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.

Hey there, Ghosties. In this episode, I'll be doing a live reading with one of my beloved listeners. Every Wednesday, listen in on an intimate conversation and get inspired as we explore perspectives on life, love, and the human condition. Along the way, we'll uncover valuable insights and practical lessons that you can apply to your own life. And don't forget to hit Subscribe or, at the very least, mark your calendars because every Sunday I'll be back with your weekly horoscope. And that you don't want to miss. Let's get started.

Jessica: Quintin, welcome to the podcast.

Quentin: I'm so excited to be here.

Jessica: Yay. I'm excited you're here. What would you like a reading about?

Quentin: I am an intuitive who has a lot of anxiety. Recently, I've been working on understanding when I've absorbed someone else's reaction versus when I'm having my own reaction to things going on. Is there something in my chart that points to how I can decipher what is what and when anxiety makes its way into the equation?

Jessica: I love this question. And it is just undeniably relatable because I feel like every person who's at all intuitive⁠—an empath, psychic, whatever⁠—deals with this question of, "What is anxiety, and what's my instinct?" I'm going to share your birth data but not all of it. You were born in November of 1998 at 9:03 a.m. in New Brunswick, New Jersey. Yeah?

Quentin: Yes.

Jessica: Okay. Okay. Great. Are there things in the chart that tell us how to do it? Probably, yeah. But I'm going to psychic you with psychic. I mean, I'm going to respond to your psychic question with psychic. Let's do that.

Quentin: No problem. No problem.

Jessica: Okay. Great. So I'm going to have you say your full name out loud, and include your mom's maiden last name.

Quentin: My full name is [redacted].

Jessica: Okay.

Quentin: I'm going to pull down the defenses, too, just⁠—

Jessica: Yeah. I was just about to say you have all these really, really good walls up. And they are really good walls. It's what you need as⁠—so I should say⁠—let me pull back. You have a Sagittarius stellium in the twelfth house. It's very woo of you, like super woo. You have a tendency towards being all the clairs. Because you have a Sun/Pluto conjunction, there's psychic tendencies here. Because you have a Moon/Uranus conjunction in the first⁠—it's on the cusp of the first and the second house⁠—you get these flashes of insight because Jupiter forms a square to your Venus and your Mercury in the twelfth house, and you've got that Jupiter in Pisces. It gives you these broad senses of knowing.

Quentin: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: So you got a lot of shit going on is what I'm trying to say.

Quentin: Okay.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. Like, you have a lot going on in the realm of woo. In addition to that, because you have a Moon/Uranus conjunction in Aquarius, of all the fucking signs to have that in, your nervous system is⁠—it's zingy. It's humming all the time.

Quentin: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. All the time, which⁠—it predisposes you towards⁠—not anxiety like twelfth-house anxiety, which is kind of panicking, but anxiety like attention deficit forms of anxiety, right?

Quentin: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: Now, you've also got all that twelfth-house stuff, so you also have a predisposition towards panic.

Quentin: Yeah.

Jessica: And straight out the gate, I can let you know that both forms of this anxiety are never intuition, never intuition, which doesn't mean that they're not other people's energies, which is really what you're asking about, right?

Quentin: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: Okay.

Quentin: It's anxiety. It's anger. It's like I'm trying to figure out and gauge whether or not certain reactions that come between me and this other person⁠—and not like that⁠—when the reaction is mine and when the reaction is something from somebody else that I'm processing them as mine, if that makes sense.

Jessica: Totally. Oh yeah. Completely does. Unfortunately, it makes sense to me because I get it. So you have a Mars square to the Ascendant in your birth chart. Mars is your highest planet in the chart. You get pissed. You experience anger. That's real.

Quentin: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. So, before I go in and psychic you, I want to say, as intuitives, we are only vulnerable to other people's energies that we are porous around, that we are already porous around. So, if you already have an issue with managing your own experience and expression of anger, you're going to be more vulnerable to experiencing other people's repression or fucked-up shit around their anger. If you have a really healthy, well-adjusted relationship to anger, that's not going to be your trigger as much.

So it is important to name that the kind of struggles you have around determining, "Is this mine, or is this theirs?" are always going to be struggles because, on some level, you resonate with the problem or you resonate with the struggle itself. Right?

Quentin: Yes. Yeah.

Jessica: And so this is important on two levels. One is on a psychological level. It's important that we as empaths⁠—or psychics or whatever, however you identify⁠—own our own shit because we wouldn't be experiencing it if it wasn't resonant with our capacity and tenderness around experiencing it. Right?

Quentin: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: And then, on a woo level, it's about recognizing, "Okay." So, even if it's like, "Okay, my bestie is super depressed, and every time I'm around them, I'm super depressed. And it's dragging me down. What do I do?" some of that is about you managing your own reactions and responses to depressive thoughts and feelings. And some of that is about pulling out your bestie's vibes. That makes sense, right?

Quentin: Yeah, that does make sense.

Jessica: So, all that said, do you have a particular relationship that this is coming up in particularly at this time?

Quentin: Yeah. It comes up very mundanely. So, in certain aspects, it's like I'll be with a coworker. I have just eaten, and they are so hungry. And I have just eaten, and I'm like, "I just ate. But I didn't eat a lot, so maybe I'm still hungry." And then they vocalize that they are extremely hungry and haven't eaten for the last 12 hours, and they need to go get something to eat. And I'm like, "Okay. Cool."

I wrote this question specifically about dealing with reactions with my roommates and things like that. I'm in an extremely triggering situation right now, and I have been in a series of triggering situations when it comes to my housing for the last year and a half. So I kind of think I got to a breaking point where I allowed myself to act out in ways that weren't necessarily up to code, up to my own moral code. And I had this feeling that it wasn't necessarily coming from me.

