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:            All right. Alexis, welcome to the podcast.

Alexis: Thank you.

Jessica:            What would you like a reading about?

Alexis:            I wrote in about the sort of patterns of overwhelm and procrastination and emotional paralysis that I feel like I experience. I feel like I've had this complicated relationship with time for most of my life. And I feel like, looking back on things, it's like I've always been kind of struggling with the same thing where I feel like I have all this potential, and I'm so afraid that I'm wasting it or doing the wrong thing and that I'm not going to reach the full potential for my life, and it's due to this inability to do the things I feel like I need to do.

                        Yeah, and I also struggle a lot with global events. There's always a lot happening, but I feel things really deeply, and then I talk myself into being kind of guilty about continuing to live and strive for things and chase my dreams. And then it also makes me feel like shit when I don't. So I feel kind of stuck and like I cycle through this all the time, and I feel like it really is holding me back.

Jessica:            Yeah. And before we dive into any of that, I just want to say you and me both, I mean, I think everyone who cares about the world struggles with, "So why am I trying to advance x or paint my room?" or whatever, when you're, like—yeah.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            But okay. Let's pull up your chart. We're not sharing all your details, because people get to be Scorpios.

Alexis:            Thank you.

Jessica:            But we will share that you were born November 8th, 1997, so we contextualize you. Gen Z? Is that—do you identify as—

Alexis:            Right on the cusp. I kind of identify with whoever is being less embarrassing that day because they both have their moments.

Jessica:            Oh, I know. Oh, I know.

Alexis:            Gen Z and the millennials.

Jessica:            Oh, I know. And we all do. There's no generation that doesn't have a moment, like, daily. Okay. There's a lot to talk about here. We're talking about your relationship to time and procrastination. I'm going to start with that. There's a lot of things we're talking about, but let me start with that, because it's not just something that's happening this month or because of World War III, but instead, it's happening chronically for you, right? You can track this back to being younger?

Alexis:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Like, being a child is what I mean.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            I actually can tell you why. There's a number of things. You have a Moon/Jupiter conjunction in Aquarius. Such a lovely aspect. All the astrology texts are like, "This is the luckiest aspect." It means people like you, and you're emotionally resilient, and you know how to grow and all these great things. And it's true. But here's the thing that people don't talk about enough with this aspect, is you have this feeling that you should be able to do everything, and you should be able to do it well, and it shouldn't hurt; it should flow.

Alexis:            Right.

Jessica:            And so, if somebody says to you, "Okay. Hang out in your house until 10:00 a.m. and then go to work," you're like, "Well, I should be able to write the next great American novel. I should be able to flirt with my crush, check up with my bestie, make sure I look super cute, make it to work early."

Alexis:            Yeah. And I never do.

Jessica:            Of course not.

Alexis:            And then I'm so mad that I couldn't do all those things.

Jessica:            Because that's not how time works.

Alexis:            Right.

Jessica:            Time is Saturn. Jupiter is on the other side of the archer's bow. It's governed by Sagittarius. Jupiter is just like meteors. So you have this feeling all the time, chronically, that it's not that you, quote unquote, "should" be able to do it well; it's that of course you should be able to do it well.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            It's worse than a "should." It's like it's ridiculous when people can't get it done, because there's nothing but resources in the world. Your ability to see the resources actually screws you in this regard.

Alexis:            Yeah. And it doesn't help that, in my mind, everyone else does it really well. So why can't I personally do it?

Jessica:            Right. Because you're only comparing yourself to people who are doing fill-in-the-blank more or better than you in this moment.

Alexis:            Yes.

Jessica:            Obviously—

Alexis:            Of course.

Jessica:            —because everybody else doesn't do it well, because your question is so universal. And also, you are—I'm sorry. I'm looking for Saturn to figure out how old you are. You were born in '97. I could have figured that out. But you haven't even hit your Saturn Return yet.

Alexis:            Oh, I haven't?

Jessica:            No. Zero percent. We're going to get there. Don't you worry.

Alexis:            Okay.

Jessica:            I know you feel like you've already done it. You haven't.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Let me bring you to the other problem with your procrastination station, overwhelm situation. Mercury/Pluto conjunction in the third house—what this aspect does—it's not technically related technically to procrastination, but this is how it is related to procrastination. It gives you a perfectionistic mindset. Everything is super important. Everything is super important. Everything is so important that if I don't do it now and I don't do it well, then I have failed. And I've not just failed me; I've failed my ancestors. I failed my friends. I failed my future.

Alexis:            Yeah. Exactly.

Jessica:            There's no exaggeration whatsoever in this. None. Zero percent. And so, for you, these two things that are not, quote unquote, "bad" aspects at all—they are power points inside of you. They drive you to push yourself harder and do more and expect more of yourself and expand your capacity and take big risks and all of these really lovely things. But they leave you wanting—especially as a pre-Saturn Return person, they leave you wanting for a sense of proportion. Proportion is not your BFF, or maybe even your F.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Sorry. Not at all, because on top of that, you have a fucking Virgo Rising.

Alexis:            Yeah. I love her until she doesn't work in my favor.

