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

A.B.:               Thank you. Hi, Jessica. I have a question for you. After a recent end of six-year chapter in tech, I'm being forced to face what I want with my career and next steps in life. And so, with the tech market being difficult to navigate, I'm not entirely sure if that's the industry that I need to remain in or if I truly want to go back to that, or if I should be focusing my time and energy in other paths like art or creative work or going back to school, while also trying to build community and a support system and more relationships that are fulfilling and uplifting to kind of push me into my potential.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I hear you. And what were you doing in tech?

A.B.:               Putting out fires, for lack of a better phrase, so escalation management. So angry people messaging in—I'm the guy who calms them down and fixes their problems.

Jessica:            So okay. I'm going to pull up your chart in just a second, but did you like that work?

A.B.:               Parts of it.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. And is it technical—like, is that transferable to other industries, or is it kind of tech-specific?

A.B.:               Kind of both, because I think that the part that I enjoyed was the fixing, building systems out of nothing, process improvement stuff versus the actual day-to-day of, "This is the issue."

Jessica:            Totally. Yeah.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Totally. Okay. Let me pull up your chart. You were born July 26th, 1994, in a place—not everybody needs to fucking know everything; people have privacy—at 9:58 a.m. local time. Okay. Are you not working in this moment?

A.B.:               Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. And you're trying to figure out what to do for a living, but it's not really just about what to do for a living. It's about what to do with your life. Is that right?

A.B.:               Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. And money—how much of a necessity is it that you giddyap and get a damn job, or do you have a little bit of space?

A.B.:               It's getting to the I need to get my—

Jessica:            Giddyap.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. So you're going through two Saturn transits and two Pluto transits. We're going to talk about that in a minute. But first, I want to say, looking at your birth chart—I'm going to astro babble briefly, and then I'm going to make it make sense, okay?

A.B.:               Okay.

Jessica:            You've got this Moon/Saturn conjunction in your sixth house. It's square to Mars. It's opposite to Venus and Chiron, which is also square to Mars in the ninth. So, in English, what this means is work is so important to you—like, labor, work, what you do day to day—when you get into a job, you have a tendency to really—I'm going to say overcommit. Does that track?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Just like you go hard. You just are like, "Well, these are the rules, and I'm going to triple down on the damn rules," right, to the point where you are easily feeling trapped?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Not necessarily?

A.B.:               Kinda. Kinda. I guess trapped in what way?

Jessica:            Just trapped in an emotional way.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. But the thing is your skills are high-performing in capitalism. You are a good employee. You show up on time. You do your work. You even sometimes stay late. You are the employee that the system wants. And so, if you decided to get another job in your field, honestly, you could. I don't see that actually being a problem. Have you been trying to get a job in your field?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And it's not working?

A.B.:               No.

Jessica:            Okay. Hold, please. We're grabbing the cards right away. Okay. Hold on. You've been trying to get a job in your field, and it's not working. And okay. So I know, 2026, fucking tech. Fucking job market. So how long have you been trying?

A.B.:               Six months.

Jessica:            Six months. So it's not working. Interesting. Okay.

A.B.:               (laughs)

Jessica:            (laughs) It's laugh or cry. That is fucked up.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            I'm so sorry. Okay. It's not working.

A.B.:               No.

Jessica:            Hmm. Let's dig at this because Pluto is currently square to your Jupiter. Jupiter is in the second house. So this started, like, February. Is that when you started looking for a job?

A.B.:               More seriously, yeah.

Jessica:            Shit. Okay. So Pluto square Jupiter is a meaningful part of the culprit. So you don't want to do this work anymore?

A.B.:               I don't think so.

Jessica:            I don't think so either. So you mentioned creative fields, and you mentioned going back to school. Say more.

A.B.:               I am trying to figure out how to bring back what I loved or reignite the passion for the creative photography aspects. I guess I'm trying to re-create 2016. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. The time has come and gone. Okay. Okay. So, if you were to work within the field of photography, what does that mean? Like shooting weddings?

A.B.:               No, probably in a lab or helping people with printing and that kind of—

Jessica:            Oh, interesting. Oh, so the technical aspect of it.

A.B.:               Technical stuff. Yeah.

Jessica:            Interesting. Okay. Okay. So, still, we're still in tech on a different level altogether. Okay. And have you tried to go in that direction? I imagine there's not a lot of jobs.

A.B.:               One just popped up recently that I'm interested in, but I'm having—I don't know—imposter syndrome or not feeling like I'm going to have what they need for the skills that I know could transfer, but I just have not had them in the arts atmosphere. So not sure if that's even the way.

Jessica:            Definitely, you should apply. For sure, for sure, for sure, you should apply. Let people reject you. Let me say that again, okay, because you have this Saturn/Moon conjunction. Sorry. It's terrible. I'm sorry. Because you have this Saturn/Moon conjunction, you are really fucking sensitive to rejection. It is kind of your nightmare.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            So it makes sense that you're like, "If there's a risk that they would reject me, better that I don't even try." But actually, this period of your life is testing you in a number of ways. But I want to say the past couple of years, you've gone through a lot of growth and a lot of stalled periods.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And what it was, quote unquote, "supposed to" have taught you is what's important, what actually matters to you. And currently, Pluto is opposing your Sun and squaring your Jupiter. And what this shakes down to is you are being challenged to step into your power in a way that is not confrontational or about grabbing power or abusing power, but instead just being empowered.

And that's why I think you have to apply for this job tout suite, like tonight, because you don't need to do a perfect job; you just need to take a risk. Pluto square to Jupiter is a transit where we're supposed to take big swings. We're not supposed to play it safe. And when it comes to work, you have a pattern of playing it safe and then making weird, impulsive moves. Is that correct, the impulsive moves part?