But then, since I've written this question, I've kind of come to an understanding that regardless of where it was coming from, I still need to take responsibility for the things that I allowed myself to do, even if it was in reaction to things that were even worse things, fucked up. But at the end of the day, it's like taking that responsibility for my own actions. But I also want to get a gauge of how I can understand this concept within myself for the future because this is not necessarily how I normally react. But I think the total of my brain stress over the last couple months has just kind of⁠—it ended up like this, and it sucks, but it is what it is.

Jessica: Here we are.

Quentin: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. Okay. So there's lots of layers what you just shared. Thank you. I like context. So the first thing is, yeah, of course you've had fucked-up roommate situations. You've got Saturn at the bottom of your chart, and Pluto has been forming a square to it for the past year and a half.

Quentin: Yep. Yep.

Jessica: So, of course, you're going to have power struggles. You're going to have people and situations that make you feel really oppressed and limited and like your survival and welfare is at stake. Whether or not that's the case, that's the trigger. And I'm sure it's probably been both, depending on the moment. So I want to just validate that, and we can come back to that in a moment.

I also want to say that, as psychics or empaths⁠—and I'm going to keep on saying psychic or empaths because you've got both problems happening here, or both gifts, depending on how you want to hold it.

Quentin: Yeah. Yeah. Both gifts.

Jessica: They're both gifts, and also, we're talking about the problem side of the gifts, right?

Quentin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica: "I believe it doesn't matter whether or not the reason why I got really mad at you is because you were fucking mad at me, and you were just lying to me about it or not. What matters to me is"⁠—

Quentin: That.

Jessica: Yeah. That. That's it. I mean, for real, because the truth of the matter is people constantly sorting through their own traumas, their own triggers, their own judgments, their own family shit, their own disassociation, all that stuff⁠—and if one is a psychic or an empath, what we will do is we will experience those things, but that doesn't mean we know what it's about. So having a download doesn't mean you've sorted through all the data, you've studied all the data, you've contextualized all the data, and you've been able to make use of the data. It only means you got a download.

And what happens as empaths and psychics is we get downloads. What gets us into trouble and why a lot of people don't like us⁠—because we can be annoying socially⁠—is when we start to act like we know what it means, and we try to make people cope or show up on a level that they aren't ready to cope or show up on; that's why they were repressing their shit. And I have a right to repress my shit and to be a fucked-up, messy person. So do you, and so do even your most annoying roommates or exes or friends or whatever.

So I think that's an important way to hold this stuff, is that other people get to be⁠—see, the thing that's so complicated is I wanted to say other people get to be fucked up, but the thing is they weren't necessarily even being fucked up, because what they were doing is not embodying and owning their shit. That's always the thing. That's why you as an empath are feeling it so strong. And how do you navigate being aware of other people's triggers, experiencing other people's⁠—I mean, how do you navigate that? It's exceptionally challenging.

And on top of that, you've got a stellium in Sadge. You've got a Moon/Uranus conjunction. You got Mars square your Ascendant. You are not the most patient person in the world.

Quentin: Well, you got me there.

Jessica: I mean, I mean⁠—right? So you're not the most patient person in the world. Sagittarius has foot-in-mouth condition where you can just, "I just fucking need to say this. I need to name this truth. This is the truth. I need to name this truth." And what I would say to that is the truth is really important, but it's not the only thing that's really important. It's not always the most important thing to lead with, naming the truth, because when we can own the truth and embody the truth, we don't necessarily need to name it. I'm talking interpersonally and very personally, not in social conditions or whatever.

An example of that could be you would be in a situation with somebody, and you know that they are lying to themselves and therefore lying to you. I'm assuming this has happened to you seven million times.

Quentin: Yeah.

Jessica: And is that part of what happened in the roommate situation?

Quentin: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah.

Quentin: Yeah. One of the many things. Yeah.

Jessica: Of course. It's on a list. So let's focus on this because this is one of the most common things. I'm lying to myself, and you and I are having a deep and meaningful conversation. And you know I'm lying to myself, and therefore, I'm fucking lying to you. So what do you want to do? You're a Sagittarius. You're an empath. You're like, "Actually, let me point to the thing that you have shoved in your back pocket. It's in your back pocket. If you would only pull it out, we could discuss it." Right?

Quentin: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: But if I have shoved that thing in my back pocket, I've done it for good reason. And if you are coming to me with the truth, what you're doing is you're now pushing up against my flight-or-fight mechanisms, my survival mechanisms. So what am I going to do? I'm going to claw your eyes out. I'm going to find a way to fight or flight. So I'm either going to disassociate and abandon you in the situation⁠—or continue to shove things in my back pockets, in other words⁠—or I'm going to fight you. And that's how humans work.

Being able to acknowledge that you have an experience of the truth is really different than it is your truth to put on the table.

Quentin: Okay.

Jessica: Let me give you another example. I'm going to psychic you in a minute. Just wait. Okay. So⁠—

Quentin: In the background, I'm telling my guides, "Let down the shields."

Jessica: Yeah. Let down the shields. We're getting there. We're building up. We're building up. It's fine. It's good. It's good. I mean, again, you've got a Sun/Pluto conjunction in the twelfth house. You need big, strong survival mechanisms. You've come by it honestly. You've come by it through generations of needing to come by it honestly. So we're not going to rush. There's no rush.

Okay. Pulling back. When I first started becoming aware that I had this same thing that you have, where I can just feel other people's shit, I would go out for dinner with a group of friends, and I'd be like, "Oh, my knee. Oh, my back. Oh, my heart." And I'd be like, "Who's heartbroken? Who's got a knee problem? Who's got a back problem?" And what happened was one of two things. Either it really shut people down⁠—it made them feel spied upon and uncomfortable⁠—or they got really excited that I could tell them all about themselves. And then I stopped being able to be a person at the table having a social event, and I started feeling like I had to work.

