Note: Jessica is an astrologer and not a psychologist or therapist. If you are having a mental health crisis, please seek mental health support ♥️.

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: Alana. Alana, welcome to Ghost. I'm happy to answer your question. Tell me what you would like a reading about today.

Guest: Okay. So I'm going to read you my question, which is this: "Approximately two years ago, after a long-term mental reprise from my OCD, intrusive thoughts have returned again. In many ways, I feel healthier than ever, and I feel much more accomplished than when in the hell of my 20s. I often feel like, this year, I'm moving on and on the cusp of something exciting and good, yet I'm occasionally being usurped by these anxious moments. Is there a placement or transition responsible for this? I am in therapy, but the OCD can be so stubborn. And at the moment and recently, the veil between past trauma and reality has moments of piercing through again in unexpected ways. I'd love your sage words on this."

Jessica: So let me just clarify one part of your question. Two years ago, did things get better or worse?

Guest: Two years ago was when I first had an intrusive thought, a harm-based intrusive thought that just almost emerged from the earth and hit me. And I hadn't had a thought like that since I was about early 20s.

Jessica: Okay. The gap of a decade or more⁠—right? So around a decade between the two?

Guest: Yeah. Just over. Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. Was there therapy, medication, the grace of God⁠—was there something that stopped them in your early 20s?

Guest: I've had a lot of therapy. I experimented with medications. And progressively, over the course of therapy⁠—and I was in a quite abusive relationship for about seven years. The combination of those things, I suppose, allowed them to be put at bay for a while.

Jessica: I have lots to say, probably unsurprisingly. But before any of that, I will just preface to say I am not a therapist, obviously. I have a very general understanding of what OCD is, and so I want to be clear with you and with anyone listening that taking mental health advice around mental illness or these kinds of diagnoses from an astrologer is a little dubious. And so I want to just hold space for that messiness of⁠—I can speak to a lot of things, but not to diagnoses like that, because I don't understand it and it's outside of my field. So that makes sense, eh?

Guest: Yes.

Jessica: And the other thing I want to do is share your birth information, with your permission.

Guest: Yeah. 

Jessica: So you were born November 7, 1987, 10:30 a.m. in Aberdeen, Scotland.

Guest: Yes.

Jessica: Okay. Great. When I pulled up your birth chart, I was like, "Okay. I instantly have a sense of kind of what's going on," but I want to kind of locate us a little bit around your chart. You have a stellium in Sagittarius. You've got this beautiful twelfth-house Venus in Sadge. You've got your Sadge Rising and then Saturn and Uranus conjunct in Sadge in the first. You also have Jupiter sitting at the bottom of your chart, kind of grounding your chart, and opposing your little cluster of Libra planets. You've got Mars, Midheaven, and Mercury all in Libra, and Jupiter is opposite all three of them.

And then you've got a Sun/Pluto conjunction in fucking Scorpio. So yeah. I mean, I know I'm data dumping a little bit, but I just want to kind of name all of these things to say that there is a way that your nature is inherently optimistic. You have this capacity for being like, "I can get through this," or, "I can take this," and there is within that a lot of struggle because the challenge of Jupiter and of Sagittarius⁠—like having a lot of Sadge or important Sadge placements⁠—is that it can plague you with a sense of, "Anything is possible, and I should have more," or, "I should have different," or, "I should have better."

You pair that with a Sun/Pluto conjunction in Scorpio, and what you get is a very deep and intense nature, a capacity for obsession, rumination, but also sitting with taboo, complex, heavy shit.

Guest: Right.

Jessica: Jupiter eggs you on. Jupiter is like, "You could do more of that. You could go deeper. Why haven't you tried harder? If you looked deeper into the bowels of this person's Instagram, you would understand them more thoroughly." You can really go there, right?

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: And what I want to just kind of start off with is saying you've got an obsessive nature, and you've got an inner voice that is very loud and very unified in your nature that's like, "Don't stop here. Keep fucking going."

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. And that might be a part of OCD, and it also might just be like that's your nature and also OCD. And I want to hold space for the part of you that is just kind of obsessive, and it is deeply driven to believe that if you push yourself harder, you'll find a perfect answer. And again, I'm not an expert in this diagnosis that you have, but when you say intrusive thoughts, I associate⁠—and please tell me if this is inaccurate, but I associate OCD with being driven because there's an innate belief, like, "If I do this, something will open up; something will change." Is that correct?

Guest: So the way it presents with me is more thought-based, which⁠—a lot of what you're saying is ringing true even more. However, I did have a set of actions that I used to do in order to keep myself safe, but it was very much like, "If I just keep doing this, everything will sort of be stronger around me, if I keep the doors locked and do all of those things." That's not been as prevalent recently. Recently, it's been more around⁠—I think it's because I'm entertaining the idea of being a mother and the idea of the intrusive thoughts about babies being harmed and things like that. And then, when I speak to other mothers about it, they're like, "Oh yeah. We all have these. You just don't think about them."

And then, sort of knowing that other women are talking about this, and then just saying, "You just can't tell anyone because they'll take your baby away from you because everyone will just think you're mad," is making me go, "But we're all thinking it. Why aren't we talking about stuff like this? This needs more." But it's not helping.

