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

Sparrow:         I will read my prompt for you.

Jessica:            Okay.

Sparrow:         "Dear Jessica, I had a big friend breakup a couple years ago, and the former friend has now joined my mutual aid group but still doesn't want anything to do with me. How do I handle my own tender feelings with care without negatively impacting my organization? Also, having this person keep returning to my spaces, I can't help but feel like there is still something that needs to be addressed in myself or the relationship. Am I missing something important?"

Jessica:            Okay. So, when you say "my mutual aid group," do you mean you created this group and you kind of lead it in some way?

Sparrow:         (shakes head)

Jessica:            You just mean the mutual aid group that is like—

Sparrow:         Yes.

Jessica:            —your community.

Sparrow:         Yes. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And this person—what pronoun should I use for them?

Sparrow:         All of the pronouns.

Jessica:            Okay. So I'll say they. So did they know that you were in the group before they entered the group?

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. So they consciously entered into this group knowing you were an integrated part of the group.

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And they're ignoring you?

Sparrow:         When they entered the group, they spoke to someone else in the group and said that they don't want to be in shared spaces or group chats with me.

Jessica:            And is there a reason why they joined the mutual aid group that you're a part of? Is it the only one around or something?

Sparrow:         I mean, yes.

Jessica:            Okay.

Sparrow:         There's not a lot of things going on where I live. And we both found out about the mutual aid group when we were living together, and I started doing stuff with the mutual aid group right when everything was breaking up between us. And I think, in a lot of ways, it's a really good fit for them. They could get a lot of support from the group, and also, they have so many skills and so many things that they could bring to it.

Jessica:            Right. So it's not weird—it's uncomfortable, but it's not weird that they're in the group?

Sparrow:         It's really uncomfortable.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Sparrow:         And I think I was a little bit surprised that they wanted to join but didn't want to talk to me at all, especially because that's not what previous communication between us had been.

Jessica:            Also, it's not really consistent with the ethos of most mutual aid groups.

Sparrow:         No, it's not.

Jessica:            It's kind of an intense move on their part, which seems not completely divorced from their personality, yeah?

Sparrow:         Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. And I can't help but do some cursory psychic-ing, okay?

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            So this doesn't seem out of context with what you've seen them do in the past with other people, right?

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            So, before we look at anything astrological or anything like that, I just want to say, is your question, "How do I metabolize it?" or is it, "What do I do with them or in relationship to them directly?" Is it both? Is it neither?

Sparrow:         I feel like those two questions—I'm having a hard time even telling the difference between metabolizing it and, "What do I do?" I feel so tender and activated, still, about the breakup that anytime it comes up or surfaces for me, it's like I go into this really activated place. And I feel like I can't process. I can't get clarity. And because of that, any sort of, "What do I do?" is not there.

Jessica:            Totally. And that makes sense because, when we haven't metabolized things, we're always reacting, right?

Sparrow:         Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            So do you mind sharing—not asking for details unless they feel important, but do you mind sharing who is this person to you, and what actually happened?

Sparrow:         Yeah. So this person—we have a lot of shared history. We both went to a really conservative college together and—

Jessica:            Religious?

Sparrow:         Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Sparrow:         And both came out within that space and without any family support.

Jessica:            Came out as Gay?

Sparrow:         Came out as Queer in a space I had no support, and with family I had no support. And ended up living together, kind of just trying to survive post that experience. We lived together through both of us having really toxic relationships in the space, and then—

Jessica:            Relationships, you mean with romantic partners?

Sparrow:         With romantic partners.

Jessica:            And the two of you were never romantic?

Sparrow:         Never.

Jessica:            Okay. Mm-hmm.

Sparrow:         And then we got ourselves out of the situations, did things separately completely for a year, and then they were looking for temporary housing, and I had space in my space. They moved in, and we ended up getting along so well and kind of had come into ourselves in the time that we'd been away from each other and just started living together and really setting up a home and a life together. And it was always very platonic, but it was the kind of setup where we were still really dedicated to each other and where we were considering, do we want to be like platonic life partners? When we talked about romantic partners, it was always, "Okay, but there's also this person here." And—

Jessica:            And how old were you when you were having that particular conversation?

Sparrow:         26, 27—

Jessica:            Okay.

Sparrow:         —28.

Jessica:            Okay. So you were having that conversation—

Sparrow:         Around 27.

Jessica:            —over the course of a couple years?

Sparrow:         Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. Great.

Sparrow:         Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Keep going. Keep going. Okay.

Sparrow:         So I think—I mean, when I look back on it, I think that because our setup started temporary and then became this really cool thing, there are certain things that just didn't get discussed or really explicitly worked out. And I had a partner move in, and I think that there was a lot of things sitting on the table that I thought were clear, and they weren't. And I realized that they weren't clear. But at the same time that we went to work it out, they started a romantic relationship that—it was really scary for me. It was really chaotic.

Jessica:            Like fighting?

Sparrow:         The person who they started dating was not, I would say, a very safe person. And it was very quick, fast—

Jessica:            What does that mean?

Sparrow:         Well, they had a lot of domestic violence in their past.

Jessica:            Where they were the perpetrator?

Sparrow:         Where they were the perpetrator.

Jessica:            Okay.

