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:            Roua, welcome to the podcast.

Roua:  Thank you.

Jessica:            What would you like a reading about?

Roua:              So, initially, my question was about how to deal with my emotions in terms of what's happening right now back home and with my family. War started in Sudan in April of 2023, and since then, it's just been a lot of emotions that I've been trying to sort through. And initially, my question was about how do I kind of support my family and not soak it up, but then I realized that it's more about my setting boundaries and trying not to soak it up in general, not just with my family, just generally in terms of my relationships, family, friends, and with myself in terms of where I come from and home.

Jessica:            Yeah. I'm really glad that you came to that amendment on your own. It's kind of the same question, but it gives you more agency in it. When you say your family, is it your immediate family, your extended family?

Roua:              Yeah. It's my immediate family. And I have a big family, too. So there are about seven members.

Jessica:            Oh, damn. Are you the only one that's out here?

Roua:              Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. First of all, I'm sorry, and there are no answers is the first answer I want to give you. Before we do anything, I want to just acknowledge when you're going through something really scary and really bad, there's no way to feel but scared and bad to a certain extent. There's nothing unhealthy about that or unspiritual about that. It's okay to feel like shit when things are shitty. It's important that we start with that.

                        Of course, I pulled up your chart. And do you want to share your birth info?

Roua:              Yes. I was born November 19th, 1997, in Shambat, North Khartoum in Sudan.

Jessica:            Great. And 4:00 a.m. is our guesstimate time?

Roua:              Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            You are going through not one but three Pluto transits. So yeah. The math is mathing. It totally makes sense. Things are so dramatic and so intense for you. But I kind of don't want to start with the astrology, because you're coming in with emotions and energy boundaries and emotional boundaries. I want to kind of start there. So will you say your full name out loud for me?

Roua:              Yeah. My name is in Arabic. Do you want me to⁠—

Jessica:            Yes, in Arabic. Please. Yes. Of course. Yeah.

Roua:              [redacted]

Jessica:            Is your mom's last name in there, or what's your mom's maiden name?

Roua:              [redacted]

Jessica:            That's the name. And is your father there with your family?

Roua:              Yes.

Jessica:            But is your mother kind of the person who runs the show and keeps everyone safe and does everything?

Roua:              No, not at all.

Jessica:            Interesting. Why am I picking up on your mother so strong? Are you really close to your mother?

Roua:              Not at all.

Jessica:            Okay. So it's a conflict with your mother.

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            When you say your mother's name, I get a lot of energy. I'm going to make you say the maiden name one more time.

Roua:              [redacted]

Jessica:            So the way that you have learned to protect yourself emotionally is by putting out a hard boundary. Am I picking up on this correctly?

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Thanks, Mom. This is very related to your mom. You're a Scorpio. Sure, you're intense. But you've got a freaking Cancer Moon and a Libra Rising. So, given the chance, you would really like to be a lot more flowy with your emotional boundaries and not have to be so protective. But it looks like when I look at your mother energetically, it's just like nothing but a really aggressively and⁠—I don't know if aggressive is the right word, but very firmly, and there's no negotiating this. This is the wall. This is the boundary. It's kind of like a rule instead of a boundary. Does that make sense for you?

Roua:              Yeah. Absolutely.

Jessica:            Yeah. And the problem is rules and boundaries are really, really different. And we can talk about your childhood, and we can talk about your mom. But I don't really know that that's what you need, because this is about you and your own coping mechanisms. Does that feel right?

Roua:              Yeah. Absolutely.

Jessica:            Okay. The coping mechanism that you had with her worked to an extent. It doesn't look like it exactly worked, but it worked to an extent.

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            It was like a good move. It was just a good move. It was the move that you had, basically, and you played the move. But what's happening now is that you're experiencing that having⁠—boundaries I think of as kind of adaptable, and they have the capacity to be shaped to the needs of a situation, whereas rules are more like punishments. They can be more like the hammer is dropped.

                        What you need is less of a hammer because we're dealing with such a complex situation where there isn't a right or wrong way to feel or right or wrong thing to do, and also, everything is nuanced and everything is wrong.

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            What I'm seeing now is, even us talking about this, it's kind of like⁠—Cancer Moon is so tender and so vulnerable. It's like the crab moves sideways, and crabs are really good at finding places to hidey-hole themselves, to protect themselves. And even as I'm starting to talk about this pattern, this coping mechanism you have from your mother, there's this part of you that's kind of Cancer hidey-holing away, like getting self-protective and shutting down a little. Does that feel right?

Roua:              Yeah. Absolutely.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. Cool. Okay. Good. Not good for you, but good that it's activated and we're seeing it. And you're allowed to have boundaries with me, and I just want to say that for the damn record. You can ask me to help you with something, and then when I try to help you with it, you can decide you don't want me to help you with it. You have that fucking right, so let's just start with that premise.

Roua:              Thank you.

Jessica:            You welcome, because with your mom, the rules were constantly fucking changing. It made no sense. Your boundaries were not respected. And so this is like a trigger for you. Hold on. I see what happened. So you get triggered. You get tight, like you want to hide or you want to drop a hammer some way. And then you get confused, a little discombobulated.

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. All right. We're doing a damn thing. Okay. That's demoralizing because you're like, "I know fucking what I need. No?" And then, all of a sudden, it's like, "Oh, wait. Do I know what I need? I don't know." It's a super confusing pattern. And is this kind of what's happening in your relationships both with family and in general right now? This pattern is coming up a ton?

Roua:              Yeah, a ton.

Jessica:            Okay. So I just want to reiterate again you are entitled to your coping mechanisms, the good ones and the bad ones, the ones that hurt you and the ones that work. And I think it's really important that I validate that, because what I see you're doing to yourself⁠—and again, Mom⁠—it's not just mom; it's in the matrilineage⁠—but is you feel like you have a right to your feelings and you have a right to your reactions, and then the slightest wind will change and you're like, "What the fuck is wrong with me? Why am I like this?" And you get so mean to yourself.

                        And I want to just really strongly, emphatically say I really see what's happening inside of you. And you're not broken. There's nothing wrong. Are your coping mechanisms not always working for you? Sure. But having maladjusted coping mechanisms that worked for you at one time⁠, and this one time for you was when you were a kid⁠—it's part of being a human. And if you start off by doing that same wall of "No" to yourself, then, I mean, you're experiencing what happens. You kind of end up in this rut where you have a right; you don't have a right. You have a right; you don't have a right. You might act out; you might not advocate for yourself at all. It's like flippity-floppity, flippity-floppity. And it's super demoralizing.