Jessica: No. Of course not. Yeah. I can see how that would be a minefield. So let me add something to the mix. You have Mercury at 27 degrees and 30 minutes of Libra, which means Pluto is squaring your Mercury, and it has been for about a year. What Pluto square to Mercury does⁠—this is a once-in-a-lifetime event, which not everyone goes through⁠—is it intensifies your thinking and it makes you compulsive in your thinking. So what it's done is it's triggered any tendencies towards OCD, whether they are kind of like, "Oh, my personality's OCD," or like a mental health diagnosis. It would trigger anyone.

And what Pluto does is it focuses on our shame. It focuses on our terror. So, of course, the obsessive returning to thoughts is what could go wrong, how it could go wrong, what you could do to stop it from going wrong. And this is a little bit of a shit show. I mean, I'd love to say it better, but I cannot. It's like a little bit of a shit show. And let me give you the exact dates of it. So it started in January of 2022. Is that when your symptoms kind of got intense?

Guest: Yes.

Jessica: Yeah. It's a two-year period, so you got another year.

Guest: Yeah. I did have the sense that it was going to be around for a while.

Jessica: You're not wrong. But here's the thing. Again, I wouldn't have taken the question, as you probably already know, if you didn't tell me you were in therapy because I don't ever want somebody to use astrology or psychic stuff as a replacement for mental health support, because it's a nice, hopefully, add-on but not a replacement for. But I will say this transit is happening for a reason, and the reason why Pluto square to Mercury occurs is to root out beliefs and attitudes and habits in your thinking and communication that were already there and need to come to healing. And Pluto does it like a fucking bully, and it just pounds you around, and it's generally dramatic and painful. But it's very effective.

During Pluto transits, we can achieve healing that would, in other periods, take us a decade. And I earnestly believe that's true, but also, I know I'm talking to somebody with a Sagittarius stellium, and you're kind of like, "Get it done quick? I'm into that." So, hopefully, that will help you on your hard days to be like, "You're giving me a rocket ship? Fine. It doesn't matter if it burns off all my skin. I'll try it."

Guest: Yeah. Definitely. I'll go into the darkness as quick as I can and come out all⁠—yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. I mean, it's this combo of such an intense Sun/Pluto conjunction in Scorpio with all this Jupiterian/Sagittarian energy⁠—it can sometimes make you foolhardy. You can be like, "Yeah. It'll burn off all my skin? Cool," or it can empower you to have faith that you can figure it out even though it's hard, even though it's painful, which is why you hear mothers saying, "We all have these thoughts." And you're like, "Well, then we should talk about them," not, "Okay, so my shame is okay because you have shame, too." Right?

Guest: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: And so there's a couple things I want to speak to. The first is, in your birth chart, you have Mars conjunct the Midheaven conjunct Mercury in Libra. And that means that you have very sharp thoughts and that your sharp thoughts, brought to you by Mars⁠—thank you very much⁠—are something that you put a lot of energy into not expressing because it's all in Libra. You want to be nice, and you want to be pleasant, and you don't want to be too much.

To make matters more complex, you've got Jupiter opposite those planets. So they're sharp. They're hot. They're fast. You have very strong opinions. You have very strong beliefs. Doesn't mean they don't change. Doesn't mean that you're not open-minded, because Jupiter governs education. It governs the expansion of things. And in your case, it's the expansion of ideas because of Mercury. And it's very visceral. It's body-based, which is Mars, right?

Guest: Yes.

Jessica: So I'm assuming that OCD for you is like it feels like Body Snatchers a little bit.

Guest: Oh, yes, completely. It comes straight up through my feet into my stomach, and it's like, "I'm here."

Jessica: Yep. That's right. And so, again, not speaking to OCD the diagnosis but speaking to your birth chart, one of the things I would say that would be a very important thing for you to consider is whether or not you can create a safe space in your life where you can consistently speak your obnoxious, petty, opinionated, sharp, irritated thoughts, because they're not bad or wrong even though you have a lot of reasons to believe they are. Thoughts are thoughts. From my perspective, having a safe landscape in which to have all manner of thoughts and all manner of feelings is foundational to making healthy, balanced choices about what we'll actually do in response to our reactions, in response to our thoughts.

But because of all this Libra and Venus in the twelfth house⁠—and I should also mention you have Neptune in the first house, intercepted in the first house. So you are very much of the mind⁠—or, rather, the belief⁠—that you have to be pleasant, you shouldn't be too much, you have to be nice, and that if you aren't, you're being mean. It's either nice or mean. And oftentimes, niceness is not kindness; it's diplomacy. It's managing how you seem instead of showing up as you are.

Guest: Yeah. I think, sometimes, I often save my meanness for my partner as well. And then, sort of, I'm quite overly diplomatic and contained with a lot of other people⁠—permissive sometimes.

Jessica: Yes. Yes. The reason why your partner gets it⁠—and I'm assuming your family of origin if you're in contact with them in⁠—is because you have Jupiter at the bottom of the chart opposing Mars and Mercury in the Midheaven. And so you can't help it. Literally, it shoots out of your mouth. It is like⁠—or out of your eyes or out of your body language. You can't hide it because Jupiter⁠—it's a slingshot. It moves so fast. It's meteoric. And so you don't have the capacity, without turning yourself into a zombie, to hold back those feelings.

