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

RiRi:               Okay. I have my question that I was going to read. Okay. "I feel like there's some sort of barrier between me and the rest of the world. I pride myself on being able to be a safe space for people to open up, but for whatever reason, I rarely feel securely or consistently held, heard, or seen. I have friendships and romantic connections, but they never get to a point of true intimacy, which I crave. It often feels like they decide who or what I am for them without making the effort to actually get to know me. Not even my mother really knows me. Is there something in my chart that is keeping me from getting close to people? Am I truly unknowable?"

Jessica:            It's a really powerful question. And let me just very briefly give you a spoiler. No, you're not unknowable, but we're going to do a whole reading; don't worry. But let me just give you that one spoiler. And I'm going to share your birth date, right?

RiRi:               Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            You were born May 10th, 1987, 11:50 p.m. in the metropolis of New Haven, Connecticut.

RiRi:               Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Okay. That was sarcastic. It's not a metropolis. But okay. There's a lot of layers to your question. And before we go about unpacking, I want to ask, is there something going on in your life right now that made you want to write this question in right now, or is this more just a chronic existential issue?

RiRi:               It's a chronic issue. It kind of comes up periodically where I'm just sort of finding myself feeling super disconnected, even from people that I've known for a long time. It feels like a cyclical thing.

Jessica:            Yeah. And do you have besties?

RiRi:               I'm going to say yes, but at the same time, it's sort of like our⁠—and I feel like this is probably normal. Our closeness comes and goes. I feel like I'm at an age where people partnered off, and I'm so single. And it's sort of like those connections super change because they have a person that's their person, and it feels like there's a hierarchy, and I'm not in the same spot that I was. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. That's real. And are you dating somebody seriously right now?

RiRi:               No.

Jessica:            Okay.

RiRi:               I haven't dated anybody seriously for, I'm going to say, about seven years.

Jessica:            Okay. And do you want to be dating someone?

RiRi:               I do. I feel like I want to have that kind of connection. I'm poly, so I'm like, "I want to be"⁠—I'm still a poly right now, but I wonder if that's because I'm having difficulty finding somebody to partner with or if it's actually how I want things to be. It's hard for me to tell.

Jessica:            I think it's messy, a little bit of both. Again, we'll get into it. And when you date, what genders do you date? Hes, shes, theys, all of it?

RiRi:               Everybody.

Jessica:            Everybody. Great. Okay. So, first of all, I do this thing where I choose questions, and I don't always look at the person's birth chart. I don't even look at your birthday before I choose it. I'm just like, "That is a great question." And the feeling of what you're talking about⁠—I really get it. And often, when I do that, I'm like, "Oh shit. I gotta pull up the chart." And then I have an idea of what I'm going to see.

And I didn't have an idea of what I was going to see because what you're talking about has so many layers of not feeling really known by platonic relationships as well as romantic relationships. And really, what I heard from your question is that you're actually not fixated on romantic relationships, whereas I feel like a lot of people who ask this kind of question are fixated on romantic relationships. Am I hearing that right?

RiRi:               Yeah. Well, I think for a long time, I was fixated on romantic relationships. And now it's sort of like, "Any kind of closeness is good." You know?

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah.

RiRi:               That's what I want. That's what I'm looking for. It would be nice to have both.

Jessica:            Are you an artist?

RiRi:               I am. Yeah.

Jessica:            You are. And a visual artist?

RiRi:               Yes.

Jessica:            Okay. Great. There are so many layers, and I'm going to just try to pace myself. So okay. And say your age.

RiRi:               I'm 36.

Jessica:            Okay. Great. Okay. Okay. My brain's no good for math when I'm psychicing, and I'm about to psychic, okay? So there's a lot of layers going on here, and I just feel like you're right. Mid to late 30s, the social agreements that we made in our 20s really fall off. They start in your 30s, but really, that whole partner thing, people having kids, people becoming significantly more conservative in their lifestyles⁠—this is a thing that happens partnered and solo, but especially partnered. I think that that's just realness, right?

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Thanks, post-Saturn Return lifestyles. Right?

RiRi:               For sure.

Jessica:            That said, in your birth chart, you have Neptune and Capricorn conjunct your Ascendant in Capricorn. It's a nice, tight conjunction. Neptune's hugging your Ascendant from the twelfth house. And that gives a person the experience of everyone projecting their shit onto you. So Neptune functions kind of like a screening, and people are like, "Oh my God. You're so sweet. Oh my God. You're so nice."

RiRi:               Yes.

Jessica:            "Oh, you would never hurt a fly. You don't think anything critical. No, you wouldn't."

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And that Neptune⁠—it just has this soft, harmless feeling that it gives people, but it is really a thing that makes people feel like, "I don't belong in this body. I don't know who I am or how I'm located in this time. 2024? What year is it? What the fuck?" That makes sense, right?

RiRi:               Yes, very much so. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. And then let's add something else, which is that you have Aquarius intercepted in your first house in Campanus houses, which is what I use. Having Aquarius intercepted in your first house means you come across not like a Capricorn Rising, more Aquarian, because a Capricorn Rising has a bit of a conservative aesthetic. It's a little more self-serious, a little less spicy. Aquarius is very flavorful. And having Aquarius intercepted, people can see it, but you don't have a sense of agency around it.

                        So now we have another layer of⁠—people think you're super sweet and super agreeable about everything. But actually, that Aquarius in the first house⁠—you have very⁠—what a lot of people would consider out-there ideas and perceptions and feelings. I mean, I think it's just like⁠—

RiRi:               I do.

Jessica:            Yeah. You very much do. And it sometimes feels like everyone can see it, but you're like, "What? That's not so weird," or the reverse, where you're just like, "How can you not tell that I am not in agreement with what the fuck you guys are talking about?" or whatever. Right? It tends to go either way.

RiRi:               Yes. I feel that very strongly.

Jessica:            So that's just piece 1.

RiRi:               Okay.

Jessica:            I'm going to be naming some pieces. Now, the ruling planet to your Ascendant in Capricorn is Saturn. And the ruling planet to Aquarius, your intercepted sign in the first house⁠—Uranus. And those two bitches are hanging out in the twelfth house conjunct each other. So, for you, this conjunction that is specific to your part of the millennial generation, the Saturn and Sagittarius generation⁠—it is really hard for you to know, "Am I pushing too hard? Am I not pushing hard enough? Am I compromising too much? Am I giving it all away?"

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            It's really authentically fucking mystifying to you.

RiRi:               Yeah. I get so confused. I'm scared of coming on too strong with people because I have a huge capacity to care about people.

Jessica:            Yes.

RiRi:               But then I'm like, "Do you want this? I don't know how much you want." And I don't know how to figure out⁠—

Jessica:            Yes⁠—what's "appropriate," quote unquote. Right? It's Saturn.

