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

Howdy:           Thank you so much for having me, Jessica. I'm really excited because something I've been feeling for a long time is that time moves kind of weirdly for me. I've felt this since I was really young. Some minutes will pass really slowly. Sometimes whole hours slip away. But as I'm getting older, it's getting more noticeable, and I just feel like, before I know it, a week is gone. A month is gone. A year is gone. And all of a sudden, I'm 31, and my friends are getting married or having babies or buying houses or things, and I kind of just feel like life is passing me by in this crazy way. And I don't know what to do about it. So I'm hoping to get a little clarity today on, yeah, just why time moves the way it does for me and if that's okay or what I could do about it so that life doesn't just pass me by and I wake up and realize 50 years have passed or something.

Jessica:            Yeah. And also, for whatever it's worth, I think most people when they turn 50 are like, "Oh my God. Where has the time gone?" There is an element of—good luck getting away from that problem. Also, this is something else because you're saying that time moves weirdly, but you're also saying that it's consistently weird in the same way, right, that it slips you by? Is that correct?

Howdy:           Yeah, for the most part. Sometimes things feel really—yeah, it's mostly slipping by. You're right, actually.

Jessica:            Yeah. So it's slipping by, and I think labeling things really helps because it kind of shrinks the problem, which makes you that much closer to solutions if there needs to be solutions. We're going to look at your birth chart, but before we do, I just want to check and see—okay. So time slips away. You're like, "Where the hell did it go?" How comprehensive is that? Is it like you can't remember what you were doing over the last three days, or is it more like, "Where has the time gone? I can't believe that time moved so fast experientially"? Does that make sense, the difference I'm—

Howdy:           Totally. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay.

Howdy:           I'd say it's a little bit of both. I work as a teacher, and I always tell the kids that I have goldfish brain. So, as much as I want to remember the things they tell me, they might have to remind me a few times. So yeah—and I'll always make jokes, too. I'll be like, "You know, if it didn't happen yesterday, I don't remember it." So I'll remember some things, but memory kind of works oddly for me, and I'm not very trustful of my memory if I'm being perfectly honest.

Jessica:            So is that memory of your experiences, or are you forgetting the kids' names and you're forgetting the lesson plan?

Howdy:           No, experiences. It's not stuff like that.

Jessica:            It's your experiences.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Let's pull up your chart. You were born September 10th, 1994, in New York, New York, at 12:55 p.m. And the first thing I have to ask is—and it's tender, so we only talk about what you want to talk about, okay?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            But do you have a trauma history from your early childhood that you are aware of?

Howdy:           That's a good question. When I think about that, I think mostly of the age of six and seven. I obviously grew up in New York, so I was—it was the day after my seventh birthday that 9/11 happened. And that same summer, my parents split, and my dad left with a woman who I knew quite well. She was a babysitter to me—

Jessica:            Oh. Wow.

Howdy:           —and who I loved very much. So yeah. I guess if that's what I—but yeah, I'm not 100 percent sure in terms of trauma.

Jessica:            Okay. And before the age of six or seven, like before your parents split and this collective trauma occurred, do you have this memory of kind of losing time or time slipping away from you?

Howdy:           I barely remember anything before the age of five, if I'm being totally honest.

Jessica:            Okay.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. And that's—I mean, that's not necessarily that uncommon. But listen. You have a twelfth-house stellium, right?

Howdy:           Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            You've got your Venus teetering from the eleventh house into the twelfth house. You've got Jupiter, North Node, Moon, and Pluto all hanging out in your damn twelfth. So not only do you have this very stacked twelfth house, but it's in very intense Scorpio. I should add, though, you also have Mars opposite to your Neptune and Uranus, okay? Mars is opposite to your Neptune and your Uranus. And Mars opposite Neptune—let me actually start there. A lot of times, people have this relationship to time—like, material experiences, so not just time, but material experiences, experiences where you are meant to be in your body—as just mystifying, just like, "What even is this?"

Howdy:           Yes, 100 percent.

Jessica:            Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's just that aspect. But you have Mars opposite Uranus, as well, and that kind of accelerates the nervous system so that you have a real nerviness to your body, which can make it be hard to just settle in. So there's that combo platter, and then there's all that intense Scorpio in the twelfth house. Now, I can't help but wonder if your dad was cheating with the babysitter before he left with the babysitter.

Howdy:           I think probably, yeah.

Jessica:            I mean, having all that Scorpio in your twelfth house—that would track. And even if it isn't what happened, I would imagine that's what your mother was feeling happened.

Howdy:           Yes, 100 percent.

Jessica:            Yeah. And so your mom had the impossible task of having to navigate betrayal and rage towards this man who was also your dad, who she was supposed to be supportive of you/having a relationship with and all the things. Right?

Howdy:           Yes.

Jessica:            What do us adults do when we're in an impossible situation but we have to pretend that we're not? We pretend. That's what we do.

Howdy:           Yes.

Jessica:            We kind of phone it in. And so the indication of your mom's emotional intensity and emotional/mental struggle is clear in your chart. It just looks like the way she did it was she just shoved it all down. She shoved it all down.

Howdy:           100 percent, yeah. So, basically, my parents separated but never divorced because they didn't want to deal with custody things.

Jessica:            Wow.

Howdy:           I lived with my mom. My dad ended up staying with this woman. They had a child, and they moved upstate together, where they raised my sister. And then my dad got cancer when I was in college and my sister was in, really, the end of middle school, early high school. And he passed two years ago. But he didn't—

Jessica:            I'm so sorry.

Howdy:           Yeah. He didn't actually divorce my mom until the second time he got cancer, when I think he really realized, "Oh, this is going to be what does me in. And ultimately this woman who I've now been with for 20-something years really should be the person that's making the legal, final decisions for me."

Jessica:            So were your mom and dad friends?

Howdy:           Yeah. They started dating really young, in their 20s. They met at a club in New York, and they were friendly. I mean, my dad always sent birthday gifts—Valentine's Day gifts, even—called my mom.

