parents—which I actually want to support you in doing. If we were in a different time, I might be like, "It's okay to take a break." But this actually isn't the time. It would be escapist, and you would feel terribly guilty.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            So here's the thing. I could tell you—like, I have the instinct to want to talk to you about energetic boundaries, about how to have energy boundaries. And I actually think that could really work for you. But here's the "but." I think it needs to be a little bit more psychological and behavioral for you because of the religious trauma piece, because you're up to your fucking eyeballs in spiritual methodology.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay. So okay. So I'll just throw it in the mix for you to one day explore, if the vibe moves you, that there are woo energetic practices around energy-shielding that you could probably benefit from. I teach that shit on my Patreon if that's something you're interested in. And don't fuck with it unless it feels like an easy yes. So let me just say that.

Lorena:            Okay.

Jessica:            I'm going to give you more psychological and behavioral boundaries. Instead, I'm going to keep it as simple as possible because you have a stellium in Taurus. So you want simple, easy-to-follow instructions; am I right?

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay. Okay. Question number one, they don't text, right? When you talk to your parents, you call them?

Lorena:            Yeah. My mom does not text. My dad does.

Jessica:            Okay. So, first thing, I want to encourage you to consider whether or not you can text your dad once a week. You could even put an alarm on your phone, and the reason why you would put an alarm on your phone is not because I think you would forget to text your dad but so that you would—for all the times that you're not texting your dad, you would not be like, "Oh, I'm going to have to text my dad. Oh shit, I should be texting my dad." You can be like, "No. I have an alarm on my phone, and I do it this one time of a week."

                        So I'm just going to throw that in there as a potential thing for you to do and to text your dad something about the weather, like, "Oh, it's so hot today," or a funny, cute picture. Does he like sports?

Lorena:            Yes.

Jessica:            I'm seeing sports is his track.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            So you can send him, like, a funny meme about a sport.

Lorena:            Okay.

Jessica:            He's very easy to deal with. But it will make you feel like—can you feel already there's a little nervous system deactivation, a little bit of—a teeny bit more calm in your body at an idea of how to easily communicate with your dad?

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. It's just this feeling of, "Oh my God. I should. I should. I should," is so intense inside of you. So your dad's easy. You text him once a week.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Your mom—okay. Your mom you actually have to call. Let's say we're aiming for once a week. Go in with a topic. Now, one thing you can do with your mom is tell her gossip. Now, I don't mean to be flippant or a dick, but the gossip doesn't have to be real. You can tell her a story about Sally and what she did—and you can't believe it—to her boyfriend, Sanders. And I just made those two names up. Your mom just likes a story, right?

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            She doesn't have to know them.

Lorena:            Okay. That's good to know.

Jessica:            So you can just track a telenovela that you're making up in your fucking mind and change the subject. So, if your mom starts talking about something where you're like, "Oh my God. I'm going to lose my shit," you can be like, "Oh my God. I haven't told her about Sally yet, my fictitious friend who's going through this terrible thing." And the reason to make it up instead of culling your life for drama is because it's a boundary. It's like you don't have to shit-talk the people you like. You don't have to shit-talk family members, which only makes you feel sticky and weird afterwards, even though she loves it.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            She loves it.

Lorena:            She does.

Jessica:            But you could actually enjoy your mom if you were kind of like, "This is ridiculous," instead of, "This is mean-spirited."

Lorena:            Okay.

Jessica:            And you like a little bit of gossip, right?

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            You got a Moon in Leo. You can shit talk. So there's that. The other thing about your mom is, if you interrupt her once she's going in a really negative direction and you just say, "Mom, I have to say I really love you. You've done so much for us. I appreciate you, and I hope that you go out and you get to smell some flowers today," or you say something to that effect, it stops her in her tracks. Have you ever done that?

Lorena:            Well, the sad thing is my parents have never told us that they love us, and so we haven't said it back.