                        I keep on hearing you tell yourself that you know better and that you should do differently.

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay.

Roua:              Yeah. I feel like I know too much, but even though I know it, the believe part isn't there.

Jessica:            It's belief. I would say, even more than belief, though, it's acceptance. Knowing all the things is great, but accepting that you are imperfect, your options are imperfect, the people around you are imperfect, and that is okay⁠—it sucks, but it's okay⁠—that's what you haven't done. You haven't accepted that part. You're like, "Why aren't they better? Why isn't she better? Why isn't this situation better? Why aren't I better?" And you lose a lot of your precious energy on seeking perfection in situations and dynamics that will only ever be imperfect because they are made up of humans. Are you dating somebody?

Roua:              I'm seeing someone right now. Yeah.

Jessica:            And is it really triggering you right now?

Roua:              I don't know if I want to say triggered. There are so many situations where I feel really good, and there are so many situations where I know, like, "Oh, I need to work on myself." So it's always a battle between, "Oh, I really want to see this person," and at the same time, "I have so much to work on myself." His name is [redacted].

Jessica:            Thank you. Okay. So this is still early.

Roua:              Super early.

Jessica:            Okay. I'm glad I looked because it's not about him at all, which is nice. You don't know exactly what you want. You know what you want in a fantasy way, in a "I have a Mercury in Sagittarius and I can dream all the dreams" kind of way. But when push comes to shove, you're not actually that available to slowly get to know someone and see where it goes. You want to be at the finish line. You want to be in a committed relationship, happy, having great sex, having great love, having great support. But that whole building part⁠—I'm not saying you shouldn't do it or you can't do it, but you're not completely available for it.

                        And⁠—oh. You went back into your hidey-hole. You ever see a hermit crab?

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            You are a little bit of a hermit crab. So, when I say something that just hits a particular spot in a particular way, you just find the quickest, closest shell or whatever to hermit into. Very impressive. This coping mechanism that you have⁠—I want to honor it, and I want to encourage you to honor it. When you start to feel like somebody is starting to touch on something that's really vulnerable and intimate, your go-to reflexive coping mechanism is to run and hide and protect yourself.

                        And the last thing you should do or I should do or anyone should fucking do is try to be like, "No, no, no. Come out. You're fine. Everything's safe." No. Uh-uh. That impulse to go to a shell is a survival mechanism, and we want to honor it and we want to respect it. It is there for a damn reason. The problem is it doesn't completely serve you, because you feel a feeling, and then your instinct is to hide as a way to protect yourself instead of to stay with the feeling and to explore the feeling and what it means and what it needs and all that kind of stuff.

                        Given what you're going through with your family and your home⁠—I don't know if you still think of it as your home, but it feels like your home⁠—I'm not going to be like, "Yeah, hang out on the beach. Feel your feelings." Okay. Go in your fucking hidey-hole. I respect that. But part of what happens is that the act of abandoning yourself is so instinctive for you as a way to keep you safe that if I hadn't stopped our conversation to really go into this, I would have lost you anyways because you're so busy protecting yourself, again, your brain gets fuzzy and it gets harder to stay present because you're actively trying not to as a way to survive the moment.

Roua:              Yeah. Absolutely. And I acknowledge that a lot lately, that I know that even when I do want to face a lot of feelings in general, I really struggle with a lot of just knowing my feelings and labeling my feelings. I'm really actively working hard on that. And whenever I do, I realize that I could barely sit in the feeling. And even when I'm in it and it goes quick, I was like, "Oh, okay. So I guess we're over it now. Okay. Nice." You know? It's like so quick, just touch upon it. So I totally⁠—I hear you [crosstalk].

Jessica:            Yeah. So I don't know, actually, enough about crabs. I'm a fucking Capricorn. What do I know about crabs? But I would encourage you to watch a bunch of nature videos on YouTube or TikTok or whatever. Just learn more about them. I feel like it might do something for you. Just how do they actually stay safe? What are their actual social patterns? This is very Cancery stuff. So I'm just going to give you that weird offhand support.

                        But also, I want to say this. Every time you catch yourself trying to run into the shell of hiding from your emotions, I would give you the advice of practicing doing this: noticing that it's happening⁠—that's step one. And then step two is saying to yourself, "Huh. I have a really good way of protecting myself from feeling feelings that I don't know how to feel. And I actually want to take a moment to say, 'Hey, self. You're really good at this,'" because what I'm basically encouraging you to do is to start collaborating with your survival mechanisms because if what you do is say, "Oh, this is wrong. I should feel my feelings. I should label my feelings," now you're kind of fighting your inner lizard brain.

Roua:              Instincts.

Jessica:            Yeah, your natural instincts. Exactly. That's it. That's it. And so, then, after⁠—so you've named it, and then you've acknowledged, "Okay. I'm really good at avoiding predators emotionally. Okay." Then, if you can, you can try to do your identifying what emotion you're actually feeling and staying with it for a moment. And I think staying with it for a moment is really about⁠—oh, this is going to be super annoying for you. The way that I'm feeling your emotions is it's a wall, so there's nothing to fucking feel. What do you feel? It doesn't feel like anything. It feels like, "No." It just feels like, "No." Is that how you feel it as well?

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. What you're going to do is, when you feel that "no"⁠—to me, it shows up kind of like a wall, just like a big fucking wall, very impenetrable wall. You have great survival mechanisms. I mean, it's a compliment, but also, ouch. This can be hard to work through. But all you want to do is take a seat, and maybe you'll visualize yourself doing this. Maybe you just work with this image in some way. But take a seat. Criss-cross applesauce in front of the wall, and just be with the wall. You don't have to scale the wall right away. And I think what you're doing is you're pressuring yourself to try to scale the wall or bust through the wall. And the wall is there for a damn reason.

                        Okay. There she is. Okay. Inner child work is not my work. I just want to preface what I'm about to say with that. But it's like this wall was put up by five-year-old you. And does that make sense? Did something happen around four, five years old?