And what's worse is that when somebody knows you're psychic and knows you can tap into them, they start invading because they want the insight. And if you invited them in, which⁠—we all make this mistake, I feel like, with our friends and our communities when you're being like, "Oh my God. I can feel this." People start to invade. And now that compounds your problem of not knowing what's yours and what's theirs because that invasion is not malicious; it's just like, "Wait. You can tell me what's wrong with my knee? You can tell me what's wrong with my heart? What else can you tell me?"

And it doesn't just come up when you're in physical contact with them. You might have a friend that you were psychic⁠—

Quentin: Yeah.

Jessica: Right. This is the problem, right? You might have had a friend that you were psychic with six months ago, and then whatever you said actually played out, and then now they start obsessing on you. Now they're obsessing on you, and you may have months of experiencing their attachment to you and not having any way of knowing it. But you know it's not yours, so now you're looking at your roommates. Now you're looking at your coworkers because they're there.

This is where it comes back to boundaries. And I say it comes back to boundaries because I feel like every fucking reading I've ever given since the dawn of time always comes back to boundaries, on some level, in some way. But it does come back to boundaries. One of the key lessons of the twelfth house is having energetic boundaries in addition to psychological and behavioral boundaries. But those energetic boundaries are the foundation when they're in the twelfth house. If it's in the sixth house, it's⁠—material boundaries are the foundation. But it's like the immaterial boundaries.

And so we're going to talk about some things, including do you do boundary work with people on purpose?

Quentin: Yes, in certain situations. I don't want to say anything that's not PG or whatever, but I find that when I'm masturbating, that it's like a⁠—

Jessica: You're fine. Talk sex. Yes.

Quentin: I need to. I have to. I have to.

Jessica: Yes. Yes. Yes.

Quentin: It's like I'm the most porous. It's like I'm the most porous, and then I'm getting information, and it's like, "This is not the time."

Jessica: No. It's not the vibe. It's not the vibe.

[crosstalk]

Jessica: Yes. But not⁠—okay. But this is what I'm going to say. You need boundaries every single day, 100 percent of the days, several times a day, because you are a loofah sponge. You're a loofah sponge. And the problem with sponges is that if a sponge stays moist, it gets moldy. There's only so much a sponge can hold at a certain point as well. And so, for you, if you're just walking down the street, you don't know what you're fucking picking up. If you're interacting with some rando getting on the subway, you don't know if they just lost a family member. You don't know. You can't know.

So this brings me to something else, which is it doesn't always fucking matter who it came from and what it means. And I know the Sagittarius in you is like, "I need the whole story. I want the whole story."

Quentin: Oh yeah.

Jessica: But this will get you into trouble because, as psychics, we cannot help but be human, which means we fictionalize. We fictionalize because we're creating stories. We're filling in the blanks with our own assumptions, our own values, our own ideas, our own fears, our own shit. And so, sometimes⁠—and when I say sometimes, I mean like nine out of ten times, okay? So, sometimes, what we need to do is simply identify, "This is not mine," not, "This is theirs, and this is what I'm going to do about it." Unless you have clear, expressed consent on both sides, psychic-ing other people can be a deep invasion of privacy. You know about invasions of privacy. You fucking hate your privacy invaded, right?

Quentin: Yeah. Yeah. So I do have moments where I receive information, and then I actively have to say, "This is not my business." And then I actively am like⁠—what I call it is putting the thought down, which is just kind of like, "Think about something else," because I'm not going to try to pull the string even more to unravel whatever is going on. And then it gets complicated when I'm getting information when it involves me. But it's tricky. And I do have boundaries with it, but you're right.

Jessica: We can't have enough.

Quentin: Yeah.

Jessica: I mean, the more psychic you are or the more psychic you are in a situation, the more boundaries you need. So, instead of putting the thought away⁠—I mean, that's not a bad strategy, so I'm not saying throw that strategy away. But I'm going to give you an additional one. It's asking your guides to get a big butterfly net and to just collect it all for you so that it gets to be big, and it can even be collecting data. But you're not holding it.

And the thing about putting things away is it implies you'll come back to it later. And it's not always useful or your fucking business, right? The truth is, if you are friends with somebody and they haven't told you something, they have a reason. And it's never fair to figure out the reason before they've told it to you. And this is a really challenging part about being psychic or being an empath, is that you have to have relationships with people that are consensual. And it is not actually possible to do that all the time when you're psychic because you're getting data that they didn't give you.

And most people, when they find out they have a psychic friend, are like, "Score. Tell me things." And yeah, most of us will be like, "Okay. Let me tell you this thing." You know what I mean? "Oh my God. You have a crush on this person? Guess what. They do, too." Everybody wants to be the friend who can give their friends something special. But⁠—huge but⁠—that is a drink that always turns on you. That will never go well throughout the course of a whole entire relationship. And that's because, inevitably, you're going to say something that they're not ready to hear, and you're not their therapist. You're their friend. Right?

Quentin: Mm-hmm. It's happened before.

Jessica: Of course, it has. 100 percent. I can tell, because I can see how your sensitivities work. Some people come to you with all their problems until⁠—what? Until they're like, "I don't want to hear your advice. I don't want to get the realness. I don't want to be held to account." And you know what? It feels like a personal rejection of you, but what it really is is you've come to hold a space that should be an hourly-fee space. In other words, it's not equal exchange.

At a certain point, what you're doing is unintentionally⁠—this is where it slips into your own trauma⁠. You're kind of bartering for love and attention and connection. "I'll give you this, and you'll give me care. I'll show up for you in all of these ways, and then it's okay if I'm fucked up in that way or if I'm not perfect in this way," or whatever it is. I mean, that's like a classic Plutonian struggle. Anyone who has hard Pluto aspects in the birth chart, we do some version of this. But having psychic ability⁠—oh, that can put you in a really lonely, isolated state.