Jessica:            We're seeing a theme for you. We're sitting here like, "She is my bestie until she's my enemy."

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. I respect that. So not only do you have this Virgo Rising, which is perfectionistic and does get kind of caught up in details at times, but you also have your North Node conjunct your Ascendant from the twelfth, which means, in English, this feeling of "It should flow and come easy. It shouldn't be so hard" is reinforced by your South Node. It's not true. It's zero percent true. But it is a feeling that you have that is at the center of this struggle.

Alexis:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And there's something I call magic time people. It's people who look at a clock, and they see they have 15 minutes, and they're like, "I could do anything in 15 minutes." You have that, but you don't have it in the way that I typically see it. Usually, that comes from Neptune. It comes from a true misunderstanding of linear time. The fucked-up thing is that you're actually really good at telling time. You're actually really good at looking at a project or task and assessing, "Oh, okay. This takes x amount of effort and this amount of time," and you're really good at that. But then, when it comes to thinking, "But can I do it?" there is this part of you, this resilient, shiny part of you, that's like, "I should be able to do it in half the time. I get it."

                        And so what I want to center you around is your feelings of overwhelm and then the resulting coping mechanism of procrastination actually comes from perfectionism and a lack of proportion in your expectations of yourself.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            So is there an area of your life where this is super active at this time?

Alexis:            Yes.

Jessica:            Hit me with it.

Alexis:            I am an artist, and I make music. And I think that I—well, I feel like I should be growing and kind of building at a scale that I can actually see. And I'm really frustrated because I feel like I'm not, and not only am I not, but I feel circumstantially and personally incapable of doing what I feel like I need to do to be able to see that change. So I'm just extremely frustrated.

Jessica:            Okay. And we're talking about writing music, producing music, sharing music? All of it?

Alexis:            Yes. Yeah.

Jessica:            Of course it's all of it. I don't know why I even bothered to ask.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Of course it's all of it.

Alexis:            And promoting it and being a person online because that's another—an extra thing that comes with being a musician nowadays.

Jessica:            It sure does. It sure does. Okay. I don't want to blow your mind, but—

Alexis:            Okay.

Jessica:            —usually, creative endeavors require hanging out in the muck. You knew this, actually, technically.

Alexis:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            You're just like, "I did it for 15 minutes. It should be over by now." Right? Here's the thing. Currently, Neptune is squaring your Venus at 3 degrees of Capricorn. This is a once-in-a-lifetime event. It's actually really great for making music. It's not good for being online or producing something that—your thinking is it's for the people. It's a high arts transit, so this is what's fucking you up. And this transit just started, but this is what's fucking you up, is that Neptune is telling you to tap within. Hang out alone in your bedroom, in your pajamas. Don't worry about the finished product, but instead, explore accessing yourself through the practice and experience of music.

Alexis:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And even as I say that, I can hear the little click-clack in your brain, a little click-clack, click-clack, click-clack. "How do I make that work? How do I—okay, fine, but how do I move that to the next thing?" And Neptune doesn't do that. Neptune is all about fog, like fog rolling in. Have you ever been in—

Alexis:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            —in a place with fog? Okay. So you know what fog rolling in feels like, right?

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And what you're trying to do is turn it into a product.

Alexis:            Yeah, kind of immediately.

Jessica:            Immediately. And so you're screwing up your creative process, basically, with perfectionism and capitalism.

Alexis:            Yes. And capitalism is a big one because I think that I do feel that calling, and I feel it really often. I feel like that's kind of where I live naturally, is being introspective and really sitting with myself and sitting in the feelings and processing everything and, you know, doing—it's cathartic for me. But I feel like, circumstantially, because of capitalism, it's like my actual time to be able to do that is so limited. And it makes it—that's what overwhelms me even more, is knowing that, God, right now, I can't even afford to do that. And so I need to find it in these little pieces. And that is not giving me what I need.

Jessica:            Totally. So what you're doing is a very good Venus in Capricorn thing because you have Venus in Capricorn. You're like, "Okay. So I don't have enough time to really unpack. I'm going to turn my creative process into grind." Right? That's basically what you're doing. And you know what? It's such a good idea. That's so smart of you. It's linear thinking. If creative process was linear, you'd be rolling in music. But it's not linear, right? It's not linear at all. And so what you're basically saying to me is, "The circumstances of my life are not facilitating me being in my creative flow."

Alexis:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And then you're saying, "What's wrong with me that I'm not being more in my creative flow?"

Alexis:            Right.

Jessica:            So you're taking the data points, and you're not synthesizing them, right—

Alexis:            Right.

Jessica:            —because the truth is this is a two-year transit. So your ability to tap into a creative flow is just getting started. I mean, truly, she starts in exactitude in a week.

Alexis:            Oh my gosh.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Alexis:            The Spring Equinox.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Alexis:            Oh my gosh.

Jessica:            The week of the Equinox. The week of the Equinox. So what we have here is you're just at the precipice. So, for the last three months, you've been feeling this shift in your creativity. You've been feeling a little more romantic, a little more yearning, a little more like, "Why don't I have time to sit in my process?" because this transit has been kind of building up in your system.