A.B.:   Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Welcome to Mars. It's Mars. It's Mars. It's Mars. So all of this to say, because Saturn is currently—this month—squaring your Mercury, you're in kind of a depressive, negative state of mind. Right? It's like you're seeing everything that's not working. Yeah.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            It's like a literal weight on your shoulders. And this transit is a fucking pain in the ass. And it is happening almost all of August, all July. It goes away for a couple months, and then it comes back to you in March. And then it's over. It lasts, like, the first half of March.

A.B.:               Okay.

Jessica:            So Saturn square Mercury has you questioning what you believe. It puts you in this depressive, scarcity-based frame of mind so that you just feel like, "I don't have friends. I don't know who to talk to.  I don't know what to fucking say." Tracking? Tracking? Tracking?

A.B.:               Yeah. Oh no.

Jessica:            I know. It's terrible. It's fucking terrible. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry. But there's actually very good things about it because—there's a couple things. Saturn puts you in a depressive frame of mind, so you can't completely trust that depressive frame of mind that you're in because it's a mood as much as it is anything else. But the other thing is Saturn confronts you with reality.

And so the reality may be that you've built up friendships that you don't really know how to share the bad stuff with, or maybe you don't have enough friendships in this new incarnation of your life, or whatever it may be. It confronts you with the reality, and it makes you not able to distance yourself from that reality, which is why it feels like a fucking weight.

A.B.:   Yeah.

Jessica:            The other thing about this transit is it makes most people think, "Well, I should just compromise. I should just do whatever I need to do to get a job. I don't even think about my dreams." And you know I'm a card-carrying realist, so I'm not going to tell you, "Chase your dreams. There's no dreams." You know what I mean? You've been looking for a job for six months. That is a hard reality.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            But I will say this is a really good time for making a plan and strategizing and considering what has worked in the past and what hasn't. You interview well, eh? No?

A.B.:               I guess, because I have gotten to final rounds and then gotten removed from it. So I'm like, "Okay, what's happening?"

Jessica:            That sucks. And then, before this period of your life, have you primarily gotten jobs when you've gotten to meet in person?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. That's what it looks like, is you typically speaking like—you make a good impression. Somebody meets you, and they're like, "Oh, I can trust this person. This person is reliable and will do what he says he's going to do."

A.B.:               For the most part.

Jessica:            I mean—

A.B.:               In a work setting, yeah. I feel like I'm—

Jessica:            Work. We're just talking work. We're just talking work.

A.B.:               Yeah. Cool.

Jessica:            Yeah. Socially is a different thing.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            You have a Leo Sun in the eleventh house, so that's a different conversation. But for work stuff, broadly speaking, you instill confidence. So I'm not saying 100 percent of the time, but we're in the 90 percentile. Okay. This is a period of your life that is trying to push you outside of your comfort zone, but it's not trying to push you outside of alignment or what's in integrity for you.

                        And so I just want to pull back because this little piece of reality is scratching at my brain—money.

A.B.:               Okay. Yeah.

Jessica:            Do you have a person, a situation, a savings account that you can rely on while you figure this out if it takes a couple months? Or is it like fucking now you have to figure it out?

A.B.:               We've adjusted our spending, my wife and I. But yeah, other than that, it's like I'm getting stressed a little bit because—

Jessica:            Yeah. I mean, sure. Yeah. I mean, even me sitting with the question, I'm getting stressed, right?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Just because there's the realities of your situation. And that brings me to another part of my question, which is do you want a job as opposed to self-employment? It sounds like you do; you'd rather have an employer to clock in/clock out.

A.B.:               Yes and no, because I think I want the stability of what that clock in-clock out has, but I don't know if I want that same corporate structure.

Jessica:            Totally. The lifestyle is not exactly it. And are you doing—well, of course you're not, because you have unemployment. But might you do side-hustle consulting work in some way? Is that a thing that you could do?

A.B.:               Yeah, only in that I don't know how to start it, but I would be open to it.

Jessica:            Yeah.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            The struggle with it is promoting yourself and making those connections, which is—it's so uncomfortable for you to be like, "This is what I am. This is what I'm doing. Hey. Hire me."

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            It's not your comfort zone. Okay. So let me slow down and ground into this because there's a part about creativity and community, and I haven't forgotten, and we're putting it here. But the stuff about job—is there a core question I should be answering around this?

A.B.:               Should I have been doing what I have been doing currently, but it doesn't seem to be working, or should I be patient and it'll pay out kind of thing? Or am I just putting energy in the wrong basket for no reward?

Jessica:            I see. Okay. Great. Let me hit the cards on this because it's a nice, specific question. So what I'm really asking the cards is, if you continue to do what you're doing, what is the outcome? Okay. This is not a clear answer, which—I'm so sorry because it's the opposite of what you were hoping. We have the Four of Disks. We have the Seven of Swords and then the Magician card.

                        In English, what this means is, yeah, continue doing what you're doing. You will also continue to feel anxious, and then it will lead you eventually to your intuition. So, in other words, no, that's not your best move. What you're doing isn't working, and if you continue to do what you're doing, eventually you'll figure it out, but I don't get the sense that doing what you're doing is going to lead to a job you feel great about. It just doesn't look like it's grounding.

                        So what does that mean? So then the next question is—what is the next question? You tell me what the next question is.

A.B.:               Do I pivot in the other direction to something more creative or something less stable, for lack of a better phrase?

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. Yeah.

A.B.:               And/or will that be the same avenue?