Sparrow:         And they were not in a mentally stable place. They didn't have stable housing, so they were trying to stay with us. She was in a place where she was having really traumatic sort of flashbacks and things, but she couldn't respect boundaries, so kind of being on people, talking about really intense trauma all the time in space and not respecting noes. I'd go to my room and close the door, and she would just talk at the door.

Jessica:            Oh. Wow, that's pretty—

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And did you talk about this with your roommate/bestie person?

Sparrow:         Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Okay.

Sparrow:         Yeah. We were having conversations as we went, but it was like—

Jessica:            You were dating people. Messy.

Sparrow:         Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. We were having conversations as we went, but I feel like I was in panic mode because I felt like I was like, "Oh, I need to do something about this relationship. It's not doing well," and then, also, there's this other—

Jessica:            About your relationship?

Sparrow:         My relationship with—

Jessica:            With the roommate or with your romantic partner?

Sparrow:         With the roommate.

Jessica:            Okay. Got it.

Sparrow:         With the roommate.

Jessica:            Got it, got it, got it.

Sparrow:         Yeah. And yeah, so it was hard to have something that's chaotic and where I was requesting boundaries, and they weren't being met in the space. And something very bad and dangerous did happen.

Jessica:            Are you talking about violence?

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay.

Sparrow:         Not in the house, but yeah, my roommate's girlfriend told me about it, that she did it. And it was just—it was so much to process and to try to just continue on like normal when there was that kind of [crosstalk].

Jessica:            Because your roommate wanted you to continue on like normal, even though something happened to your roommate?

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. And you were like, "I can't"?

Sparrow:         Yeah. Yeah. And just one of those things where it was all so explosive, and then it was just done. And they moved out.

Jessica:            Say more. Say more. It was just a—so, basically, your roommate's girlfriend perpetrated violence against the roommate.

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Your roommate didn't want to talk about it. And then what? Did you say, "Please move out?"

Sparrow:         I said, "Hey, we're in a domestic partnership right now, and it feels like what we want for the space is really different. And I can't handle the level of chaos and what's not going on right now. And we need to reconsider if we're going to do a lease together again." And they were like, "Okay. Heard, but if you don't want me here at the end of the lease, I need to leave now because I can't be in a space where I'm not wanted."

Jessica:            Yeah.

Sparrow:         And so they just moved out right away.

Jessica:            So, basically, that happened all within a week or something?

Sparrow:         Yeah. Yeah, probably like a week and a half.

Jessica:            Okay.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And did your ex-roommate move in with the partner, with the girlfriend?

Sparrow:         Not immediately, but then the girlfriend moved in after is my understanding.

Jessica:            Okay. So they're together still?

Sparrow:         I believe so, but also, I've been trying to obviously take space from their life.

Jessica:            Okay.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. So this does feel really important because the two of you started to make life partnership commitments to each other, and then you started to date people and maybe be a little less fixed on that life partnership thing. And also, it sounds like your roommate was in an abusive relationship or in a relationship where abuse was perpetrated against them.

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And it sounds like the way that was handled was sticky. I'll say "sticky" to be very—

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            —gentle and like—yeah. Okay. So, within that—we're not even at mutual aid yet. We're just like, within that, do you have a feeling of wanting to create repair with this person, or do you have a feeling of, "This person was a big part of my life, and we're not in each other's life at this time, and that's what that is?"

Sparrow:         I would really love to create repair. Ideally, for me, that's what I would really want.

Jessica:            Okay. Why?

Sparrow:         Because I really care about them. Because I feel like I had responsibility in how things went, and I think that it really hurt them. And so, to an extent, I feel like I have a responsibility, and if I could be given the opportunity to do what I can to make it better, I would like to. And because I think that there were things about the relationship that I really loved, and there's broken trust there that I don't know if it can be repaired, but there's ways that I think we could still be in community that I think could be really cool.

Jessica:            Yeah. So—

Sparrow:         But obviously, I've also just not been a part of their life for a couple years. It's hard to—

Jessica:            For how long? Years. It's been years.

Sparrow:         It was like early 2025, so—

Jessica:            Okay. So, yeah, a while. A while.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And you're both still in the relationships that you were in?

Sparrow:         To my knowledge. I am still in the relationship.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            So there are so many layers here, right? The thing I want to really ground into is, when you tell me the story, I want to just acknowledge that I noticed that you really tried to skate over the fact that you pretty much asked her to leave.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            You pretty much asked them to leave, right?

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            You kind of skated over that. And so I want to just hold that firmly but gently with you because, if there is going to be repair, you're going to have to own that part. And that's obviously a part that's a little hard for you to hold, right?

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And now we have this reiteration. So you're in a group with this person. This person is like, "I don't want to talk to you. I don't want to deal with you." And it puts you in this position of navigating your own happiness and your own comfort and theirs. And just like in the last situation you were in with them, there's not a good way. You've got choices. You don't have good choices. You have choices, right?

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            There's not an option, like a secret option G that is like, "Everybody gets what they want, and everybody's happy." So I want to just acknowledge that this is—it's a completely different situation you're in now, but it's the exact same situation you're in now as you were then. And perhaps, as the two of you were in, as—I'm assuming teenagers, when you were like, "Oh my God. We live in this conservative space, and it'll cost us everything to become who we are."