Honestly, that's not bad, and it's not good. But because you have judgments, because you have shame, because you have inhibitions around this, you haven't exercised the muscle to figure out how to be annoyed in a way that is healthy and balanced. So the way that you can be annoyed can probably be really intense and bully-ish or mean because you're holding it in all day long around everyone else, and it escapes you instead of⁠—you're like, "Bitch, I need you to move because I love you and if you stay there, I will murder you." Instead, it just comes out⁠—I mean, which I don't think sounds mean, but you probably do. My poor partner.

But I think that there are ways of being able to express, like, "I need to take responsibility for the fact that I'm irritable, and so I need you to walk away from me because I'm an irritable machine," instead of just⁠—you try to hold it back, and then it escapes; it just jumps out of you like a little gremlin. Do you know what a gremlin is?

Guest: Oh, definitely. There are some bad gremlins in there sometimes.

Jessica: Yeah.

Guest: I do retreat a lot more now, but it's still a work in progress, I'd say.

Jessica: I would add to that that I don't know retreat is the best move for you, because⁠—

Guest: Okay.

Jessica: ⁠—retreat is just containment. You're containing what is true. I actually would think that what's the best move for you is to find a healthy way of being annoyed. You have a Mars conjunct Mercury in Libra. You are annoyed a lot. I mean, very much irritated frequently. People bug the shit out of you. Stupid little things annoy you.

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: Yes.

Guest: I got that. Yeah.

Jessica: All the time, and at home especially, because at home you're like, "This is a place where I can finally let go." And do you live with your partner?

Guest: Yes.

Jessica: Yeah. That's rough on you. This is where the myth Jupiter is all good, all the time, gets busted because you have Jupiter on the IC, a.k.a. the lowest point of the chart. A lot of astrologers would look at that and be like, "Home is wonderful for you. Home is happy and easy for you." And I look at that as in the context of your chart, and I see home is the one place that you believe you should be able to be yourself.

Guest: Yes.

Jessica: And because you have repressed so much of yourself all day long every day throughout your whole damn life, when you come home, it's like too much comes out all at once. And then it agitates the part of you that's like, "Nothing's supposed to come out, so I'm not allowed to let anything out. And now I've let out too much, and that's on me," instead of, "Huh. Interesting. Can I be curious about how I can give myself more space to be annoyed during the day?" because I think you mentioned you work with kids. Is that right?

Guest: I do.

Jessica: Yeah.

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: So I'm not saying you should walk around being like, "Hey, Billy, sit in the back. You're annoying." [indiscernible 00:16:45]. No. But to own for yourself that you are annoyed would allow you to come home and be like, "Okay. I've been annoyed all day long, even though I've also been happy all day long," because with your chart, you can be both at once.

Guest: Yes. And generally, the kids make me happy, and the adults around them annoy me.

Jessica: That's the realest thing, as somebody who's also worked with kids. That's the move. So, then, what do you do⁠—and I'm asking you this, but I feel like I already know the answer. What do you do to give yourself space to decompress and to sort through your emotions and to have your feelings when you come home?

Guest: When I come home, I mean, I do quite a lot of yoga and I meditate. But that is going in. That is retreating in.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. It is.

Guest: And if I don't do those things, I might clean or argue. And it's basically a spectrum of that.

Jessica: Okay. Okay. Clean or argue. Those are [indiscernible 00:17:39] outlets for you because cleaning is nice except for you're cleaning in your apartment or your house with your partner, and that becomes a part of a fucking [crosstalk]⁠—

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: ⁠—right? And arguing is not that helpful. Do you have a room all to yourself?

Guest: No.

Jessica: Okay.

Guest: It's quite a small flat, which is something that I've found quite challenging.

Jessica: As your astrologer, I can tell you Jupiter conjunct the IC or Jupiter in the fourth house means you either need a large place or a place with a view in order to not want to murder whoever's in your house. Murder may be an extreme example, but Jupiter wants more. So not having space is deeply annoying for you. And I would say it is better for you to sacrifice neighborhood than the kind of shape of your home.

Guest: Yeah. This is a conversation that we've been having a lot recently⁠—

Jessica: Good.

Guest: ⁠—where I'm just slightly becoming that basic bitch that just wants a really nice, big house in the suburbs, and I've got a big room.

Jessica: I mean, I get why. Honestly, I get why for you. It's very important.

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: So do you have a bedroom with a door?

Guest: Yes.

Jessica: Okay. Here's a crazy question. Could you, when you come home, try this out and talk to your partner⁠—he? Is it a he?

Guest: Yes. He.

Jessica: Yeah. So talk to him about this and be like, "Let's try this for two weeks. I'm going to come home. We may be like, 'Hey, bitch,' but we're not going to really talk." You're going to go in the room. He's not going to follow you. You're going to close the door. And then you're going to dance your buns off like no one's watching, because no one will be watching⁠—I would say a four-song playlist. Could you do that?

Guest: Oh. Wow.

Jessica: Would you do that?

Guest: I could do that. Yeah, I could do that.

Jessica: And I'm not talking about Adele. I'm not talk⁠—I don't know why I used her as an example, but I'm not talking about emo, kind of nice music. I'm talking about⁠—did you ever have a punk phase? Like anything that has heavy base.

Guest: Yeah. Yep. I had a ska phase for a while, so there you go.