                        And this is not a time for creating a product. This is a time for hanging out in the fog and exploring the different things that emerge. And what is likely to emerge is something that you can turn into a product, but it's—if you go in looking for a product, you can't can fog. But you can hang out in the fog and emerge with a glowy, dewy face and feel fabulous about it. But you can't go in for that. That's just not how Neptune works. If we go in with pressure to come up with a product, the muse is like, "That's not actually what I'm here for," right?

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And you actually have this really gorgeous access to your muse, but it doesn't happen when you're not in your body. And no one is ever in their body when they're rushing.

Alexis:            I'm always rushing.

Jessica:            I know you are. I see you. And you're just like, "But can we get to the meat of the reading quicker?" Yeah. No, no. I get it. It's very hard for you. It's hard for you. But the process of hanging out in the uncertainty is actually, I can already see, influencing the music you're going to make.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. So can you accept—and I already know the answer is no, even though it might be yes, and no, it's no, and then it's yes. But can you accept that there is something called spring and also winter?

Alexis:            Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. So, in your creative process—because there are so many things you do creatively. You're not just like, "Oh, I want to make music." You're like, "I want to do this, and I want to do that, and I have to do this, and I have to do that," right?

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            So can you accept that when some parts of your creative process or some parts of your life are in their summertime, others must be in their winter? Because if everything was in full bloom all the time, then what? I mean, I guess then you're in LA. But there are also scorched earth and fire, right?

Alexis:            Right. Yeah.

Jessica:            And also earthquake. There's no real paradise in this situation.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            We have seasons for a reason. And so I want to introduce this approach for your little Virgo Rising and your Mercury/Pluto conjunction, which is to say to yourself the next time you encounter something where you're ramming your perfectionistic, big-picture goals on yourself, to say, "Okay. Wait. Can I identify what season this is in? Is it actually growing right now, but it's just not a thing yet? Is it just fucking dead and we don't know what's going to happen in this—is it winter? Is it actually blooming?"

Ask yourself what season it is. Come up with an answer. And then the next thing is ask yourself if you can accept that for this week—not for a month, not for a year. For a week. And then, every time you obsessively fixate and come back to it during the week, you say, "Actually, I'm on an acceptance for this week path." And then you're allowed to requestion in a week. For somebody else, I would say do this for a month or for three months, but that's not realistic for you.

Alexis: I would struggle.

Jessica:            I mean, I think you'll struggle with a week.

Alexis: Yeah, I will struggle.

Jessica:            I think you'll struggle with a week. So it's a good practice because it's a reasonable practice. You can reason yourself into aligning with a choice for a week.

Alexis:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Right? Now, what's the other question in there?

Alexis:            I've been thinking about a lot of things.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Alexis:            I've been asking myself, can I do this with how I currently have to work at the moment? I'm coming out of being unemployed for like eight months, and I had this opportunity that had been great for my stability, but I've underestimated how much it's taken from everything else. And being a person that needs the kind of time I need, I'm feeling a lot of fear around full sending this opportunity because I feel like it might take away a lot of valuable time. And I'm worried it might be the wrong decision. But I'm also afraid to lose it, because I need it.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. This is kind of a really core issue for you. There's the specifics and the immediacy of the specific thing about work, right?

Alexis:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            But then there's this larger thing of, "I could do this, but all these other things are equally important and equally valid. So how do I choose one thing when I can see the value and merit of so many things?" Right?

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            So we come down to priorities. This is something Moon/Jupiter conjunction people—not great at. Like, not great at, because you feel like, "I should be able to do all my creative work, but shit, I need a job that steals my energy and time. And so, realistically, I can't do all my creative work." And so it's just very hard for you, when you don't have a full-time job, to give yourself the space you need to actually do your creative shit, because you're like, "Oh shit. I need this job."

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And then, when you get the job, it's the same pressure, right?

Alexis:            Yeah. It was awful. I thought, that eight months, I was going to—I was like, "This is perfect. This is what I needed. This is all the time I've needed." And then I spent that time crashing out. And it's like I can't do only structure/all structure, and I can't do no structure.

Jessica:            Right.

Alexis:            I gotta find a balance. And I'm like, I don't know [crosstalk].

Jessica:            Okay. You're saying something really important here. You're saying a lot of things important. One is—let's go back to your North Node, okay? Your North Node in Virgo conjunct the Ascendant in the twelfth house—and this is like—somebody your age, I'm not always talking about the North Node because, in your 20s, you don't need to fucking worry about it. However, your North Node says that you've come here in this lifetime to figure out how to create a lifestyle, rituals, and habits that support your overall welfare. And that Virgo is very material, so it includes finances. That's actually really big. And the implication in this placement is that you don't know how to do that, that you're just like, "Wait. What? No. No."

Alexis:            It was like my life problem—

Jessica:            It is. It is literally.

Alexis:            —is finding the rituals and the habits and sticking to them and [crosstalk].

Jessica:            It literally is. So this information that I'm giving you is simply a validation that that's the problem to focus on because you can easily convince yourself in 15 minutes that there's a different, equally important problem to focus on. No. That's the problem to focus on. So I want to hang out there for just that second and then say this. Take the job if you get the job. Take the job if you get the job. Take the job if you get the job.