Jessica:            Mm-hmm. That's a good question. You know, I can't help but think about fucking AI in this conversation and how it's fucking up the job market for everybody.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And of course, you're in an immediate vulnerable state with AI because you're not hammering wood and building chairs, right?

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            Anyone who's working in tech is vulnerable in this moment. This other question has another fucking annoying answer. We have our Princess of Disks. We have the Tower card, the card you don't want to see. And then we have victory—

A.B.:               Okay.

Jessica:            —the Six of Wands. Okay. So this reading, I'll just say, says very frustrating information because it's the better direction for you to go for sure. It is more in alignment with what you want for your life, what is authentic for you, but it will cost you. It's not like that's a direction you go in and it's not going to be psychologically jarring for you or emotionally jarring for you. Or let's say you apply for this job and you even get this job. It's still going to be like starting in a brand-new position in this role, which is really different than the confidence and the competency that you had in your last position in your last role. This is not a tidy answer. This is the better option, but it's not the best option.

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            Really, what you actually want to do is to go to the arts; is that correct? You didn't have to worry about all the fucking world; you would just be going into the arts.

A.B.:               Yep.

Jessica:            There's something I'm missing. There's something I'm missing. Hold on. Say your full name out loud.

A.B.:               [redacted].

Jessica:            Thank you. Thank you. You are fucking tired, and you're sad. I'm sorry. Yeah. You are tired, and you are sad. And it's like, right now, you just don't have juice, you know?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And this whole thing is requiring a lot of juice, like, "Hi. This is my name. This is what I'm doing. Hire me," or even going out making new friends—all of this, like connecting with community, fucking opening social media—all of it takes energy. And right now, you are tapped.

A.B.:               Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Did somebody important to you pass?

A.B.:               Yeah, a little over a year ago.

Jessica:            I'm sorry.

A.B.:               My aunt.

Jessica:            I was going to say it's an older woman. Yeah. Okay.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Were you close to her?

A.B.:               Yeah. She kind of raised me.

Jessica:            I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. Do you mind if I share with you what she's saying?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            She's an intense woman, yeah?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            She's getting my attention, and then she's like, "I don't know if I actually want to talk to you." She's very protective of you, like intensely protective of you and your privacy. And you didn't have time to grieve. It's not just her death that really rocked you. She's also showing me your relationship with your mom and where your mom is at has really rattled you. And quitting your job was the right thing to do. You didn't make a mistake. But you made the choice because you could control it, and everything else felt so fucking out of control. She doesn't like it that I cussed at all. She was very—does she not like cussing?

A.B.:               No.

Jessica:            She's very against the cussing. Sorry.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. She's like, "Not in my name." Okay. So—sorry. So okay. Are there cultural practices for grief that are your inheritance?

A.B.:               I'm not sure.

Jessica:            She says—less delicately than I'm going to say—look it up. Do a little investigation, whether—if you have family members that you could ask about this or ye olde www.askaquestion.com—you know what I mean?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Do something. This could be really helpful for you, and it's like you have this huge part of yourself—she's saying it's this huge part of your heart, but she's showing your heart as this massive thing that you have just pushed away for years. She feels that you need to return to your body and return to your culture because that is where your grief and the healing from your grief lives. It's in that space in your body, and your body is your culture. She's showing me this—we can't separate the two. And she says that you know yourself, but you are not letting yourself be with yourself. Okay.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. And she's so loving, and I just have this feeling about her. It's like she's not wrong about things. She might be not right for me about things, but she's got such a certainty. She says you have to belong to yourself. She's not saying, "And it's a problem that you don't." She's saying that, at this point, it's a habit. It's not your truth anymore. And she knows it. You know?

                        And so this process—you keep on falling back on these habits of not dealing with things or not letting yourself have really big emotions or whatever it is. And it's like the devil you know. And she wants you to push that devil out. She wants you to—not to change. She's not telling you to change. She's telling you to stop acting like you don't know who you are, which is a really different thing. And honestly, it's a lot harder. What she's saying is a lot harder.

                        But she is showing me that your grief is also your strength, and you are separating yourself from your grief and your strength, that you know what you want, and when you know what you want and you're clear about what you want, you tend to make it happen pretty quickly. But now you're not actually aligned with what you want because of this grief. It's not just her loss. She doesn't think that it's just her. It's your life. You're grieving something of yourself.

                        And she's saying you're a powerful man, and you're pulling back from that for lots of different reasons. And some of those reasons—fair. Some of those reasons—habit. Some of those reasons—fear, and not fear that she would say is fair. So you know that feeling you have when you know, when you're here—you're having it now, right?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. So this feeling is where you manifest from. It's where you call things in from. And you've not been in this feeling for a while. Part of why you've not been in this feeling is because you can't feel this feeling without also feeling sad at this time—not always, but now. And this sadness is, as she's putting it, the sadness of a man, like of an adult, of an adult man. And it's not the sadness of a young person. You've lived—how old are you now, that she's so focused on your age? Are you early 30s?

A.B.:               Yeah. I'll be 32 this week.

Jessica:            Oh, this week. Right, in a couple days. Happy birthday. Happy birthday. Okay. Sorry. I'm literally looking at your year, but I wasn't thinking about it. Okay. She says you're not resisting. It's not like you're trying to be a child anymore. It's—you're hesitant to step into your power as a man. And did she have a male partner?

A.B.:               Mm-mm, not that I know of.

Jessica:            Yeah. She feels—I mean, the way she's showing herself to me, her energy is so massive, and she's showing herself—she's showing me herself with a sun—like, a sun, not a person. She's not attached to a person. She's a person who really embodied her own power. She was in power, eh? So you came to me. You're asking me these very material questions that are very important and very real. And what's actually emerging is that the material problems you're having are connected to a spiritual and emotional crisis. And now you're at this point where you're like, "Well, fuck. I need a job," which—true, right?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            There is nothing wrong with being like, "Fuck, I just gotta get a job, just to not not have a job."