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            "What am I supposed to be doing here? What's too much?" Even this can be true when just talking about hanging out with people, whether it's a first date or it's just hanging out with friends and talking about opinions about things. Again, it's like there is this way that you experience so much internally⁠—you have so many feelings and thoughts and takes⁠—

RiRi:               I do.

Jessica:            ⁠—that it gets really hard for you to figure out how to take up space in a way that feels safe to you and that feels appropriate to the situation.

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah. I don't want to freak people out.

Jessica:            Right.

RiRi:               I don't want to push anybody away.

Jessica:            Right.

RiRi:               I'm trying to connect. But sometimes, I'm like, "Did I go too far trying to connect with you?"

Jessica:            Or I bet you're also wondering sometimes if you didn't go far enough, if you just sat there and kind of let things happen at you.

RiRi:               That's usually what I do. [crosstalk]

Jessica:            Yeah. That is my guess.

RiRi: Yeah.

Jessica:            Now, on top of it, your Saturn/Uranus conjunction happens to be opposite your Mars/Chiron conjunction in the sixth house. This placement of the Mars/Chiron conjunction in your sixth makes it really hard for you to stay in your body. That is further reiterated by your fucking Neptune conjunction to the Ascendant. That is just like a double whammy of, like, "Body? What is a body? This Earth? What is an Earth?" It really makes it hard. And in particular, when you're feeling things that are in contrast with others, it can make it hard to stay in your body around it.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            So what ends up happening is you're around other people. They're like, "Oh my God." Everybody's so nice. Everybody's so chill. Everybody's so cool. And you're in there being like, "The fuck is happening? I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing here. I'm not having a good time. I don't know how to be." And so there's all of this stuff happening, and it is really hard to have casual connections where you feel like you're being yourself because there's so much happening beneath the surface that feels really chaotic to you, while other people just see you being the chillest chill that ever chilled.

RiRi:               Yes. Yes. Yes. When I tell people⁠—I'm like, "I'm actually a really anxious person. I'm super shy." People are like, "Oh. No. I would have never thought that about you."

Jessica:            Right.

RiRi:               "You're not shy. You're not anxious. You're so chill." And I'm like, "That is just deeply not the case."

Jessica:            You are incredibly shy, very self-conscious, and your anxieties go from nervous tension anxieties, like zzzz kind of stuff, to panic. It's both Uranus and Neptune. So Uranus is that nervous tension, and Neptune is panic. You're just like, "I don't know what's real. So how am I supposed to protect myself? Protect myself from what? How? When?" Yeah.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. I got another layer. I'm sorry, but I got another layer. This is a big topic. It's a big topic.

RiRi:               I love it. I love it.

Jessica:            Okay. Good. Okay. Good. So Venus conjunction to Jupiter opposite the Moon in Libra⁠—my God. So this little smoosh-smoosh, if I may call it that⁠—"configuration of planets" is the proper way of saying it⁠—has you wanting to be loved and liked, period⁠—just period⁠—so bad. You want people to be like, "Oh my God. It's so easy to be around this person. It's so fun to be around this person. I feel nice around this person." You want people to appreciate you and to have good social skills with you.

RiRi:               Yes.

Jessica:            This is the thing that's really hard, is when you're around people who do not have good social skills, you feel like they're doing it to you or at you. It hurts your feelings.

RiRi:               It really does.

Jessica:            Yes. It really does, even if⁠—

RiRi:               [crosstalk]

Jessica:            Yeah, even if you know this is how this person is with everyone; you see this person just bumping into everyone and being kind of rude. It still feels a little like torture, partially because Venus/Jupiter conjunction⁠—it gives you much better social skills than you think you have.

RiRi:               Really?

Jessica:            Yes. That's why everyone thinks you're so chill. No. No, no, no. Neptune is why people think you're chill specifically. But Venus/Jupiter conjunction in Aries⁠—it means when you start connecting with people, that fiery side of you comes out, where you're just like, "Hey. How are you?" And you find something to be positive about, and you find something to be validating about, and you find some way to make that person feel at ease. It's not like you're going far out of your way to do it; it's how you make yourself feel better as much as it is how you make them feel good.

RiRi:               Yeah. I can kind of feel⁠—I notice a lot of things when I'm in a social situation. I think that might be why I'm so anxious.

Jessica:            Yes.

RiRi:               I'm just like, "If everybody feels fine, then I'll feel fine. And then maybe we'll be able to be actual real friends."

Jessica:            Yes. And that will work zero percent of the time. We'll get there. Zero percent, okay? It's a zero percent return rate. Now, on top of it, having a Moon opposition to Venus in the birth chart means that you really want compliments. It doesn't matter how deep you are. You love compliments.

RiRi:               I do. I do.

Jessica:            You do. You like giving them and getting them. That's a Moon/Venus opposition. Neptune conjunction to the Ascendant⁠—people think that you're super chill. And then you have that Venus/Jupiter conjunction opposite the Moon. And so you know you get positive attention for being easygoing and affirming and making other people feel good. And so, in your panic and in your anxiety and in your discomfort, what you do is you grab the lowest-hanging fruit. It's good fruit. There's nothing wrong with that. But you grab the lowest-hanging fruit, and you don't talk about things that are deep. And you make people feel nice, and you deflect the conversation away from you.

RiRi:               Oh yeah.

Jessica:            Okay.

RiRi:               Big time.

Jessica:            Big time.

RiRi:               I'm like, "We don't need⁠—why should I talk about myself?"

Jessica:            Right. If we talked about you, then what we would be talking about is how you have a hard time separating depression and anxiety sometimes. We would be talking about the deep things that you're thinking about and working through, some of them about the world, some of them about how you feel in your skin or even about your creative process, because you've got plans. Your monkey mind, your brain⁠—you're just going, going, going, going, going, going, going, going.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            It doesn't stop.

RiRi:               Ever.

Jessica:            Ever. Ever. And so, if you were to really just show up someplace and have dinner with⁠—whatever⁠—four people, or have a first date, and actually talk about what was actually in your mind, you would be uncomfortable. Maybe they would be; maybe they wouldn't. But you would be, because you've cultivated a way of managing your anxieties that is predicated on a part of you that's true, that's very real. It is surface, and it keeps you stuck the surface of connections with people.

RiRi:               Yeah. I feel a lot darker on the inside than I let people into because I just⁠—I don't want to bum anybody out. I'm bummed out, like, 80 percent of the time.

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay.

RiRi:               I'm bummed out and stressed out most of the time.

Jessica:            Sure.

RiRi:               And so, if I was to talk about myself, I'd be a bummer, I feel like.