Alexis:            Thank you.

Jessica:            You're welcome. You're welcome.

Alexis:            I needed that.

Jessica:            I know. I said it with so much—I really am just trying to sneak it into your subconscious as well as your conscious because Neptune square to Venus can create financial insecurity. So it could create creative instability/insecurity or financial instability. I want you to take the creative because you're so creative, who fucking cares? You'll be fine—

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            —whereas you can't eat creativity. Do you know what I mean? Usually, landlords aren't like, "Cool, you're creative. No problem."

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            So I do want to say take the job. Take the job. Take the job. And recognize that that means that, of your 15 creative projects—and I know we haven't talked about relationships, and I think I have to just say that out loud because I see you, and I think they're very important for you.

Alexis:            They are.

Jessica:            Yes. When you take the job, whether it's this job or a different job, there are going to be some of your creative projects, some of your relationship goals, that you cannot realistically meet at the same time. And so make a list of your priorities. And it's not saying that any of your priorities are not your priorities. It's saying, within your priorities, there has to be an organizational system.

You have a Saturn sextile to Jupiter and a Saturn sextile to a Moon and a Saturn sextile to your Midheaven. You can create order. You don't like it. You feel stifled by it. But it's actually not a skill I would have to teach you. It's just a skill I want to remind you to tap into because there's this part of you that feels, when you say, "This is, on my list of priorities, number two," that you're turning your back on that thing, that you're failing yourself, or you're taking an easy way out or something like that. And that's not true. What's true is that you can do five things right now, but you can't do five things well right now.

Alexis: Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And if you believed anywhere in these eight months that you would for sure have a job at the nine-month mark, then you might have been able to lean in and really be creative in the eight months. But because you just don't know, you kind of have to be where you're at.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And when you accept that all we can do as humans is be where we're at, then it makes sense that we then have to prioritize what we can hold where we're at. And that's not a failure. For you, if you can come to mastery of this—I mean, you're kind of wild and unstoppable, right? You're very powerful. You've got great communication skills inside of you, like really powerful communications skills. And music is communication. There are so many ways that we communicate. There are so many layers upon which this is valid for you.

                        And your problem is demanding too much of yourself all the time, all at once. That's your problem. And in the realm of problems, you could do worse because it's not a lack of creativity. It's not a lack of vision. It's not a lack of capacity. It's demanding that you bake a cake and a lasagna, clean the kitchen, and go on a first date all on the same day. It's too much. It's too much. So the question is, can you prioritize? And again, I think the answer in this exact moment is no. But it's a good goal, right? It's a good goal.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            So I can feel you have like 500 questions.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Hit me. Hit me with them.

Alexis:            I don't know what they are anymore. I think I'm kind of just connecting the dots between this and conversations I've had recently in therapy and with my girlfriend and just all types of—you know. Everyone says the same thing, and I'm just like, "Okay. So what do I do?"

Jessica:            How do you actually do it?

Alexis:            But you're telling me what to do. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. I'm giving you some instruction. I'm going to have you say your full name out loud. I'm going to look at you psychically.

Alexis:            [redacted].

Jessica:            So here's the thing that's really, I guess, Scorpio. You're a Scorpio. But also, you really struggle with—you want everything to be private and well protected, and you want everything to be public and easily accessible to other people. You really are 50/50. You're not—

Alexis:            I can't—I don't know how to stop.

Jessica:            I get that. I get it. You are not even 49/51 about this. You are 50/50. So it's like an internal struggle. As I look at you energetically, I see that. 50 percent of you is like, "Please read me like a book." And the other 50 percent of you is like, "Don't you fucking look at me. Don't look at me."

Alexis:            I'm just scared.

Jessica:            I know. I respect you. That's fine. This lovely Sagittarius and Jupiter stuff that you have is optimistic and resilient and open. And that's a huge part of your personality. And also, these exact same placements incline you to be so demanding of everything being good, everything working well, everything going great, that it gives you this—like this bright light gives you a deep shadow.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            A deep shadow. And you have a terror that I'm going to see something and tell you not that you're doing something wrong but that you are wrong, that you're going the wrong direction, that something is bad. And that terror—which is, in a way, not even fucking real because if you find there's a mistake, you are always like, "Okay. How do I deal with it? Redirect." You're actually very resilient. But you're terrified of recognizing that you've made a mistake.

                        This comes back to this central question about, why are you weird with time? You know how to read a clock. That's actually not your issue. For some people, it is. They're just like, "Time is not real." You get it, but the fear that you have inside of you—it just takes up so much space that you react to it instead of sit with it and being like, "Oh, I'm scared of failing, but if I fail, I'll just redirect and I'll just learn from it. I actually will just be accountable to the mistakes I've made like I always am."

                        The things you're scared of—some of it is perfectionism and a lot of pressure you place on yourself. Fair, fair. Some of it's not yours. Some of it's inherited stuff.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Is that your mom I'm seeing?