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            Your energy tanked when I said that, so maybe that's wrong. Hold on. Okay. Let's stay with the process. I said it, and I meant it when I said it. Your face agreed. You said the word, "Right." But your energy plummeted. Did you feel it?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah, you did. Yeah, you did. Okay. So that's a no. So that's a no. Now, sometimes in life, we do things that are a no. But the only way that you can do this is if you own that it's a no. I'm not encouraging you to do a no, because you don't have to yet, right? But I do want to say, if you decide, "Fuck it. I'm going to get a job. Even though everything inside of me says this is a fucking no, I'm doing this for money. And I'm going to stay working on creative stuff"—yeah. I say it; your energy—no. It's a no. Okay. That's the answer. The answer is going back to where you were is a no.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            That's the answer. The problem is the story you've given me about creative work, photography—it's such a weak story. It's just not a specific job.

A.B.:               No.

Jessica:            It's not like a—you know what I mean?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            So I have a hard time being like, "Therefore, that's the direction," because it's not—it's like, "I'm walking around San Francisco today." It's not, "I'm walking on Market Street and 5th." Right?

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            It's not specific is what I'm trying to say.

A.B.:               Yeah. Yeah, that's been the problem because I'm like, okay, I don't really know what that next move is, but this doesn't feel like the right next move as far as the—

Jessica:            Yeah.

A.B.:               —getting a job and—yeah.

Jessica:            I agree with that completely. It's like I have clarity—when I look at this energetically, I have clarity for you about what you could do as a self-employed person, which would be very similar to what you did working in tech, right?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            You could train teams. You could teach crisis management, all this kind of stuff. You could totally do it. Would it be better than working for a company? Yes. Would it be a yes? No. Can you feel it in your body, the total difference in your energy? Track that difference. Track the difference, right—

A.B.:               Okay. Yeah.

Jessica:            —because if your body says no, the answer is no.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And that doesn't mean you can't be like, "Okay. The answer is no, and for x amount of dollars and x amount of time, I'm going to make a compromise." There's no energy. There's no juice. I'm seeing that. There's just none. I think you would be very well suited to self-employment, outside of your self-esteem issues. Sorry.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah.

A.B.:               Okay.

Jessica:            Yeah.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            You have all of the skills and all of the capacity.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Like, 10 out of 10. But to your aunt's point, you're just not—at the idea of taking a chance on yourself, you kind of shrink in instead of go big.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And in terms of consulting and self-employment, it's just not a strong enough yes for me to want to be like, "Okay. These are the steps. This is how you work on that," because you totally could work on it. You could totally work on it. And you could be a really strong consultant. You could even eventually have employees if you wanted to. I see this in your birth chart. I see this in you energetically. That could totally be a path for you if AI doesn't destroy the world or whatever. But that's actually not what you want. It's what you could do.

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            It's in your capacity. And it's not a failure to not want to essentially re-create a corporate job for yourself. It's fair if that's not what you want.

A.B.:               I guess is the better question, do I need to work through my grief to then be able to get a better picture of what the next steps look like?

Jessica:            Okay. I love this question, and I appreciate you asking it so much. This is it. Okay. Hold on. She was religious, your aunt?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Christian religious?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah, because—sounds very like that. So good job. We have our Three of Cups, which is abundance. We have the Ten of Disks, which is wealth. We have the Ace of Wands, which looks like it looks. Okay. Yeah. This is saying you process your grief, and I tweaked your question just a little and asked the cards, if you process your grief, will opportunity and inspiration emerge? And you got a fuck yeah. So that's the work.

A.B.:               Okay.

Jessica:            And even within that, if there are things you need for survival, what she is saying is you just need to ask for it. She is saying you will not be given it if you are not present like you are now, because you're not there. No one is dropping gifts off to an empty house. That's what she's showing me. So she wants you to be there, which means being in the grief, and ask—you know. You know what her religious and spiritual filter is, but just ask for support while you stay on the path. She's showing me that it's important that I let you know that she's not offended or insulted that you haven't grieved, at all. She knows that you loved her. She knows what she meant to you. She always knew. She doesn't only know now. She always knew.

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            She understands that this is your problem with you and not a problem with her and how you felt about her. So she just doesn't want you to walk away from this conversation with me and worry about that. You come from, according to her, actually, a long line of very powerful people.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And you have sidestepped it. You've tried to avoid it, you know? And she's saying that it's not working anymore. So this is not exactly a question about jobs and, "Do I go to art school? Do I apply for that job?" Apply for the fucking job, right? Obviously. But is this the only job or the best job? Maybe. Maybe not. That's actually not what this is about. It's about how you have, somewhere in your 20s, kind of separated from yourself, and it's now causing you a great deal of pain and disconnection in your life.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And this is also part of why community and friendship is kind of up for you, because it would be great if you had super tight friends that you could have these kinds of conversations with—

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            —but you don't. And you don't because you were not available for these kinds of conversations in your 20s as much. You're stepping into something new.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. And your aunt believes you should have friends from your culture.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And that will help because it will bring you back to your body.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And she's being very clear she means culture. She's talking about your culture, okay?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And I just want to be—she wants me to double down and say that to you.

A.B.:               Okay.