Roua:              Yeah. I was just writing about it. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. That makes sense. And so, every time you try to bust through that wall, you condemn that wall, you judge that wall, you kick that wall⁠—you're doing that to your inner five-year-old. And so taking a moment to just be like, "Okay. I hit that wall of 'no'"⁠—and it could happen just fucking scrolling through social media. It could happen thinking about something really deep with your family. It could happen being insecure about a date even though it went really well. It could happen in a million different ways. But taking a moment to sit with that wall and just speak to it as you would speak to any five-year-old, kindly. You don't have to use complicated language. You don't have to figure things out. It's just really simple. Have you hung out with little kids?

Roua:              I actually do. [crosstalk]

Jessica:            Okay. So you know exactly what I'm talking about. You know how to talk to kids, right? You don't say to them, "I really think you're sublimating your issues because you're really upset with this kid and you're freaking out about lunch." Instead, you say, "Have your feelings. Let's not kick." You find a way to communicate where it's really simple.

That's what you need because this wall is erected by five-year-old you. And that's a fucking impressive feat for a five-year-old. Your coping mechanisms at five were⁠—unfortunately, you needed them. That's the tragedy of the story. But they're very strong. Sorry. I started to feel the woopety-doopety of the brain again, so we started to really get at it.

                        So the thing is your inner five-year-old has been dictating your safety and your intimacy issues and your energy boundaries and your emotional boundaries. Are you in your mid-20s?

Roua:              I am.

Jessica:            You are in your mid-20s.

Roua:              I'm 25.

Jessica:            25. Thank you. I can't do math when I'm being psychic. Okay. So, for 20 years, that part of you has been navigating. And your 25-year-old self does know a lot more than your five-year-old self. If you try to force a five-year-old to believe that, you'll have a very angry and weepy five-year-old. So we don't do that. You just build trust by being present and being consistent and being loving and collaborating, making compromises. Does that make sense?

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            I want to say one more thing about this, which is if you practice doing this, you will be bad at it at least half the time. And that means you're doing great, okay? Healing is not linear, and emotions are super not linear. There's a lot of your parts that are just like, "Yeah, if it's not going to work, why should we do this?" A lot of your parts are just perfectionistic, I really think is what it is, just perfectionistic.

                        So breathe for a minute here. Have you been holding your breath for 20 minutes? Come on. Let's have a⁠—

Roua:              Yeah. I was forcing myself to breathe.

Jessica:            Okay. Good. I could feel it. I was like, "Okay." Did you grow up with violence?

Roua:              Emotionally, to an extent, yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. And did your mom grow up with violence?

Roua:              I actually am not sure. But from what I know⁠—she didn't say anything, but I think she did.

Jessica:            Yeah. I think she did, too. There's a lot of grief in you. And some of it is from your own shit, your stuff that you've lived through, but a lot of it's inherited. And as I kind of sat for a moment with your system, like your energy body, I was like, "Okay. What's here?" And it's kind of a tsunami of sadness, grief. And it is a very healthy and well-adjusted thing to be like, "I don't think I want to walk towards the tsunami."

                        It's good that you're not rushing towards the tsunami. But also, I want to acknowledge that all of the advice I'm giving you and all the things you're trying to do will bring you closer and closer to that tsunami. And I think that your capacity for feeling is torrential. I'm using a lot of very watery metaphors, which are not usually in my wheelhouse, so I'm very proud of myself. But Scorpio with a Cancer Moon, I mean, this is⁠—when you feel shit, you feel shit.

                        And I don't see you losing yourself in your feelings. It perfectly makes sense to be scared that you would. And you have a Moon opposition to Neptune in your birth chart. That placement gives you very⁠—it's hard for you to gauge the difference between "I'm feeling my emotions" versus "I'm overwhelmed by sensations and the emotions of others or of the environment." It is like being in the ocean and having tons of ocean spray in your face, and it's raining, and it's windy. It's like, how do you know what water is hitting you? It's a lot to navigate. And are you good with visualization? Do you do a lot of visualization work?

Roua:              I just started.

Jessica:            Okay.

Roua:              And surprisingly, I've noticed that I'm pretty good at it.

Jessica:            Yeah. You have Mercury in Sagittarius, and so visualization is a good move for you. I would encourage you, if you feel overwhelmed with emotions, to visualize yourself in kind of a water-safe popemobile, something where it's completely glass. You can see out. If you wanted to have mirrore⁠d—be mirrored on the outside so people can't see in, that's cool. This is all visualization. You can do whatever the hell you want.

                        And it's something that is very buoyant and can really adapt to changing sea situations. I would encourage you to visualize basically a boundaried structure that you can rest in, even when emotions and circumstances get really overwhelming. This isn't going to fix your problems. It's a way for 25-year-old you to be able to cope with and re-situate in response to your emotions. Does that make sense?

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay. So pros and cons of getting a psychic reading is, okay, well, we just got into something that would take like nine months of therapy to get into, usually. So that's really cool, but it's also a lot. So I just want to take a pause and take a breath. I know I've brought up a lot of shit. Do you have any questions about anything we've talked about so far? And then, if not, do you have anywhere you want to specifically point me next? Because I want to kind of get more specifically into your question.

Roua:              So, from what I'm hearing right now, a lot of it isn't new. I feel like a lot of it really⁠—it started coming up, right? So I've kind of started making peace that it's obviously not going to be pretty, and it's going to be a lot. And whatever I've scratched so far is just barely even the top. I don't think I've scratched anything. So I noticed, too, is that I focus more on what people are feeling when I do feel overwhelmed; then I shut myself out. So then I end up holding other people's emotions and other people's pain specifically.

And unfortunately, I've noticed not a lot of joy gets absorbed. But it's⁠—a lot of it is that I can feel people's pain, and then I'm like, "Oh, this is pain that I feel in my body." And I just want to talk to them from, like, "Oh, I feel your pain." And that's how I end up losing myself. I guess I'm trying to really focus on how to find ways to just feel it but at the same time know that it's mine and not someone else, like not get it all mixed up together.

Jessica:            Yeah. Million-dollar question, first of all, because I mean, it's a lot. So let's try to pick it into pieces. So the first is there are definitely some of us⁠—and we are the lucky few; I have this problem too, unfortunately⁠—where your psychic sensitivities are specifically towards pain. And honestly, I think this has a lot to do with ancestry and your own childhood and scanning, scanning, scanning the environment constantly as a way to assess your own safety. And so it sensitizes you to what's really happening for people because that's the best way to stay safe.