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. I think so, too. So another piece of how do I handle this advice that I'm going to give you is, the next time you feel that feeling—you know what feeling I'm talking about where you're just like, "I can't. I can't even tolerate being present with this"—identify that you're having that feeling. I mean, I kind of want to call it resistance/fear cloud feeling. Does that feel right?

Alexis:            Yeah. That's what it—yeah, very—yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. So resistance/fear cloud. Okay. So you name it. On a scale from 1 to 10, 10 being like, "I'm drowning. I'm melting"—the worst—on a scale from 1 to 10, how big is the resistance/fear cloud right now? It'll never be a 2, probably, because you're not going to even notice it if it's a 2.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            So it'll probably be higher. So number it. If you can—so, at that point, you might need to just fucking breathe. You might just need to take a breath. It might be that simple because when we go into this state of perfectionistic anxiety, we tend to hold our breath, right? That's like a human thing, not an astrology thing.

Alexis:            Yeah. Perfectionistic anxiety is really good. That feels like exactly what it is.

Jessica:            It's literally like—yeah. It's not panic anxiety like a lot of people have. It's just like you are the worst boss. You're so awful. Like, you're not worth—

Alexis:            My friends call it the my name police.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. I get that. The level at which you police your progress—who wins? Who invited the cops to this conversation?

Alexis:            Oh my God.

Jessica:            But you did.

Alexis:            I literally hate the police.

Jessica:            I mean, literally. And also, oh man, but then how do you justify the way you talk to yourself?

Alexis:            I don't know. It's really—there's no justification for it. But it's hard for me to unhook from the idea that this is easy for somebody, just not me.

Jessica:            Ah. I see. Okay. Okay. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay.

Alexis:            Like it's me.

Jessica:            Yeah. I get that. Okay. Let's think about something that's kind of easy for you. You walk into a room. There's people you've never met before. That's a great example, right? Easy for you.

Alexis:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            You know how to orient yourself. You're like, "This person is a piece of shit. This person is open. Stay away from here. Walk over there." You don't even think about it. Am I seeing it correctly that your girlfriend's not like that?

Alexis:            I think we're similar in that way.

Jessica:            Okay.

Alexis:            I think she's a little—I think maybe I'm just a little more discerning than her in that I'm more suspicious. But she also can pick it up.

Jessica:            She can—okay.

Alexis:            But she gives a lot more benefit of the doubt than I do.

Jessica:            I see. I see. I see. Okay. So let's not use her as an example. Let's just use—

Alexis:            Yeah. And she does get a little more socially anxious than me.

Jessica:            That's what I was seeing, is her social anxiety.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. So she may or may not be the greatest example, but you probably have at least four friends that have more social anxiety than you—

Alexis:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            —because almost everyone has more social anxiety than you. Do you know that? You know that, right?

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. That's not your problem. So what does it mean to any of your friends or the moments when your girlfriend is being anxious that you're better at navigating social situations than them? Does it mean anything?

Alexis:            No.

Jessica:            Literally nothing. Your bestie's social anxiety in the presence of your social fluidity—completely unrelated. One means nothing about the other. If you're good at socializing and they're not good at socializing, it doesn't mean anything, other than nothing. It literally doesn't mean anything. So, when you sit around comparing your progress to that of people who you've decided are further along than you—which, by the way, I mean, a lot of us do that. I can point to placements in your birth chart around that, and you have a lot of them that incline you to do that. But the truth of the matter is it's like, yeah, okay, it's human. It's human, especially in a social media world, right?

Alexis:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            But when you do that, all you do is abandon the present moment and disempower yourself. So think of those moments when your girlfriend has social anxiety. If, in those moments, she compares herself to you, she's going to have worse social anxiety.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And if, instead, she's like, "Oh. I just need to not talk to the most extroverted people here. I need to just give myself the space to step outside for a minute and take a breath"—if she just does what she needs to do to navigate where she's at, then she either feels better or she doesn't, and her life keeps on going. But if she compares herself to you and tries to act like you, she's going to suffer, right?

Alexis:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            So here's the thing. Let's go back to these eight months where you haven't had a job job.

Alexis:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Hindsight is a bitch because you can look back and be like, "I've wasted all this energy I could have spent being creative and leaning into the spaciousness of the time I have." But it wasn't spacious time, because you were scared that you were falling off a cliff the whole time.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Right. You can only be who you are, where you are, when you are. And all of your successes or failures emerge from who you are, when you are, where you are. They will never come from you comparing yourself to someone else or to who you thought you should be or would be at this moment. No success comes from that—like, none. And while you can police yourself into certain behaviors, you cannot police yourself into a healthy life. You cannot police yourself into a creative process, literally. Right?

Alexis:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            You cannot police yourself into authentic change, because policing is inherently a perfectionistic, fucked-up approach.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And so another "How do I do this?" piece of advice I'm going to give you is—we're going to nickname that voice in your head Cop. It's very creative. I'm a very creative person, as you can see. We're going to just nickname that part of you the cop. And you can say—you need to start talking to your inner cop and just be like, "No. Thank you for pointing to danger. I'm going to take it from here." We're not using carceral language. We're not using carceral motivations. We're not using punishment and comparison because that's the interjected perpetrator. It's taking on the voice of the perpetrator, of society, of white supremacy, of patriarchy, of capitalism, and making it your own inner dialogue.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Again, we all do it. We all do it. That's how the system works. It's like the system is inside of us. And also, if anyone can think about thinking while thinking and deconstruct motivations while also smiling and making polite conversation, it's fucking you. And you knew I was going to say that, right? You knew where I was going right away.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            You're very good at that. You have a very deep way of thinking, and you're very adept. You're really capable of thinking about multiple things at once and being innovative in your approach when the cop is kicked out of the building.