Jessica:            So here's a question. Do you think other people are not bummed out 80 percent of the time?

RiRi:               No. No.

Jessica:            Interesting.

RiRi:               I don't.

Jessica:            So okay. So there is this one person that I'm seeing, and it's a girl or a femme person, and they wear a lot of orange, or maybe they were recently wearing orange. Do you know who I'm talking about?

RiRi:               I think.

Jessica:            They have a puffy aesthetic somehow. I don't know what I'm seeing, but I'm seeing a puffy, orange and pinky vibe.

RiRi:               Oh. Okay.

Jessica:            Do you know who I'm talking about?

RiRi:               I think I do.

Jessica:            That person⁠—do you ever talk to them about the heavy shit inside of you?

RiRi:               I do, actually.

Jessica:            Yeah.

RiRi:               I think we are quite similar people.

Jessica:            That's exactly what I'm getting at, is that this is a person who also likes to keep things a little on the surface and likes to be upbeat and creative and keep it moving. Keep it moving. But when you actually talk to them about real things, you're like, "Oh, this person is as miserable as I am in the way"⁠—you know what I mean? This person is struggling. This person has really deep thoughts and feelings and wants to talk about it and actually wants to listen. Yeah?

RiRi:               Yeah. I would say that, for sure.

Jessica:            So okay. Let me slow down to a couple things. The first thing is, when you struggle moving forward in life with this feeling of, "Okay. How do I get people to really know me? How do I actually connect with people? Why is this not working?" what I want to encourage you to come back to is your own agency because you have the ability to choose to share more of what's actually happening with other people. And I'm not encouraging that you just start doing that, because that's fucking bananas. That's not the advice. Right?

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            It's about testing little bits at times where you feel resilient enough to maybe have an uncomfortable situation happen. And in your world, do you talk about politics and stuff like that, things that are happening in the world?

RiRi:               For sure. Yeah. We talk about it.

Jessica:            Okay. So that's a place that everyone is allowed to be deep and have heavy feelings.

RiRi:               Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            But not personal stuff? Is that what it is for you?

RiRi:               Yeah. Things that are actually⁠—really actually about me that I'm struggling with⁠—really hard for me to talk about.

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

RiRi:               [redacted]

Jessica:            Were you raised with your dad?

RiRi:               I was not.

Jessica:            Okay. Do you know him at all?

RiRi:               It's super complicated. He dipped out when I was seven. We reconnected, when I was in college, on MySpace.

Jessica:            Of all places.

RiRi:               And we tried to reconnect, but it was just like, "Really?" He asked for a lot from me, and I kind of couldn't handle it. And so our communication is kind of trash. He wanted a lot from me, and I kind of pushed him away a little bit because it was too much. So that's kind of where we're at. I've been thinking about reconnecting with him.

Jessica:            When you say he wanted a lot from you, do you mean he wanted a lot of support and care from you?

RiRi:               No. He wanted a lot of communication from me.

Jessica:            Oh.

RiRi:               A phrase that I remember him saying to me was he wanted me to call him every week.

Jessica:            Oh my. Quite an ask for somebody who wasn't there when you were a child.

RiRi:               Right. And I was just sort of like, "I don't really know you like that. I don't even call my mom, who was there the whole time, every week. So I don't know if I can do this." And then he got to a point where it was sort of⁠—it just was too much. I kind of couldn't deal with it.

Jessica:            It's interesting the way that you handled your dad because you almost told him what your boundaries were, and you almost told him what you thought, and you almost told him what you needed and what you were capable of. But you notice I said "almost" a couple times.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            You didn't. You didn't. And if there's anyone you could ever tell what the fuck you were thinking, it should be your father, the man who walked. Right?

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            And it felt to you at the time like you were being really direct because you were being really direct for you.

RiRi:               I was. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah.

RiRi:               I thought I was.

Jessica:            Were you verbally super direct with him?

RiRi:               Yeah. I think I sent him a text message. I don't know if I said it with my mouth.

Jessica:            But you sent it in a text. What did you say in your text?

RiRi:               Well, he left me a voicemail, and he said something along the lines of, "Are you waiting for me to die before you communicate with me?"

Jessica:            Oh my.

RiRi:               And it was like, "Dude. You have to chill. I'm not going to want to talk to you if this is how it's going to be every time we communicate. I don't want to feel guilty every time I talk to you. You are the adult in this situation. You weren't there the whole time. This is not on me." And that's essentially what I said when I texted. I was like, "You have to chill."

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. And then you didn't talk to him for a couple years after that? Or months?

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Years.

RiRi:               There was silence for a couple of years.

Jessica:            Okay. This feels really important. It's a little off topic, and it's totally connected at the same time. I just want to acknowledge that. So we're going to come back to the main topic; I promise. But when you said your name, I could just really see this thing with your dad, and it's hanging over you because I can see what you said was direct. I mean, it was a text, so I'm sorry.

RiRi:               Yeah. It was a text.

Jessica:            I mean, it was a text, so it's not the most direct form of communication. But okay. Fine. It was a text. And saying, "You've gotta chill"⁠—that is very clear and direct, and also, not really. It clearly means something to you that it wouldn't mean to somebody who's maybe not a millennial.

RiRi:               True. Yeah.

Jessica:            Is he a boomer? Is he older?

RiRi:               I think⁠—he's not too far off from my mom's age, so he's in his 60s. He's in his mid-60s.

Jessica:            Mid-60s. So he's either a young boomer or one of those in-between-generations kind of guys.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Yeah. "You've gotta chill" may not be as clear and direct to someone with a different cultural reference. You know what I'm saying?

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Because what you really meant was, "I want to get to know you, but I need it to be guilt-free. I won't guilt you for leaving, and you don't get to guilt me for not calling." That would have been a little closer to what you really meant.

RiRi:               That is what I meant.

Jessica:            Yeah. I noticed. I noticed. And I respect it, and it's very fucking clear to me. The reason why I'm saying this is because it's so obviously not clear to him because anyone who would be like, "I'm entitled to something from you as your father based on what I did," wouldn't understand where you're coming from.

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            And I think what happens when you get into an activated state of emotion, as you were with your dad⁠—but I think that this is relevant to this larger topic⁠—is that your perspective feels so obvious to you that it's hard for you to⁠—and this is where you're a Taurus with a Mercury/Sun conjunction. So you're just like, "It's obvious. I do not need to use words, because you know."

                        And this is where you get into trouble because I don't think your father⁠—I'm not defending your father; I want to be fucking clear. I am not defending your father, and I'm not even necessarily advocating for you having a relationship with him. But I am saying that I don't think he understood what you meant for him to understand. And I think that this is a little bit of a problem for you. I think that you are significantly out of practice of being confrontational with people.

RiRi:               I do not know how to do that at all.