                        There is that component of it, which I think is kind of at the core and is something that can be worked on over the course of time, maybe with a shrink. You know what I mean? It could be with an energy woo-woo person, but I think this is good fodder for psychology. But then I just have to insert and say you're very young, and there's not a point where you're supposed to have this shit figured out by, because what I just said⁠—I kind of felt the wall coming up and part of the narrative of the wall at that moment was, "It's taking too long. When is it going to be done?" That kind of a thing.

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. If you had all this figured out four or five years before your Saturn Return, what would be the point of life? You have a lot of time to work on this, okay? You got a lot of time. And when we say your Saturn Return, we mean your first Saturn Return. You got a lot of time on this, okay?

Now, here's the other thing. Because of this Moon/Neptune opposition and your damn Libra Rising⁠—yeah, I called it your damn Libra Rising⁠. And Saturn squares your Venus, so all of these things in different ways tell a similar story. You have a devotional way of loving. So, if you know someone you authentically care about, even if it's somebody you have a really complicated relationship with⁠—if you know that they are experiencing suffering⁠—their knee hurts. They are in crisis, a real crisis. That could be something small, something big. I don't know why I said a knee hurt is small, but I imagine you feel people's knee pains a lot.

There is this part of you that reflexively feels, "I should take this on. If somebody else is suffering, then my suffering should match it." This is what you do?

Roua:  Yeah. I think I've done that a lot with my mom.

Jessica:            Your mom is a really, really, really complicated person. It's so nice when you can just be like, "This person's bad." But she's not. She's done a lot of bad things out of her own pain in her own damage, and she has a lot of those things. You know that wall we've been talking about? Your wall comes up, and it's a coping mechanism. So I would say it's like a foundational 10, 20 percent of your nature, but it's really core at the foundation, so you return to it a lot.

                        For your mom, it's like 80 or 90 percent. She lives at the damn wall. She lives inside the wall. She's constantly saying no to everything as a way to keep herself together.

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. And as hard as it is to imagine dealing with these feelings that come up for you and making different choices when everything shuts down and then you get confused, I mean, for her, man, it is really hard. And she does get confused. When she gets confused, she gets real mean because she doesn't want anyone to see her vulnerability. So she doesn't make any sense at that point. She becomes random at that point, but again, very aggressive.

                        And I'm not saying any of this so that you feel pity for her. Pity is not what we're going for, and pity is your kryptonite. What you want to be able to do is have empathy, which is to say, "My mother is a person. She got a lot of problems, and a lot of those problems she has made into my problems or other people's problems. But she is her own complicated person. I have a lot of empathy for her path. I have a lot of empathy for her problems. But I don't have pity, which means I'm also recognizing her agency."

Now, this part, recognizing her agency, is really important because it's identifying she does have choices. She's always had choices. And the choices she's made largely have been not super great.

Roua:  Yeah.

Jessica:            So, when you feel somebody else's pain, your mother's or anyone else's, and you can have empathy for them, you are also seeing the agency that they hold within them. And that doesn't mean your mother has had great choices. It doesn't mean anyone in your family right now has great choices. Life confronts us often with terrible fucking choices, but we still have choices.

                        I don't know about you, but the last thing I want is for people to look at me and have pity and to be like, "Oh, she couldn't even make a choice." I want to feel like I have the ability to not do a thing or do a thing in my life. And there is something inherently about what I'm talking about, which is about having respect for them on a soul level, having respect for your mom on a soul level. You do not understand the complexity of what goes on with her, and you don't have to eat shit for her or anyone else. You do not need to put her suffering above your own when that's the equation we're dealing with.

                        But you can, at the same time, old empathy for what you don't understand about her. The way she acts, a lot of the times, she has to be in a lot of pain. Why else would she do that? It's like self-sacrificing and weird, a lot of what she does.

Roua:              Sadly. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. And so what I think happens is you start to feel, for instance, with your mom⁠—I mean, your mom is the most complicated relationship in your life, right?

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            But you start to feel either your own wall come up, so you're like, "Fuck no," or you get overwhelmed by her sadness. So you don't just feel other people's pain. You feel their repressed pain. Oh, that's awful. I am so sorry.

Roua:              Yeah. Yeah, that.

Jessica:            Yeah. I have that same problem. That is a fucking⁠—that is a pain in the butt because then you can feel that tsunami of sadness that she has, and it's so confusing because she's acting like she has no emotions and she's acting kind of punishing and random. But what's happening inside his she's just so sad and confused.

So how do you protect yourself from someone that you are experiencing as a victim? Because her sadness makes her feel like a victim. That's how she feels. She feels like she's being victimized.

Roua:  Yeah, unfortunately.

Jessica:            Yeah. And so this is where⁠—and this is a practice. If you master this practice in your 20s, that would be kind of miraculous. I'm not saying it's not possible, but it's like do not expect perfection on this, okay? This is something to be in practice with. When you're in her presence⁠—and not only your mom, but we're focusing on her right now. When you're in her presence⁠—you're on the phone with her, you're in person, whatever⁠—and you start to feel⁠—she starts to fucking do something, to just push you away or act out or shit on someone else, whatever it is that she's doing, and you start to feel⁠—see, this is where it is, again, like all the different kinds of water starting to hit you. This is where you want to be popemobiling with your mom a lot.

                        But it's about recognizing that⁠—okay. So she's making you feel bad, and she's also making you feel defensive. And at the same time, you feel sad and like you owe her something. It's like the primary emotions that I see come up. Am I seeing this correctly?

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. So that sadness⁠—like 80 percent of it's hers. I mean, you do feel sad. It sucks. You're sad about it. But the overwhelming sadness, that's hers. Oh, and I can feel you, even as I say that, feeling pity for her. So this is going to be something⁠—I'm going to encourage you in English, in Arabic⁠—I don't know what other languages you speak⁠—look up the word "pity," and look up the word "empathy." Really investigate the subtle nuances and differences between the two because as an empath⁠, which⁠—I don't usually call people empaths, but I'm calling you one. As an empath, if you can't learn the sensations and textural difference between pity and empathy, it's going to be a lot harder for you to have energetic and emotional boundaries.

                        We have no boundaries with pity. Nobody does, because pity is like, "Oh, you poor thing." It's like perceiving someone else as a victim, in some ways robbing them of their autonomy and their agency. It feels like an impulsive love, but it's not, in the end. Empathy is. Where you can empathize, you can really hold grace and love and care, but that doesn't mean you imagine that they had no other options, that you imagine them as a victim.