Jessica:            Oh girl. So what you're saying is you take your insides, all of your organs, all of your self-protection, you rip it out with your own hands, you throw it on the table, you fill yourself up with their needs and their feelings, but you've never said, "I love you"?

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Fun. Okay. Would you say, "I love you"?

Lorena:            It makes me so nervous. I've never said—I tell my friends I love them all the time.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. Would you say to your mother maybe not, "I love you," but, "I appreciate you. I think you're a wonderful person. I have so much care in my heart for you"? Would you say those kinds of things?

Lorena:            That I feel I could say more easily.

Jessica:            Yeah. It'll stop her in her tracks. It'll make her stop talking about anything because you all are so bananas about verbalizing—and I don't mean bananas in a mean way; I hope that didn't come across as mean, but—verbalizing your care for each other, even though you obviously love each other so intensely, your family.

Lorena:            Uh-huh.

Jessica:            You're so intense about each other. So, if you want her to stop talking, tell her that you really, really like her, that you care about her, that you love her. She doesn't know how to handle it, and it's a kind thing to do.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And also, you should be able to say—I mean, I'm not a big fan of shoulds, but I "shoulded" you, and I apologize. And also, I kind of stand by it. But if you love your mom, you should be able to say, "I love you, Mom." That—you know, it's a good skill to develop is what I'm getting at.

Lorena:            Yeah. Well, I texted my brother that I love him, and he didn't respond back.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Lorena:            And I feel like that was weird for him, you know?

Jessica:            Sure. That's great. It's good. Let it be weird. You're the weird family member no matter what.

Lorena:            I am.

Jessica:            Lean in, girl. Lean in. Lean all the way in. If you're going to be the weird family member, be the one person in the family that says, "I love you."

Lorena:            Okay.

Jessica:            And also, you want to get your mom to act like your dad and all of a sudden start talking? Say, "I love you." And the thing about this is these are ways that are not cruel, that are not betraying yourself, that are developing basically new pathways in your family for interaction. And then here's the final piece of advice for phone calls with your mom, which—we're aiming for once a week. And some weeks you might miss it, but aim for once a week.

                        If your mom goes in a direction where you're like, "Motherfucker. I cannot. I cannot," you say, "Oh, somebody's knocking on the door. Oh, my friend's here. I gotta go. I'm so sorry. Talk to you next week. Buh-bye." Could you do that?

Lorena:            I have done that.

Jessica:            It's a good move.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            It's a good move. If your mother was more adaptable, I would say just every time she starts talking about something like she's dumping on you, do that, and she'll eventually learn. But she won't. She'll just get mad. She'll know what you're doing. So you can't do that all the time, but it's a move. What you want to be able to do is recognize your own capacity. How much can you tolerate your mom in this moment? And if you have the capacity to test out what might it feel like to have her tell you about a saint that you Googled and found out was kind of feminist—okay. You can experiment.

                        And on days where you're just like, "I fucking—I cannot. I'm feeling so activated. I'm feeling so emotional. She's just dumping and dumping and dumping," that's when somebody rings your bell. That's when you have a call on the other line, and it's for work, and you have to take it. You know? These are all ways of navigating boundaries with somebody who doesn't respond well to boundaries.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            But they require that you have the self-love and the self-worth to have boundaries for yourself with people you care about. And I gotta tell you I am advising you to do very, very simple, vey, very, very difficult things, like incredibly difficult for—I mean, there's a reason why you're doing his in your 40s and not your 20s. Do you know what I mean? This is very hard.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And also, Pluto square Saturn, Pluto square the Sun—it's time. There's energy to support you. The Neptune transits—there's energy to support you. There's one other thing. And by the way, the Pluto transits are over January of 2026. The Neptune transits—I didn't write exactly the date down. But also, Uranus is squaring your Moon. Uranus square the Moon is a powerful transit, and because of how slowly Uranus moves, it doesn't happen often. When it happens, you are able to change emotionally. And in your chart, this means finding your voice, having the emotional care for yourself and for the people you're dealing with to find your voice.