Jessica:            Correct. You do not.

RiRi:               I never do it. I just don't.

Jessica:            Yes. Yes. Yeah. I see that. That was your version⁠—you sent your dad a text. That was your version. And so, when you do do it, it might feel like, "Oh my God. I was just so intense," whereas what you said, "Please chill"⁠—which is not as clear as [indiscernible 00:23:22].

RiRi:               And I'm like, "I'm yelling right now." Actually, that's not what's happening.

Jessica:            Right. You put a heart after it or something. I mean, maybe you didn't, but it feels a bit like he felt like he wasn't getting his way. I'm not defending your father. He thinks everyone is immature. He thinks everyone's immature but him. So, now that he's ready to come to the table, the fact that you're not already sitting at the table waiting for him is like a disrespect in his mind.

RiRi:               That was definitely the vibe.

Jessica:            Yes. That's your dad.

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            You have every right to have a boundary with this man and to tell him exactly what it is. But that's the thing⁠—to tell him, "Hey, little old man, you left. You left, and it hurt my feelings, and it fucked some shit up for me. And I'm interested in having a relationship with you, but I'm not going to guilt you every time we interact, even though you really fucked me over." You don't have to be as rude as I'm being or as direct as I'm being or cussing as much as I am, but to find a way to really say it.

                        I'm going to give you homework, and this applies to whether or not you decide to move forward with your dad, and it also applies to everyone else. I encourage you to take out the notes in your phone or a piece of paper and a pen, and write out exactly what it is that you think is obvious in this situation.

RiRi:               Oh. Okay.

Jessica:            Yeah, what it is that you really think is self-evident to this situation, whatever it is that you think is just clear and everyone gets. For instance, in that situation, you would have said, "He knows that he's guilting me, and I know that he's guilting me." But as a psychic, I can tell you your dad did not think, "Oh, I'm guilting right now."

RiRi:               Right, right, right, right, right.

Jessica:            He felt like, "We have this really special chance, and I'm ready for the chance. So how could you not be"⁠—I mean, he's got this weird⁠—it's like a very masculine, like a very macho, masculine kind of thing, too.

RiRi:               Uh-huh. Uh-huh. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Did he have other kids as well?

RiRi:               Oh yeah. For sure. From just him, I have, I think, four or five sisters⁠—

Jessica:            Damn.

RiRi:               ⁠—that I don't really know very well.

Jessica:            Wow. Do any of them talk to him, as far as you know?

RiRi:               I think they all do.

Jessica:            Wow.

RiRi:               I think that it's sort of like a funny relationship. But I think that they talk to him. He said that he could⁠—we moved a lot. Me and my mother and my brothers moved a lot. So he said he couldn't find me. He was kind of looking for me. And we kind of found each other on MySpace because we were both kind of looking for each other.

Jessica:            I don't think that's completely untrue, and that doesn't mean he's a responsible, non-narcissistic man.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            He's a bit of a narcissist. And he could have tried a little harder. It looks like he had access to your mom's family or friends.

RiRi:               Probably.

Jessica:            It wouldn't have been impossible for him to reach out and be like, "This is my human child. I would like access to my human child."

RiRi:               Right.

Jessica:            I'm sorry. I'm sorry. He could have tried a little harder. That said, Saturn opposition to Mars, Uranus opposition to Mars⁠—people piss you the fuck off. And when they piss you off, it comes on hot and it stays.

RiRi:               Yeah. I get real mad. Nobody really knows how ragey I actually really am, but I'm pretty ragey.

Jessica:            Ragey.

RiRi:               And it doesn't really take a lot.

Jessica:            No. It comes on hot. And because of Saturn, it fucking just gets in your bones. But because you're so Venus ruled⁠—you've got this Jupiter/Venus conjunction opposite your Moon in Libra, your Sun in Taurus, and Neptune's on your Rise. You have a couple things that happen. One is you have a devotional way of showing up. So you're just like, "I can never be mean to anyone. I can never make them feel bad."

RiRi:               I don't want to do that.

Jessica:            You don't want to do that because you hate when it's done to you.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And also, you want to get along.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            But here's the thing. There's two reasons why this is a terrible idea. And I'm not saying you should start being a dick, but there's two reasons why this is a terrible idea. One of them is your health because it's not sustainable, as I'm sure, now that you're in your late 30s, you're experiencing in your physical health or your mental health⁠—

RiRi:               No.

Jessica:            ⁠—because the anger needs to go somewhere.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And you can't just keep on turning on yourself. Right?

RiRi:               That's true. That's true.

Jessica:            Yes. And then there's the other reason, which is no one gets to know you unless they can know all of you. And if you're doing your fucking damnedest to not let anyone know that you think they're fucking annoying⁠, which⁠—you think everyone's annoying.

RiRi:               Everyone is. There's no one who isn't.

Jessica:            100 percent. And listen. I will say I am a person who doesn't have a problem with irritation and agitation and anger. I'm comfortable thinking everyone's annoying. I know I'm annoying, too. That's part of the key, is knowing we are all annoying.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            But being able to give yourself permission to let other people know that, yeah, you're irritable, and sometimes, the irritability is fucking petty, and sometimes it's actually really deep⁠—it's both⁠—and that even though you have a lot of warring impulses within you, at the end of the day, you treat people with respect and kindness and grace. That doesn't mean all your thoughts and feelings are respectful, kind, and graceful.

RiRi:               They're definitely not.

Jessica:            No, and that's okay. I want to say to you that that's okay. And I don't just want to say to you that that's okay. Want to say to you that you have a North Node in Aries. You have come here in this lifetime to figure out how to embody all your parts, including your Aries/Mars parts, your individualistic, "I know what I want. I know what works for me. I know what my boundaries are," parts.

RiRi:               Yeah. That feels just like such a faraway goal.

Jessica:            Yeah.

RiRi:               It feels so far away. I can say that I've come a long way in that regard. I do feel like I am becoming more aware of what my boundaries are because I don't think I understood what those were when I was younger. And I think I'm coming to the place where I'm like, "Okay. I don't feel good and happy all the time, and it's okay if people see that." But it's really hard. It's so hard. I feel like I do. I kind of⁠—I do fly out of myself when I feel angry or when I feel anxious, which is most of the time.

Jessica:            Yes. I've got words for that. The first thing is that we do not, in my experience⁠—very, very, very rarely, if ever, do we come to embodiment of our North Node before 40.

RiRi:               Oh. Wow.

Jessica:            So, first of all, you're not behind schedule, okay?

RiRi:               Okay.