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And that kind of trauma bonding turns you into family real quick, or so it feels, right?

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            But often, if not always, when we create these trauma bonds as really young people, we're basically recreating our family-of-origin dynamic. And so my guess—not psychic, just me knowing humans, my guess is that you trigger stuff for them around their family of origin, and they're triggering stuff for you around yours.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And you've both acted accordingly, right? And so I want to just acknowledge that this is sticky. It's messy. And so, with this acknowledgment, ideally, comes the need for empathy for yourself and your own messiness and empathy for them and their messiness. This may not be able to be resolved, but there's the metabolizing, which is like metabolizing what's happened and what you did and what you didn't do and who you were and who you weren't. Everybody is not yet 30 or just turned 30.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And it's different. It's different now, right?

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And so there are choices to make about how to navigate. Now, I'm going to stick with the relationship and what happened, but I do want to say that when I first read your question, what really was loud in my head—and I want to make sure I articulate it here—is, if we're going to be in community with each other, we have to be able to be uncomfortable.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            Period. And this is a little bit of a cultural thing, but I do not think we can be emotionally safe at all times if we're going to be around people.

Sparrow:         Yes.

Jessica:            Right?

Sparrow:         I agree.

Jessica:            Okay. Great, because I know there's a culture of wanting safety at all times, and I just don't think that's reality. So being able to navigate that no matter what emerges from this conversation or anything else, you're going to have to continue to figure out how to be uncomfortable and ill at ease and unresolved and to allow space for that to be your experience and hold space for you don't know what theirs is, but you can pretty well assume that they're experiencing a version of that as well, right?

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            This is the nature of being like, "Oh my God. We were the closest of the close, and now we don't know anything about each other."

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            So I want to snip on back, though, to the original situation. And what comes up for me in this—and I'm not sure if I heard it wrong or right, so you can let me know—is that roommate/bestie experienced violence at the hands of their partner, wasn't ready to talk about it, and you were like, "I'm not safe. You need to go." Am I hearing that right?

Sparrow:         No, I don't think it was about me not being safe.

Jessica:            So you didn't say that to the roommate/bestie, that you didn't feel safe or comfortable?

Sparrow:         It was just so much harder because we were having a different fight at the same time.

Jessica:            You mean the two of you were fighting about a different thing?

Sparrow:         Me and my roommate, yeah, because they were feeling that I didn't love them. And—

Jessica:            And that fight started before or after the event?

Sparrow:         Before.

Jessica:            Okay. And so that was already active when this violence occurred?

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            Do you understand why they felt that way?

Sparrow:         Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. Great.

Sparrow:         No, I do. Yeah.

Jessica:            You do. Okay. Good.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            That's good because—

Sparrow:         Yes.

Jessica:            —I can see it really clearly, why they do. And you were doing a lot of blocking at the time; you were doing a lot of, "I don't know how to have a boundary, so I'm just going to go rigid here."

Sparrow:         Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Right?

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            Let's pull up your chart. Hold on.

Sparrow:         Okay.

Jessica:            And you were born November 4, 1996, in Evanston, Illinois, 5:25 p.m.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. So Scorpio. So Scorpio. So Scorpio. So much Scorpio. Sun conjunction Mercury in Scorpio. You've got your Pluto on your Scorpio Descendant. Even though it's in Sagittarius, it's sitting on top of that Scorpio Descendant. It's, of course, the ruling planet of Scorpio. And it is square to your Moon and Mars. So you do have a tendency to go all the way in and deep or push all the way out, doors locked.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And this is like a trigger for them. And it's not like you're like, "Yeah, this is a great quality of mine. I'm super chill with it."

Sparrow:         No.

Jessica:            It's a pain response for you, right?

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            Sometimes it's a trauma response, but it's not always trauma. It's a response that you have to your own vulnerabilities and your own pain and your fear of things going out of control with other people.

Sparrow:         Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            But you also have this Venus opposition to Saturn in your birth chart. And so you can kind of take on a daddy role with friends and loved ones where you just are like, "I'm going to figure this out. I'm going to help you. We're going to do this together. I am going to"—am I right? Am I right?

Sparrow:         Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay.

Sparrow:         Sometimes. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Yeah. Well, certainly with them.

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm. Yes.

Jessica:            Right? So it wasn't just—

Sparrow:         Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

Jessica:            —letting them live there. It's also like you're good at adulting, so you were just like, "Let me help you with adulting in this way. I can figure out"—

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            —"the friendship in this way." And so, when you started to pull these things out, it did feel like a loss of love and like and support to them. Does that feel—

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            That's what they were telling you it as?

Sparrow:         Yes.

Jessica:            Okay.

Sparrow:         Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            So I'm going to just hang out here and say that is something for you to metabolize, that some of this is—your knee-jerk reaction around self-protection and crisis management is not completely in alignment. Nobody's is. Nobody's is. That doesn't make you a bad person. It doesn't make you a bad guy. It's just the reality of how intimate and dramatic your situation was—a.k.a. 20s—and how some of how you behaved was not consistent with how you would ideally prefer to behave—

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            —or you theorize that you might behave in that situation, right? It wasn't like your goal.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            So being able to metabolize that without shame because all that Scorpio in Pluto is like, "Oh, I feel ashamed of myself," or—

Sparrow:         Yeah. There's a lot of shame. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah, or defensiveness of, "I had a right to because it was x, y, and z."