Jessica:            Did your mom remarry?

Howdy:           No. My mom never even dated again.

Jessica:            Okay. What you're sharing with me, paired with what I'm seeing in your birth chart, really affirms the ways in which your mom was like, "Okay. That's it. I did love. I had my kid. That's it. That's it. I'm out. I'm done." And this required a great deal of, again, shoving down, disassociation.

Howdy:           Yes.

Jessica:            And what it basically taught you was intense emotions were too dangerous to engage with. But you, my dear, have a Moon in Scorpio conjunct Pluto. 100 percent of your emotions are intense.

Howdy:           Yeah, for sure.

Jessica:            Like 100 percent. What that taught you was to distance yourself and dissociate, dissociate from your emotions, which if you do really well, if you're really good at it, you'll lose time because if you're busy not being here, then who's to notice when here is? Right? Part of why—do you smoke weed?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. And do you smoke weed regularly?

Howdy:           Not too regularly. Maybe once a week or once every other week.

Jessica:            Okay. Not too regularly at all.

Howdy:           No.

Jessica:            But you notice, when you smoke weed, how time just passes really differently?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            It's because it pulls you out of your body; you're not emotionally present. So the terribly annoying thing that I'm going to say to you—I'm sorry—

Howdy:           I'm ready.

Jessica:            —is the practice of feeling your feelings, which is inclusive of your emotions but not exclusive to your emotions because you are like a hypersensey person. And so, when you're feeling your feelings, you're not just feeling your emotions. You're in a classroom. How old are the kids you teach?

Howdy:           They're 10 and 11.

Jessica:            Okay. So you're in a classroom full of 10- and 11-year-olds, and they're feeling all their fucking feelings, which is chaos; am I right?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. It's just like a lot of chaos at that age and a lot of earnestness at that age. And so you're being just—like being hit by an ocean. You're just getting hit by all of these feelings. So your coping mechanism that you've established is figuring out how to be of service to other people or how to take care of a task as a way to evade and avoid actually feeling what you're feeling and figuring out how to have boundaries that actually support you instead of just shut it down.

Howdy:           That makes a lot of sense. I was really emotional growing up. I have depression, and I take medication for that. But I wasn't medicated until college, and I had an eating disorder in college and all these other things. But up until I started taking medication for depression, I cried all the time.  I was always feeling my feelings in a way that was way too intense and sometimes would totally dissociate from my body and feel like I was floating above things.

                        And that hasn't really happened as much as I've gotten older and been medicated. But I think I also just kind of fear feeling my emotions a little bit because my experience of feeling them is pretty intense and really consuming, like just super-duper consuming in a way that doesn't feel like I can really substantiate that and sustain that as an adult living an adult life.

Jessica:            Okay. Let's talk about that. So there's a couple things. I'm really glad that you found medication that works, diagnosis and medication that works. And it sounds like the antidepressant you have is working; is that correct?

Howdy:           Yeah, I think so.

Jessica:            Okay. Great. You have Sun conjunction to Chiron and the Midheaven, and Saturn is opposite Chiron. It's not opposite your Sun exactly, but it's close enough, right?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            This will often lead to not just depression, but inherited depression. So I wonder if your dad had depression or if there was depression on his side of the family.

Howdy:           Yeah. There's depression on my mom's side of the family and anxiety. My dad had anxiety.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So your dad wasn't there much when you were growing up?

Howdy:           Well, he was there a lot when I was really little. He was with me more than my mom. My mom was the breadwinner. But then he left, and I would see him once a week on Sundays. And then, in middle school, he walked me home and stuff. And he called, but after a while, I just stopped picking up.

Jessica:            Understandable. Yeah.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Once a week is not really parenting. It's like babysitting kind of thing, right?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            It's not being there, quite. And so the way in which your mom consumes your chart tells me how much she was like the primary parent, right?

Howdy:           1,000 percent.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. And I want to just validate depression is a fucking beast, and you are a very intense person with very intense emotions. And that is on a chill day. You are very intense, and your feelings are intense. And your feelings are not the depression. The depression and intense emotions are actually two different things. I also want to speak to something that you haven't named, which is your hormones. I wonder if the intensity of your emotions and feeling overwhelmed and consumed by emotions was in some way related to your hormones and if you've done something like you're on some sort of birth control or if something's shifted with your hormonal stuff.

Howdy:           I've always wondered that, too. I've never really been on birth control, so it's not that. But I just wonder if, as I've gotten older, things have leveled out more and—

Jessica:            Stabilized.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. I'd be curious—and maybe you can remember this now, and maybe it's just something to think about for later—if the wave of being so consumed by emotions that it became too much was timed with puberty.

Howdy:           Oh yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah.

Howdy:           Yeah, for sure.

Jessica:            And I mean, your chart speaks to—your hormonal stuff comes on fucking hot, and it flattens you. It's very intense. And you know I'm always hesitant to do any kind of medical astrology, and I want to just say to you and to the world I am not a doctor, and I'm not diagnosing anything. But if this tracks, then it tracks.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And if you were to develop a practice—hopefully with a therapist or with somebody you could speak to once a week who is reputable and safe—to practice feeling your feelings, I would encourage you to pair that with mindfulness about when you're ovulating, when you're bleeding, where—I don't know everything—there's the luteal phase. There's all these phases that we go through hormonally. I don't fucking know. But I would encourage you to get nerdy about that because you're a Virgo, so it's like you can; am I right? You can [crosstalk]—

Howdy:           That's true. It's really interesting, though, that you bring that up because I'm Nonbinary, and I use they/them pronouns. And I think part of my bulimia, too, and eating disorder—I just have always been really freaked out by having a body, which I think is also part of—

Jessica:            Yes.