Quentin: Yeah, because nobody else can give me that back.

Jessica: Correct. Nobody can give you that back. And if they did, you wouldn't be their friend because if they showed up and they were like, "Let me tell you you're actually holding back on this right now. You're holding yourself back on that," you'd be like, "No," and you'd leave. So it's like one of these things where it's important to recognize that when we have an unhealthy habit, conscious or unconscious, we're getting something out of it. We might not getting anything healthy. It might not be a conscious thing that we're getting, but we're getting something out of it. And part of what you're getting is you really want to believe that you can track the truth and protect yourself with it.

Quentin: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: You believe that the truth will set you free.

Quentin: Damn.

Jessica: Sorry.

Quentin: Yes.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know that that's true. I don't know that that's not true; I just don't think it's the only true, because as soon as we started our conversation, I was like, "Okay. Let me get in there. Give me your names. I'm going to see you psychically." And you know what? No. There was no consent there. I mean, your brain was like, "Fuck yeah, Jessica, read me." But your survival mechanisms and your guidance and your heart all said, "No. This is too fast. I move fast. You don't move fast. I advance. You don't advance. I want the truth. I want the truth when I'm ready for the truth." And none of that is bad. None of that is bad.

It is really important to be able to acknowledge there are multiple truths that happen at once. And what I choose to respect and center is your heart's truth. And your heart's truth was, "Too quick. Nope. Nope. Nope." And if I had pushed you, your brain would have done the big and powerful Oz thing; it would have gotten bigger and bigger and bigger, and the rest of you would have shrunk. And I would have given you stories, and the stories would have been helpful. You would have brought them to therapy. But that wouldn't have actually helped you integrate.

This is where I say that all of this that I just shared of my process and our connection is me not centering, quote unquote, the "story" or the truth. It's me centering what's important, which is connection and healing presence. There are too many truths that are true at once for it to be definitive when we're talking about deep emotional issues. Something as stupid as why a roommate does or doesn't do the dishes right away⁠—yeah, I see it. I see it. Is it you, or is it them?

Quentin: That one I'm a little bit lenient with because I myself is not super consistent. But I am very clean in the kitchen, and I clean up after myself when I'm cooking. And that's not necessarily a habit that they have. They're a "clean it once a week" or "clean it every three days," regardless of whether there's everything going on. So⁠—

Jessica: Is it multiple roommates or just one?

Quentin: It's two.

Jessica: Two? Both of them do that?

Quentin: Yeah. Yeah. They're together.

Jessica: Oh. You're living with a couple. Very bold.

Quentin: I mean, they're poly, too. So I was like, "Maybe it'll be"⁠—no. It⁠—you know?

Jessica: No. It turns out no.

Quentin: That was a mistake on my part. It was a mistake on my part.

Jessica: Yeah. I mean, whatever. It's Pluto squaring your Saturn. You're supposed to be making mistakes with housing. It's all good. You know what I mean?

Quentin: [crosstalk]

Jessica: Yeah. Exactly. Okay. But, that said, both of them have different reasons why they do that is what I'm seeing, okay? They each have different reasons why they do that. One of them, it's anxiety. And the other one, it's entitlement. So you might be talking to them, and you might be aware that they're lying to you about something to do with the kitchen thing. You might feel really manipulated in a conversation about maintaining the kitchen.

Part of what might be happening is the person with anxiety is not able to be honest because they feel so panicked at the pressure to do things right that they act in ways⁠—

Quentin: [crosstalk]

Jessica: Okay. Now you⁠—okay.

Quentin: Yeah.

Jessica: But you wouldn't have clocked it because the truth of the matter is, when we are in a situation, we are dealing with an actual human person, and then we have our own shit, and we have what they say and how they present. And all of that is really hard to hold at once. Does that make sense?

Quentin: It does.

Jessica: So the story is not the most important thing. The truth is the most important thing. At the center of the truth is the truth. So the other one, who has entitlement⁠—I mean, they're married. And there's usually one person who's a little bit more of a push and the other one who's a little bit more of a yield. And that makes sense. But you're not married to these people, and you don't actually resonate with this fucking problem.

So you're just like, "Oh, it should be done because it should be done. I have Saturn in the fourth house, so there are rules. There are habits. Follow the rules. Make the habit. Bada-bing, bada-boom." But they don't have any resonance with that. So they feel that you're trying to control or that you're being hard-edged. And they don't understand that, for you, this is common sense. For you, this is basic respect. For you, this is simply a habit that you've built and that anyone could build if they cared enough.

Quentin: That's one of the things. One of the things that keeps happening is that my stuff turns up broken, and nobody says anything. That's on top of other things that were also very terrible, like stuff with the utilities and the bills and things like that. And I was lied to my face. And so it was like it put me in a state. And then I was like, "Okay. So I can't trust you." You know what I mean?

Jessica: Yep.

Quentin: And I'm kind of curious as to where the aspect of "Don't tell her" comes from because, for me, I'm like⁠—certain things I know are an accident. Certain things that are broken I know are accidents, and then other things I know are not an accident. And so I'm kind of confused because it's like that's the same thing that you were saying where it's like, "This is common sense. We have rules. Da-da-da-da-da." I'm like, "Okay, but we don't break each other's stuff."

Jessica: Very basic.

Quentin: Now I'm in a position where either I fight back the way that you fight, or what? You know what I mean?

Jessica: Right.

Quentin: Is just like it's into a cycle.

Jessica: So there's two things I want to ask, but the first and most important is, could you move out?

Quentin: I'm so broke. So, yes, in a couple of months, but I⁠—

Jessica: Not now.

Quentin: Not immediately.

Jessica: Okay. So you gotta make this work. And is it the one that I suggested has anxiety that's doing the breaking, or is it the one that I suggested is more entitled?