                        The truth is sometimes we are victims. Some people are victims, and some situations victimize us, period. And I know your family are going through something really terrifying, and we haven't really gotten to that yet because there's dealing with people you love are in wartime, and that is a different situation than dealing with this pattern with your mom, even though your mom is one of the people in wartime.

                        So many layers. Okay. Hold on. Let me just slow it down a little bit because⁠—

Roua:              Welcome to my life.

Jessica:            I know. It's too many layers. It's a lot of layers. Okay. Let me just slow back down. I have to pull back, and I have to say this. You're very smart. Your brain? It's a good brain. You got a good one. You know what I mean? You're very smart. You're very intelligent. Intelligence doesn't mean that you move fast through ideas. I mean, you do. You move fast through ideas. But as I'm sitting with you, I'm experiencing that if we move too fast, your little inner hermit crab finds a hidey spot and then drags that hidey spot into the wall, and then we're done.

                        And so, while your mind is capable of understanding everything we're talking about and then, and then and then some, your heart just needs a lot more space because this is heavy, and it's hard, and it's painful. You, the central you, the wise inner you, needs to be⁠—you don't need to be shit. I want to encourage you to be a kind steward of all your parts. And that means if your system says, "Yeah, I can figure it out, but I need to move slow," then the steward of the ship, the captain of the ship⁠—you are the captain; you are the steward⁠—should say, "Okay. So we move slow."

                        It's got to be that way because your heart is the part that needs help. Your energy boundaries and your heart are what need help.

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Jessica:            Say your full name out loud again, and include your mom's maiden.

Roua:  [redacted]

Jessica:            Okay. I just want to acknowledge that when I look at you energetically, your system says, "No more." Your brain doesn't say that, but your system says, "No more." Does that make sense to you, what I'm saying?

Roua:              A little, but I don't think I feel it.

Jessica:            Okay. Let me tell you what I'm feeling, and you tell me if you're like, "This is wrong," or whatever because I could be wrong about this and right about other things. That's possible, right? What I'm feeling is you have a little bit of numbness now, and your brain is having a hard time staying in focus. Am I feeling that correctly, those two things?

Roua:              A little. Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay. So what I want to say is that as your psychic, I am identifying this as the way your system says, "Okay," basically, "I've had enough dinner. I'm set," not, "I'm stuffed. I couldn't eat another bite"⁠— "This is enough food for my body," right? And I want to just acknowledge that, because learning your limit, not your, "Now I feel awful and I have overdone it, and I feel like blah"⁠—this is what I'm perceiving to be a limit for you. This is a good thing to know. Make a note of this for yourself, that this feeling is your system, from what I can see, saying, "Okay. I can do this." And that's it.

That said, we're talking about your mom. Are there any questions, specific or general, that you would want me to address around her? And there doesn't have to be, but if there are…

Roua:              Yeah. So I've been kind of reconnecting with each person in my family, and she is the last one that I still haven't done that with. And to me, how I want to, in my head, is to just kind of express how I feel, or how I felt, and at the same time, let her know that I'm willing to build a new relationship. I don't want the past to be what it is because I really do understand that I hold on to a lot in the past, and not just mine⁠—hers too. And I don't know how she's changed so far with it. But I also understand that she's holding on to obviously a lot more than I can imagine.

But whenever I want to have that conversation, there's a lot of blaming that comes in my head in the scenario. So do you think I'm ready to have a conversation like this now or give it time? Because I feel like time⁠—my perception⁠—I struggle with time, and I acknowledge that big time. And my idea of time isn't realistic. And that is something that I've been working on but also [indiscernible 00:40:09] that she really shook me where, like, you don't have time. You don't know because war was my worst-case scenario, and it happened. But now there's another worst-case scenario. So now it's like, how do I⁠—I don't know. I guess⁠—I don't know if you can hear my question.

Jessica:            Yeah. Oh, I hear your question. I hear it. I hear it.

Roua:              I got lost.

Jessica:            No, you didn't get lost. It's complicated. So here's my take. If you have a conversation with your mother, it's going to go poorly. That's her guarantee. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have the conversation because, from my perspective, when we have relationships with people who haven't been doing the work on themselves, who only know how to relate through strife and conflict, which⁠—is that a safe thing to say about your mom?

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Then the only way to have a relationship with them is to accept that that's who they are and to have boundaries. I think if you came to your mother and you said the most perfect words and you had the greatest forgiveness in your heart, no pity, just empathy⁠—you're not playing your role⁠—it would still go poorly. And so then the question becomes, why do you want to talk to her? Is it so that you have a better mother/daughter relationship? Or is it because if, God forbid, the worst-case thing happened, you need to know that you tried?

                        I have very annoying advice around this, which is change your expectations. It's been years since you've spoken to her?

Roua:              Yeah. I mean, we've spoken recently, but it's very superficial conversation.

Jessica:            Right. Right. I'm seeing three years. Has it been like three years that you've had some sort of space from her?

Roua:              Yeah. That was the last time I saw her.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. In these three years, you've been working on yourself. You've been digging deep. You've been doing shit. She has not. She's been surviving in the same way she always has. So, when you return to this relationship, you are different and she is not, which means her ability to see how you're different and to understand it⁠—it's not what you want. She might perceive the ways in which you are different, the ways in which you are more whole and you are actually better, as an abandonment of her. And she's very sensitive to being rejected. I don't know if you know this about your mom, if that's obvious or not.

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. So you can have a relationship with your mom at this time where you talk about the most superficial things, and you return to the most important thing, "I love you, Mom. I want only the best for you, Mom," and talk about superficial things and return to the most important thing, "I love you." And then, when she starts to poke or try to get you to be the wall like she's the wall so she can recognize you more⁠—which is really why she does it. She shuts people down and contains them so that they're like her, and then she feels less alone, which⁠—don't feel pity. I can feel you going into pity. Don't feel pity.

                        It's a maladjusted coping mechanism, and she has agency within that. And the only way you could really help her is being different, so when she starts to come at you and you start to feel that wall, to be like, "Oh. Oh no. Somebody's at my door. I've got to go." Don't tell her. She can't understand it. This is my advice for this time. Now, God willing, everything works out and you have time with your mom. Okay. Then have those terrible conversations that are not going to go well. But at least you're trying to build a real relationship with her and achieve some sort of healing.