Howdy:           —yeah, having this time passing and emotions stuff. So I never have tracked my period. I've never done that. Yeah, no birth control because I—I don't know. To think about it just—I don't know. Having a body freaks me out. But—

Jessica:            That makes sense.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            That Neptune opposition to Mars—people usually have a really hard time being in their body, in a body, but also in time. It's both. A lot of people have this experience of being born at the wrong time, in the wrong body, in the wrong gender, in the wrong—just something about the meat suit is like—hard pass, right?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And you have that in addition to having a twelfth-house stellium. And having a twelfth-house stellium always indicates that you are much more comfortable with out there than in here, right?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And you don't have to track a cycle. And also, if it gives you information about the predictability of emotional and mental health highs and lows, then it might be really worth it for you to do so. And you might track it and be like, "No, there's no information here." That's possible, right?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            But there's something really core to your question about, are you going to choose to consent to being in this life?

Howdy:           Yeah. Yeah. Definitely.

Jessica:            Yeah. And this is not about suicidal ideation—is that the word for it? We're not talking about that at all, although that might be there for you with the Moon/Pluto conjunction at times. But what I'm talking about is more of a—listen. If you take care of other people and you skate over the surface of your lived experience, time passes. Nobody comes for you. Everybody's like, "Well, you're doing things in the world. You're doing stuff. You're showing up." And you can just—years can pass like this.

Howdy:           Yeah. They have.

Jessica:            Yeah, and they have, right? At a certain point, the question you do need to ask of yourself and for yourself is, "Can I choose to consent to being here?" I mean, you're here whether or not you consent to it. You've noticed, right? Because you asked a question.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            But this is really like, can you choose to consent to it? Because if you do choose to consent to truly being here in this meat suit, in this time, then the choice to ask for help, to understand that your body is a part of you—these things become next steps.

Howdy:           Yeah. I feel like I don't know how to do it.

Jessica:            Do you want to?

Howdy:           I think so.

Jessica:            Why? Why do you want to?

Howdy:           I mean, I feel like I'm missing something. I don't know. I feel like I'm missing something big—

Jessica:            Okay.

Howdy:           —in experiencing life. And I don't know. I don't know if it's like a fear—I don't really think it's a fear of missing out, but I just feel like I need to have a purpose, I've always been unsure of what my purpose is. I know it's a little bit different from time passing, but I think that that's part of it, too. And I feel like there's a sense of purpose that people have in life that I don't necessarily have.

Jessica:            So the issue of purpose is a really big one for a lot of people. Let's hang out here for a second because I asked you if you wanted consent to being in this body, being here, and you said, "I want a purpose." That's something outside of you that you can anchor yourself into.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            You also said, "I feel like I'm missing something."

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And neither of those are, "Yes, I want to consent to being who I am, when I am, where I am," because who you are is the person with this body, which I am currently seeing as an adorable cat in a hoodie, but—we both know that is perfect for your birth chart; you get to be a cat. But it is a person who doesn't have a sense of purpose and wants one. It is a person who loses time. It is a person who has lots of amazing qualities and knows how to be there for people through really difficult stuff. It is a person who doesn't know how to be there for themselves through little things. That's when you are. That's maybe a good description, maybe a weak description of who you are. Right?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            I'm just talking to a couple little things. But do you want to choose to consent to being in this meat suit at this time? That's the first question. And it's understandable, my Virgo friend, that you're like, "Okay, but what do I do? Okay, but what comes next? Okay, but how can I make it work?" But you can only start to even consider those questions after you first make a choice to be here. And those of us with really heavy twelfth houses have a really hard time making that choice pre-Saturn Return. And you are barely post-Saturn Return. You haven't even had your Christ year yet. You're a couple years out.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And so this is the time. You are not behind schedule. I know you feel like you're behind schedule, but you're not behind schedule. You are right on time for authentically struggling with this question. Will you say your full name out loud?

Howdy:           [redacted]

Jessica:            Oh. Do you talk to your mom a lot?

Howdy:           Yeah, I do. Like, every day.

Jessica:            You said your dad had anxiety? You don't think your mom has anxiety?

Howdy:           I think she definitely does. She's a worrier. She always has been.

Jessica:            Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. Okay. So you're her caretaker?

Howdy:           Yeah, I guess so. That's how I view it.

Jessica:            Okay.

Howdy:           But I don't know if she views it the same.

Jessica:            I'm not talking about her. I'm talking about you.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            When I sit here, what I'm looking at energetically is, oh my God, you're her caretaker. And you said, "I guess so." So I'm wondering if I'm seeing it inaccurately or if you're downplaying it.

Howdy:           I don't know. Maybe both. I mean, I feel like everything my mom has done in her life has been for me, like full stop. She's always prioritized me, and she always puts others first.

Jessica:            I'm going to slow you down, and I'm going to interject. And you get to tell me if I'm wrong. I get to be wrong about things, okay?

Howdy:           Okay.

Jessica:            Your mother has not known how to live her own life, and so what she has done is poured everything into you so that she doesn't have to deal with herself—not to say she doesn't deeply love you. She does. She super fucking likes you and super fucking loves you. And also, she has sublimated a lot of her needs and desires and hopes and goals into you.

Howdy:           100 percent.

Jessica:            Okay.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Let's hang out here because it would be very easy to say, "Oh, my mother's done everything for me and she loves me and everything." She's done that for herself, which doesn't mean she also doesn't love you and doesn't like you, because she does love you and like you. She could do that shit and secretly hate you; that's true. But she doesn't. She genuinely likes you and loves you. But she has not done those things for you; she has done them for herself so she wouldn't have to cope with the profound sense of aimlessness that she struggles with—profound. The sense of aimlessness that your mother has—and she's still like a high-functioning person, right?

Howdy:           Oh, super.

Jessica:            She has a job and all the things. Yeah. But man, her relationship to herself is so divorced, so separate. And you're supposed to be her cheerleader and her bestie and her ally and her baby.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And within that—again, she likes you. She loves you. But there's no real room for you in that. Again, I don't want to create problems if they're not there, so please tell me if this feels wrong in any way.