Quentin: Actually, I don't know because it could genuinely be either of them, and it just comes from a different place. I know that the one who I believe is entitled⁠—I know they break stuff when they're mad. But certain things happened to where the other person⁠—they also don't fuck with me. So it's like, okay, it really genuinely⁠—that could be a behavior that both of them have learned. Because you are married and in your married bubble and this is happening within our home⁠—I'm sure you're normal people outside of the home, but this is the language that you speak inside your house.

Jessica: Right. This is⁠—yeah.

Quentin: And so it's like [crosstalk] person.

Jessica: You're in someone's family.

Quentin: Exactly. I'm like, "I'm part of this." You know? So I actually don't know.

Jessica: Say both of their names for me.

Quentin: [redacted]

Jessica: Were you raised with your dad around?

Quentin: Yeah. I was raised with my dad around.

Jessica: You were raised with your dad around. Does one of them kind of remind you of your dad?

Quentin: Yeah, because they lie. They just lie.

Jessica: Just like your dad.

Quentin: We'll be sitting there, and the truth⁠—I have the paperwork, and they're just like, "But it's not true."

Jessica: Right. Your dad. You moved in with your dad. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. I'm so sorry. I mean, it's pretty textbook. It didn't even occur to me⁠—Pluto square Saturn. I mean, you're dealing with some dad shit. So you moved in with your dad, whose partner⁠—were your parents married?

Quentin: Yeah.

Jessica: So partnered with your mom, right?

Quentin: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica: Both of these people, it's your dad and your mom. Can you see it now?

Quentin: I do. And it's like one will lie on the behalf of the other to try to make it better. Da-da-da-da-da.

Jessica: Yep.

Quentin: Throw in a lie here and there.

Jessica: The one who plays the role of your mom is lying to protect themselves because if they could really look at what the one who is playing your dad was doing, they'd have to go. They don't want to go. They're too scared to go. So what you're in is this couple's fucking fear soup. And the reason why you unconsciously chose them is because it's⁠—here you are. You're a kid again. You have no fucking control. You're stuck. These people are telling you that the sky is purple and the clouds are made of spaghetti, and you're like, "Bitch, it's blue, and skies are full of clouds, and clouds are fucking water," right? "It's not spaghetti."

They're saying the truth is one thing, and you're like, "But I know the truth is something else." But it gets under your skin because you're not like, "Oh, I know that that's wrong. I know these people are completely not operating on the same level as me." Instead, it gets you because it reminds you of your fucking parents, and you get involved. Whenever we get involved and we get defensive, it always twists our intuition, which doesn't mean that the download is inaccurate. It only means that our ability to process through the data within that download is twisted up because we're twisted up about it.

So I want to just acknowledge that as I say this, you are very calm. You're saying, "Mm-hmm, mm-hmm." I'm direct-quoting you. But some of your survival mechanisms are like, "Fuck that. No," and mad about it. And I want to say that that is okay. Your survival mechanism got to be what it is because the way that you got out of your family home and you got out of a lot of childhood trauma was by fighting your way out, by insisting that "That's not spaghetti; that's clouds. That's not purple; that's blue," or whatever.

And fighting is what helped you out. The problem is, when it comes to fighting, we have to be really clear what we're fighting for and what we're fighting against and how we're choosing to engage, because as a child, you had zero options. You had zero options. You were just in this insanity. You were in insanity all the time, and there's nothing you can do. So you just became an adult, and you became the dad of these adults, and you became the only thing you could be.

And here you are in this situation that is mirroring your childhood enough that it's just thrown you off, and it sucks. But you get to parent you this time. You don't have to parent them. And parenting you means aligning with what's actually important to you. What are your goals? Because from what I'm hearing, your primary goal is to not have your shit broken, not have your finances fucked with, and to have enough peace for the next three months so that you can save your duckets and move out in the spring. That's actually the goal.

And because of that third part, that needing the peace to last for a couple months⁠—not forever, but for a couple months⁠—it means that you get to refer back to your own managerial skills. And it's the management of expectation, not just the management of these people, because if you try to manage this couple, it'll go just like when you tried to manage your parents: explosions.

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Jessica: Do you know where your solar plexus is?

Quentin: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: Okay. Do you know where the energy centers at the bottom of your feet are?

Quentin: Not specifically, but I know that there's energy centers⁠—

Jessica: Center. Yeah.

Quentin: Okay.

Jessica: Just in the center of your feet, so where the arch is, pretty much.

Quentin: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: Okay? What I want to encourage you to do is to make a practice of feeling those parts of your body, so the energy centers of your feet and your solar plexus. Let's start with your damn feet. So have you ever done any grounding exercises? You have so little earth in your chart, but have you ever done any grounding exercises?

Quentin: I try to do ones every morning, but I honestly⁠—I'm not sure if I'm doing grounding exercises or energy exercises, if that makes sense.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. You've got a twelfth-house stellium. Of course, you can't tell the difference. Okay. Yeah. That's right. That's right. I said it. I pulled [indiscernible 00:37:34]. Okay.

Quentin: Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. So can you tap into the energy of the earth?

Quentin: Yeah. And again, I do exercises, but I feel like I'm sending my energy into the earth.

Jessica: That's not what we're talking about.

Quentin: Okay. Okay.

Jessica: But that's very Sagittarius in the twelfth house of you. So you're on-brand.

Quentin: Yay.

Jessica: Exactly. So we're going to reverse it. And what you want to do is tap into the center of the earth. And then what you do is you bring the earth's energy up, really slowly up through the bottoms of your feet. And you always want to start with the bottoms of your feet because (a) twelfth house, (b) that's your grounding. Right? And then bring it slowly up all of your physical body. Have it hit through all the chakras.

Now, you do things quick. So this one has to be done a little slow because it's with earth. You got to your ankles. That's good enough for me. At least you can do it.