Alexis:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            When the cop is in the building, you just get obsessive, and you loop down. Right?

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            So something that you said in the original question you wrote that you didn't say when you were asking the question was that you have wanted to send in questions for the podcast before, but you haven't because you always do it what you think is too late.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            I thought that was really interesting because you set up this idea of there's a time frame in which you're allowed to send me a question, and there's a time frame in which, "Well, I've lost the whole, entire opportunity. What's the fucking point? It's over."

Alexis:            Yeah. I do do that.

Jessica:            Yeah. And that's just all your brain. It's just all you. It's all you. And I would call that the cop in your mind, right?

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            You just created a consequence and a timeline that was perfect fiction, perfect fiction.

Alexis:            Right.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think you do that a lot, in a lot of contexts.

Alexis:            I do.

Jessica:            You do. And it literally—the only person who suffers for this at all is you. The approach shift here for you is not ideological, because you already have all the ideas. It's emotional. It's tolerating that cloud of fear. It's tolerating that part of you that's like, "I have the answers. If I don't write a question in to Jessica by this date, then I'm not allowed to. I have to wait till next year." Whatever it is that you come up with, recognizing, "Oh, that's this voice inside of me that seems like it knows everything because it's claiming to be the authority. But it's just a fucking cop." And you know how you handle that, right?

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            You don't fuck with that.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            So it's about making the emotional shift of being like, "Oh, I can emotionally change my attitude about how I respond to this," not, "I can change that voice in my head," because yeah, that'll take decades. It's not going to change this month.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            But it is a question of, can you recognize what's happening and then emotionally sit with it a little longer, be curious about it, so that you can adapt? You're great at adapting when you're not reacting.

Alexis:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Right? And I feel like I need to say this again. Take the job—

Alexis:            Okay.

Jessica:            —because in your impatient mode, the only thing that's true is the thing that's right in front of you. But if you reflect back through your 20s, you can already see that times that you thought were a waste of time, times where you thought you were staring at a blank wall, actually ended up becoming something else with time. This will become increasingly true for you as you age if you keep on sticking with the work. You are so quick to try to turn ideas into things, feelings into plans, opportunities into the opportunity—

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            —that you miss out on the moment because all those things happen in the future. They're right around the corner. They're right around the corner. They're right around the corner. And this is the problem with Jupiter. And this is why, even though all the astrology texts say Jupiter governs happiness and luck, I see that it governs depression because if you're always focused on what's around the corner, then you're never here, and nothing's ever good enough, and no success is ever big enough.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And that's depressing. And so, again, how can you, in the moment, be like, "Oh, okay. The job. This is a really cool opportunity. Whether or not I get this opportunity/I land it, it's actually still a cool opportunity"? Do you know that it's actually a cool opportunity?

Alexis:            Yeah. I think I'm really nervous about it, but yes, I know it's a really cool opportunity.

Jessica:            Yeah. I mean, it's fair to be nervous about it. But your nervousness is only because you care. You don't get nervous about shit you don't care about.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            That's why you're not socially anxious in a lot of situations, because you're like, "I don't know if I care."

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            But this—your nerves are telling you that you want it. And because you're so uncomfortable with yearning because you feel that you're quickly turning your feelings into actions—right? So you're like, "Yearning should be success." But yearning is actually like a creative hotspot. And failure to achieve a thing—so, if you don't get this job as an example—is not a failure of you. It's just things didn't go the way you expected them to go or you wanted them to. But that hurts you. You're being so reasonable in your face, but in your energy, that is not an acceptable thing I just said.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay. I'm going to give you homework.

Alexis:            Okay.

Jessica:            Now, you're very young, so this is going to be not as impactful as if we were doing it in your later 30s, but still homework. You're going to write down a list. Do you have old friends, like friends you've had since high school or whatever?

Alexis:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Okay. You might need to lean on some of them. Go through every year since high school and think about the shit that you really, really, really, really, really, really wanted. Write it down, all the things you really, really, really, really wanted. And then, for all of the things that you really, really, really, really wanted and you got them, did you actually want them in the end? For all the things you really, really, really wanted and you didn't get, did something better or positive or valuable emerge from that? Is this homework you could do?

Alexis:            Yeah, I think so.

Jessica:            Okay. The thing about this Sagittarius/Jupiter shit is that even when you don't get what you want, you get something. And sometimes, when you force things to come together that aren't flowing, you kind of regret it.

Alexis:            Yeah. I think that's a fear I have about this. I'm like, do I really want it for the stability of it? And am I kind of trying to force something that my soul isn't feeling to work?