Jessica: Ska. Perfect. And the reason why I'm going for heavy base is because of Mars. We're trying to get you to express your Mars through your body, but music also has lyrics, so it engages your mind. What I want to encourage you to do is find a physical outlet, which⁠—honestly, cleaning is a physical outlet. It's just a terrible one in a relationship, right? It just ends up coming⁠—

Guest: I agree. Cleaning⁠—yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. It's not good. It's not good, whereas four ska songs back-to-back, just dancing till you get sweaty if possible, may do something for you. And I don't know that it'll do anything for you day one. It might, honestly. But I think if you do it as an ongoing routine, it could really help you to have an actual physical outlet that you're not getting too analytic about. But I want to ask, does this idea of having a physical outlet⁠—does this trigger anything around the OCD of me giving you, like, a "Here's an activity you can do to help your"⁠—

Guest: No.

Jessica: Okay. Great. Good.

Guest: Yeah. Being in the body is most important⁠—the most healing thing I ever did that was a catalyst to all other therapy is getting fully into yoga. However, yoga can⁠—you know, sometimes if there's pressure, you need to direct the steam that's moving very quickly in a different way instead of simmering it down.

Jessica: Listen. Neptune in the first house⁠—yoga is a gift to you. Venus in the twelfth house⁠—yoga is a gift to you. Sun/Pluto conjunction⁠—yoga is a gift to you. But all the fucking Sadge, all that Jupiter⁠—if that's the only gift you're giving yourself, it's not as much of a gift. The thing about these parts of your chart that I'm speaking to, it's like⁠—you know when you work⁠—do you work with little kids, like⁠—

Guest: Yes.

Jessica: Okay. So you know when they need to shake out the willies because they're driving you fucking bananas, right?

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: Or they're getting into shit? That's you. You get into shit. You drive yourself bananas. And you just need to shake out the willies. And so⁠—I don't know. When I worked with kids, I used to do dance party freeze-frame, where you would just blast music for the kids, and then they'd all have to dance, and then you'd turn off the music and they'd have to freeze. That was the whole game. I wish your partner would play that game with you. I mean, I don't think you would really let him, and I don't know that would really work for you guys, but that could really work for you, this thing of being so in your body but also listening so that you're responding. So, if you could even play that game with the kids⁠—I don't know if that's really viable for your job, but finding ways of using your body as an outlet. I mean, it's in your chart, so I'm not surprised it's the thing that's worked.

But when you do it to evade your emotions or to tamp down your emotions, it is this whole other problem because you have a Moon/Venus opposition in your birth chart, and that Moon/Venus opposition does something very similar that Neptune in the first house does, is it says, "I should be pleasant. I should be easy. Everything should be calm. I don't want a hot glass of water. I don't want a cold glass of water. Give me a room-temperature glass of water, and everything will be fine." And the rest of your chart disagrees emphatically, but it makes you feel like you're okay when your feelings aren't too hot or cold.

Guest: Yes. Yeah.

Jessica: And this is a response to trauma. A lot of it is girl trauma, like the way you were raised as the kind of female you were supposed to be. It's also inherited from your maternal line. This, I imagine⁠—

Guest: Yep.

Jessica: ⁠—you can see in your mom's side. Here's the thing. You're a fucking powerhouse. You're an opinionated, pushy, strong-willed human/person/woman. And that may, in part, feel or sound like a "no" to you. It might feel or sound bad to you. But to me, these are all compliments. These are all amazing things. The parts of you that are being activated right now are the parts of you that need to be loved and shake out the willies and be in the body and have strong opinions.

Guest: Everything you're saying is resonating and mirroring the same thoughts that I do feel like I could have ability to be a bit of a powerhouse and full-on and all of that.

Jessica: I love the expression "full-on." I wish we used it in the U.S. But I wanted to say you could be more. Honestly, you could be more.

Guest: Okay.

Jessica: You don't have to be less. You could be more, and it would feel really good. It's just about recognizing that whenever you start to use a muscle that you've not really used before, it's weak, and you will not be good at it. You do yoga, so you know. When you're learning a new pose, you suck at that pose. And if you focused on how much you don't know the pose, then you'll never get into the pose, right?

Guest: Sure. Yeah.

Jessica: And when it comes to embodying the ways in which you are full-on, or a lot, yeah. Sometimes you're going to do it in a way where you're like, "Oh shit. I stepped on someone's toes," or, "God, that was awkward," or all that kind of stuff. And your Sun/Pluto conjunction is going to be like, "Okay, you're bad. Hide from the world." But what you want to instead be able to do is say, "This is the learning curve of learning how to actually show up in my life as myself, and it's worth it." The discomfort you're going through now with the Pluto square to Mercury⁠—you're going to be uncomfortable no matter what. You might as well fucking use the next year to do some deep healing work because even if you don't do the deep healing work, you're going to suffer. So you might as well make use of your suffering.

Join me on April 16th for a live webinar about the Moon in you. We're going to explore the emotional depths of the Moon in your birth chart and how it can empower you to bring healing to parts of yourself that may be hidden in shadows. We'll explore the Moon's placement through the signs and houses as well as aspects to other planets. Don't miss out on this opportunity to explore the Moon from a trauma-informed perspective just in time for Eclipse Season. You can register on my website over at ghostofapodcast.com, or click on the link in the episode description.