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            The problem is, when we're in a state of shame, we're not metabolizing, we're not empathizing, and we're not growing. We're stuck in a spiral that brought us there to begin with. And so one piece of homework I'm going to give you is to practice when you think about this situation and your conduct in this situation, to practice saying, "Okay. I can feel the shame, but what the shame is telling me is I act in ways that are not aligned and I feel badly about it," because you can hold that.

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            But the shame—it's impossible to hold. It's torture. It's awful.

Sparrow:         Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            And so that's when defensiveness comes in, right?

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And some of that defensiveness is obvious, and some of it's really unconscious and subtle. In terms of actions, I am not advising you to come to them and say, "Hey, I can recognize my part in this," because you can't hold it yet.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            Until you can hold it, you don't want to offer it as an olive branch to someone, because if they accept it, it'll feel bad, and if they don't accept it, it'll feel bad. So first there's the metabolizing to do, right? And I want to just affirm for you everybody is somebody's bad guy. Everybody fucks up. Everybody does a really bad job of intensity. That's the only way you learn to evolve past your family of origin, to evolve past your trauma, and to find new ways. So this is your life experience that is teaching you new ways, right?

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And that doesn't mean you learn the lesson and win the prize. It just means that you'll get to know yourself better, and you'll make choices. All of that said, part of what I am not sure I'm hearing correctly in this OG situation is it sounds like the roommate wasn't safe with the partner, but maybe—I didn't hear you tell me that you were like, "I'm really worried about you. I don't feel like you're safe. I need you to be safe, and I want to take care of you." You didn't tell me that you said those things to them. Is that correct?

Sparrow:         I did say those things to them.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay.

Sparrow:         Yeah. There was also a lot of that.

Jessica:            Okay. Good. Just checking. Just checking, right—

Sparrow:         Yes. Yeah.

Jessica:            —because if they're already feeling unloved and they're already in this situation, it's messy. There's no tidy way—there's, like I said, no secret option G.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

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

Sparrow:         It is [redacted].

Jessica:            Yeah. Fuck. You hate conflict, eh?

Sparrow:         I feel very activated in conflict.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. I mean, listen. You have a 29-degree Taurus Rising. It's very anaretic Taurus governed by Venus. For you, you would rather have the security and the stability of knowing that we share the rules of conduct. We treat each other in agreed-upon ways. And when that doesn't happen, it can activate that Taurean rigidity of like, "I have to dig in my heels and wait for this to pass. A storm is coming." Right?

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And this person is the complete fucking opposite, if I may—again, I can't help but see that about them. They have a lot of energy that goes in a lot of directions all at once.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm. Yes. Yeah.

Jessica:            So okay. I think there are a lot of details to this situation that doesn't make sense for us to dig into or whatever, things that they did that was off, things that you did that were off, things that you did that were really right, things that they did that were really right, ways that you just kind of failed each other because you were so activated—

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            —mutually.

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And I want to just say that, to me, that is the messiness that might be, as you said earlier, like trust is gone and it's not—we're not going to repair it. And also, it might be the messiness that's like, "Yeah, we know each other from this place and this time, and it showed in how we handled things. We're like family, and it showed." Right?

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            As I'm seeing this and saying this, I want to say, okay, if you can—in the spirit of metabolizing, if you can accept that the messiness occurred, that you were messy and they were messy and it was messy—and that nobody's cleaned up the mess in recent years; you've just both been like, "Oh, it's a dumpster fire. We'll just let it burn itself out," right?

Sparrow:         Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            It's in a small community, it sounds like.

Sparrow:         Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            If you can kind of let that be what it is—it's not perfect. It's not ideal. It's messy. But it is that—then there's more room for you to own your part. I don't actually see that you want this person—you do want this person back in your life, but you don't want this person back in your life. It doesn't feel clear. It's unclear who this person is at this point.

Sparrow:         Yes. I think that that's a lot of it.

Jessica:            Sure. Yeah.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            But the fact that they didn't approach you and say, "Hey, man, we're in this group together. I want to be clear I don't want a beef, and also, I don't want to be friends. I'm not trying to be close to you, and also, we don't need to have conflict"—instead, they said it to someone kind of behind your back, and they asked somebody else to caretake—that is concerning, a little bit, for me and also speaks to their capacity.

                        It tells me that, okay, well, then the dynamic hasn't actually changed between the two of you because if you have the history of you being the one to be the repair guy and facilitate things, then you can't expect real repair to occur if it includes that same pattern.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            There's just grief in this. It's just grief.

Sparrow:         I know.

Jessica:            It's grief. It's grief. I mean—

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And some of this just must be felt in real time while watching this person have a lovely time interacting with somebody else and vice versa, right?

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Is this group big enough for the two of you to hang out in different sides of the room?

Sparrow:         No. It's really not.

Jessica:            Right. It's like a small group. It's like 15 people, it looks like.

Sparrow:         A small group. Yes. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Here's the thing. I want to talk more about the metabolizing part and the digesting part, but I also want to acknowledge you're in a fucking small room with a small group of people trying to do good.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And it's fucking messy. And if you are to take the situation in your hands and do something about it, in a way, it means that you aren't going to be friends with this person because it's the old dynamic. The only way for it to be a new dynamic is if they initiate it. Does that track for you?