                        But I think there's this other thing where you keep it superficial, and then if she starts to hurt you, you get off the phone and you don't even have to tell her why. And your mother is very intelligent. She will figure it out, and either she'll try to fight you on it or you'll just train her. Every time she starts to poke at you, she loses you. So she won't poke at you, because she doesn't want to lose you.

                        What's hard for you is that you've got that Mercury in Sadge. And so you want to make things complicated, and you want to really unpack the full breadth of ideas. And I don't see that that's what your mom is capable of. I mean, she's really capable, but she is not capable emotionally. And that's how you want to do it. So you tell me: how does that idea land? What comes up for you around that?

Roua:              I think it gives me a little bit of comfort⁠—

Jessica:            Great.

Roua:              ⁠—because that was one of the million options that I had, right? But it was not on the top at all.

Jessica:            Right. Right.

Roua:              It gives me comfort to know that, actually, that's not as bad and drastic as an idea. It felt like I was abandoning a part of myself doing that, but I think it's actually⁠—it helps me and protects me in a way that is helpful rather than destructive.

Jessica:            Yeah. I have a rule. And my rule is I don't process with people I don't trust. I don't share my deep shit with people who I know can't show up for it. Your mom 100 percent cannot show up for your realness. And the devotional part of you is, "Okay. But if I make myself more vulnerable, more naked, more raw, then she'll love me through it. Then she'll see me through it." This is you projecting who you are and what you are onto her.

                        The truth is your mom⁠—that wall that you know so well inside of you, that's like her whole thing. It's a part of you, but for her, it's all of her. And she's just not capable, and there's something really freeing, I agree, with being able to give yourself permission to say, "I can talk about the weather. We can talk about a book or a TV show or a cousin. We can talk about something that's not deep and have a nice interaction. And then I can say I love you, and I can actually mean it"⁠—or not, in the moment. And what you're doing is you're feeding what's important on a soul level.

You do love your mom very, very much. And your mother loves you very, very much. And you're not well suited to being like besties, but I think that in times of crisis is not when we should bring all of our needs and all of our thoughts. It's just too much. You know? Yeah. That kind of does it, eh, with your mom?

Roua:  Yeah.

Jessica:            Now, you mentioned your whole family, not just your mom. I wonder if there's any kind of question you have that I could try to answer, any way I could be of help around that.

Roua:              Yeah. So a little issue⁠—I don't know how little it is, but an issue I'm facing is that I'm taking care of them, and specifically now financially as well. And with my siblings⁠—for me, I can see a lot of what they're going through. I can feel a lot of it, too. And there's a part of me now where I'm like, "Okay. Money really doesn't matter. I want to give." But at the same time, I feel like I'm giving to people who are not honoring what I go through to give them that.

But I give too much without a boundary. And I think that's also [indiscernible 00:47:42], too, where I just want to give, and I want to protect them, and I want to be like, "Don't worry about money," because I know how much they're stressing about it. And I stress about it, but I'd rather stress about it, me, one person, rather than six of them collectively. You know?

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Here we do. Okay. You have Pluto in your fucking second house, see, which means money is a big deal. Your ability to have money is actually really big, but your feelings of guilt or shame, your feelings of obligation around money, are also really big. Money is just really complicated in general, but it's complicated in your family.

                        And currently, you've got Saturn squaring your fucking Pluto. I hate this transit so much. I can't even tell you. You don't often hear me say how much I hate a transit. I really hate this transit. Saturn squares Pluto⁠—I mean, it happens to everybody. But it is when your survival mechanisms⁠—Pluto⁠—are being challenged by your reality and the limitations of your circumstances⁠—Saturn. And this is like a six-month-long transit for you.

                        So you're in a particularly rough spot with this topic. And it's happening at the same time as Pluto is sitting opposite your Midheaven. It's squaring your Ascendant, and it's sitting on top of your Neptune. So OMG. It's very intense. The first thing that I want to say is there's no good answer. Again, you have a lot of bad options, and I'm sorry. Within that, if you can accept that, which⁠—I'm not positive you have accepted that, but if⁠—yeah. Okay.

Roua:              Not entirely.

Jessica:            No. But if you could accept that all of you as a family are in a bad situation and there's no perfect way of handling this⁠—like if everybody completely appreciated what you are doing and completely appreciated how hard it was for you, then you would feel like you had to give them more. What's your best-case scenario here, other than it not being a situation?

                        Within this situation, there is no good case scenario, as far as I⁠—at least if they're not fully appreciating that, then you can kind of substantiate that you don't have to give them everything, all your access. I mean, again, there's no good option. Now, unfortunately, the first part is really emotional still. This is so messy and complicated, and I want to just acknowledge, as I brought up not long ago, oh, okay, so I feel like you've hit kind of a limit. And it's not like the "No, stop" wall, but it's kind of⁠—we're in your wall area.

                        And you feel like you just haven't figured it out yet. You feel like there is a good situation; you can figure out how to handle this. It's like a pressure you're placing on yourself. It's a perfectionism again. That's not really about the situation at all. It's more about just it is hard for you to accept that things are fucked in this particular⁠—

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Sorry.

Roua:              Yeah. You're right. Yeah. Absolutely.

Jessica:            Yeah. It sucks. I'm sorry. My brain is wanting to be very Capricorny about this and be like, "Let's make a list of all the things." And I just don't think that'll work for you. So let me sit with this for another minute because what is the decision? You have a decision to make. Is that correct? Or is it more that you need to shift how you think? Ground me into the question.

Roua:              Oh my God. Now I'm like, "Both, maybe." There is a decision that I feel like I have to make. Okay. From what you told me about changing my expectation, I think that changes the idea of the decisions that I have to make because for me, it was like a decision about what kind of relationship do I want to build with my family, because I know it has to be a new relationship. It could not be whatever⁠—yeah.

                        So, for me, there's still a lot of struggle because I just kind of wanted have this beautiful relationship that just blossoms, right? But then, obviously, what I went through is not what they're going through. And that's been coming up to me quite often, is like, "Okay. What you've been through is not what they're going through, and what they're going through is not what you can"⁠—I mean, I can empathize, but⁠—so I guess now it's kind of like shifting my mindset around what this family relationship that I'm trying to build looks like.