Jessica:            What you're being called to do is to choose, essentially, alignment and empowerment—to choose it. Too chose it. And when you do that and it makes relationships uncomfortable, great. Be curious about that. Is it because, "I'm just changing the script and I have to leave room for things to shift"? "I have to figure out how to be uncomfortable as things shift"? Right? That's a possibility. Or is it because there's an incompatibility? Let time tell. Your aunt says that when you do come up with your power and other people don't respond quickly or in the way that you want, you tend to pull back.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And so what we think is the more aware you are of the fact that you're doing it, the easier it will be to practice doing it a little bit less and a little bit less and a little bit less. She was a fast-moving powerhouse. She says you don't have to be fast-moving to be a powerhouse. And she is showing me that your way can only be found by you, and it will not be the same as her way. The only thing that will be the same is that you're blood. You're family. There's something in her empowerment and in her presence that is also you. Did that make you a little sad?

A.B.:               I wouldn't say sad, but just kind of like—I don't know—I needed to hear all of this because I've been a little bit hard on myself and how to work through these feelings or how to do it in the right way or—

Jessica:            Yeah.

A.B.:               —I guess everybody else's way is right, but not my own, if that makes sense.

Jessica:            I mean, yes and no. Yes, it makes sense what you mean. Yeah.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. She says that you have to find your way, and if you looked at her, her way was not the same as everyone's way.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            But she didn't ask people to approve of her way. She just asked people to not get in her way, right?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            She was just like, "If you're not against me, that's good. I'll call it for me." Right?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And some of that was just her nature. It couldn't be taught. She's just a powerhouse.

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            But some of that is how she responded to her own traumas and her own shit. She was just like, "You're going to keep me down? Best of luck." She really was just like—and you had a different life and different experiences, and your response was, "If I get small and I get useful, then I'm not going to incur any fucking problems. I don't want any problems here."

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And she didn't want problems, but she understood the difference between your problem and her problem. But you don't know the difference, or you don't remember the difference. You think if I have a problem with something you said, that that's your problem. But it's actually my problem. Now, contextually, that could be wrong, right? But overall, she's really right. Not everyone has to agree with you or like what you like, and that doesn't mean you're hurting them.

                        She feels—she believes in her core—that you can be a kind, good person who's there for others, who does good, and disagree with people on a lot of things and do it your own way. And she feels she's living proof. She feels she lived well. She feels she lived well. And she doesn't expect you to have a life like hers at all.

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            But she wants you to inhabit your life is the way to put it. And the grief—do you have a history with depression?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Ish. Is it like depressiveness as opposed to depression?

A.B.:               Yeah. I think I can sit in it for a little bit, but then I'm able to get out of it.

Jessica:            Yeah.

A.B.:               I don't know if that—

Jessica:            Yeah. No, that totally makes sense.

A.B.:               —actually works.

Jessica:            Yeah. No, that totally makes sense. She says that—oh. I see. I see. I see. I see. I see. Okay. So what she's showing me is you feel sad. You can tolerate that. But then you feel bad, sad and bad. Okay. Now it gets a little depressive. Not a fan. But you can work with that.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            But then the anxiety kicks in, and you're out. Okay? Okay. It's nice to have somebody who's looking out for you. Okay. So she says, if you do this process, you will hit that anxiety again. And that anxiety is not evidence that you're doing something wrong or that something is wrong with you. That anxiety is evidence of how much you care about things and how you feel when you can't control them.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            That's actually all that it's evidence of. And okay. There's something else I have to say. I'm sorry. I know I'm kind of going in directions. But she has started giving me—talking to me more directly, and she wanted me—she just pointed it out. She didn't have to trust me just because you trusted me.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            She didn't have to talk to me just because I was the only access point. She wasn't testing me in an obnoxious way or in a cruel way. She was just getting to know me and making sure she actually could trust me to communicate in the way that she wanted me to communicate.

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            And she's like, "You could do that. You could just get to know people or get to know situations and figure out whether or not you like them before you decide to act like you like them." She wasn't acting like she liked me at all. She was being very clearly on the fence about me. And she's okay with how I've responded to that, and so now we're talking more clearly.

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            And she wants you to see that I wasn't offended by that. I wasn't harmed by that. And I know that—okay. Well, I'm talking to you and I'm talking to somebody who's passed away, so it's maybe not a one-for-one example. But it is like she's not wrong that developing a habit where you make space for yourself more than you make space for other people before they've earned your trust is really important.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And I know it seems off topic of grief, but for you, it's not, because you're not letting yourself grieve because you don't want to be inconvenient to other people. That's not the only reason, but it's high on your list.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And so what you're doing is what most of us do. You're dragging it out by not feeling it. It's like—I know this is a gross metaphor, but have you ever been nauseous and you have to vomit, but you don't want to vomit, so you're just nauseous for 100 hours, and then you end up vomiting anyways?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            That's what you're doing. It's worse for you. It's worse for everyone. And it's not something you need to feel bad about. It's where you're at in your evolution. It's where you're at in your process. And she is saying that she would be so happy if her death helped you to step into your power. She would be so grateful for that. I mean, this woman—did she adopt you? That's her attitude towards you, like she adopted you.

A.B.:               Yeah, basically. She was like my second mom, basically.

Jessica:            That's awesome. Yeah. She has this love for you that is—I don't know. There's something special about auntie love because it's a choice in a different way than a parent love, right?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            She chooses you all the time.

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            She chooses you all the time. And she understands the ways you've chosen yourself and how far it's gotten you and the ways you haven't chosen yourself and the roadblocks you're hitting because of it.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And she doesn't want you to feel bad that you haven't healed everything. She wants you to recognize, okay, now it's time for something different, something new.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And that's all, because that was kind of her superpower, is that she had self-acceptance. She let herself be herself wherever she was at, so she wasn't making excuses for herself, but she didn't fight herself on every turn.