                        Whether it's speaking your values or if it's speaking your limits, whatever it is, you are capable of doing it and not doing it where you're being super direct. I mean, you've heard me talk. I'm very like, "Pew, pew, pew, pew." I'm very direct. I would not encourage you to do that. You have too much Taurus in your chart. You prefer things to be a little bit more diplomatic, and you're not trying to ruffle feathers. Even though you have ruffled many feathers in your life, you're not trying to is what it looks like. Am I seeing that right?

Lorena:            Yes. That's right.

Jessica:            Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's not your goal. It just happens sometimes. That said, this is the time to do this work. And when we look at it contextually for what's happening in the world, you are not alone in bearing witness to and being a part of relationship dynamics that are just fucking accelerated. Everybody is so stressed. Everybody is so scared and destabilized and worried about what might happen next, what crazy thing might happen next, that it is putting more pressure on relationships.

                        And unfortunately, that's not going to change in the next six months. We are here, right? And I'm sorry. I don't want to be, but we are here. And so part of the assignment for you is figuring out how to tout suite—very quickly—have different and more effective boundaries with people who are going through really scary and challenging things because the alternatives are do what you're doing, which means you feel awful all the time and you can't really be there for them, or ghost them altogether. And those things wouldn't—they're not working for you.

Lorena:            No.

Jessica:            They're not. It's not who you want to be. The greatest kindness that you can provide for the people in your family or your community is the kindness that kind of emanates from within. In other words, you treat yourself well, and then you figure out from that standpoint how to connect with others as opposed to only knowing how to treat yourself well by blocking your ears and hiding, kind of like your dad.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. I see what you're saying. He's like a bucket of chill. He's very chill. But he lets your mom go off on these tirades. He sees how they affect other people, and he doesn't step in.

Lorena:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And then he's kind of sad all the time.

Lorena:            Yep.

Jessica:            And that's not your best move. I mean, it has been your move, as much as you can pull it off as a female because, of course, this is gendered and complicated. Your parents are both people who love really deeply. They are both people who feel really deeply. They are both people who actually want to live a good life. It's just they don't really know how to do those things, exactly. And so they've chosen paths that seem like the right path, and so they're just kind of doing it out of habit plus activation.

Lorena:            Yep.

Jessica:            And I think that we could say that your coping mechanisms are also a result of habit plus activation. The thing about being in your 40s and in all the next decades that are before you is that it's easy to slip, at this age, into probability where you start doing your version of your parents' thing. And we both know that's not what you want, like zero percent what you want. So the truly authentically different thing from both of them—and again, I'm not saying they're irredeemable people, because they're not. They're lovely people who deeply love you in many ways. There's a lot of "buts" there, but that's also true, and I want to hold space for that. But the thing that's authentically different is having actual boundaries. That's the one thing they've not done.

Lorena:            No. I think they've been conditioned to always put family first, and so they sacrificed a lot for their own family, their own parents, and everyone around them. And so they're just conditioned to think that, and I was conditioned to think that.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Lorena:            And I had to essentially leave and avoid them for many years and find myself in order for me to be happy, and then I was able to come back and be in their lives again.

Jessica:            I want to just reference something that you named in your question, which is that you end up being the therapist. Part of being the therapist is being the receptable. Everyone dumps on you, right? But also, part of being the therapist is sitting and listening and saying nothing or giving advice. And it looks like you do both.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. So stop playing your role—easier said than done, very hard to do, but also very simple. I'm giving you the advice to stop playing your role. Every time you catch yourself being like, "They just keep on shoving glasses of water in my face, and I keep on drinking them," put the water down. Change the subject. Talk about yourself. Talk about a saint. Talk about a dog being cute. Talk about the weather. Ask, "Was that a fumble? What's a fumble?" I don't know. I don't know. I think that's a football thing. But do you see what I'm saying?