Jessica:            You do want it for the stability of it. You do.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            No, no, no, no, no. Okay. Let's hang out with this. You do want it for the stability of it.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            There's also some other shiny parts.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            There's some shiny parts. But if you were independently wealthy, would you be taking this job? No.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Of course you wouldn't be taking this job. But am I correct in assuming you are not independently wealthy?

Alexis:            No, I'm not independently wealthy.

Jessica:            No. Okay. Okay. So is there something wrong with taking a job that ticks a bunch of boxes, is imperfect, and pays money?

Alexis:            No.

Jessica:            Oh, absolutely fucking not. But this is where we come back to that list of priorities. You have a hard time—making money is on your list of priorities, but committing yourself full time to creativity is on your list of priorities. And the second one of these items moves to first place, you're like, "No. That's wrong." And then you reshuffle them, and you're like, "No. That can't be right." Right?

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And so what I'm saying is, yeah, it's not perfect. We are not going for perfect. We're going for what is the best option at this time based on all factors. And based on all factors—haven't had a job in eight months, ready for a job—okay. That's a fucking factor, right?

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            That's some stability, some finances. Yes, thank you, please. And does that mean you're not growing creatively? No. Does that mean you're not producing at the same level? Yes. The same level as what? TBD, because you haven't been producing at any kind of great level because you've been fucking stressed out because you haven't had a job.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            So it brings us back to this moment, which is it's hard for you to suss out the difference between, "I'm making a choice that includes compromise," and, "I'm settling," and, "I'm cutting myself short," right?

Alexis:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            You're having a really hard time gauging the difference.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And this comes back to priority lists. Mercury in astrology governs your thinking, your mind. And you have Mercury in Sagittarius. So you're just sending out fucking fireworks. You're just sending out fireworks. You're just like, ideas—sometimes they explode. Sometimes they make a lot of noise, but nothing really happens. You're just sending out fireworks.

                        And so it's hard for you to track priorities, compromise, what compromises compromise me versus what compromises facilitate my larger good, because it's all fucking fireworks. It's like smoke and noise and excitement.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And so what I'm telling you to do is ground that shit down into a list. Can you work with lists?

Alexis:            Sometimes. Sometimes they work really well, and sometimes I struggle with the assignment. But I think I can in this moment. Yes.

Jessica:            What I would recommend doing, because of your Mercury placement, is color-code your lists. So, whether you use the computer to make a list or you use pens to make a list, decide that money stuff you're always going to write in green, and emotional happiness stuff you're always going to write in blue, and creative stuff you're always going to write in red or something like that so that when you are writing these lists, you're creatively engaging in the process and not just thinking in a linear way. So we're bringing some fireworks in. And when you glance at the list without even taking in the words, you already have a feeling, like, "This is all fucking blue," or whatever it is. And that can help.

                        This won't work for everything, but when it comes to job stuff, this will help you, okay? I've given you so much homework. Oh my God. So you're going to have to relisten to this and sit with a pen and write shit down.

Alexis:            Yes. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Good, good, good. Okay. Great. Hold on for a second. Hold on for a second. Time is really weird because, on the one hand, time is linear, and it's finite, and it's the most material thing. It's like everyone has 24 hours, right?

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And on the other hand, time—it's like, if I'm stressed about something, time crawls. And if I'm excited about something, time speeds. Right? Time is—it is like Silly Putty. You can pull it out. You can smoosh it together. It's a weird thing. For you, giving yourself permission to be in the present time is really important because you're constantly present/future, present/future, present/future, present/future. And that means you're robbing the present in favor of a theoretical future, which is either very good or very bad, depending on your mood.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Behaving this way sometimes spurs you to great creativity. And that's why you stick with it, right? Because sometimes it really inspires you. But you're edging towards your fucking Saturn Return, which means it's not sustainable, and you're dealing with the weight of it now, right? What we can do in our 20s we can't necessarily do in our 30s and upwards. Let me tell you when your Saturn Return is actually going to hit—because it's in June. It starts in June.

Alexis:            Okay.

Jessica:            And it will impact you off and on until March of 2027.

Alexis:            Okay.

Jessica:            So it's less than a year, but it's almost a year long.

Alexis:            Okay.

Jessica:            And your Saturn Return will have so much to do with tapping into your agency. And when I say that, what I'm really talking about is bring your body along for the ride. So much of what we've been talking about has been like, how can you be here, be present, notice how you feel, not be a Saturnine jerk to yourself, right?

Alexis:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And so what this will feel like is things slowing down. And you fucking hate things slowing down. So then the assignment becomes, "How can I take care of myself around my feelings right now around things being slow?" instead of, "How can I speed them up?" which is what you tend to think when you feel like things are slowing down. You're so concerned about being successful. Like, you're so concerned about being successful. It's remarkable, actually, how concerned about being successful you are because you think that if you are successful, you will feel some kind of way.

Alexis:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            You've had success, yeah?

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Did you feel some kind of way when you had success?

Alexis:            For a moment, maybe.

Jessica:            Yeah. A fleeting fucking moment, because you achieve something, and the second you have it, you're like, "But it could be bigger. It could be better."