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            And she is saying she wasn't always like that, but as you knew her, she was like that—

A.B.:               Right. Yeah.

Jessica:            —as an adult. Okay. Okay. So we have our little Universe card now. I actually think you're going to figure this out. I was very not sure at the beginning of our reading. I was like—not that I wasn't sure about you. It was just like I couldn't figure out what the answer was. I was just—I couldn't figure it out. And this material crisis—and it is a material crisis—

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            —a person needs a job—is showing up to bring your attention to a more internal one. You deal with the roots; the plant grows more beautifully. It produces fruit.

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            Right? And that's where you are. Grief is a bitch, and I'm really, really sorry. And I know some of this grief is not about your aunt. A lot of it is that uncorked all these other things.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            I'm going to have you say your full name out loud again.

A.B.:               Yeah. [redacted].

Jessica:            Oh, I see. Okay. Sorry. She put her hands on her hips. Is she a hand-on-hip kind of person? I'm like, "Why is my hand on my hip this whole reading?" Sorry. Okay. She likes to survey, assess, decree.

A.B.:               Yep.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay, because that's what I'm finding myself doing. I'm like, "That's not exactly me." Okay. Okay. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Do you believe in God?

A.B.:               Yes.

Jessica:            Mm-hmm.

A.B.:               Not formally.

Jessica:            Right. You're not religious in the way she was religious.

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            And you don't have to use the word "God." We can use lots of synonymous words, right? Universe, Mystery, etc.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            But she is saying it is a strength to be in an active relationship with God. Her lens is God, right?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And she's saying you've strayed from that. Now, is that Christian coded? You know it is. But the intention behind it—

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            She really means it, and she's not wrong. When you tap in spiritually, you have so many resources. But you don't do it often. Were you raised religious?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. I see. That's why, because you're just like—

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            —"I did that. No, thank you." Okay. Okay. I respect that so much. And—

A.B.:               But I would say I'm open to it, not necessarily in the traditional sense, but I guess to whatever—it's where I'm at right now.

Jessica:            I think it's time because there was a time in your life where spirituality was the thing that kept you going. And I don't think the structure of religion is the thing that kept you going. I mean, I think you got benefits from it at times and then consequences at other times. But she's pointing you towards the strength that you get from having a rich spiritual practice.

And again, she thinks that there are cultural practices around grief specifically, but I think in general, cultural practices that could really ignite for you. She's not talking about the church. She's saying that there is a specific culture of your people, of the region where you're from. And that culture has a rich—it's not just a spiritual heritage. There are customs that are kind of secular, kind of spiritual. There is a cultural inheritance that you have that you left when you left other things behind.

But I think—I don't know if there's literally looking for cultural centers or communities, starting for looking at online communities because it's 2026 and that's easier—

A.B.:   Yeah.

Jessica:            You know? Because I don't know, in the city you live in, if there is a specific place. But you know what the places it isn't, is how—I'm being gentle because she's not. Do you know what I'm saying?

A.B.:               Yeah. Yeah. You got it.

Jessica:            Yeah. So you know where it isn't. So stop looking there, right?

A.B.:               Okay.

Jessica:            Yeah. I mean, you know what that is. And she thinks—do you dance?

A.B.:               I mean, I like to, but I haven't in a while.

Jessica:            And did she dance?

A.B.:               Not that I knew of, but from my cousins, I have heard that she really enjoyed music. And I was like, "Huh."

Jessica:            It's just not what you—it's not how you knew her, eh?

A.B.:               Exactly. Yeah.

Jessica:            Because she feels like, in terms of, if you're looking for, "Where in the physical world am I finding this?" it might be through—she's not saying a dance class. She's not saying a dance community. But there might be something related to music or dance. Okay. Do you know what that is?

A.B.:               I mean, what I'm thinking of, I'm like—that's surprising.

Jessica:            Say more.

A.B.:               I don't know, because I'm just thinking about Afrobeats, like parties and stuff, and—

Jessica:            She's not saying no to that. She's not saying that's it.

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            But she's not mad at that.

A.B.:               Got it.

Jessica:            I see. Okay. Thank you. So she's saying—this brings us to an interesting point. Have you ever been to a buffet? Of course you have. Okay. You've been to a buffet.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            So you put a bunch of shit on your plate, and then you taste something. And you say to yourself, "I don't like the way this tastes."

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            Do you then walk away from the plate of all the other untasted foods? No.

A.B.:               No.

Jessica:            In fact, in order to get to the three things you do like at the buffet, you have to eat the three things you don't like.

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            But what happens for you is you're like, "Uh-oh. I don't like the way this tastes. I'm leaving the restaurant." And you're leaving the rest of your plate untouched without realizing the only way to get to the yummy stuff is to go through the stuff that's not so yummy.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            So that's not what she would advise. That specific Afrobeats thing that you're mentioning is not specifically what she would advise. It's not like that's where the answer lives.

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            But it might be that there is a flyer for a thing or a connection you make with a person who's connected to a person. So bite this. Not exactly bite this. Not exactly, but oh, wait. I'm going to get that. Oh, that's it. Right? It's the practice of making your life bigger and taking up more space in your life instead of the pursuit of the answer.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And that landed like truth in your body. You felt it, eh?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay.

A.B.:               Interesting. Huh. Okay. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah?

A.B.:               The pursuit of the answer is usually what my—yeah.

Jessica:            It's your worker bee self, right?

A.B.:               Exactly.

Jessica:            You're like, "I'm going to figure it out." For you, it's a practice of staying small. You're like, "I'm not going to explore the question. I'm going to fix it as quickly as I can.