Jessica:            Yeah. And lots of other things in your chart reinforce what you just said about yourself. And I want to be clear that this is the answer of why people don't know you. It's not because you're unknowable. It's because⁠—how can you let someone truly know you when you've abandoned yourself; you've left the fucking building? It's really hard to let people know you, first of all, when you're actively pushing you away, and second of all, when you're not really fully there.

                        So here's the work, and it's a pain in the butt. But here's the work. The next time you find yourself to be irritated, annoyed, angry⁠—any emotion that is particularly hard to experience, even anxious⁠—hold on. Let me see how you experience it. Say your name again.

RiRi:               [redacted]

Jessica:            Wow. Okay. You are half in, half out. Do you smoke weed?

RiRi:               I do. Yeah.

Jessica:            It's not doing you any favors.

RiRi:               Just about every day.

Jessica:            It's not doing you a fucking thing.

RiRi:               I know I need to quit. I need to quit.

Jessica:            Yeah. Yeah. Listen. I'm not here to tell you what to do. You don't need to do anything. But what it's doing is it's helped you maintain your baseline of disassociation. So I don't think weed is inherently bad for you; I think habitual weed is the problem.

RiRi:               Yeah. It's every day.

Jessica:            It's every day. Yeah. And it's really hard to not be habitual with weed. I mean, that's the thing. Yeah. It's helping you stay really out of your body. Hold on. Let me just find your body. You are very smart and weird. Okay. I've never seen this before. You've done this thing where⁠—are you really into stories or fairytales or something?

RiRi:               I like mythology, and yeah, I'm into fairytales and stories.

Jessica:            Yeah.

RiRi:               That's part of my art practice, even, is⁠—

Jessica:            Okay.

RiRi:               It's like ghosty, kind of witchy-woo stories.

Jessica:            There it is.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Great, because the way I'm seeing it is that it's like you've cut yourself off in the middle of your torso. And so, from your solar plexus down, that part of you you've hidden. And you've hidden it in a room in a castle. You know what I mean? It's like this thing that you've done to hide away your legs, your grounding. You've hidden away this part of you that feels so vulnerable, and you've done it to protect yourself. But it is wrapped in this kind of whimsy, kind of mythological, fairytaley⁠— there's something very⁠—I mean, it's artistically beautiful, what I'm seeing. But it's almost like your adult⁠—or teenage, maybe, more than adult, but teen part is protecting your child part.

RiRi:               Yeah. Little kid me was very much a fairy story kind of⁠—I was just like a sweet little weirdo when I was a child.

Jessica:            Yes.

RiRi:               And I do definitely feel like that got sort of⁠—other people definitely shut that down. It was not okay for me to be as weird as I was. It was not okay for me to be as smart as I was. I was bullied as a kid for body stuff. And so I don't know. I kind of just systematically shut that down.

Jessica:            You did such a good job of it, and I don't mean that in any way sarcastically. I mean your protective part did such a good job of protecting your vulnerable, young part that I bet it is actually a source of a lot of creative juice for you. And also, it's very hard⁠—it's exceptionally hard⁠—to convince our survival mechanisms to stop doing something that works and to stop doing something that has saved you in the past, because this saved your life.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            You found a way to stay weird and to stay sensitive and magical but to hide it from everyone else because everyone else⁠—it looks like everyone else⁠—was not a safe place for that. I'm really sorry.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            So this is the first time I can actually feel your feelings in our reading. I'm sorry that I brought you to this place. There's sadness and some anxiety in your chest and tummy, in that area.

RiRi:               Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Can you do me a favor and try to fill up your lungs and breathe into those two parts, like that whole part? Do you notice anything changing? It doesn't have to be, but do you notice anything?

RiRi:               I kind of feel a little river opening up or something.

Jessica:            Okay. That's great. So what I'm going to give you the homework to do is, the next time you feel any of this in any of the ways that it comes up, to take a moment and breathe into it instead of doing⁠—what you do is breathe away from it.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            So the practice that you have is abandoning your sad and your mad and your scared and even your tender, woo weird. You have ways of showing it in the world that are socially and culturally appropriate, but the vulnerable, creative, rich part of you is hidden. And so practice not abandoning it but instead breathing into it. And I'm telling you, if you can tolerate 45 seconds, that's a lot. I'm not saying you need to tolerate this for a whole minute, but to make it a practice, because even as we're sitting here, I can see both that that small child part of you is so excited to be seen and also is like, "I'm hiding under the table. Please leave me the fuck alone." It's both.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            It's really emotional.

RiRi:               It's always that. I actually used to spend a lot of time under the table.

Jessica:            Okay. That's why I'm seeing it under the⁠—it's under the table and in this castley kind of place.

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah. I would spend a lot of time under the table singing while things were going on around me, and it was like the safe spot where I could just kind of be my little, weird self singing to myself.

Jessica:            I mean, you were those things. That's what you were doing. But I'm going to just speak to your late 30s self is what you were doing is you were expertly self-soothing and creating a place of safety in the physical world as well as in your internal world.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And that is not a skill you ever want to lose. That is a fucking glorious skill, and more of us could use it. But what's happened now is that that skill is so well-developed that you're using it even when you actually want to let someone see you, when you want them to hear the song that you're singing, when you want them to see that there's a world under the table. You're still being like, "There's no table. What are you talking about? There's no table. Everything's fine." You know what I mean? "This isn't a house. This is not even a mythical thing. It's like, fine. Don't even look at it. It's fine. Look away."

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah. What about you?

Jessica:            "How are you feeling? What are you working on?" or whatever.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And I think that this is the answer of why people haven't gotten to know you. It's actually not because you're unknowable at all. Again, literally, for sure, it's not. It's also not because people don't want to know you. I do think you probably choose to hang out with people who aren't good at pushing you.

RiRi:               I do. I definitely pick people often need me to draw them out.

Jessica:            Yes, which you're fucking amazing at.

RiRi:               I am.

Jessica:            You are. You are, absolutely. And it makes you feel good in the short term. But in the long term, yet again, you're in a situation where they're like, "Oh my God. You opened me up. Thank you. I'm going to go now."

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:      They don't need you anymore.

RiRi: Yeah.

Jessica:            You opened them up. And because there's no foundation there of them knowing you and them figuring out how to get to know you, at a certain point, it feels like you fairy godmothered them. And think about fairy godmothers in every story. They have literally no role except for to come from the heavens, boopity-boop, and leave.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            This is where, for me, that Capricorn archetype is Mary Poppins. It's also Darth Vader, which⁠—we talked about your dad. But it's Mary Poppins. You've seen the movie, right?

RiRi:               Yeah. For sure. Yeah.

Jessica:            She comes in wearing a fucking corset, helps a bunch of kids work on their daddy issues. He works in a bank. And she's like a strong disciplinarian, but she's also magical. And then she leaves, like every other fairy godmother before her. And this is the thing that you're really comfortable with is, "Okay. Well, at least I have a role to play in this person's life. At least I can help them." And then the child part of you is like, "And then they'll help me."