Howdy:           I mean, I've known for a long time that she has emotions that she pushes down. She always told me—because obviously, I'm a very emotional person, always was. She always tried to ground me in kind of this mantra of, "Things have a way of working out." And as a child, that really frustrated me.

Jessica:            Of course it did.

Howdy:           And now I think it makes more sense to me, but I don't know. I might just be doing the same thing that she is.

Jessica:            You're doing the same thing as she is. Yeah. Yeah. That's right. That's why it's making sense. Okay. So the problem with what she said—and again, I'm not shit-talking your mom, because your mom's—whatever she may have done or whatever she does to you that's not awesome comes out of authentic blind spots. It doesn't come out of cruelty or a lack of care, okay?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And I want to just say I'm criticizing your mom, but I'm not actually criticizing your mom. I'm more trying to validate your experience and reframe it a little.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            When your mom said, "Things have a way of working themselves out," what she really was saying was, "Shh. Stop. Stop.  I don't know what to do with your feelings.  I don't know how to take care of you.  I don't know how to make you feel better. I need you to just be better right now. Just act like you're okay right now because maybe you're not okay right now, but tomorrow might be better, so today, shh." And you work with kids.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            You know you can get them to shut up. You can get them to quiet down. But nothing is solved or improved by having done so, except for you have order in the classroom, right?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Your emotions were overwhelming for you and for your mom and for your dad.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            But they were not too much. They were just your fucking emotions. But your parents, since before your dad left, were actively engaged in not being honest about how they were feeling and what was happening.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And even after they separated and then spent the next decades not divorced, that continued as part of their dynamic for a variety of reasons. And again, none of them were like bad people doing mean things to each other, right? It was their coping mechanisms.

Howdy:           Totally.

Jessica:            All of this adds up to and makes sense that you're just like, "I don't know where time goes. I don't feel my feelings. I stay away from the heavy ones as best I can, when I can. And I try to tap into things that don't engage my intensity"—

Howdy:           Yeah. Definitely.

Jessica:            —which means you engage with things that you find only moderately interesting.

Howdy:           That's definitely true. I only allowed myself to go so deep, and I really like working as a teacher because it's so consuming. I mean, you know, it takes all your attention and energy and time. And I like that, but yeah. I think I'm afraid of my intensity, and I don't want to show it to anyone, and I don't want to show it to myself because, yeah, it's scary.

Jessica:            It is scary. And also, you're not too much. I mean, you're too much for some people. You're not enough for others. That's me and you [crosstalk]—

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            —right? But this was where we come back to if you don't want to live this way, then you have to change. But if you don't want to live this way, that means you want to choose to really be here. And you being here means you, who has a stellium in Scorpio, is here, which means you will experience the full breadth and depth of your emotion, which is really fucking deep and wide. And the wideness is the twelfth house. The depth is Scorpio, right?

Howdy:           Yeah. I mean, how do I channel that? That's the thing. It's like, for now, I'm just kind of keeping a cap on it, but it's like I feel like if I was really to let all that out, it reminds me of when I was younger and I was not functioning.

Jessica:            Yep.

Howdy:           And I don't want to do that. So I guess I just don't really know how to channel it, in a way.

Jessica:            Okay. Do you have a therapist?

Howdy:           I don't. I've had therapists in the past, and the problem with that for me has been that none of them have really been able to make me feel anything. I think I just talk in circles and talk about things, and sometimes they're like, "Oh, you're so analytical. You've"—blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Or they tell me to try to feel something, and it's like I feel resilient—resistance to that. I almost want a therapist that's going to be mean to me or just critical.

Jessica:            Yep. You reached out to me. I get it. Most people who reach out to me do. They're like, "Tell me what's wrong with me. Go." So here's what I'm going to say. Have you ever done somatic therapy?

Howdy:           I haven't.

Jessica:            Okay. I'm not surprised, because you would have to engage with your body if you did somatic therapy, right?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            There's also havening. Have you ever heard of havening?

Howdy:           No.

Jessica:            I'm a really big fan of it. You touch your body kind of like I'm touching my hands right now but really slowly. And it is a way of kind of naming things but bringing your body along for the ride.

Howdy:           Okay.

Jessica:            I think that's really what we're talking about for you, is you could really use help. When you asked me, "How do I fucking do this?" I want to say first and foremost "not alone" is the answer.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            If you try to do it alone, then you're re-creating your childhood, basically—

Howdy:           Yeah. Totally.

Jessica:            —because your mom couldn't tolerate your intensity because she couldn't tolerate her own.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            She couldn't give you tools she didn't have, right? So seeking a person who you can rely on once a week to listen to you, hold space for you, and help you to remember to step out of your analyzer and into your body—that's one really tangible step you can take. Another tangible step you can take is to set intention for yourself. So okay. I'm going to have you say your full name out loud again and include your mom's maiden.

Howdy:           Okay. [redacted].

Jessica:            My God. Your mother's energy is all over you, girl. All over you.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. Sorry. It's very overwhelming.

Howdy:           I know.

Jessica:            It's very overwhelming. It's like octopus over—it's like tentacles and big smooshy in the middle. So that is giving you anxiety, for the record, okay? That gives you anxiety because it's not your energy. You're not your mom's husband, and you're not your mom's parent.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And I know you technically know this, but I don't know that either of you really fully know this.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            So let me just say that. The other thing—when you get home from work, what do you do? Is it TV?

Howdy:           Essentially, it's laying on a couch. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Scrolling. Scrolling, right?

Howdy:           Scrolling. Yeah.

Jessica:            And what are you scrolling through? Is it comedy? Is it news? What is it?

Howdy:           I'm honestly going back and forth between apps. I'll go on Instagram. I'll go on email. I'll go on Webtoon and read a bunch of comics. I'll sometimes play games. Me and my partner—we play the New York Times puzzles a lot. Sometimes I'll read news—like, all over the place.