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            And in life, what's closer to the truth is, as we explore possibilities inside of the question—like this possibilities, and imagine that possibilities, and imagine this one maybe could be but kind of isn't. And then it's like that's how you figure out life.

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            Right? And now that you're in your early 30s, you've experienced this a couple times. So you're old enough to get it but not old enough to have practiced trusting it completely.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Early 30s is kind of a tricky age in that way. And so the work here for you is opening multiple doors, being willing to close the door. I think I said very early in our conversation you gotta be willing to fail. And in other words, you gotta be willing to taste something from the buffet and be like, "Yeah, I don't want to eat this," and then make a decision about what to do with it. Not everything needs to answer the question, and I think it is not a burden to be an emotional person with feelings and needs in the presence of complicated questions. Right?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And there's something for you that alignment at this time feels a little sad—not overwhelmed with sadness, but it feels a little sad. And I need to name that, because when you're not in a reading, you're going off and you're like, "I guess this is aligned." Yeah, it's not awesome right now.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            It feels a little sad. And the question to ask yourself is not, "How do I fix this sadness? How do I make it go away?" It's instead, "What does the sadness need from me? Does the sadness need time? Does the sadness need space? Does the sadness need to be in a space with people who remind me of my aunt? Does the sadness need to find a place where"—and this is, honestly, your aunt's suggestion—"a space where I can be in prayer?" Sorry. She's gotta try. She's gotta try. She's gotta try. She thinks it's a path to righteousness. But prayer can be so many things, right?

                        She—and I agree that the process of exploring what's true for you is the process of inhabiting your space. And this makes life so much more whole, like, so much more whole. It doesn't make life happier. It doesn't make life, even in the short term, easier. In the long term, it does make it easier. It doesn't magically make a job come to you. And also, for you, eh, maybe. Could. It could. I don't know. You know?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            I don't know if you do mantras, but—no. Okay. Respect. But—

A.B.:               Should I?

Jessica:            If you were going to do a mantra, I would recommend something to the effect of saying to yourself, when anxiety hits, when you feel down or confused or maybe making a practice of, once a day—I mean, I'm really like a bare-bones, simple person. Something to the effect of, "My body belongs to me, and I am entitled to inhabit it however I please." Something like, "All of my emotions are equally valid." Something like—she's helping me try to figure out how to say it, this one—"Being in my power is my birthright."

A.B.:               Wow.

Jessica:            "Being empowered isn't taking anything from anyone." She's showing me this line that you come from that is incredibly powerful. And some people in your line have really struggled, but there's so much empowerment in your line. People have such a—power is such a complicated thing, and we talk about power and abuses of power kind of way. That's not at all the context here. And I think for you to pull out context to power is really important. Does that make sense, the way I'm saying it?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. She feels that allowing yourself to return to your roots will reconnect you to your roots. And that doesn't have to mean Christianity, right? Although, if it does, she's okay with that, for the record. She's okay with it. But this is a little bit of a slow process. It's going to move slower than you want it to. Now, because you're going through these Pluto transits—Pluto is squaring your Jupiter until December of 2028—it might not be that slow. Pluto square Jupiter is big swings, big wins, big misses. It's not a bad transit; it's not a good transit. It's a big transit.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            So I guess it makes sense that that has ended up being actually the theme of our conversation. And currently, that Saturn transit that I mentioned to you that's happening July/August and then again March—yeah—that's a constriction transit.

A.B.:               Okay.

Jessica:            So be patient with your process because August is not likely to be the most rapid development in the world, but it's a great time to struggle with concepts and ideas and to be critical in your thinking. It's like part of me feels it's kind of an abrupt moment to end, but then this is also just like she's like, "Okay. That's it. That's done." So then I guess my question for you is, does that feel done or is there something lingering?

A.B.:               I feel like the stepping into power and being empowered has been like a repetitive message a little bit. And so I think, is there—not a cheat sheet, but is—the mantra is like the first step to—

Jessica:            Yeah.

A.B.:               —starting to step into that? Or is it more of like a meditative practice or like the actual spirituality portion, or—yeah.

Jessica:            I think the mantras are a great first step, right? And adapt them to better vibe with you, right? Make sure you at least say them out loud in the bathroom alone or whatever, like once a day—

A.B.:               Okay.

Jessica:            —as a practice. And then see, after a couple weeks, if it's having kind of an effect or if it's not. And then adapt as needed.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            So that's one thing. You want to meditate? Great. You want to take on dance or fucking some tai chi, yoga—you know, you want to do something like that? Fabulous. Great. It's actually the practice—it's so much more mundane. The cheat sheet is super annoying, okay? Because it's a practice of noticing when you're disappearing in your own life and in your own thoughts and being like, "Oh, I'm doing that. How can I return in this moment to myself?"

So, in those moments, when I'm like, "Oh, I've lost myself," what I personally do is I say my full name three times out loud in my head, and I try to bring all my energy either into my solar plexus, like into the abdominals—I just bring it back into my chest. I'll bring it back, basically. And then, 50 percent of the time, I feel worse because the only reason why you're disconnected from yourself is because you feel sad or bad. Fun. It's so fun. This is why people don't do this work, right? This is why people don't do this work. But the work is to choose to be present.

A.B.:   Right.