We all know how important it is to continue to mask in public indoor spaces, and that's why I want to tell you about projectN95.org. Their nonprofit mission is to protect communities and those who live and work in them by providing equitable access to resources that keep people safe through COVID-19 and beyond. If you're unable to afford high-quality respiratory protection, Project N95 may be able to help. And if you can afford to buy yourself high-quality masks, this is a great place to buy them. Visit project95.org to keep yourself and your community safe.

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Jessica: The place I'm pulled to is your relationship.

Guest: Okay.

Jessica: I feel like you might have known that was coming. Did you know that was coming?

Guest: I thought you were going to do relationship or past family, actually. But yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. I mean, I feel like you've done a lot of therapy with family.

Guest: Mm-hmm.

Jessica: So how long have you been with this guy?

Guest: It'll be⁠—yeah, two years in June.

Jessica: And you're already living together? When did you move in together?

Guest: He moved in in the summer, so quite quick. Yeah.

Jessica: And you want to have babies with this man?

Guest: Yes. I think so. Recently, we've sort of had more conversations. Initially, it was like, "Yes. Definitely. Definitely. Definitely." But he's finding it really difficult to understand my anxiety, essentially, and he doesn't suffer in the same way that I do at all. He's kind of like this bounding Labrador energy.

Jessica: Yeah. You chose with your Jupiter. So he's just like, "Everything will be fine. Just let go. You'll be fine." Will you say both of your names for me?

Guest: Yes. So his name is [redacted], and my name is [redacted].

Jessica: Okay. So he's scared of intensity. That's really what this is. He's scared. He's scared of intensity. And so it's that you ruminate. That's really what kind of intimidates him. He doesn't know how to approach it. Does he try to talk you out of it, cheer you up?

Guest: Yes.

Jessica: Yeah. That's annoying⁠—

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: ⁠—because what you need in those moments is somebody who can listen and sometimes reflect things back to you that you said, because you're not really in a rational state of mind when you're in the throes of activation; is that correct?

Guest: Yes. Yeah.

Jessica: What he's trying to do is reason with you as though you were not activated because he believes that if he's clear enough, that you'll just understand, "Oh. I shouldn't feel this way. Moving along."

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: Yeah. Yeah. The reason why I wanted to look at this⁠—and now that I've kind of⁠—you gave me names to look inside⁠—I imagine that you're questioning this relationship at this time. Is that correct?

Guest: Yes. There have been some questions about his ability to deal with me, really.

Jessica: Let me reframe that for you. It's about his ability to go deep and to be there when things don't go his way.

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: You can turn this, my friend with Sun/Pluto conjunction, into, "I'm too much, and he can't deal with me." But that's an old narrative.

Guest: It's one from my childhood as well, so…

Jessica: Yes. Yes. It's very much from your childhood. And the truth of the matter is we can call it that, but what I think is actually more true is that I think he's great when things are good. And then when things are not good in a way that he's not the initiator of, he acts like he doesn't understand. But that bitch is smart. He understands what's happening. He doesn't know how to tolerate it. He's just putting lipstick on pigs. You know what I mean? You know that expression. He keeps on putting lipstick on pigs. He keeps on pretending things are okay when they're not okay. And instead of saying, "I don't know how to help you, and I love you, but I'm here," which is all you fucking need, he's like, "How can I fix this? I don't know what you need from me."

Guest: Yes. Yeah.

Jessica: And that is a concern because that is not an emotionally deep way of holding things. That's not because you're too much. It's because he doesn't have the skills. And I imagine that he has a pattern of getting into relationships that last a few years a lot because⁠—

Guest: Yes.

Jessica: ⁠—most women eventually are like, "I actually need you to get that I'm a complex human." And he actually is good for as long as things are fun, and when things get a little less fun, he all of a sudden isn't as spectacular. He's like the perfect boyfriend until you have intense emotions he doesn't understand. And that's not just you. This is not what's wrong with you. This is what's wrong with him. And I'm sure you're very complicated and messy, and you're good. Yes. Of course. I'm not trying to say you're perfect and he's not perfect. But I am trying to say this narrative that you have is just that. It's a narrative. It's not a true story.

I feel like if the tables were turned, fucking Google it. "What's OCD? How do I be a supportive partner to somebody with OCD?" Easy peasy. Google's for free. It's on your pocket robot, easy. He's such a smart guy, but I don't think he's done that.

Guest: He has, actually, recently.

Jessica: Okay.

Guest: We've had this conversation recently, and I just said, "I just need you to know more and to want to know more and work out how you are going to deal with it and if you can and if you want to."

Jessica: Okay. Question. Did he do this recently because you told him to, or did he do this recently of his own accord?

Guest: Well, he said that he'd done it previously on his own accord, but it seems to be like it was mainly my guidance.

Jessica: Mm-hmm. Okay. So let's just acknowledge that, because your narrative is, "Oh, I'm too much." But the reality is he's not enough. With this, you shouldn't have to tell a grown-ass man who you want to coparent with you how to do the most basic thing. I don't know. If my partner's foot hurts, I'm going to Google all the things that could be wrong with his foot. Now, I'm bananas, so maybe that's a bad example. But it just seems like when it comes to finding information, you do need a slightly more curious partner⁠—not lover, but partner.

Guest: Yeah. I would say that he's really curious and he's got an appetite for knowledge, but it's, I think, more like the lipstick on the pig situation where it's like, "I will give my attention to what I want to give my attention to. And so, if we can just minimize this, then I don't really have to go down there."