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            But you wouldn't let them help you even if they could.

RiRi:               Maybe. I probably wouldn't. I don't know how⁠—I don't know even⁠—yeah.

Jessica:            Think about a person that maybe you would have with. Let's look.

RiRi:               Who would I have? Okay. Yeah. I can think of someone. Yeah.

Jessica:            Can you give me their name?

RiRi:               [redacted]

Jessica:            What's the right pronouns?

RiRi:               They/them.

Jessica:            Okay. And are they still in your life?

RiRi:               No.

Jessica:            Okay. And did you kick them out of your life?

RiRi:               We kind of phased each other out. We were dating for almost a year. It was casual/not casual. Something bad happened to me, and they did not support me in a way that I felt I deserved.

Jessica:            I'm sorry.

RiRi:               And then we kind of just ghosted each other.

Jessica:            They remind me of your dad. And so I'm not surprised the way you handled that is the similar way you handled your dad. They have this great depth. I mean, your dad's actually really interesting and charming and charismatic and all these things, similar to this person, actually.

RiRi:               Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            This person has a depth to them, but there is something⁠—I don't know if it's narcissistic, but it's certainly selfish.

RiRi:               Yeah. It was incredibly selfish, I think, the way that they dealt with the thing that happened to me. They made it about them.

Jessica:            About them. I think they probably did that about a lot of things, but they were just smaller, and you're so agreeable, and you're so habitual around abandoning yourself that you don't sometimes recognize, "Oh, this is a red flag because they're being selfish," because you're so habituated to not have people pay attention to you. So I think, in terms of you thinking, okay, this could be a person who wanted to know you, I don't disagree at all. I think that they did want to get to know all your parts. And the second you would have taken up more space, they would have been the same disappointment that they were.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And this is really, really, really hard, but when you have a habit of being a very good Mrs. Poppins, when you have a habit of being a very good caretaker or fairy godmother to other people, what you're doing unintentionally is you're training them to not prioritize creating space for you in the relationship.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And people actually love that. It doesn't inherently make them bad or selfish, necessarily. Sometimes they are, but sometimes, you're just⁠—you're that one person who created that space. And they don't think, "Oh, I'm not making space for this person." They're thinking, "Oh, this person's so great at taking up space. Look at how they've done it with me." They're not realizing that you've just done it for them.

                        So this is where my second piece of advice comes in. So the first one, we remember, is you tolerating feelings in your body and in your psyche and emotionally for up to 45 seconds. And of course, build on it as you go through life. But if you can stay with those feelings, breathing into them and receiving them for 45 seconds, that is 45 seconds longer than you usually do. And that is fucking going to be life-changing for you.

                        Now, the second thing I'm going to say is the next time you're having a nice social interaction with anyone, you're going to tell yourself, "It doesn't really matter what the person that I have coffee with sometimes at work"⁠—or whatever, but anyone⁠. Practice either noticing how you're making everything about them⁠—just noticing. Okay?

RiRi:               Okay.

Jessica:            Yeah. Super fun. Super fun⁠—or when and if you can, saying what you're actually thinking. It can be in a small way, but saying what you're actually thinking.

RiRi:               Saying what I'm actually thinking?

Jessica:            Yeah.

RiRi:               Jeez. I⁠—okay. Okay. I'm always thinking, like, 1,000 things.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. That's good. Okay. Okay. So, if you don't know what you're thinking because you're thinking 1,000 things, sometimes that's just evidence that you're not in your body⁠—

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jessica:            ⁠—because sometimes it's just like⁠—whatever. We all think a million things at once a lot of the time. Right?

RiRi:               Right.

Jessica:            That's not unusual. But when I looked at what you just said psychically, what I saw was that sometimes you're like, "I've gotta get out of this interaction." Even if it's not a big-deal interaction, you're like, "I have to get away."

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And at the same time, you're thinking, "I have to make this nice." And at the same time, you're thinking, "Why don't they like me?" And at the same time, you're thinking, "I don't think I like them." You're of too many minds, right?

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            That's when you're not in your body because you're not allowing yourself to actually feel your feelings.

RiRi:               Oh. Oh.

Jessica:            Yeah.

RiRi:               Whoa. I really don't spend a lot of time in my body.

Jessica:            No. No, sir, you don't.

RiRi:               Wow. It really is hitting me. I really don't.

Jessica:            Yeah. You don't.

RiRi:               Whoa.

Jessica:            But you can.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            You can. And what I think you'll find is that a lot of the times, while you're like, "I don't like this person. Why don't they like me? I want to get away. I need to make this nice"⁠—all those kinds of thoughts all at once, if you actually sat with your feelings, you would actually just feel like, "Oh, I'm awkward," or, "Oh, I actually don't feel safe next to this person."

RiRi:               Right. Yeah.

Jessica:            And in those cases, you can then decide⁠—with practice, not instantaneously, necessarily⁠. Then you can decide how to take care of yourself. So, if it might be like, "Oh, I'm awkward"⁠—"Okay. I'm awkward. Whatever. Okay. I'm awkward. Okay." You can just decide to accept that and feel a little sad about it. And let yourself be a little sad. That's okay. If it's, "I don't feel safe with this person," well, then you can decide to throw up some psychic shields where you can decide to walk the fuck away. You have options. But psychic shields needs to be on your playlist.

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jessica:            And do you work with psychic shielding at all?

RiRi:               I've thought about it, and I have been told that I should because I'm pretty porous.

Jessica:            Yes. I agree with whoever said that to you.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            So this is my go-to, the easiest way of doing it for me. I mean, different people are going to say different things are easier. Whatever. But we're back to olden-days movies. Glinda the Good Witch? You've seen her?

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Her bubble⁠—

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            ⁠—you just instantly put that bubble around you. Good job. Okay. That's how easy it is.

RiRi:               Wow.

Jessica:            And did you feel it when you did it?

RiRi:               I did, actually.

Jessica:            Yeah. It felt like a little sparkle hit you, right?

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            [indiscernible 00:45:52] a little better. Okay. And you used the exact color that it is in the movie. You must have seen the movie a million times.

RiRi:               Not a million times, but I have really good visual memory.

Jessica:            Okay. Okay. That makes sense because you did the exact color that's in the movie. It's like a⁠—I don't know⁠—like an opalescent, kind of coraly, pinky, golden⁠—

RiRi:               I also love bubbles, so it's [crosstalk].

Jessica:            Okay. Oh, good. Okay. So I'm working with your language. Okay.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            So what you're going to do⁠—I call it your auric field. I'll often refer to it as your Glinda the Good Witch bubble because it's easy to remember, and it's got such a strong feeling, right?