Jessica:            Okay. You're all over the place. Okay.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay, because of course, that's not helping, right? The endless scroll is the way you lose time. It's like a gray action, even if you didn't have this predisposed in your nature, right? Is there anything that you find interesting? Do you enjoy drawing or doing anything generative, making anything?

Howdy:           Yeah, I do. So I actually went to school for visual arts and creative writing. And there are periods where I feel very generative and I start making a lot of stuff, and then there are periods that I feel like I can't possibly make anything.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Howdy:           But yeah. No, definitely, I do a lot of different arts.

Jessica:            When you are in art mode, does time slip away from you in the same way?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            It does?

Howdy:           But—yeah. Well, it's interesting. Whenever I feel really connected to my art practice, it slips away. Time slips away, but not in a bad way. Just, before I know it, it's gone. When I'm feeling in a stuck place artistically, every moment feels—

Jessica:            It's torture.

Howdy:           —yeah, torture. Yeah. Totally.

Jessica:            Of course, of course, of course. Okay. And you mentioned you also have a partner.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And you live together?

Howdy:           Yes.

Jessica:            How long have you been with them—him, them, she?

Howdy:           Him.

Jessica:            Him. Okay. How long have you been with him?

Howdy:           Nine years.

Jessica:            Holy shit.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            So he doesn't know you to be emotionally intense?

Howdy:           I think he does to a degree, but not really.

Jessica:            Not really.

Howdy:           He's also a very stable, steady Eddie, rock-steady person. So yeah. Early on in my relationship, I think I tried to rock the boat a lot, and yeah, he's just a really steady person.

Jessica:            Okay. So there's two things I want to speak to. The first thing is I'm not sure what the replacement habit or behavior is, but I would say that pairing the couch with the device is the opposite of helping. Okay? It's the opposite. So maybe that means—I don't know—you stretch while you scroll as a way to bring your body into the experience.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Does your partner have long hair?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Maybe braid his hair.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Something that's more kinesthetic. I'm encouraging you to—if you're going to just zone out, try to bring your body into the conversation, okay?

Howdy:           Totally.

Jessica:            And again, I want to strongly encourage you to get yourself a nice lady, a.k.a. a therapist of any gender.

Howdy:           Yes.

Jessica:            Okay.

Howdy:           Cool.

Jessica:            And then the other thing that I want to say—hold on. Bear with me. If you went full emotional and intense, do you think your partner would be cool with that?

Howdy:           I think so. I mean, I remember—the thing is that my partner is not very emotional and is really—whenever emotions come up is in a very problem-solving kind of mode. So, yes, but—

Jessica:            No.

Howdy:           —but no. Yeah.

Jessica:            But no. Yeah.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            So the thing about being in a problem-solving mode around other people's emotions is that it betrays—so some of it is lovely.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Like, "We have a problem. Please try to help me solve it. I'd love that." And then another part of it is, if I'm always trying to solve your problems, that speaks to my lack of ability to tolerate your suffering.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            So, in this way, you kind of have a different version of your relationship with your mom at home with your partner, right?

Howdy:           Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            And so I'm going to just be totally frank in saying that's pretty motivating for you to continue to lose time and not be present and not feel your feelings.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            The truth of the matter is anything that you lose from being honest and authentic you never really had. And I am encouraging you to explore parts of yourself and take actions that could rattle your fucking life up—and easy for me to say, right? It's not my fucking life. Great, Jessica. But also, the way that you're living, it's like you're maintaining your energy; you're not cultivating energy.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And the older you get, you've already started to notice—and you're only 31, but the older you get, the less natural energy you have. And therefore, when you're not cultivating energy, you start to feel more stuck and rigid and stuck and rigid. Right?

Howdy:           Yeah. That's my biggest fear.

Jessica:            That's a good fear. That's a great fear.

Howdy:           Yeah, being stagnant. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. I mean, you have seven million planets in a fixed sign. Yeah, it's a good thing to be aware of. It's true. And also, you go to work. You do your thing, and it's chaotic and engaging and wonderful. And then you come home, and you hit the couch—scroll, scroll, scroll. And it's not like you're alone. You and me and thousands and thousands of people, right?

Howdy:           Yeah. Totally.

Jessica:            Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of people, right? It's like a terrible part of life now. Also, because you are so clear that you don't want to be too emotional or too intense, you are steering clear—unintentionally, subconsciously, and then sometimes intentionally, you are steering clear of anything that will lead you to passion and purpose—

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            —because passion and purpose engage your emotions. Your emotions are intense. And if you feel really, really good, you could also feel really, really bad, right?

Howdy:           Yeah. Totally.

Jessica:            And so this is where we come back to this kind of core—people talk about the Saturn Return a lot. The reason why the Saturn Return is so fucking important is because it's when we choose to be the adult we're going to be. Everything in your 20s is a reaction to your childhood. It's an enactment of, "This is who I am," in reaction to the people we grew up around and who we were as a kid. But you just crossed this line in the last couple years where now you can feel that you are actually responsible for yourself. This is actually your life, and there's no go-backsies, right?

Howdy:           Yeah. Totally.

Jessica:            That's what the space between the Saturn Return and the Christ year is about. It's like, "Oh fuck. Oh fuck. I gotta change. Oh shit. I gotta do this. Oh fuck." It really is that. You can change at any age, and it gets harder the older you get to change. They're both true, right?

Howdy:           Yeah. I know. It gives me hope knowing that at any point in life, I could just kind of veer left or right or whatever.

Jessica:            Yes. Yeah.

Howdy:           And in this moment, I'm just—I feel a lot of fear of losing what I have. I feel a fear of losing the good parts of the relationship with my mom or the relationship with my partner.

Jessica:            Yeah. That's understandable.

Howdy:           [crosstalk] things that I really can't imagine.