Jessica: Yeah. That sucks. I just want to say that sucks.

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: I'm not trying to shit on him or your relationship. But I really do get how you're taking all the responsibility, and even though you're very annoyed, and in certain moods you would be thrilled to hear everything I'm saying, you really don't think that what he's doing is that bad. You think that what you are is that bad. And I emphatically disagree with that, like emphatically. And I want you to hear that, because there is no human person on the planet who is not going to get fucked up and emo and high maintenance⁠—there's just none. And the more interesting you are, the more fucking shit you're likely to have.

Okay. What we need from our partners is not to be perfect. What we need from our partners is to be a good friend when we need a good friend, and that's what we're lacking here with him. And I want to just say to you⁠—I'm not telling you break up with him. I do think it's wise to be questioning the relationship and not vilifying yourself in it. And I do think it's essential, if you're considering coparenting with this guy or continuing to live with this guy or moving to the suburbs with him, that you interrupt your old story because if this is going to be different than your past relationships, you need to be different. And that doesn't mean free of issues, because that's unlikely. It means giving yourself permission to have issues and requiring a partner who is respectful around that in a way that makes you feel respected, not in a way where he says, "I'm respectful," and keeps on pointing you away from all your thoughts and all your feelings instead of meeting you there.

This is where I want to just take a moment to acknowledge your Venus/Moon opposition because that part of your chart makes you feel like⁠—and this, again, is your matrilineage; it's your mom. It's your mom's family⁠—the only way a woman gets to be partnered and have a family and have love is if she shuts the fuck up and she's chill and she just kind of works with what she gets.

Guest: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: Every other part of your chart disagrees emphatically. Every other part of your nature is like, "Are you fucking kidding me? That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. No."

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: I would say every other part except for Neptune. But you have a big, bright personality. You are a lot. You're intense. You like going to deep places, and sometimes you get tripped in deep places, like tripped up in deep places.

Guest: Yes. Yeah.

Jessica: But that is not a bad part of your nature. Sometimes it's painful. Sometimes it's a pain in the ass. But it's not bad at all. Even if he is not the one who can meet you there and like those parts of you, there for sure is someone who is, who can. You don't have to choose somebody who agrees with this narrative that's simply not true. And that's my concern; I'll be totally frank.

And within that, what I want to say to you is what you said to your partner recently about, "I need you to figure out how you want to be around this"⁠—I think that's a really good boundary. I think it's really healthy. But you need to really listen to what he tells you with his behavior because if he says, "Okay. I'll do that," and then nothing actually changes, you do need to understand that that's a reflection on him and not on you.

Guest: Yeah. Okay.

Jessica: From my perspective⁠—and again, I'm not talking about the mental health condition of OCD, but I'm talking about the OCD tendencies that we talk about in a non-deeply psychological way⁠—are a result of turning your irritation and anger against yourself.

Guest: Okay.

Jessica: And that happens because you haven't found a healthy way to experience and express your excess energy so that you can explore your irritation and anger, which is why I bring you back to dancing in your bedroom to ska. It's finding an outlet so that you kind of shake off the willies so you can get to the real emotions, which is really scary and hard for you. But it's not outside of your capacity by any means. It's just a big, scary change.

Within that, you could get closer to him, and he might meet you there. And you might realize that he really can't or doesn't want to. And if you do realize that, again, I want to emphatically say that's not a reflection on you or your lovability or your ability to be in a relationship or anything like that. It's just an issue of compatibility. I don't see if there's an incompatibility here for sure or not. I see that there's a process to be engaged in, first with yourself and then with him.

Guest: Right. Just in terms of relationships, I know that there's some quite strong mother-line patterns. Would that also mean that there's maybe male patterns or partnering patterns?

Jessica: Do you mean patrilineage patterns, or are you talking about patterns with men in general?

Guest: Patrilineage lines. But obviously, it's quite hard to separate the two. [indiscernible 00:38:46].

Jessica: Were you raised with your father around?

Guest: He was a policeman, so he lived with my mom and lived in the same home as us but was either physically not present or emotionally not present.

Jessica: So, in your case, looking to a couple of things, one is to Saturn⁠—for Saturn/Uranus conjunction in the first house, which is⁠—Saturn is also conjunct your Ascendant. Your father's coping mechanism is withdrawal, and it's punishing.

Guest: Yes.

Jessica: And the punishments are doled out in a surprising way because of fucking Uranus being there. So, sometimes, the worst thing you could do is wiggle your toes, and other times, he doesn't care if you wiggle your toes. It was inconsistent. He didn't feel it was inconsistent, but it was technically, for sure, inconsistent. And the other part is, honestly, your Libra conjunction. Your father acted like a perfectly lovely guy. Anyone who met him was like, "He's a great guy. He's a nice guy." But he was very aggressive and intense, and he wasn't a safe person. And so we're back to this thing about appearances. It's like what he did⁠—he held everything back. He sucked in all⁠—he does what you do, sucked in all of his anger⁠—

Guest: Apart from in the home. Yeah.

Jessica: Yes. Well, but you also don't do it in the home.

Guest: Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica: You're just at a different level. You're not a cop. You're not a dude, right?

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: You do it at a different level, but you have the exact same pattern happening here⁠—is that at home, everything that you couldn't say and you couldn't do in the world⁠—it just fucking leaks out of you.