Change the subject. Even if it's an obvious ploy, find a way to shift your participation as caregiver in the particular way you've always done it because the only way to create the space for your parents to be a little different or your siblings to be a little different is for you to first be different.

Lorena:            That makes sense, but now I'm—when you're saying all these things, I'm thinking about how I've also become that role for my friends, where friends also dump things on me. On Monday, I was with my friend helping her with something, and it turned into a therapy session. And I felt so exhausted afterwards that I went to go get a foot massage.

Jessica:            I'm glad you got a foot massage, though. That's kind of cool. But—

Lorena:            Yeah, but I've noticed I've been getting a lot of foot massages. And I'm like, "This is costing me a lot of money," and then feeling guilty about that. And so it was just—yeah.

Jessica:            So it's not surprising to hear you say that, because unless you work incredibly hard over the course of time, it is really hard to not slip into probability and end up re-creating family dynamics with friends. And so, with your friends, practice being like, "Hey. I am trying really hard to have better boundaries, and I want to say I love you and I want to hear about this. And also, I'm a little at capacity. Is there something that I can do to support you? Do you mind if I talk about what's going on with me right now?"—whatever it is.

                        But this is the thing about, "Do you mind if it's okay for me to talk about me right now?" You wouldn't do that because you've slipped into being like your dad, where you don't talk about yourself.

Lorena:            Yeah. That's exactly what happens.

Jessica:            Yeah. So, inevitably, you're going to create relationships with people where they are your mom. If you're going to be your dad, your relationships will be with your mom. That's—I was going to say that's science. It's not science, but it is what humans tend to do.

Lorena:            I guess that's what happens sometimes.

Jessica:            It is. So the assignment is don't be your dad, and don't be your mom; be you.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            So who's you? You're somebody who is really caring and really empathetic and wants intimate relationships, and you're really internal and private, and you don't love talking about yourself all the fucking time. And also, you need friendships that are different and interesting and that center around activity as opposed to just deep one-on-one conversation.

Lorena:            Yeah. I mean, the thing is I'm an artist, too. That's like my main thing. A lot of my friends tend to be artists, so we talk about projects and stuff. But with the friends that are not artists, then sometimes, yeah, we don't have much to talk about. But there's this one friend that I've kept that—she's like a sister to me, so I always try to keep in touch. But it does end up being where she, yeah, is dumping on me.

Jessica:            So we're going to call this the mom method, okay, this method that I've given about you that is like, "Talk about saints. Talk about this. Talk about that. Change the subject." Try the mom method on your sister/bestie.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            You know it'll be way easier to find things that she genuinely likes talking about, right? Pull one of those things and change the subject when you start to get overwhelmed, and see how that goes—

Lorena:            Okay.

Jessica:            —because she's a close relationship, in part, because she's like your mom.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. But luckily, there's a ton of different things you could talk about with her that you are authentically interested in, that she's interested in, that you could distract her with.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And if she eventually is like, "Yikes. Why are you changing the subject when I'm talking to you about my shit?" you can say, "With everything going on with my family and in the world, I have a capacity. And I want to be there for you, and I am listening to you as much as I can until I hit capacity. And then I just can't anymore." And I just said that in a kind of complicated way, so let me find a shorter, more succinct way. You can just say, "I love you, and I also want to talk about these other things. I want to talk about your thing, and I also want to talk about these other things. And we did talk about your thing, but I really want to talk about these other things, too." Make it a little bit more surface in the way you say it.

Lorena:            Okay.

Jessica:            And let me tell you what. As your astrologer, here's my prediction. If you take any of my advice, you're going to feel like you're being an asshole. You're going to feel like a bad guy. You're going to feel guilty that you had a boundary or you didn't listen or that you changed the subject. And my advice to you is to hang out with those feelings of being the bad guy. Hang out in them, and then wait for 72 hours, 48 hours. And the reason why I say wait for 38 or 72 hours is because, in the moment, you might feel like the bad guy, but then you might not need a foot massage. Then you might not feel like you need to sleep 12 hours. Then you might actually feel like you have more of your own energy.