Sparrow:         Yes. That makes a lot of sense because, I mean, I've wanted to repair, and I've sort of just always kind of left it open, like, "It's here if you want it. You can show up anytime." But I've really left it.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Sparrow:         I haven't pursued it.

Jessica:            Which they have perceived as an abandonment and a lack of care.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            For the record, right? That's absolutely how they perceive it. And if we were talking in the first six months that this happened, I would be giving you radically different advice. I'd be telling you different things. But it's been a long time.

And I think that there is something really necessary here in being able to acknowledge, "Hey, roommate"—I'm just calling them that. "Hey, roommate. We are in this small space, and I want to make sure that it is as healthy as possible considering we're not in relationship, and it's painful for me; I can assume it's painful for you. I want to just acknowledge that if you want to talk to me, I am open, and I am not going to initiate anything personal. But if we do have to interact with each other, which we probably will because it's a really small group, I do not want conflict with you. I do not hold grudges against you. I have pain around our relationship, but I don't have grudges"—it's true, right? You don't have grudges?

Sparrow:         I don't think so.

Jessica:            Okay. Do you maybe a little? Did I misread that?

Sparrow:         No. I think that just, sometimes, when there's resentment, it's like it doesn't come up until it comes up.

Jessica:            For real. For real.

Sparrow:         So I really don't think so, but also, knowing myself, it's possible something could come up.

Jessica:            Absolutely. That's a very honest, Scorpionic answer. Good job. Good job. So that nuance is really important for you to own, and it's not necessarily really important for you to communicate.

Sparrow:         Yeah. Okay.

Jessica:            Yeah, because you're not having a nuanced conversation. You're more like, "I need to email you something or text you something so succinct that you'll read it and that it gets a point across," right?

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            There is a wisdom in doing something like that, acknowledging, "If you want to actually talk and process, I'm leaving that up to you. And also, I want you to know that my intention is to be pleasant and respectful in all ways that we can connect with each other." As you said, the problem is completely different from their perspective than from yours, like night and day. It's a completely different problem. And so your attitude that the ball is in their court is not mutual. They feel that the ball is in your court. And so you saying that might get you into conflict right away.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            If you're going to write a note like that, I think the thing to say is that, "My feeling is that if you want to talk, I'm down to talk. But I don't want to push that on you, and I am aware that you might feel that the ball should be in my court. If you do feel that the ball is in my court, you can tell me that, and then I will initiate a conversation." That is more honest.

Sparrow:         Okay.

Jessica:            But that would mean you would maybe have to have a conversation. And if you don't really want to have a conversation, then do not offer to have a conversation.

Sparrow:         That does make sense. Yes. Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. You don't get Pluto on the Descendant without having abandonment issues in your relationships here and there. You know what I mean?

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And so they feel abandoned by you; you felt abandoned by them.

Sparrow:         Yes.

Jessica:            For totally different reasons. Both of them are true.

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            You both did each other dirty, not because you didn't love each other. That wasn't why at all. It's because life is fucking messy. You have a tendency to pull it in when it gets really emotional, and they have a tendency to dissolve outwards. They have a tendency to have everything kind of come out where it's in a messy way. Is that correct? Am I seeing that right?

Sparrow:         Yeah. I think that's true.

Jessica:            Okay.

Sparrow:         They process, I think, very slowly, though.

Jessica:            I see.

Sparrow:         Or sometimes they're even nonverbal.

Jessica:            Okay.

Sparrow:         So, sometimes, if we have to talk about something where they're really intense and there's conflict, then it had to be over text.

Jessica:            I see. Okay. From what I'm seeing, it is possible that they will bring more of your personal drama to other people in this group than you would be inclined to do. Does that seem correct?

Sparrow:         I don't know.

Jessica:            Okay. I'm seeing that that's a risk, that they—I think that's why I'm seeing things going outwards, is because they might just talk to a bunch of people in the group about whatever messiness, whereas you would try to keep it between the two of you.

Sparrow:         Yeah. That's—yeah.

Jessica:            All of this to say there is no magic option G. And this tracks because you're going through a Saturn opposition to Venus. The transit started in April. When did they start coming to the meetings?

Sparrow:         Oh, that was August.

Jessica:            Okay. So it started recently.

Sparrow:         Yeah, actually, or like—yeah. It's very—well, they've been kind of in the chats for a very long time, but they have only expressed interest in actually engaging since late July, maybe August.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. Well, regardless, you have a lot of transits happening now, but one of them is Saturn opposite your Venus. And it brings up relational dynamics that are based on values and how you express love and care and how you experience love and care. So no one is surprised that this relationship is back online, right?

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            This transit will be over in January, around January 12th of 2027. So you got some time, see. It might go away, but the pattern is not going to go away.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And recognize that both of you are playing out familial patterns—their familial pattern, their behavior, is their stewardship; it's not yours. Yours is yours. You know your—

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            You know your shit. Self-awareness is not your problem. So the assignment here is to be responsible to yourself, and that means honoring, "Okay. I did some things that were the best I could do at the time, and now, I'm like, oh, you could have done x, y, and z." You didn't see x, y, and z. You were stuck at a, b, and c. It happens.