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: This kind of withdrawing, withholding, and also feeling compelled to act nice in the world when you're actually fucking furious or irritated or whatever⁠—yeah, that's your patrilineage.

Guest: Okay.

Jessica: And you don't want to be either parts of that. And the answer to resolving both parts that I've named⁠ from your matrilineage and your patrilineage⁠—it's the same thing. It's owning how you feel. It's owning your preferences, owning your sharp emotions, and finding a healthy way to experience and express it on your own so that when you're around people, you have a more strong and resilient muscle for recognizing, "This bitch is annoying me, and so either I'm going to find a way of letting them know, 'Hey, as a form of self-care, I'm just going to walk away because I'm in one of my irritated moods; it's not about you,' or riding that emotion and not reacting to it," which is possible.

I can speak as a very chronically irritated person. I have no problem with access to anger myself. I'm very, very comfortable with it. And that doesn't mean I act on it all the time. It means that I experience it, and I experience it and it's annoying, but it's also just energy. Emotions are energy in motion, we know, right? I'm realizing as I say this⁠—I know you're thinking about having a kid, and I may have just kind of freaked you out about having kids because of the anger piece at home.

Guest: No, actually. No.

Jessica: Great, because you're not your parents. You're not either of them. But I would say give yourself a year. Don't make this decision during your Pluto/Mercury square.

Guest: Yeah. I had 37 in my head.

Jessica: Okay. And how old are you right now, so I don't have to do math while I'm⁠—

Guest: 35.

Jessica: Oh. Good. Fabulous, because that [indiscernible 00:42:16] to your Saturn square to Saturn. So that's great. The placement of Jupiter and all that Sadge in your chart⁠—it clearly articulates resiliency. You are resilient. And when you go to your scary places⁠—and you have many of them, but when you go to your scary places, you are still resilient. And it might not always feel that way, but it looks like you absolutely have it within your nature to come to healing. And I don't mean to have no health problems ever, including mental health problems. That's not what I mean. But I mean to find sustainable, healthy ways to live with and manage whatever health problems you may have or whatever relationship issues you may have.

You definitely have it in you, but it's essential that you understand that your resiliency and your passion and your lust for life and your funness and your goofiness and all your greatest qualities are irrevocably linked to your irritation and your anger and your passion and all of those things, because they're all fire, right? So we can't be like, "I only use fire to cook food and never to burn down buildings." That's not how fire works, you hope. But you know when you play with fire, it can burn in ways you weren't planning on, right?

And I think understanding that all of our qualities have better and worse articulations might be really helpful for you. You don't need to demonize the ways in which you're full-on. There are ways that those are your best qualities, and then there's ways that it's your scariest qualities for you. It's really not about good or bad.

Guest: I think it's something that recently, in the last few months, I've found quite hard because I'm trying to be a yoga teacher and because there can be some slightly toxic spiritual rhetoric around. And if you've got some of those shameful tendencies and things, yeah, it can play havoc a little bit.

Jessica: I mean, I'm not saying don't do the teacher training, but I am saying it is really tricky to be investing your energy into a system that tells you that all of your emotions should be more placid. It's dangerous. And I think it's something⁠—yoga is an ancient practice, and there's a lot of spiritual beliefs behind it, and there are many different ways of practicing it, many different ideologies behind it. It's not my field. It's even less my field of expertise than psychology. But I would encourage you to do research into if there are other ideologies behind some of the things that are triggering you, because placidity and ease and a lack of anger are not human. And they're great. They're great states of being, but they're not chronic states of being for anyone.

I am a very big advocate for experiencing anger because the only way to master a pose is to go into the pose. And this idea that we should work around the pose never practice the pose and that's the way we're going to master the pose⁠—that doesn't work. And it's ironic that I'm saying this to you, because I avoid yoga like a plague because I'm bad at it. But this is the truth. You don't get better at things that you don't practice, ever. Nothing.

Guest: Yes. Yeah.

Jessica: I don't actually know or believe that this is a true belief of yoga, but I think a lot of times, a Western interpretation of yoga is, "This is how we conquer the ego. This is how we conquer these feelings." And it's not, and it can't be. It may be a tool for coping, but⁠—

Guest: Yes. There are definitely some problematic things that it's causing to rise up in me. But some of the ancient ideologies, I think, I can compartmentalize a bit more and say, "Okay, well, it might be fine for you to abandon your ego when you're at the top of a mountain and, actually, you're not interacting with the world." But there's been a lot of revisitations of that thinking. But actually, I think, for me, what's more problematic is people's expectations of what a Western yoga teacher should be like. Although I'm enjoying the training, I am not sure that I'm going to teach it. I don't know if it's just going to be an exploration of my own body, and maybe I'll just teach kids and do a kind of strange permutation of something a bit wilder with yoga is what [crosstalk]⁠—

Jessica: That sounds like a better idea. Good.

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: That sounds like a better idea. So Mars governs dance, combat, and competitive sports.

Guest: Okay.

Jessica: So, if I was queen of the world, that's what I'd have you do. Join a fucking soccer team. I'd have you learn how to box. I'd have you do Krav Maga, or I would have you doing capoeira, not yoga. I would say yoga's a great in-between thing for you, but when you're activated, when your OCD is activated, I'd be surprised if it helped, because the OCD is not connected to the part of you that is soothed by yoga. Maybe you keep on doing your teacher training, but you also look for a class of⁠—a dance class, a capoeira class, a Krav Maga class, something. Learn how to kick ass. Let your body be strong enough to bring a bitch down. That will help you way more, I think, than what you're doing right now around the things you're struggling with.