                        And so, if you are being kind and you're still showing up for people—if, in fact, because you have more energy, you can show up for more people more consistently—then you're moving through your shit. You're moving through your learned behavior of being like your dad, and you're not becoming your mom to not be like your dad. It's hard. It's really, really hard.

                        And so you are going to have to push up against the limitations that you have. And in doing so, you might find that you actually have more energy. So, in the short term, you're like, "I'm a jerk. Why did I do that?" And then, the next day, you might be like, "Oh. I don't want to ignore my"—fill-in-the-blanks person—"for the next week because I'm not totally burned out by them."

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And that's the gift that actually adds on itself.

Lorena:            Yeah. Thanks for saying that—

Jessica:            Oh, it is my pleasure.

Lorena:            —because I think I do struggle a lot with feeling like the bad person.

Jessica:            Yeah. That's very real.

Lorena:            And I feel like that's the religious part. That's the indoctrination, the program that I feel like I've been having to deal with for most of my life.

Jessica:            Yeah. It's like you have these really deep feelings from your indoctrination, from your childhood. And then you have these ideas from your adult life, from the weirdo that you are, the unique, autonomous individual that you are—and no negative connotation with weirdo, by the way.

Lorena:            Oh, I love weirdos.

Jessica:            Okay. Good.

Lorena:            I always say all my friends are weirdos.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's true. You have a Uranus opposition to your Venus. All your friends are weirdos because you're a weirdo.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And you haven't married—so you've got your trauma and also indoctrination and also cultural stuff. That's all in there, and then you have the California weirdo you have grown into being. And you haven't created bridges between these two things yet. You have partial bridges. You've got some tunnels. They're very unpleasant to travel. But you have to build these bridges. And this is part of why I've given you this advice of changing the subject to something that is a little weird but still in the realm of what the other person likes to talk about, because you're interested in weird things just because they're weird; am I right?

Lorena:            Yeah. Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah, which is why I actually think you could get into the saints, because they're—you know, the top-three saints that your mom is obsessed with are not weird. But there are so many saints, and some of them are very weird. And I think you could get into that. You know what I mean? I think you could get into that just because it's odd.

Lorena:            You're definitely inspiring me because I have been doing a lot of research on religion for my own projects, and it's helping me understand how to objectively research it but not internalize it, I guess.

Jessica:            Yes. Yes. Good for you. Yeah. If you can hold the importance of consistency—like, what's more important? Is it more important to, when you're interacting with somebody, be pleasant and give them everything they ask for and then not interact with them again for a while because you hated it and it was awful, or is it more important to give people what you can when you can, but be more consistently available to them? Obviously, the way I worded it, I have an obvious thing that I think is better. But I'm not going to ask you to answer this in this moment. I'm going to ask you to genuinely think about the answer to that question for yourself, unless you have an easy answer.

Lorena:            I think it's the second one, for sure. But I've been doing the first one a lot.

Jessica:            Yeah. You've been doing the first one your whole life.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And it's your training, right? But if you can remember—because, again, you've got seven million planets in Taurus. You're so values-driven. If you can remember, "I actually value consistency. And I have been sitting on the phone with my mother, my friend—whatever—for ten minutes just crumpling up, just sinking into myself. I am shutting down. That means I'm not going to be able to talk to them in a week if I don't get off the phone quickly or if I don't change the subject quickly"—so give yourself the grace of (a) noticing it, (b) validating it, and then (c) honoring that information with a damn boundary. And that boundary can be, "Someone called," "Someone's at the door." It can be, "Oh my goodness. I learned about this saint, and I really wanted you to teach me about it, Mom," or whatever you want it to be.