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            You just pop a bubble⁠—so if you're⁠—ran into someone at work or school, whatever the fuck it is, and then you're having coffee, and then you realize, "Oh. The reason why I'm super out of my body is because I don't feel safe with this person," you don't need to analyze it. That'll make you feel crazy. Don't do that.

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Instead, you just throw a Glinda the Good Witch bubble up. And if it doesn't make you feel better, change the color.

RiRi:               Oh.

Jessica:            So it doesn't have to stay those colors. Those colors are great for some things. But for me, oftentimes, what I'll do is I will do a deep, earthy brown, and I'll throw some golden threads in there because it helps me to be grounded but gives me sparkle.

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah.

RiRi:               I love a sparkle.

Jessica:            Who doesn't love a sparkle, right? You can also fuck with a really red one if you have survival issues. It can be⁠—

RiRi:               Yeah. I thought about red almost immediately when you said that.

Jessica:            Okay. Good, because red's going to be a really important one for you because you're often hiding from reds⁠—

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            ⁠—or hiding from embodiment stuff, right?

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            You might go with a green or a pink because that's more of a heart chakra thing. Fuck with color. And you can go to a café and sit and with different people around you, and play with different auric fields, different colors, so you have more of a sense⁠—when it's not like a high-stakes moment, you have more of a sense of what it feels like to use these different shields at different times. And in doing this, you just want to⁠—the only way to actually know how it's working is by returning to your body. So you don't want to get too in your head. This isn't like a story. This is actually like a practice.

                        So, when I said Glinda the Good Witch bubble, you instantly put it on you and you felt in your body and emotionally better. And there was a little more mental clarity when you did it, eh?

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            But the way you did it was you threw it on you really quick reflexively when I suggested it. And then, probably because I said something about it instantly and started analyzing it, it went away. It popped away.

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            And so you don't have that lovely feeling anymore because it's not with you anymore. So I'm not putting you on the spot and telling you to do it, but practice playing with it. It has to be playful because you saw how quickly you did it. It wasn't labor. It's work, but it's not labor.

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Jessica:            There's something else I gotta tell you. If you're going to be in a long-term committed relationship, which⁠—honestly, pros and cons for you. You know what I mean? Pros and cons.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            If I was queen of the world, what I would set up for you is for you to not find somebody that you're super in love with yet, because you need to figure out how to be a little more in love with being present with you, right?

RiRi:               Yeah. That's true. That feels true. Yeah.

Jessica:            But I would eventually give you somebody that you fucking love, love, love, love, love, that loves you back, that you don't have to live with.

RiRi:               Yeah. Oh my God. I could not.

Jessica:            No.

RiRi:               I could not.

Jessica:            It's not for you. It's not for you. I agree completely⁠—that you don't have to live with, that loves giving you space to have your life because they have their own life, but they're not so social that it makes you feel like you're missing out or like something is wrong. They're similarly introverted as you, as well as similarly social as you.

RiRi:               Yeah. That would be fantastic.

Jessica:            Yeah. If I was queen of the world, this is what would happen for you, just so you know. In terms of whether you're poly or monogamous, honestly, I mean, eventually, I feel like that Saturn/Mars⁠—I don't know. You've got Uranus opposite your Mars, which is super non-monogamous. Saturn opposite Mars is super monogamous. I feel like, eventually, it might be really nice for you to have a baseline of one person, monogamous-style, with open windows and unlocked doors. You know what I mean?

RiRi:               That⁠—I think yeah. I think about that a lot. I've been poly the entire time that I've dated. But I've never had a person, and I would really⁠—that is actually what I want.

Jessica:            That's what you want. Yeah. And I think you can have that. There's no reason why you can't. But I was winding up to say this. Of course, you can have that, and you can have the love that you want. However, it is not possible to be in a healthy long-term relationship and never fight.

RiRi:               Why?

Jessica:            Because everyone's annoying. We've established that. Everyone makes mistakes. Nobody is compatible 100 percent of the time. The person that you love most and that is the best suited to you will fuck up in major ways at some times if you're with them long enough. And you will go and do something terribly wrong at some time. Nobody is perfect, and every long-term relationship has problems. Everyone does because every individual has problems.

RiRi:               True. True. True.

Jessica:            You're not going to become magically perfect when you're with someone, and they're not going to become magically perfect with you. The problems just become problems of how you relate to each other around it. And so being willing and able to be in disagreement or to be agitated or to be disappointed⁠—or worse, to be agitating and disappointing⁠—that is a skill that is worth developing for you because it doesn't feel like it, but you are unintentionally, unconsciously keeping people away so that they don't get to know these parts of you and maybe so you don't have to know those parts of them.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And I think that's worked for you in the ways that it has to this point, but you're at a stage of your life and your development where, I mean, you know you want more.

RiRi:               I really do. I want to be able to fight with someone and know they're not going to just dip and that they're in it with me, and the bad parts of me or the less pleasant parts of me are the parts that they can tolerate.

Jessica:            Yes. Absolutely. So I'm going to give you another piece of homework. There's lots of homework in this. It's a good thing it's recorded. Here's another piece of homework. I'm going to give you the homework of reading books, watching cute little documentaries about couples or just watching fictional TV movies⁠—whatever⁠—and noticing how different people fight in long-term relationships.

RiRi:               Okay. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Friendships and love relationships, noticing how they fight. I want to encourage you, whenever you're watching any kind of fiction, nonfiction, whatever, to be on the lookout for, "Look at this. The way this person expressed themselves was so fucking wrong," or, "This was so right. I want to emulate that. This actually seems like something that I could do," because the truth of the matter is we all express ourselves when we're in disagreement differently. And none of us do it the way we think we will because the emotion makes you weird.

RiRi:               Mm-hmm. It makes me so weird.

Jessica:            Yes. Yeah.

RiRi:               And I'm so uncomfortable in it, and I do not know how to navigate it at all, not even a little bit.

Jessica:            Okay. So two things. First thing, it doesn't just make you weird; it makes me weird. It makes everyone weird.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. I just wanted you to know that. It makes everyone weird, not just you. Here's the other thing. You already said it. I'm glad you already know it. You're very smart. You don't have a hard time figuring out what you think. So what you gotta do is write it down, bullet-point note form, not poetry. Bullet-point note form, okay? All the things that you think so that if you have to have a conflict with someone, you can actually look at a piece of paper.

RiRi:               Oh. Okay.

Jessica:            You're allowed to do that. You can do whatever the fuck you want. You're an adult. You know what I mean?

RiRi:               True. Yeah.