Guest: Yes.

Jessica: And remembering that you can experiment⁠—you can try things out. And if they don't work, it's because they weren't right, or maybe they weren't right right now, because I think when you get really activated is when your Sun/Pluto kicks in. And that's a fixed placement. It's like, "Everything is ruined forever. Nothing will ever work." It gets really all or nothing. And so I just want to remind you that you might get your yoga teacher training now and use it in a decade, or you might use it in a "shake out the willies and also develop your muscles and your mind" way. There's a million things you can do, and you're not making a mistake or wasting your time if you're not clear what comes next or if it's⁠—

Guest: Yes. Okay.

Jessica: ⁠—the all-knowing, all-being thing.

Guest: Yes. Yeah. I've had to rationalize that feeling in my chest, like, "Why haven't you booked that? Why haven't you done that? Why aren't you making this happen?" And yeah. I am sitting with allowing it to be an unknown quantity right now.

Jessica: Good. That's so hard for you and so good for you. It just really is. And again, the Pluto square to Mercury that you're going through⁠—it is testing you to really challenge what you believe, how you think, and how you communicate. That's hard, but it's so good. It's so good for you. And the fact that your OCD is up⁠—again, not speaking from a medical perspective, but from my astrological perspective⁠—is a gift. It's a shitty gift that you didn't want, but it allows you to become more present and aware, present with it and aware of it from your adult perspective, and to develop tools for coping that you couldn't have the last time it was activated.

Guest: Right.

Jessica: When we have health concerns⁠—mental health, physical health, whatever⁠—they're in the system. There's nothing moralistic about whether or not we have a health issue. It's more, how do we identify it? How do we cope with it? How can we support it in our system? It's important that you pull out whatever judgments you have towards yourself for having these health concerns, because they're just health concerns. And if you're concerned about the wellness of the people that you love, why wouldn't you be concerned about the wellness of you?

If I came to you and I was like⁠—if I was your bestie, and I was like, "Hey, I am struggling with this knee problem," or, "I'm struggling with depression," or whatever, you would help me to find ways to cope, right?

Guest: Yeah.

Jessica: I'm seeing your chart correctly. Yeah. You would just be like, "Okay. What do you need, and how can I help you figure it out at your pace?" So be a friend to yourself. Be the friend you deserve, not a jerk bully, but an actual, like, "Oh. This is what's happening. This is a part of me that I've experienced. How do I want to support it? Do I need to understand it better?" And hopefully your therapist is somebody who does that work with you.

Guest: Yes, they are. She's the therapist that I've had the most connection with out of quite a few of them, actually, and we've done some really good bits of work. So yes. But that's all part of why I thought I wanted another layer of understanding around this, because it did feel like there was this not-palpable quality to why I could work out exactly, from mapping everything out, why it was happening again. Yeah.

Jessica: Mm-hmm. It's fucking Pluto. It's fucking Pluto. And also, the world is on fire, and that's going to trigger everyone's mental health, right?

Guest: Right.

Jessica: [crosstalk] real. And if you're considering having a kid while the world's on fire, you have to either be in denial, disassociated, or you have to cope with the complexity of the choice, which is triggering.

Guest: Yes. And this is another aspect of it, for sure, that's made me want to really think about it and really be like, "Well, what is this going to mean?" because, actually, I need to be⁠—if things are going to get even worse in the world, then I need to not be as worried about doing that thing. You know?

Jessica: Correct. I would agree with that. Yeah. I think that's wise. I really wish you the best with all of this, and honestly, I agree that this is one of those moments where astrology is a perfect complement to psychology because what astrology allows us to do is look at all your separate parts and be like, "Yeah. Yoga. Yes," but also why yoga is not working right now, because astrology allows us to objectively see the parts. So I am really glad that we got to do this and that you have⁠—

Guest: Me, too.

Jessica: ⁠—a therapist that you can bring this to.

Guest: She's totally woo. She'll be down with it.

Jessica: Okay. Good. Good. That makes me happy. So yeah. Bring all the woo to her, and hopefully try out some of the stuff we talked about and see how it goes. And you can hopefully talk to your partner about this stuff and see how he holds it. And he's just going to reveal himself to you. Let him reveal himself. Don't turn him into something he's not. Don't make excuses. Let him show you who he is, and then decide whether or not that works. He has to do the same. And that's not a treatise on the quality of a person he is or the quality of the person you are. It's just about allowing life to be messy and allowing yourself to show up for that. Easier said than done, but that's the damn move.

Guest: Yes. Thank you so much.

Jessica: It's so my pleasure. This has been⁠—as soon as I saw your question, I was like, "Yep. We're going to talk. It's going to be real."

Guest: Yeah. You've been like a voice in this tiny flat every Sunday for years, so now it feels like you're here.

Jessica: I am here. I am there-ish. Ish. It's really wonderful to meet you, and I wish you the best. I have a lot of confidence that you're going to move through this stuff, so⁠—

Guest: Thank you.

Jessica: Yeah. And that doesn't mean perfect. It just means progress, right?

Guest: Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Jessica: All right.

Guest: Amazing.

Jessica: Bye.

Guest: Bye.