Jessica:            I'm not saying don't watch TV. I'm not saying don't fuck off and disconnect. You know what I mean? I'm saying this is the practice of empowerment. It's choosing yourself, meeting yourself where you're at, noticing when you don't choose yourself, noticing when you don't meet yourself where you're at, and making adjustments as best as you can in the moment.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            So the reason why there's not a real cheat code is because it's so simple. The problem is remembering to do it and then choosing yourself because you have 32 years of experience of not doing that. You've trained your whole life to not do this, right?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And so choosing to change is painful and takes time. You really, really want to change. And also, you are very fucking ambiguous about changing. They're both true, right? They're both true. And so I think that that's—if there's a cheat code somewhere, it's giving yourself permission to have mixed feelings about it, giving yourself permission to be of multiple minds about a thing. I ate tofu the other day. I cooked it myself. It tasted delicious and also kind of gross.  I don't know what I did wrong. You know what I mean?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            I still ate it and it was delicious, but it was also kind of gross. I can't tell you why.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            It's okay. It's okay that it was both things. And that's easy to say about tofu. Whatever. But feeling like, "Oh, I know what I'm doing is right right now, and I'm really anxious that what I'm doing is wrong right now"—practicing sitting with both of those things is antithetical to your instinct because your instinct is, "I have to fix the problem. What's the problem?"

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            Right? And, "Oh shit. I'm so out of control, I can't figure anything out. Now I'm panicked."

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And so being able to be like, "Okay. I am out of control in this moment. I am anxious or upset in this moment. I have some clarity and some ambiguity or some concern or fear"—whatever—"and in this moment, I am just going to hang out with myself. I'm just going to let that mess be"—this is what some therapists may call reparenting. It's being a structured, empathetic, and loving parent to yourself, letting yourself cry because you spilled milk, and then at a certain point saying, "Okay, that's enough crying. It's time to pick up the milk and clean the floor," right?

A.B.:               Yeah. Exactly.

Jessica:            It's like, at a certain point, so many of us have to figure out not just how to reparent but how to choose to love yourself enough to do it.

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            And that's fucking hard. And she said, "I'll allow it," when I cussed. She said, "I'll allow it." So it is really hard, but that is the process. And honestly, I just—I think you're ready. I just think you're ready for this.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And that doesn't mean I don't think it won't suck, and it doesn't mean that I think you'll be perfect at it. I think you're ready to take on the challenge, and that's the whole thing.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            That is the whole thing. And what she's showing me is it's possible that one day you will have a kid in your life that won't know you as not knowing yourself, like you don't know her as not knowing herself. She hasn't always known herself, but that's not how you've ever known her.

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            And that's like, to her, a point of pride. You know? She tried. She succeeded. I mean, she wasn't perfect. She knows she wasn't perfect. But she's okay that she wasn't perfect because she tried.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And she feels the same way about you. It's just you don't feel the same way about you. So that's the work now.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. I mean, she feels you're incredibly successful. She's so proud of you. But you don't feel that way. And honestly, I've never met anyone during a Saturn square to Mercury who's like, "Oh, I'm so proud of myself. I'm [crosstalk]."

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            That's not usually how we feel during Saturn transits, but it is the process you're engaged in.

A.B.:               Okay.

Jessica:            It is the process you're engaged in. So, when we get off the call, she's showing me when we get off the call—because you're sitting in a chair, right?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            You're going to stamp each foot really hard on the ground as a way to shake off some of this energy. Do you have somebody living underneath you?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            They will hate it. That's fine. She says that's okay. I mean, you're not doing it every day. You're not doing it all the time.

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            But just do it once. Well, she says, first, you have to get into your body. You have to get present—

A.B.:               Okay.

Jessica:            —and then set the intention that you're stomping each foot down just to clear it.

A.B.:               Okay.

Jessica:            She wants you to do this because she wants you to be in your body, and she wants you to feel okay to take up space when nobody's there to tell you to take up space.

A.B.:               All right. Yeah.

Jessica:            Does it feel like a hard thing to do?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. I agree. This is great, then. This is such a good practice for you. If you're walking on the street tomorrow and you're noticing yourself shrinking, stomp your fucking—one foot, other foot, just as a—and you might look silly. Who cares? I mean—

A.B.:               Right.

Jessica:            —the answer is you care. You care.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            But it is worth—this practice looks like—I'm not saying do this forever if it doesn't fucking do anything for you. But if it does do something for you, you'll only know if you tried at least three times in three different situations.

A.B.:               Okay.

Jessica:            So just try it thrice. And if it vibes, keep going, and if it doesn't, whatever. You know?

A.B.:               Okay.

Jessica:            Again, it's a buffet. You taste. You don't have to like. You just taste.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            You cook?

A.B.:               Kind of. Yeah.

Jessica:            Kind of. I mean, she would like to tell you all the things you could be doing in your life. This is kind of your dream come true, to have somebody tell you exactly what to do. You know what I mean?

A.B.:               What to do.

Jessica:            Yeah. She's like, "You know you should be cooking, and you should cook this." She's just very directive and rule-focused. But what you should know is that she's not watching you in a creepy way or in a bad way, but she's with you. She's not fully gone from you. And that's, in a way, sad and, in a way, so comforting. It's both.

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And I want to invite you to let it be those things and more. Let it be messy. That's part of this, all of this, is allowing you to take up space in messiness, not just in service. You know?

A.B.:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. That is what I was supposed to say. I was like, "I can't let you go till I say something." But I said it. There it is. Yeah.

A.B.:               Okay.

Jessica:            That's your assignment. No big deal, just all of that.

A.B.:               (laughs)

Jessica:            Oh shit.

A.B.:               Wow. Yeah.

Jessica:            Well, happy fucking birthday.

A.B.:               Thank you so much.

Jessica:            My pleasure.

A.B.:               Yeah. This is definitely insightful and what I was avoiding, but I can't escape it.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah.

A.B.:               But I know it's going to be good in the long run—

Jessica:            I think so, too.

A.B.:               —once I do the work.

Jessica:            Yeah.

A.B.:               Yeah. Thank you.

Jessica:            My pleasure.