                        But it is consistent with your ethos, it's consistent with your birth chart, it's consistent with your transits, for you to take this time now through, honestly, the start of the new year on one level and then the spring on another level—to take this time to really triple down on boundaries for yourself, to take risks around developing new ways of engaging around your emotions. As hard as it is right now, there's energy to help you get it did. And that is true of your birth chart, and it's also—when we look at the fucking news and when we look at the reality of where things are, you don't want to be burned out by other people's pain and problems, because you have your own fucking problems, right? You don't want all your problems to be the world and your family. That's a bad combo platter for you.

                        It will help you to figure out to have a way to be in relationship with your family that actually makes you feel good about yourself instead of makes you feel exhausted.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Lorena:            Yeah. I think you're right. With you saying all those things—maybe I knew about it intuitively, and I've been trying. But then I easily go back into the same patterns. And so hearing it out loud—

Jessica:            I mean, that's the thing is hearing it from somebody who's not in your family and not in your situation sometimes is—it's just the thing—you know what I mean?—to just have a stranger—I mean, I'm not a complete stranger, but somebody who's not in your world be like, "This is it." It can be just fortifying. And I do want to say this will be hard, okay? And I'm not saying that to make it worse, but if you start practicing this stuff and it's hard and it doesn't go well, that's not evidence that you're doing the wrong thing. That's just evidence that this is fucking hard. You're going through two Pluto squares. You're going through your Neptune square. It's supposed to be hard. So, if it doesn't go well and it's hard, that's not evidence of it being wrong.

Lorena:            Okay.

Jessica:            Does that make sense?

Lorena:            All right.

Jessica:            Okay.

Lorena:            Thanks for saying that.

Jessica:            My pleasure. I was like, "I'm not sending you into the wild without telling you this." Now, did we hit the question? Is anything lingering?

Lorena:            No. I think this is good. I think you're right about changing the subject. Just since we've been talking, one topic I can do with my family and friends is talk about food because I love food.

Jessica:            Yes.

Lorena:            And something I've been wanting to do as a side project is get all the recipes from my family because we're slowly losing that, because people are not cooking anymore. And so I think that would be a really good project to do with my mom.

Jessica:            I mean, that is so perfect, and you can integrate it into your art practice and make a multilayered piece about it. I mean that is such a good idea. And you can get your mom to talk about a recipe till the cows come home. Your mom—that's a great topic. That's right up there with saints; am I right?

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            She likes to cook?

Lorena:            I think she enjoys food. She doesn't cook as much anymore because of the patriarchal obligation, but she—

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. That's fair.

Lorena:            Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            And if you wanted to, another thing you could do if you're like, "I don't have the fucking energy for my parents right now, but I can tell that everybody's activated and everything," you can cook something that your mom told you about, drop it off, and be like, "Guys, I wish I could stay. I have to go do this thing, but I wanted to bring you this." That'll be like points on points on points.

Lorena:            Oh yeah. I think she would love that.

Jessica:            Love that. Your dad would love it, too. I mean, your dad doesn't show a lot of emotion, but he would still love it.

Lorena:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And it would also just be like—you enjoy the cooking. You would be able to—do you keep photos of things?

Lorena:            Yes.

Jessica:            I keep on seeing you photographing the food that is being prepared and that's being cooked, so it would also just be like part of an art process for you. And then  you would be able to drop it off, not spend a lot of fucking time there—not spend a lot of time. Ooh. That's like—I just feel like—okay. You've landed it. You've landed the perfect thing. That said, still, the transits are hard, so it'll be hard. But also, that's good. This is gold. This is gold.

Lorena:            Yes. Yeah.

Jessica:            Congratulations.

Lorena:            Thank you.

Jessica:            Yeah. I'm really glad we did this reading, and I thank you so much for sending in your question.

Lorena:            Thank you for having me. And yeah, giving me all that advice is really helpful.

Jessica:            It's my pleasure.