Quentin: I did it.

Jessica: Yeah, I saw that. I saw that.

Quentin: I got to my ankles, and then I kind of zoned out.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Of course. It's going to feel weird to you. So what you might want to do is just make a practice of⁠—if it takes you 15 minutes because you're like⁠—get to your ankles⁠—you zone out. Then you're like, "Oh shit. My shins," and then your knees⁠—you know what I mean?

Quentin: Yeah.

Jessica: But bring the energy up of the earth through your body, up past your crown chakra, and have it fill up your energy field, your auric field. Doing this is bringing the earth's energy into your field so that you have access to earth. And for you, that will help you to remember your agency because what happens is that you're feeling too many things at once. It's not just, "Oh, I don't know what's mine and what's not mine." It's, "I don't have a choice here. I'm stuck being overwhelmed all the time." And being overwhelmed all the time leads to burnout. It is a path. It is a path that leads to burnout, period.

So it's really important that you have access to earth energy. So make that a practice. And you can fuck with earth energies. So it can be like molten lava vibes. It can be like gold and pearlescent in the earth. Snail trails are really pretty. You can fuck with the earth energies. But bring the earth up through your system, and that will help you to feel what you're feeling. And what you will probably notice is that some of what you're feeling is bad, because why else would you not feel your body unless something felt bad in there?

The next step is to identify where you feel funky or off or bad and then to breathe into that. See, the problem is you go straight to, "Okay, how can I fix this? What should I do?" And your brain is too all over the damn place. Let's try something else. Let's try something else.

Quentin: I'm trying to do it as we're talking, and I'm like…

Jessica: Zing, zing, zing. Right, right, right. Okay. I'm seeing it. I'm seeing it. Okay. So let's pivot here. And I want you to notice what I'm doing, right, because⁠—

Quentin: I'm going to hold on to that for⁠—

Jessica: For down the road. Sure. But I want you to notice that we're not looking for the truth of what works best. We're looking for what's in alignment, which is only one part of the truth, anyway. Right? So I just want to, again, speak to all that Sadge in you. Okay. So you do the earth energy up, up the body, filling up the aura. Then you connect with your guides.

You ask your guides⁠—see, you have a problem where you really want to track things. So ask your guides to help you to let go of what is not yours⁠—the good, the bad, the confusing, the ugly. All of it. So it can be a butterfly net made of gold or made of anything. Just be imaginative. And have it kind of go through your whole system, your whole vibrational energy body, scooping out whatever is not yours. And ask your guides to use their divine discretion around what to do with it.

Quentin: Okay. Okay.

Jessica: That might work for you. For me, that would not work, I want to be really clear, and I'll tell you why: because I like to track shit a lot, and so I would need to have a little bit more direction. So I'm going to give you a little bit more direction version as well. Okay?

Quentin: Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Jessica: What element do you prefer, earth, water, air?

Quentin: I like candle work. I prefer fire.

Jessica: Fire. Working with fire. Why did I ask? You have a Sagittarius [indiscernible 00:42:06]. Okay. Okay.

Quentin: It's like all of my personal planets, and so it's just like⁠—

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. Let's go with fire. It was a stupid question. I'm embarrassed I asked it. But it's good. It's good.

Quentin: Fire and water are my two.

Jessica: Okay. So I want you to play with this visual⁠—make it your own⁠—but to visualize someplace really warm and beautiful, and it's right by the water. And there is a warm, big, beautiful fire there. And this is not a fire that needs to be tended to. It is a fire that just is. It just is. And whatever is not yours that you are experiencing, you send it across the water from you. So it can be a river. It can be an ocean. It can be whatever you want it to be⁠—across the water from you to that warm, safe place with a fire that doesn't end.

On that⁠—I'm seeing it as a beachfront, but you do you. On that beachfront, whoever's energies or entities you have hold of, their guides are there. And the guides of whoever it belongs to, they'll handle it. Not your business. It's not your business. So you don't need to, and you don't get to⁠—both, depending on what it is, right? And you just get to trust that you're not just throwing it away. You're not just burning it to a crisp. You're sending it to their guides so that they can have their own highest good⁠—they have the option to have their own highest good realized. And you don't have anything to do with it. It's not yours.

And so you can see across this water, but you are not on that land. And if you want to visualize yourself with your own beautiful fire, fabulous. But it's really important for you to feel like you're not actively causing harm or abandoning others. And so, by doing this, you are participating in their healing without helping to heal them, because that's not sustainable unless you decide you want to work as a professional psychic and you're not going to have any friends.

Quentin: Yeah. I do tarot readings, but I had to stop doing free readings for my friends because⁠—

Jessica: Because⁠—of course, you did.

Quentin: It turned into exactly what you said earlier, where I said something that they weren't necessarily⁠—that they didn't want to hear. And then their reaction was talking to me like I was the op. And I was like, "But I was just reading the cards. And I actually specifically didn't talk to about this outside of the reading because I didn't want this outcome, but here we are." So it kind of⁠—that makes a lot of sense.

Jessica: There's no other way for it to go. Yeah. And I'll just say to you and to anyone listening there's no other way for it to go. Eventually, if you're giving good readings, if you're being honest in your readings, it will harm all of your friendships. And it will harm your ability to feel like you can be an imperfect person. People will feel policed. They'll feel like, "Oh, you told me to break up with them, and then I didn't break up with them, and now I don't want to tell you that we had a good date last night," or whatever.

You don't want to be people's therapists if they're not your client. And so it is really hard to have that boundary with friends. And every once in a while, when they're really in need, you might decide you break the boundary, but you're really clear with them, "Don't ask a question you don't want an answer to." And I wasn't suggesting that you should want to be a professional psychic with no friends. I was suggesting that's a terrible fucking idea.

Quentin: No, no, no. I understood what you were saying. No, you're good.