Jessica:            Okay. So say your father's name.

Roua:              [redacted]

Jessica:            Okay. So, with your dad, the relationship is good. You want it to be more intimate?

Roua:              Yes. I would say yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. You just want it to be a little bit more close and loving, eh?

Roua:              Yes.

Jessica:            Does he have a close and loving relationship with anyone?

Roua:              No. I mean, okay. I don't know. Actually, I've been quite away for a really long time now. I've been living abroad for quite some time. So I'm assuming he has the closest relationship with my little brother. But also, my dad is very⁠—he is still authoritative in the way he speaks. And he changed a lot, and he acknowledges that now. But I do feel like even when he is very close, he still tries to tell everyone what to do.

Jessica:            Correct. Correct. So part of what I'm seeing that you want with your dad is a fantasy of who he is, who he could be, because even at his most intimate and close, he is better at expressing it in person. And he's not great at expressing it.

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            The truth is your dad really deeply respects you. He thinks that's better than intimacy and closeness. And that's not what you prefer, but if you didn't have it, you'd wish you had it.

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Your relationship with your dad, from what I'm seeing, is really good. It's just you're capable of having so much more closeness, and you love him so much. And so it's like A plus B. Why don't we just have C? And he's like, "We have A and B. Why would you want more?" You know?

Roua:              Right.

Jessica:            And I think that this is, again, about acceptance. You've got Mercury and Pluto in Sagittarius. And Pluto in Sagittarius⁠—gen Z. They call you gen Z. Pluto in Sagittarius is the generation of, "If I can explain it to you, if I show you, then you'll get it, right?" And every generation other than you is like, "No. I'll get it if I get it." But gen Z is like, "Oh, if I experience it, if I see how it can be done, things can be different."

                        But it's hard to accept⁠—and this is the hard stuff about Sagittarius energies, is you can drag a horse to water. The horse can be dying of dehydration. You can show the horse many different ways of drinking water, but you can't make it drink. That's not how horses are. And we are all horses. We are all horses.

                        When it comes to your family, a core issue here is accepting the people they are, even when you see the potential that they could be more and you think that you've got the right take on what better will be. And so far, from what I'm seeing with your mother and father, you're not wrong. It's just not what they want for themselves.

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Let's go to your siblings.

Roua:              Okay.

Jessica:            Who's the next one that's important?

Roua:              [redacted]

Jessica:            That's him. And he's the eldest son?

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. He acts like it. Are you guys a lot alike?

Roua:              In a way, yes.

Jessica:            Yeah.

Roua:              We're the closest two. There's quite a gap between all of them and me. There's three years' gap between my older siblings, and then me and him are one year and eight months. So we're super close.

Jessica:            Super close. Yeah. And do you want something different than what you have with him?

Roua:              I wish we spoke more, but I also⁠—I understand that his communication style is different than mine and that I recently⁠—super recently, I came to kind of accept with him.

Jessica:            Does he like texting?

Roua:              No, not at all. He actually would rather call me at random and call for three hours rather than text to me.

Jessica:            Oh, damn. Okay. Wow. That's something.

Roua:              It's a hard one.

Jessica:            Yeah. That's a really hard one. I actually don't need to give you any advice about this. He's annoying. He's your brother. He's supposed to be annoying. He wants to communicate in ways that are high maintenance, but also, he is just like you. He's like, "This is the best way. You should want to do the best thing." You don't need any advice about him. You just need to keep on arguing with him about this because it's cute, and it's not a problem. It's the kind of problem that's not an actual problem. So we're good here.

                        Now let's go to your sister. And this is your older sister?

Roua:              Yeah. I have two older sisters.

Jessica:            But she's the least older?

Roua:              Yes.

Jessica:            So do you have a close relationship with her?

Roua:              Growing up, yes. She was⁠—well, we lived in the same room.

Jessica:            Okay. That's very close.

Roua:              So I feel like it was forced to be a close relationship.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah.

Roua:              But I definitely would consider us being a close relationship. We did drift apart a little bit.

Jessica:            She's got much more conservative values than you do.

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Have you guys talked about that? Do you know that?

Roua:              No, I did not.

Jessica:            And you're Queer?

Roua:              I would say so. Yes.

Jessica:            Yeah. And do they know?

Roua:              No, not really.

Jessica:            No. Uh-uh. Does your sister know?

Roua:              No. Maybe. She's⁠—

Jessica:            I mean, do you⁠—

Roua:              Okay. So we also shared a time where I lived in the Netherlands, and we overlapped a year where we both lived in the Nethers together. And that year for me was just kind of like a whole experience of exploring a lot of things. I never directly said anything, but the way how I expressed this is that I've been just trying a bunch of stuff. I haven't really told her any details.

Jessica:            She's not dumb. She had theories. And I think that for her⁠—I mean, listen. She is her mother's daughter, and she just kind of is intimidated, and so she kind of clamps up. So I think she's a little hard to reach for you at this time because she's intimidated. You come across as fearless and unstoppable. Your brother is like, "Yeah. Fuck yeah. You go." And your sister feels like that sometimes, but she's confused by her own feelings. She doesn't know what to do. She doesn't know how to relate. She doesn't want you to think less of her, so she's kind of weird with you.

                        But you don't need to do anything about this relationship. Just be loving towards her when you talk because she's going through her own shit right now.

Roua:              Right.

Jessica:            What's your other older sister's⁠—your oldest sister has kids?

Roua:              No.

Jessica:            Huh. Does she want kids? Why do I keep on seeing kids around this woman?

Roua:              I feel like she does want kids.

Jessica:            She wants kids.

Roua:              I think she's the only one in my family that actually wants kids.

Jessica:            Okay. And do you talk to this sister?

Roua:              She was the one that I had the least relationship with throughout my entire⁠—yeah. So it's just recently that we started actually talking, and she was the most open about it.

Jessica:            I think you and your sister could develop the relationship you want with your mom.

Roua:              Yeah. Actually, she's the most similar to my mom.

Jessica:            She is and she isn't, right?

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            She is and she isn't. You also don't have pattern with her. With her, it's more of a, like, "Who are you? Let's figure it out," whereas everyone else is like, "I know who you are." She is a lot more capable of change in the ways that you want from your mom. So this is a good relationship for you to be just doing what you're doing. You know what I mean? But I would make a point of talking to her if you can. She does want closeness. She doesn't know how to make it happen.