Sparrow:         Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Giving yourself the grace to say, "At the time, it was the best. And now I could do better. But then, I couldn't. So can I have empathy for then-me, younger me, and practice embodying a living repair? How can I live repair?"—not necessarily always with them, but just in how you comport yourself.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            I gotta tell you Pluto is on your Midheaven right now. Uranus is trining your Midheaven right now. You've got Uranus kind of fucking with your Mars. You have a lot astrologically that is kind of pushing you to change, to evolve.

Sparrow:         It feels like that.

Jessica:            Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. And so the relationship that you have with yourself deep inside is the foundation from which you act or don't act, you do or don't do, right?

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And so how you navigate feelings of unsafety, feelings of not knowing how to navigate mess, how you navigate power struggles—these things are active in you. They're struggles.

Sparrow:         Yes. Yes.

Jessica:            And being in relationship with them is actually the healthiest thing you can be. Looking to be absolved of them is a terrible goal. I don't think that you need to be in active relationship with this person. I don't think you need to resolve and repair this relationship with this person in order to prove to yourself that you've healed something inside of yourself.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            But that might come as a result. It might not. It depends on where they're at and a myriad of other factors. So I want to slow myself down and pause and see if you have any questions or if there's something I should be speaking towards or at.

Sparrow:         I kind of have two questions.

Jessica:            Great.

Sparrow:         The first one is, do you have any guidance or advice for how I can explore or work on that sort of strong, intense going into things really deeply and then the strong reaction [indiscernible 00:36:30], like completely, because I mean I've been extremely aware of that pattern in that relationship but also pretty much every—

Jessica:            Every intimate relationship. Every [crosstalk].

Sparrow:         Every intimate relationship for me.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Sparrow:         Yeah. And I see how it hurts people. I want to do better, and I'm trying to figure it out, but if there's any advice that you have—

Jessica:            I do. I do. I do.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Don't give me the next question until I answer this one because I'll forget.

Sparrow:         Okay. Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. I mean, you got Pluto square your Moon and Mars. You have experienced punishment and abandonment for not being, feeling, or doing what other people want you to do, yeah?

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And so you learned at a very young age how to not need bitches. "I don't need you. You need me. I'm helpful. I show up. I don't need you."

Sparrow:         Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            And it's a self-defense mechanism, right?

Sparrow:         Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And it's a trauma response. Part of how you work on it is resisting the urge to always be so helpful and indispensable to other people. It's like—I'm holding up my wired headphones. Wired headphones are connected to the ear part and the wire. It's the whole fucking thing. If I pulled one out of the other, it's no longer wired headphones.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            So, when you change one side of the extreme self-defense mechanism, it automatically changes the other side. Now, it doesn't perfectly heal it. There's refinery work happening after that. But that's really important. So recognizing in the moments where you're hanging out with your partner and you're like, "I know that if I just did these dishes, they would be so calm. It would make them feel better," but you don't want to fucking do the dishes, and you've actually done the dishes every night this week, and honestly, it's just not in alignment for you to do the dishes—but it would be so easy to do the dishes; it's not a big deal—don't do the dishes, not to punish them, but because you're prioritizing acting within your capacity.

                        When you abandon yourself to meet others, you will eventually have resentments or you will abandon them altogether; you will shut them out. Right?

Sparrow:         Yes. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jessica:            And this is the pain of being a Plutonian person. You are not the only one. Chances are you are dating and befriending them as well, right? We are all fucking fucked. But this is the work, is the starting to recognize when you're doing it and shifting that behavior.

                        The other thing is being able to say to someone that you care about, "I am in a super activated state, and if I talk, I'm going to speak my activation instead of what's really happening. I can't separate it right now. So can we talk about it in 72 hours? Can we talk about it later?" I say 72 hours because persons need time, but not so much time that you forget.

Sparrow:         Yes. Yeah.

Jessica:            So I like 72 hours. Being able to acknowledge, "I know I'm radiating fucking toxic energy right now—Pluto—and  I don't know how to stop, but I want to acknowledge that I'm doing it. I think I need to go listen to music," or, "Please ignore my terrible vibes. I'm sorry. I can't talk about it"—because if they try to talk to you about it, then you'll defend it.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And it's really important to know that context is really important information, and it's not an excuse. We don't want to use our context as an excuse, right?

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Your context, just like, actually, your ex-friend's context, explains every single thing you've ever done and not done. Ditto for them.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And it makes sense, but it doesn't make it okay for anybody. And so being able to hang out with, "I have a tendency to either justify my behavior because of my context or abandon ship, just fucking abandon self, abandon others, just shut down, go whatever way," that doesn't make you a bad person. That means that's your coping mechanism. So, when it starts getting activated in you, there's a part of you that can be like, "Oh shit. I'm coping with something getting really activated right now. This is my coping mechanism."

                        If you can practice noticing it and even numbering it on a scale from 1 to 10, like, "Oh, I'm a 9. I'm a 9, and all that person did was offer me a coffee that I didn't want. Oh shit. Okay. I'm a 9"—doesn't mean you can stop being a 9. But you can start separating your reaction from yourself because if there is a part of you that can see, "Oh, I'm activated. Oh, the activation's at a 7," then that means you are not the activation. The activation is a reaction. It's a part of you. It's not all of you.