Jessica:            Part of what you're saying, if I'm hearing it correctly, is that you're scared, if you change, that those relationships fall apart.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. If those relationships fall apart because you're learning how to choose yourself, then they need to fall apart. And sometimes relationships fall apart, and then we put them back together again in a new way and it works, and sometimes no. Your mother will burn down cities to get to you.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            You're never going to lose your mother. What you could lose with your mother is the ease of your dynamic.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            But the ease of your dynamic is based on you shoving your emotions down so you can meet her where she's at.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            You don't want to ever worry her, and so you're like, "Emotions? What are emotions?" And she's like, "Emotions? What are emotions?" And everybody's happy.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            If you change, it'll be a struggle, but you're not going to lose your mom, not in this lifetime. That woman is glued to you.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Now, your partner is a different story. He really likes things as they are. He's not worried about getting stuck. He likes being stuck. He's a fan.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And do you want human babies?

Howdy:           I go back and forth. I'm terrified of the idea of being pregnant. Something about it terrifies me. When I was little, all I wanted was a big family, and I thought I was going to have tons of kids. And I always dated people from huge families. And now that I'm at the age where I kind of have to make a choice, I don't know.

Jessica:            When having a child is not a, "Fuck yes," It's a no for now.

Howdy:           Yeah. Totally.

Jessica:            Right? But I understand a lot of people at your age struggle with this sense of, "Oh, I have to have a baby by now," because you probably already have friends with babies, right?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            It's like it happens. Okay. Hold on. Let me—it's like—okay. This is really scary stuff for you, I want to just acknowledge, because as I'm looking at it energetically, your system is like, "Tell me. Don't tell me. Tell me. Don't tell me. Don't look. Aah." It's like it's a lot, and I just want to name that. And I want to say that you used to be really clear that you wanted children.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And you have not wanted children—you have wanted that feeling that you used to have of clarity of children—in a long time. And that makes sense because getting pregnant is an exercise in extreme emotions.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And having children is an exercise in not only being very emotional all the time but having to navigate your emotions around other people's needs, right?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            It's a lot. And you are wise to know that it's not a yes for you at this moment.  And so the work of cultivating a relationship with your own intensity is not only an act of self-love and self-care and choosing to be here. It's also the actions that are wise to take to bring you to a place where you can truly decide on whether or not you want kids. [crosstalk] what I'm saying?

Howdy:           Yeah. Totally, because I think I'm also afraid of—my whole question was about time slipping away, and it's like, when you have a child—and I know this with my mom. It's like everything became about me, and I'm worried that everything will become about my child and I will just, again, lose time even more, and I'll—yeah, my whole life will slip away. And I know it's not healthy to live your life for someone else—your child, your mom, your dad, your spouse. It doesn't matter who it is. But I don't know. I guess I just don't really know how to live life for myself, and then time passes.

Jessica:            It requires that you feel emotions.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And that includes your most intense emotions. You have a Moon/Pluto conjunction in Scorpio. You can be fucking dramatic. You can be resentful. You can be possessive. You can be obsessive. You can be just overwhelmingly, ecstatically happy and just devastatingly, deeply aggrieved.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            You have such profound and deep emotions, and they roil, and then they release. And your capacity to move through emotions is really deep, too, but the only way to move through it is by literally going through it. And your survival mechanisms are organized to keep you away from it instead of going through it at this point, right?

Howdy:           Yeah. Totally.

Jessica:            And that is what I think is at the core of time slipping in the way you describe, right? There's some of it which is universal of, "Yeah, every time I pick up my phone, I'm like, 'I don't know where the time went' when I put it down."

Howdy:           Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            I think that's kind of universal, although I also have a very strong twelfth house, so maybe it's not. But I think it's pretty universal. But the ways in which you're experiencing it—if you skate the surface of your own emotions, you're not fully there. And if you're not fully there, then you look back at last year, and you're like, "I don't know what happened. I don't know what I did"—

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            —because you weren't fully there. But if you are fully there, if you are fully there, then you will feel bad sometimes, and you will cry sometimes and be inconsolable sometimes. And through this intense emotionality, as an adult, you will strive to kind of foster and collect and use coping tools, which you couldn't do as a kid, right?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            You weren't able to be like, "No, I'm not going to school today." You could do that today. You can call in sick, right? You can develop many different coping skills to navigate the intensity of your emotions, but you can't do that without feeling them. And what you're trying to do is what any smart person would try to do, which is you're like, "Okay. I'll figure out the coping skills, and then I'll feel them." But that's not how it works, see?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            That's not how it works. You are incredibly resourceful. I'm not in any way trying to suggest to you that you can avoid feeling bad, because I don't think you can.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            I don't think any of us can, but also, I'm looking at your chart, and that's not exactly your path, see? Your path is to allow yourself to feel your intensity and to find ways that are healthy and sustainable to coping with your intensity. Like you said, you've chosen a job that actually really supports that. You get to really tap into children's shit and to be there for them. And it's like those of us in helping professions—we are drawn to it in part because it's like a catharsis. It's a place to bring your intensity, right?

Howdy:           Totally. Yeah. And I love that age, too, you know? It's kind of the death of childhood. You're moving on towards adolescence. And I think, for a lot of kids, it's really hard—I mean for a lot of people, you know?

Jessica:            Yes. Yes.

Howdy:           That process in your life. So I don't know. I feel really grateful to be at that point and kind of being like, "Oh, yeah, it's going to be okay."

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah.

Howdy:           "You can do this."

Jessica:            And also, it's important to recognize that you are choosing to experience intensity kind of through other people, I'll say.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            You're choosing to experience intensity through other people. And that kind of shows you that you have skills that you didn't have as a kid when you were overwhelmed with tumultuous, crashing-in emotions.

Howdy:           Totally.

Jessica:            It looks like, when your emotions hit you, it is like being hit by a wave in the ocean, and then you go down.

Howdy:           Yeah. Totally.