Jessica: Okay. Good. Okay. Good. Good, good. Thank you. I was like, "Let me just be clear. That is not⁠—it's not a direction to go in." But I think that having this practice⁠—so let's say you start to get hungry, and you're like, "I don't know what's mine or what's not mine." Quick, bring in the earth. You can't skip this step. I know you're going to try. You can't skip this step, all right?

Quentin: I'm like, "Straight to the ocean. Let's go."

Jessica: I know. I know. I saw it. I saw it. As soon as I started to give the advice, I saw you go to the ocean. Nope, because let me tell you why. So, if you check all the windows and you check the back door and you turn on the alarm before you go to bed, but you don't check your front door, well, best of luck keeping people out, keeping weird stray cats out or whatever. You know?

Quentin: Yeah.

Jessica: I mean, you gotta check the front door. You've got to lock the front door. And that's your body. That's being present in your body. So you've got to do this first step, and it's going to be your least favorite step because it's slow and it puts you in contact with what you're disassociated from. So here's the thing. Truth, truth, truth, sure. You've got a million planets in the twelfth house. You disassociate from things you don't know how to handle, too. So, as much as it drives you bananas when other people do it, of course, you do it, too.

The work is to get your grounding so that you can release. So, again, you're back at work, and your coworker is ravenous, and then you're all of a sudden hungry. You bring in the earth, and you might right away stop feeling their hunger. It might be that simple, to just feel yourself, or you might feel yourself and the hunger. And what will happen after years of practice⁠—not months, not weeks. Sorry, Sadge⁠—years of practicing.

Quentin: Devastating.

Jessica: I know. It's terrible⁠—is you will be able to tell the difference because it'll have this really subtle shift, this very subtle difference, but it's palatable. I wish that there was a magic bullet for this, but⁠—

Quentin: No.

Jessica: Yeah. Exactly. There's not. There's not. And the truth is it is a gift that is very heavy to carry. And it's also⁠—

Quentin: Knowing things about people that I'm like, "I can never tell you that I felt that."

Jessica: No. Never. It's really important to be able to return it to source, which is what I'm going to be calling that beach for you, okay?

Quentin: Okay.

Jessica: It's returning it to source. It's not yours to hold. It's not yours to know. It's not yours, period. And when we hold other people's energy for them, what we're doing is unintentionally inhibiting them from healing it themselves. We feel like we're doing a kindness, but it's not it. And⁠—okay. Say your full name out loud again.

Quentin: [redacted]

Jessica: You haven't decided how you want to live. You're here. Got your meat suit. Oh well. Now what are you going to do with it? Now what are you going to do? You haven't figured that out yet, and that's fine. You're young. You don't have to have it figured out yet. It's not about it being figured out, but it's more of this spiritual or existential, like, "I don't know what I want to do with this, this life. I don't know what I want to do." And this existential quandary that you have kind of goes away when you are accurately psychic-ing something.

Quentin: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. I see it. It's like you have this sense of purpose and a sense of neutrality and meaning. It's just like, "Oh. There's clarity. And within that clarity, there's power. And the power is there simply because it's impactful, not because I'm manipulating something," although sometimes you can do that, too, but it's really because you're experiencing your capacity for impact. And it's really challenging because there's this really high high, and then there's this really low low. And it's hard to figure out, where is the in-between? What do you want to do with all of that? Now, do you have a job-job in addition to tarot reading?

Quentin: I work with [redacted]. I'm not certified or anything, but I've worked there for the last year. My grandmother was really into what I do now, and I get to have the tarot cards and have what I also do. And I really enjoy it, and I want to stay in the space that I'm at, whether that's the woo side or the other side. I'm honestly trying to find something, like a new spot to work at, but it's hard.

Jessica: Yeah. It is hard.

Quentin: And for other clarification, I have a degree in tech, and I could go into a very specific avenue within tech. But I could go into that, and I've definitely made a choice to stay in the woo-ish space⁠—

Jessica: Woo space. Mm-hmm.

Quentin: ⁠—because I don't want to untether myself from tarot and from psychic and from the woo.

Jessica: From the woo. Mm-hmm. First of all, best of luck untethering yourself from the woo. It's just not going to happen, so I don't know that that's necessary, to be honest.

Quentin: It's not on the table.

Jessica: No. It's not on the damn table. It's not. I understand what you're saying. I will say I'm a little in favor of you exploring tech because you've got, again, this Moon/Uranus conjunction. You've got all this Sadge. You're really smart in this very well-suited-for-tech way, and it's fun for you because you get to ferret out the truth. You get to do puzzles. This shit is really good for you. And I want to just hold space for it's great that you're well suited to something that happens to be where all the jobs are.

And I do also think that you could develop a career in the woo. Here's the but. The but is boundaries. You don't get a twelfth-house stellium and come into this life with healthy boundaries. That's just not⁠—you know what I mean? It's not a thing.

Quentin: Yeah.

Jessica: So then the work becomes, how do you develop boundaries around⁠—I don't know⁠—how you charge people, how much time you give them, how you organize your service, how you communicate your offering and what's not your offering? How do you have energetic boundaries with humans so that you don't become a soggy, moldy loofah sponge? And it's a practice. You're not going to figure out the answer. You're going to develop a practice.

You are in a state where you're learning boundaries because Pluto's squaring your Saturn right now, and what's coming up soon⁠—you have your Rising sign at 28 degrees and 59 minutes of Sagittarius, practically Capricorn.

Quentin: When I get horoscope readings or if I look at the YouTube horoscope, I have to look at Capricorn because it resonates more⁠ because—

Jessica: Of course.