                        And that can help. It's not going to fix it magically overnight. You know what I'm saying? But it will really help. And I know that you're a workaholic. You've got your Moon/Mars conjunction in Virgo. You've got so much delightful Aquarius in you. You're just like, "Give me more homework. Give me more tests."

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            "I am a good student. I will do it." And I want to say making it complicated doesn't make it more nuanced or effective or efficient. So I would say start with those things, and you may be surprised at what a meaningful impact it has, not over the course of weeks or months. It's more like months or years. So it's a slow process, but it is the process.

                        Wait. No. I'm going to slow down because you said you had another question. What was the other question?

Sparrow:         The other question was like—it was more practical.

Jessica:            Sure.

Sparrow:         Just within the group, there is someone who knows both of us, and we both have a really trusted relationship with that person.

Jessica:            Okay.

Sparrow:         If something were to come up, would it ever make sense to bring that person into it?

Jessica:            You mean like asking them to mediate?

Sparrow:         Yeah. I'm thinking about, okay, if I would rather deal with things one-on-one and they would rather deal with things with everyone, is there a way that—

Jessica:            I see.

Sparrow:         Would that be like a way forward, or would that look bad?

Jessica:            That's a great question. That's a great question. I would say the best person to ask that question to is your friend—

Sparrow:         Okay.

Jessica:            —just to be like, "I am not asking you to do this. I am not ready for a conversation. I'm not ready to talk to them or anything like that. But if that came up, would you be comfortable or would that be putting you in the middle?"

Sparrow:         Okay.

Jessica:            And if they're like, "Ahh, don't do that to me," or whatever, if they look uncomfortable with it, then great. Then take it off the table.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And if they're just like, "I don't know. Ask me at the time," great. Do you feel like they would be comfortable being direct with you about a question like this?

Sparrow:         I think so.

Jessica:            Great. Okay.

Sparrow:         Yeah. If not exactly in the moment being able to take time to do this more directly.

Jessica:            Yeah. And maybe that's the way to ask the question, is to be like, "I'm wondering about this now that this situation is active." And just give them all the time they need to process it. But asking them is probably the best way forward because, if it's a real option, then you can have that in your back pocket. But I wouldn't say to ex-roommate, "Hey, so-and-so said that they'd mediate for us," because that—

Sparrow:         Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            —starts to feel like you're building up a case, right?

Sparrow:         Yes. Yeah.

Jessica:            It is possible—I have a concern, and I just need to name it. Because your roommate's partner—we don't know if they're still together, but if they're still together, I'm concerned because this person was physically violent, right?

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And so we don't know how much peril the old friend has been in. And I do have a concern about that, and I do want to acknowledge that that—on a completely selfish level for you, it makes things a lot messier and a lot more tender. And also, it holds inside of it a boundary. You're not trying to get involved and get in that relationship, right?

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And I also want to acknowledge that if this person stayed in a relationship with somebody who's being physically abusive towards them, their feelings about how you behaved and how you didn't behave and your idea about "ball's in your court to start conversation" is going to be radically different.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And I am not here to moralize, and I hope you're not moralizing about who's right and who's wrong and what's right and what's wrong. It's messy. But I do want to hold space for it's literally impossible for you to not think they're wrong sometimes and you're wrong sometimes. That's part of what's so hard about this situation—

Sparrow:         Yes. Yeah.

Jessica:            —and what's so hard about community is that everybody fucks up and everybody is fucked up, right? That's how that goes. I want to name that messiness because it's going to come up as you move forward to deal with this. And there is a way that when I named that, some of your energy just tanked, like shame spiral tank. And then some of it was feeling very firm because I can see you're not trying to get involved in this kind of relationship if they're still—

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            —with this person. This person was not it for you. It was just several steps too far.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And boundaries—I want to just say your boundaries are not roommate's to steward. They're yours to steward.

Sparrow:         Yes. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And you did actually—again, messy, imperfect 20-something version of really good boundaries, of being like, "Roommate's partner was just several steps too far, and I needed to not let that into my personal space." And I think there was some rigidity to your boundary that kind of pushed them away when maybe they needed you, right?

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And that's good for you to be able to hold because I can affirm that the rigidity of your boundary was not because you were like, "Fuck you, friend." It was because you don't know how to have—just like nobody fucking knows how to have—strong, clear boundaries that are also adaptable. It's hard to have strong, clear boundaries and also be open, right? The way you described the situation is it felt really unsafe.

Sparrow:         Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            And in order to have community and intimacy, we have to hang out in the boundaries of unsafe. We don't have to be in active unsafe situations.

Sparrow:         Yes.

Jessica:            No, thank you. But the boundaries of unsafe—like if you are unsafe and I'm around you, I have to hang out in that if I want to be in community and in connection with you.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And that doesn't mean I have to light myself on fire to be there for you, but—right? And your capacity to navigate the unsafe feelings you were having—it's bigger now than it was then, and it still isn't as big as they would have wanted it to be.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And that doesn't mean that what they wanted was wrong or what you needed was wrong. I want to just really kind of hang out in this "and also." You understand them, and also, you don't. You were really there for them, and also, you weren't. They asked too much of you, and also, they didn't. We can hang out in that, and the only way we can hang out in that is by breathing into the resentment or breathing into the shame because the shame is to the self; resentment's to them. And you're not doing any of that. Breathe. Go breathe. Thank you. Did you notice you were really holding your breath because you were—

Sparrow:         Yeah, I was.