Jessica:            Your emotions are really intense. I want to validate that for you. And cultivating some measure of habits with it is helpful. Sometimes you have these spikes of anxiety, right?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And if, every time you feel anxiety, you start being like, "Oh my God. What's wrong? What's going on?" and then you follow and chase thoughts and situations and, "What did I do wrong, and why did I do this?"—if you do that, then the anxiety builds and gets worse and worse. And if you can instead be like, "Oh shit. This is an anxiety spike. I need to breathe. I need to stim. I need to"—whatever it is that works for you—

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            If you, instead of chasing the content, be like, "Oh. This is a set of emotions and a set of thoughts that I habitually experience. I'm going to nurture and tend to these. I'll deal with the content later when I don't feel so activated"—right?

Howdy:           Totally.

Jessica:            You do this for kids all the time. I can see that.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. You have the skills with kids, but you haven't yet treated your inner kid with that same empathy, patience, tolerance, compassion.

Howdy:           Yeah. Definitely.

Jessica:            But you have the skill. So you just need to teach your friend, right? You just need to turn it inwards. And it's a lot easier to do that with help, with support.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And your partner and your mom are probably not the support exactly.

Howdy:           No, not for that.

Jessica:            No. No. For other things, but not for that.

Howdy:           Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            So I want to just pause myself and check in with you and see, have we addressed the question? Do you feel like you got an answer? Is there anything kind of lingering?

Howdy:           It sounds like I need to spend more time in my body.

Jessica:            Yes.

Howdy:           That's really the thing. So some kind of active thing or creative thing.

Jessica:            I would say active/creative. Yes.

Howdy:           Yes.

Jessica:            I don't want to tell your Virgonian nature, "Hey, if you're active all the time or if you're creative all the time, then you'll feel uh-uh-uh."

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            It's not that. It's more about those are like gentle entry points from home, right? So that might mean, instead of doing art, just being like, "Okay. I'm going to doodle and scroll"—finding a way of bringing your body and your intentionality to the moment because art and creativity requires some level of intention, right?

Howdy:           That makes sense. I guess my fear is I'm going to end up somehow compartmentalizing this in some way.

Jessica:            You mean this advice or—

Howdy:           Yeah, where it's—

Jessica:            Yeah.

Howdy:           Yeah, where it's like, okay, I can be like this at home, but at work I can't be like this. Yeah. I think a part of it, too, is I've always had really bad boundaries and—I don't know—compartmentalize weirdly. So I think it's hard for me to only do something in one space and not another or, yeah, shift from, "Okay. I'm in a workspace. And so, here, I can't be intense in a way that I want to be intense because it's not really acceptable, to be perfectly honest. But at home, I can be that way, but how do I do that in a way that doesn't drive me or my partner mad?" You know?

Jessica:            Totally. So you are talking about boundaries, right?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Because, for instance, at work, you are there to perform a function as opposed to being your whole self.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Nobody's work is really the space for them to be their whole selves, right?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            If I came to you with my full triple Capricorn nihilism, that wouldn't be me doing my job. That would be me being like, "Here's my most negative self, but myself," right?

Howdy:           Totally.

Jessica:            So part of what you're naming is it's hard to have boundaries. But I think you're looking for a solution and a rule.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And that's really what that—what you just shared is about. Because you have not at core decided, "I consent to being alive, and I'm going to choose to do the work of being here"—because you have not made that choice, your mind keeps on reverting back to, "What's the action? What should I do? What's the solution? What should I do?"—

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            —whereas, if you were like, "Okay. This is it. I'm here. I'm in this life. It's as messy as it is. It's as good as it is in the ways it's good. It's as shitty as it is in the ways that it's shitty. I'm going to start from where I'm at. I'm going to choose to really be here"—if you were to do that, then it wouldn't be so confusing, how to act in different spaces, because you wouldn't be looking for "the answer," quote unquote.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            You would instead be showing up for yourself where you're at, when you're there. Right? So the way you would show up at school would be really different because your intensity—you're actually really comfortable with a lot of your intensity at school—

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            —whereas when you come home, all of a sudden, you turn it off, right?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            You turn it off because, "This is when I'm supposed to be relaxed," or, "I don't want to ruffle my partner's feathers," or whatever.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            The fears that you have around being too much and having too much intensity direct you to perform yourself. Any performance is like a—it's like a separation, right? You're not really being yourself. This is where we come back to this core issue of choosing to be here. A willingness to feel your feelings is really what's required of choosing to be here because your feelings are a massive part of what you are. They're a massive part of what you are.

Howdy:           Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            And if you do get yourself a therapist, a somatic therapist, or you start working with somebody who does havening or something in that family of somatic process, I imagine you will find that person annoying, even if you find a great person for you.

Howdy:           Yeah. Probably.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. You'll find that person annoying because you don't want to fucking do this. You don't want to do this. You don't want to do this. And I want to encourage you to bring your resistance and your agitation to the process.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            You are allowed to—you're not just allowed; you're encouraged to have a meltdown.  I don't know how you can move through all of your blocks and resistance to feeling emotion without having a six-year-old's meltdown [crosstalk]—

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            —because we splinter off at different ages with trauma, and then when we start to integrate, we have to integrate from where we left off.

Howdy:           Totally. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. You know this. You work with kids, right?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And so the worst meltdowns that you had as a kid—if you were to have them as an adult, you would be better equipped to deal with them.

Howdy:           Yeah. I believe that.

Jessica:            Yeah. And the worst meltdowns that you had as a kid were awful and they sucked, but you've seen other people have those same kinds of meltdowns since, right—

Howdy:           Yeah. Yes.

Jessica:            —whereas, at the time, you were the only person you knew who was feeling that way, or so you thought.

Howdy:           Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            I think, a little bit, you underestimate yourself. And I think, a little bit, you just don't fucking wanna. You know?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And that is what it is, and it's okay. And your question really speaks to your need to make a different choice than the one you've been making. And I know within your question was, like, "All my friends are getting married, and they're having kids, and they're doing all these things." I don't think that's actually what you want or you need right now, any of that stuff.