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. So the question is not, "Should I try to be successful?" Be successful. Strive. Shoot off fucking fireworks and then be like, "But I can make bigger fireworks and different fireworks," and great, great, great, great, great. But if you don't hang out in the joy of the moment, if you don't tap into the gifts of the process, then your life is just striving, beating yourself up for not getting there quick enough, fast enough, in the right way, having 15 minutes of relaxation and then repeat. And again, you can pull that shit off in your 20s, and it gets fucking exhausting in your 30s.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            The primary advice I'm giving you is about working on tolerating your emotions. It's like being able to tolerate how you feel so that you don't keep on going down—you have these coping mechanisms. It's like feeling/action, feeling/redirect. And so, if you interrupt those actions and redirection, you actually have more energy, more choices, more agency, and also, you will feel your feelings more, which sucks sometimes, you know?

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            But you won't feel depressed more. You'll just feel other feelings you don't like more.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Alexis:            I'll take it.

Jessica:            My question for you is, is there something we didn't get to? Is there a question that's—

Alexis:            We didn't get to, kind of, how I go about following my dreams and whatever around just kind of the world falling apart. But I kind of feel like it's sort of connected to what we've been talking about. I can't police myself from doing these things.

Jessica:            Correct. And within that, I mean, listen. Listen. The world is going to keep falling apart. You're going to have a lot of time to figure this out. And within that, sometimes you have real clarity about how to participate, whether we want to call it with activism or participate in the world to be generative towards social justice. And sometimes you have the feeling but not the clarity.

In those moments where you have the feeling but not the clarity, I want to encourage you to ask yourself, "Is my cup empty?" because my guess is that either your cup is empty or it's half full. And in those moments, I am not recommending that you say, "Okay. How do I fill my cup?" because that's emotion/action—again, it's policing—but instead to say, "Okay. That's why I'm not generating ideas or engagement. How can I take care of myself right now so that I can have the energy to hop in, basically?" because what I'm seeing for you is not that you're apathetic, uninformed, and self-indulgent, individualistic person. Correct? That's not you.

Alexis: Yeah, no.

Jessica:            It's just there's only so much that we can sustain. And this is at the core of your fucking crisis because if this was a "set off fireworks" situation, you'd be in there. You'd have all the right fireworks, you'd share them with the people, and then you'd go home. But this isn't. This is a marathon. This is like set off one firework once a week for the next three years. It's not your comfort zone.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And so you set off a couple fireworks, and then you're fucking tired or life happens, and you're like, "I'm failing."

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And so this is, again, about pacing and proportion because this is a long-term crisis we're in. And your chart happens to be being hit up quite a bit by these transits, so it's really directly impacting you in your personal life.

Alexis:            Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And that means you need to give yourself space to cope with that and to deal with that. Does that answer that question?

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay.

Alexis:            I think so.

Jessica:            Okay. Hold on. Hold on. Do you cry?

Alexis:            Yeah, a lot.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. And do you take baths?

Alexis:            No, not really.

Jessica:            Oh. Do you have a bathtub?

Alexis:            I do have a bathtub.

Jessica:            Because I just kind of wonder if what would be helpful is for you to have a ritual, not something that you do every week, but a ritual that you can return to when you're feeling really sad about the world, when you're feeling disconnected from your creativity, when you're feeling a sense or remorse or loss around a path not taken, if you would maybe make yourself some sort of witch's bath. I'm talking about—and let me be really clear. There are certain crystals that you will kill yourself or poison yourself with doing this with, so you have to Google—like, make sure.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            You could put rose quartz. You could put clear quartz in a bath with you. You could do herbies. I don't know. Do you go witchy?

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            Do some witchiness in a bath, and create it as a place to weep thoroughly. Now, this might not work if you're like, "Ew. Filthy water. This is not relaxing for me." But you can do a different version. Bath is my reference point, but I want you to know the reason why it's bath as my reference point is because you're alone. Your water is like an emotional and spiritual conductor. And it's a place to connect elementally to forces outside of you. So maybe that means, for you, you go to the ocean. That's dirty water.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            I mean, it's all dirty, right? But okay. But we won't be Virgo Risings about it for a moment. We'll just say connecting to water can be really helpful for you. You do have a lot of fire and a lot of air, but your core is water. So tapping in that way may help.

Alexis:            Okay.

Jessica:            Okay?

Alexis:            Yeah. That makes sense.

Jessica:            Yeah. Did we hit it? Is there something—

Alexis:            Yes. I could talk to you for a really long time.

Jessica:            Right. Right. We could talk for the next three hours. Yeah.

Alexis:            But I feel like I got a lot.

Jessica:            Okay. Good. I'm so glad. And so my hope is that you'll relisten. Notes. You'll have a lot of homework.

Alexis:            Yeah.

Jessica:            And good luck with the job.

Alexis:            Thank you.

Jessica:            Yeah. I know it'll cost you energy and hours, but it actually seems really kind of cool to me. So fingers crossed.

Alexis:            Yeah. It is cool.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Alexis:            Thank you.

Jessica:            My pleasure.

Alexis:            Thank you so, so, so, so, so much.

Jessica:            My pleasure, totally.

Alexis:            This is amazing.