Jessica:            Your body goes rigid when those feelings come up.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            This is very normal. So breathing into the feelings—continue to breathe, because you stopped. Okay. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And give yourself space to be like, "Okay. These are the feelings. Why do I feel shame? It's because I have grief because I did something that was out of alignment or that I wouldn't do today or that was messy, and it just—it's grief. Can I learn from this grief? Can I acknowledge that I technically know better, but I don't know how to do better yet?" That's not giving yourself carte blanche to do whatever the fuck you want. It's not letting yourself off the hook. It's not policing and punishing yourself as a way to get change, which is very fucking hard for anyone at any time.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And I feel like it's especially hard in our current world that—we're very carceral. We live in a surveillance state, and we're very carceral. And I know that's happening from billionaires—yeah, yeah, yeah. It's happening from us in our progressive Queer communities—

Sparrow:         Yes.

Jessica:            —in our spiritual communities. We are policing. We are surveilling ourselves and others. And recognizing, "Oh shit. My Wi-Fi is surveilling me. I didn't know it was surveilling me," is similar to realizing, "Oh shit. I have such intense shame about some things I did, but it's really just that I feel sad and bad. And I'm not letting myself feel sad and bad, so I'm getting twisted up on the shame," or, "I feel hurt and abandoned, and now I feel resentful because hurt and abandoned is too painful. Resentful is easier." Right?

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            I know I'm telling a Virgo Moon to be in a messy pot of messy emotions, and it's a terrible thing I'm doing to you. But that's the move. That's the structure. That's the approach. The amount of transits you're going through right now tells me that you can make these changes—I mean, not pain-free or easy or comfy, but you can make these changes. Do you cry? When you're sad, do you cry?

Sparrow:         Yes. Yeah, I do.

Jessica:            Okay. Good. Okay. Great. And when you're mad, do you cry?

Sparrow:         I cry whenever I have a feeling that's above a certain level.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. [crosstalk]—

Sparrow:         It doesn't matter which feeling.

Jessica:            Yeah. Moon/Mars conjunction—it does that. It does that. So understanding that your tears are like a valve, like an overflow valve, but developing habits for staying associated and present after the crying is really important. Otherwise, you'll get stuck.

Sparrow:         Yeah, like rumination or—

Jessica:            Okay. I'm going to say it slightly different.

Sparrow:         Okay.

Jessica:            So what can happen is you cry because the emotions get to a certain place, and it's its own catharsis, right?

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm. Yes.

Jessica:            And then you're spent.

Sparrow:         Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            And so, when you're spent, now you're kind of empty, and then the emotions are not as intense, and then we can move on a little bit. That's an error. What I'm saying is, after the crying, you can be kinder to yourself and stay with whatever it is that sparked the emotion that made you cry.

Sparrow:         Okay. Okay.

Jessica:            But that takes a great deal of effort and intention because the easier thing to be is like, "Oh, finally." It's just like, "I have a stomachache. I took a shit. I feel better," instead of being like, "Oh, I have a stomachache. What did I eat?" I'm sorry for gross metaphor. But, "I have a stomachache. What did I eat? I should be aware of what makes my body feel bad." Right?

So I'm saying stay associated post-cry so that you can be like, "Oh, okay," because you're in a more tender state at that point, like, "Something really made me feel overwhelmed. Okay. Can I be nice to myself that I felt overwhelmed and accountable to whatever it is that is active at the same time?" Does that make sense?

Sparrow:         Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. Now, take a minute. Check in. Did we kind of speak to your question? Is there anything final remaining?

Sparrow:         I think that speaks to the question.

Jessica:            Good. Okay. Great.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            I'm so happy to hear that. I will say that I was so happy to see your question, and I'm so happy that you're asking it because being in community is uncomfortable. It's always really fun at the start, and then inevitably, people don't get along. People have history—whatever it is.

And I think that you are in a really good position to—not fix this. You can't fix this. This is not getting fixed. I mean, maybe eventually it heals, but it's not getting fixed. But I think that you are in a really good position to be not just healing inside of the situation but becoming more in relationship to yourself around big emotions and mistakes because they made mistakes, and also, you made mistakes. And also, everybody else in the situation actually made mistakes.

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And that doesn't mean that anyone was wrong or bad. And because you're so Plutonian, there's the tendency to be like, "All/nothing. Bad/good."

Sparrow:         Yeah.

Jessica:            And the culture supports that. That's reality. But holding space for, yeah, absolutely, we were all the bad guy and we were all the good guy, actually; it depends on how you hold it—if you can be emotionally present for that truth, that doesn't mean you stop having boundaries. It just means you navigate your boundaries from that point with a little bit more empathy towards you as well as them. Empathy for them and not you doesn't work. Empathy for you and not them—also [foreign language 00:54:14]. So don't do that.

                        Okay. I think we did what we came to do.

Sparrow:         All right.

Jessica:            All right. I wish you the best of luck with this situation. And also, yay, mutual aid.

Sparrow:         Yay.

Jessica:            Yay.

Sparrow:         Thank you very much.

Jessica:            It is so my pleasure.