Howdy:           Yeah. I don't either.

Jessica:            Yeah. It's more just your awareness of this issue, and you're just not seeing this issue is the same for everyone. You're just seeing different people are living differently than you. Here's my prediction. If you do decide to make changes and try, you will sometimes feel like shit. And when you feel like shit, you will tell yourself, "I am failing at this." But I want to just have my little voice in your head—it's a big voice. I want to have my big-ass voice in your head to say feeling bad is the assignment, actually, for you. Feeling intensity, whatever that looks like, whatever that means to you, is the literal assignment.

                        And so, if you were to feel intensity and overwhelming emotions, etc., then all of the narratives that you have that are like, "This is bad. This is wrong. You're too much. You're going to lose yourself," or whatever it is that you're telling yourself—they're all going to come up.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            The assignment is to allow the emotions to occur. Allow that part of you that's trying to control your emotions to say what it says and for a third part to emerge, adult Howdy to emerge, and for adult you to be able to say, "Okay. Emotion's intense. Ahh. I don't know how to feel these, but okay. Here. Old narrative, I hear you. We're going to try to make a different choice. Here's what we're trying." There can be all these different parts at once. You're not going to be like, "I'm going to go into therapy and feel my feelings," and then the parts go away. That's not it.

                        It's practicing being able to say to your partner, "I am actually fucking overwhelmed and sad, and I want to go in my room and cry. And I don't need anything from you right now. I just need you to be cool with it and, when I come out, give me a foot rub, or let me braid your hair."

Howdy:           Yea. Totally.

Jessica:            Yeah. And let him have his emotions about you having your emotions, you know?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Don't fix it for him. Don't shield him from it. And let the relationship evolve. Let him evolve with you.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Will you say his name real quick?

Howdy:           Yeah. [redacted].

Jessica:            Thank you. I mean, he won't know what the fuck to do. So you just have to tell him—you like being alone with big emotions, anyways, right?

Howdy:           I do.

Jessica:            Yeah. So you just have to tell him, "I need to be alone with my emotions and practice figuring out how to have them. And as I have more experience, I'll be able to give you more directions and more clear directions. But for now, I need you to leave me alone, and every once in a while, I need you to come in and hug me. And if I tell you to go away, don't take it personal."

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            Does that feel doable?

Howdy:           Totally. I mean, he's someone who has always wanted to do well by me. So, if I give him an instruction, he always really takes it to heart and is really good about that.

Jessica:            I see that. But if you don't give him instruction, and then all of a sudden you're emotional, he'll be like, "Oh no. The building's on fire. Let's get out."

Howdy:           Yeah. Totally. Totally.

Jessica:            And that's going to trigger you because that's what your mom did, right?

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And so I'm going to say one last thing. Pluto is squaring your fucking Venus. Your relationship is changing anyways. Your relationship to your own values system is changing anyways. You are in a state of great intensity, period.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And you could totally get pregnant right now for the next year.

Howdy:           Okay. That's good to know.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Howdy:           Thank you.

Jessica:            I don't think you're ready for that.

Howdy:           No. No, no, no.

Jessica:            Now, this is an intense time, and part of what's motivated you to reach out to somebody like me who is a pain in the ass and who is very direct and the way I am is because, at core, your values system is being challenged.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            That's not how you've worded your question, but that's actually what's motivating so much of this. It's like you're just like, "I have been driven by this values system of I want to avoid these parts of myself that I don't think are right or that I'm scared of."

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            But you don't actually believe that. That's not actually your values system. That was a reaction. And this is where Venus is either about authenticity or accommodation. And you organized your self-worth and your values around being accommodating to others by not being too much.

Howdy:           100 percent.

Jessica:            Yeah. And Pluto's squaring your Venus, and it's fucking glorious because now you're like, "Its not enough. It's not working." And that's actually gorgeous. And what's also gorgeous is, at the exact same time, Pluto is sextiling your Ascendant—same exact degrees. It's happening overlapping at the same time, which means you are in this spectacular moment where you can become more powerful, more empowered, where your intimate relationships can grow with you. So this is the time to do the work, girl.

Howdy:           Okay.

Jessica:            This is the time. It won't get easier. You know what I mean? As hard as it is, this is your easy time.

Howdy:           All right.

Jessica:            Okay?

Howdy:           Yes.

Jessica:            So put that in your pipe and smoke it. That's kind of good news, though, right, that Pluto is actually here for you in a very intense way, so don't avoid intensity is the answer.

Howdy:           Yeah. That is very helpful. I think, for a long time, in all of my relationships, especially close ones, I've been having a lot of walls up. So I think it, yeah, is good to hear, and I have to do the work so I can bring them down.

Jessica:            You have to do the work so you can bring them down. And through that process—and this is specific to the Pluto transit, but it's also specific to being in the space between your Saturn Return and your Christ year—you're going to lose some friends. And I don't mean to make that sound terrible or be heartless about it, but everybody loses some friends in this period.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And the reason why is either you realize you've already outgrown each other, or you do so much growing that you start to outgrow each other.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And it's not a personal failure for a relationship to end. It's just a reflection on how we sometimes come together for as long as we need to be together, and then we are no longer together.

Howdy:           Yeah.

Jessica:            And I think endings and loss are just not comfortable for you, and you are willing to go pretty far outside your comfort zone to avoid endings and loss.

Howdy:           Yeah, 100 percent.

Jessica:            Yeah. But this Pluto square to Venus and Pluto sextile to the Ascendant will help you to evolve around that issue, so not magically become somebody who's like, "I don't care. Let's just end it." That's not you ever, right? But there's, again, that space between accommodation and authenticity, and that space can shrink in this period if you do the work, if you continue to do the work.

Howdy:           Yeah. Thank you so, so much. I really, really appreciate it.

Jessica:            It is so my pleasure.