Quentin: ⁠—the house placement is that the calling-on or whatever is⁠—yeah. Anyways…

Jessica: You have Capricorn intercepted in your first house. So this was like your parents and your family of origin demanded that you be self-sufficient, like⁠—I like to call it a self-cleaning oven. They just wanted you to do everything all on your own. But when you were like, "Treat me with respect. If you're going to treat me like an adult, treat me like a fucking adult," they were like, "No. You're a child. Sit down. Be quiet."

Quentin: Yeah.

Jessica: That's why you have a Sadge Rising with Capricorn intercept the first and not a Capricorn Rising. You know what I'm saying?

Quentin: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: You still got that Sadge Rising. It's that anaretic Sadge Rising. You walk into a room, and you're like, "Hello, everybody. Let's do a thing." That's very Sadge Rising. It's not Cap Rising. You know what I mean?

Quentin: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: But all to say Neptune's going to square your Ascendant soon.

Quentin: Okay.

Jessica: And that's a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Quentin: We're just back-to-back raw-dogging this⁠—

Jessica: Yes. Yes.

Quentin: ⁠—these once-in-a-lifetime transits.

Jessica: Yes. Welcome to your world. Welcome to it. So Neptune is going to at 29 degrees⁠—so that's going to start in April, the spring. It's going to start to oppose your Mars, and then it's going to square your Ascendant. These are both once-in-a-lifetime things. They each last two years, so you've got a two-and-a-half-year-long process, two-and-a-half/three-year process, of Neptune transits. Yeah. That's right. Do that to your face. It's right. It's true. It's shock and awe, not in a fond way.

Quentin: I'm shocked.

Jessica: I know.

Quentin: I'm shocked.

Jessica: I know. It's awful.

Quentin: Oh my God, Jessica.

Jessica: It's a lot of Neptune. It's a lot of Neptune. So this is why I say I'm not mad at the idea of you getting into tech and having it be like people in your office being annoying or⁠—you know what I mean⁠?—boundary issues at work as opposed to what can happen with boundary issues in woo spaces that you actually deeply care about. Also, tech is going to give you more money that will empower you to⁠—I don't know⁠—get the massage. Talk to the spiritual healer. Develop your tools. You know what I mean?

Quentin: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: So, from where I'm sitting⁠—and especially because of how young you are, it's not like I'm telling you at 40 to compromise on something. I'm saying, instead, oh shit, you could just jump in here, give yourself a three-, four-year goal of developing other things on the side and just making money so that⁠—let's say you're in a⁠—I don't know⁠—bad roommate situation. You can afford to get the fuck out, because Neptune transits open up all of your sensitivities, so boundaries, boundaries, boundaries. They also put you in situations that are just requiring boundaries, like negotiating, "You broke my shit." There's nothing energetic about that. It's just about me being like, "Do I take all my shit out of a common space?"

Quentin: I did.

Jessica: You did. Of course, you did. I mean, what else could you do? What else could you do? So yeah. I would encourage you to consider⁠—

Quentin: Okay, because there's a lot of anxiety surrounding me being in tech spaces. And I have started to develop some of my own projects. And I'm wondering, is it in my best interest to go into Tech, capital T, or work on my own⁠—I mean, again, with the money, that wouldn't necessarily help, working on my own stuff. But⁠—

Jessica: I think it's actually good for you to go into Tech, capital T⁠—

Quentin: Okay.

Jessica: ⁠—because I think you're just scared.

Quentin: Yeah.

Jessica: I mean, listen. There's lots of things to be fucking concerned about within tech, obviously. Like, obviously. And it's always far better to work within your community or adjacent to your community than going into a corporate environment, which⁠—even start-ups are corporate environments in the modern world, right? I'm not saying commit your life to this, at all. But I think that it would be a safe space, in some ways, for you to develop parts of your personality that haven't had the right environment. Get in there. Get it done. Go home.

Quentin: Yeah.

Jessica: You know what I mean?

Quentin: Yeah.

Jessica: You're not there to make friends, whereas in the spaces you work now, it's very relational.

Quentin: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: Tech is not. What would it be like to not be in a relational space, but instead to just be there to figure out problems and leave? I actually think you deserve to know. And that doesn't mean I think you'll love it all the time. I'm curious about, when we move past the fear, what's there? You've got this Saturn opposition to your Midheaven in your birth chart, and they're both square to Neptune intercepted in Capricorn in the first house. So, of course, you have anxiety about stepping into a work environment. And it's really about failure. It's really about a fear of failure.

Quentin: Yeah.

Jessica: A fear of failure is one to be respected but not heeded. If you get into a situation where you're like, "This isn't healthy, and this isn't working for me," get out. You know how to quit.

Quentin: Yep.

Jessica: You got a Moon/Uranus conjunction. You can quit, right?

Quentin: Yeah.

Jessica: You know how to quit. So, I mean, I actually think that this is worth exploring. I really do.

Quentin: Okay.

Jessica: Yeah. And that doesn't mean abandon all the other things. You've got a lot of energy. You can do both.

Quentin: Okay.

Jessica: Maybe not every week, but I think you could do both.

Quentin: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: Okay. So, to summarize, you're going to make a practice of bringing earth energy up into your body and then returning whatever is not yours to source. And in that space where there's a beautiful fire, everybody's guidance⁠—you don't need to know who. You don't need to know why. You don't need to know how. But they get access to their guidance, and that's that. Right?

Quentin: Yeah.

Jessica: So you're going to make a practice of those things. You're going to consider looking into tech. You know, just consider it. Just play with it. Just play with it.

Quentin: Take a little peek.

Jessica: Yeah, and to continue to work on boundary stuff, understanding that you have Neptune transits coming up that are going to shove this fucking theme down your throat, so you might as well start getting it in order. And until your Pluto square to Saturn is over, you're going to stay vigilant, looking out for different ways that your father pattern is showing up with new people and old people. Okay?

Quentin: Okay.

Jessica: That was my twirl-it-up at the end.

Quentin: Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Jessica: Yeah. It's my pleasure.