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Now, should we look at the younger siblings as well?

Roua:              Yes, because he⁠—my relationship with him is me and him were⁠—I was like the protector. We were in the same school, and he's six years younger than me. And I just always had this feeling of, like, I have to protect him. And then, when my dad remarried, I just do not like the space that he was in in terms of with my stepmom and how he was going. And I felt that it hurt him more, and I see it. And he went inwards. And I don't think he ever came out of that until now. So now I have⁠—I cannot even talk to him. He barely answers my texts.

Jessica:            What's his name?

Roua:              [redacted]

Jessica:            Does he play video games?

Roua:              He does a lot.

Jessica:            Do you play video games?

Roua:              I don't.

Jessica:            Would you try so that you could figure out a way to relate to him?

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay.

Roua:              I tried to do anime, but actually, video games makes sense.

Jessica:            Video games. That's actually what he does.

Roua:              Yeah. Okay.

Jessica:            I think he plays the kind of video games he can play with other people live.

Roua:              Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jessica:            So you can be really embarrassing and be, like, his name's older sister. Put that as your stupid video game name or whatever. Try to really just be annoying older sister. He'll enjoy that, if you kind of are just like, "I'm going to lean into this. You have to talk to me," kind of thing. I feel like he has a good sense of humor. He is really smart. But I mean, your mother is so much in all of you. And he is so much like your mother in his coping mechanism, Right? So it's that wall again.

                        And how do you get past the wall? You just hang out and you sit at the wall, and you're loving and you're patient. That's the only way. So that's what will work on your brother, to the extent that he's capable of having a somewhat adult relationship. I mean, he's not exactly there, right? He's a teenager, though?

Roua:              He is.

Jessica:            Okay. A teenage boy. They're built to be annoying. It's okay that he's kind of⁠—he makes it so hard to talk to him.

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            He really does. But he wants to talk to you, but he doesn't want to talk to anyone.

Roua:              Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. So, again, playing video games with him, telling him, "What video games do you play? I'm going to learn how to play this game so we can play together"⁠—it's not like it'll be a magic bell rings and he becomes an open book or anything. He is still going to be the boy he currently is. But that's the way forward. It's like your way of sitting by the wall and showing him you love him and you're not pressing him.

                        Now, we have two other siblings; is that correct?

Roua:              That's all my siblings. Yes.

Jessica:            Oh. We did all of your siblings. Okay. That's great. I can't believe we went through all of them. Are you an artist?

Roua:              I wouldn't consider myself an artist. I just recently realized that I like drums, so I'm about to go learn how to play the conga.

Jessica:            Great. Okay. That's awesome.

Roua:              Maybe I can⁠—I'll take that back. Maybe I have a different idea of what an artist is. I do write a lot, but a lot of my writing is very sad, so I don't actually acknowledge that I write a lot because it's just⁠—

Jessica:            Oh. I mean, as a Capricorn, it's like give me art that's sad. That's all I want. I don't even know what you're talking about. Okay. So it's the writing. That's what⁠—I was trying to find it, but it's the writing that I'm seeing. Taking your five-year-old self, taking your brother, your video game-playing shut-down brother or your brother who's kind of like boy you⁠—taking whatever parts of people that you have strong feelings about and doing a writing exercise about it where you're not writing them a letter, you're not figuring things out, you're just exploring the story that you have about yourself or others, is a way to allow yourself to explore your assumptions so that you don't bring your assumptions and your stories and your fantasies to the real-life relationships with people that you have because then they don't feel listened to, and then you end up having weird types of war with them.

                        It is not on you to create a fix in any of these relationships. It's not on you. Relationships are a collaboration, and you can show up having done all the work and being the most forgiving, open, excited, interested⁠—all the things⁠—person. And if the other person is not willing to meet you somewhere close to the middle, it's not going to work. And all you can do is your part.

So I want to just kind of bring you back to this energetic and emotional boundary of you don't need to fix the relationship; you just need to show up and accept the other person for who they are and where they are, and offer what you can in a healthy way from there. It's a lot less labor, except for that accepting people is exceptionally hard. It's so freaking hard. And it's easy to accept people in an impersonal way, but family who are just choosing to be stuck, that's hard. But it's your work. It is your work.

And if you can do that, you're not giving up on them. What you're doing is simply meeting them where they are in this moment. What I have come to learn is that when you are authentically different, when you show up and you're just yourself and you're not playing your role in a family dynamic, you leave the energy open for them to behave different. If you are playing your same old role⁠—maybe in an updated form, but the same old role you've always played in a relationship⁠—people in our family, they slip into their own roles.

So the way to effect change is to stop trying to effect change in anything and anyone but yourself. It's a lot easier said than done, but that's kind of the move.

Roua:              Absolutely. I definitely have been in this space where I've been⁠—that has been coming up a lot. And hearing it/reading it is all one thing. But I really appreciate you breaking it down this way because it also confirms a lot of the things that I already know, and same with my tarot, where it just keeps telling me what I know, too. So sometimes I love it because then I have that confirmation, and it's my own instead of an external confirmation. But I appreciate you painting the picture as you did because now I can see it, and I see what I'm doing, too.

Jessica:            That makes me really happy to hear. And it's just a process. It's just a damn process.

Roua:              Absolutely.

Jessica:            And we answered your questions, right? Did we hit it?

Roua:              Yes.

Jessica:            Oh, we did. Okay. Good.

Roua:              Absolutely.

Jessica:            Excellent. Excellent. Excellent. I read your question. I was like, "Okay. This is a deeply unanswerable question. Let's see what we can do. I'm into this."

Roua:              [crosstalk]

Jessica:            Yeah. I was just like, "I really hope I can help." And also, having family living through war or terrible circumstances that are out of your control is just hard. It's just so hard. So I'm sorry, and I'll just keep you and your family in my thoughts because⁠—

Roua:              Thank you.

Jessica:            Yeah. Absolutely.

Roua:              Thank you. I really, truly appreciate that. And I appreciate you, and I love the podcast.

Jessica:            Oh, thank you.

Roua:              I literally try to get everyone on it. I'm like, "Guys, there's so much deep with astrology. You should listen to this podcast."

Jessica:            That's right. Listen to the damn podcast. Tell them. Thank you. You tell them.

Roua:              Absolutely.

Jessica:            I appreciate that so much.