Jessica:            You can say to the person, "I'm really bad at confrontation. I'm developing it. I have CliffsNotes here, just so you know." The other thing that I would recommend is considering this: when you're really trying to figure out, "What is it that I need to say to this fucking person?" is to write out two lists. It's "what I want to get off my chest" and "what I want them to hear"⁠—

RiRi:               Oh.

Jessica:            ⁠—because sometimes what I want to get off my chest is "Fuck you. You are not listening to me." Right?

RiRi:               Right.

Jessica:            That's what you want to get off your chest. And what you want them to hear is, "I'm really hurt and really angry and at my wit's end."

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah. They're very different things. Yeah.

Jessica:            They are, but they aren't. But they are, but they aren't. And so, when we don't⁠—I'm going to sound like such a Capricorn, but when we don't plan at all, sometimes we just get the thing off our chest instead of say what we want them to hear.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And to repress what you want to get off your chest doesn't fucking work either, which is why it's valuable to have the two lists. The one is like saying to your dad, "I don't fucking owe you anything."

RiRi:               Right.

Jessica:            But then what you want him to hear is⁠—I mean, maybe what you want him to hear is "I don't owe you anything." But you can find a way of⁠—the metaphor works. The metaphor works. You get what I'm saying.

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. Good. Good. There's this part of you that thinks if you can't just do all this stuff organically, that it's not somehow authentic.

RiRi:               I think I have a fear⁠—yeah. If it doesn't just flow out of me, it feels like I'm going to have to force it or it's going to come out real wrong, like really big and bad in a way that it's going to not have the result that I want.

Jessica:            Right. That belief⁠—it comes from little child version of you under the table in a mythical house. And that part of you⁠, that was their truth. That little part of you, that was their truth. And I want to say to more adult you, when we think about your artistic process, you work through things. You workshop things. You sketch things. You don't just start and go. You give yourself room to have a process to dip and feel into it, explore it, and then come to your truth. That is a good template for you to apply to interpersonal stuff or self-care stuff.

It is appropriate, healthy, and helpful for you to sketch out what you're actually thinking, what you actually feel, to give yourself the space and time to workshop it with yourself a little bit. That's not disingenuous, and it feels really risky because your child self⁠—when you did it, you didn't have the organization; you only had the intelligence. And so it created⁠—you made things really big in your head.

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            But adult you does have organization, as well as intelligence, as well as experience.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And so you could try this again because, again, I think you did this as a kid; it just didn't work well. But I think you can do this again by giving yourself permission to kind of, again, take notes. Work through things. And I am aware that the advice I'm giving you⁠—I am encouraging, with each part of advice I'm giving you, except for watching TV, maybe⁠—but you will feel sad and bad. I want you to know that I'm encouraging you to feel sad and bad, not more than you already do, but just consciously, on purpose, and with patience for yourself.

RiRi:               Okay.

Jessica:            Yeah.

RiRi:               Yeah. I have had practices where I would write⁠—I would journal all the time. I used to journal all the time, all the time. And then I kind of stopped. I also used to write a lot of poetry all the time. It was like I was more in touch with my feelings when I was younger for sure, 100 percent.

Jessica:            Yeah.

RiRi:               And I kind of stopped doing it. But I do find that it gives me something to look at or an anchor for when I kind of forget myself. And so that's very good advice.

Jessica:            Oh, good. And I would say, if you used to write in a⁠—it just has to be different. So you might need to get⁠—I don't know if this is possible, but I kind of see you doing well with a comically large journal, like a fairytale big-ass journal⁠—

RiRi:               Wow.

Jessica:            ⁠—so that you can draw in it, write in it; it's something different than what you've done.

RiRi:               Okay. Yeah.

Jessica:            And it's kind of a nod to your weirdness, your uniqueness. Do you know what I mean?

RiRi:               Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            I think it might be worth it because there's this part of you that that I could see buying the tiniest journal in the world and sticking it in your back pocket and being like⁠—

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            ⁠—"Oh, it's small." And I kind of want you to practice taking up a little more space in your own life.

RiRi:               Oh. Wow. Yeah. I don't take up a lot of space in my life.

Jessica:            Not enough. It is a habit that you've developed that kept you safe at one time and is now keeping you stuck.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            But you are a very dynamic, creative, loving, weird, sometimes aggressive, sometimes passive person who has a lot of love to give and also needs a lot of time alone.

RiRi:               I need a lot of⁠—I really do.

Jessica:            100 percent. And you deserve to have a really big life. I mean, you have a really big inner life, but you're not experiencing the full breadth of it.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            The problem⁠—I'm kind of coming back to your question and making sure I've been addressing it enough. And there's no way to let other people know you without letting them know you.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. I know. I know. Why is life the fucking worst? I'm sorry. I apologize. But that is the thing is that you have high-functioning, highly successful survival mechanisms in place that stop other people from knowing parts of you that you're uncomfortable being present with.

RiRi:               Yeah. Even when I'm alone, there are some things that I'm just sort of⁠—I'm not even all the way comfortable with myself when I'm alone. It's the most comfortable that I can be, but I'm not even all the way comfortable when I'm by myself, honestly.

Jessica:            So, within that, what I would encourage you to do is, the next time you feel uncomfortable with a part of yourself as it comes up, be like, "Oh shit. That feeling's coming up." And if you can, tolerate breathing into it instead of breathing away from it 15 seconds, 45 seconds, whatever you can tolerate. And I really want this to be embedded in your brain: breathe into it instead of breathing away from it because what you do is you hold your breath as a way to breathe away from it. You rob that part of you of breath in efforts to make it go away.

RiRi:               Yeah. I would love for the bad feeling to go away.

Jessica:            Yes.

RiRi:               I love when I can just make it disappear.

Jessica:            Yes. Sure. Poof.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            But they don't go away.

RiRi:               It always comes back.

Jessica:            Yeah. That's right. The way to make something go away is to heal it, and what you're doing is abandoning it. You're⁠—what was the word you used about your dad? You're dipping. You're dipping on yourself.

RiRi:               Yeah. [crosstalk]. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. So you're dipping on yourself. That's what you're doing. And it works very well in the short term, but it is accumulatively very bad. And it doesn't actually make the feeling ever go away. It just makes the problem go away for a few minutes. What you've been doing is abandoning yourself habitually when feelings come up that you don't know how to cope with, stopping people from getting close enough to see it, which is another form of abandonment. You're experiencing it as them abandoning you.

RiRi:               Yeah. Mm-hmm.

Jessica:            Yeah. And I'm not saying that that's not happening at all. I mean, but I am focusing on the part where you have agency and where you're participating in the pattern, right?

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And the good news is⁠—and I'm not an idealist, but the good news is you can change your habits⁠—not easily. Not quickly. Again, not an idealist. But you can change your habits because habits are habits.

RiRi:               Habits are habits.

Jessica:            That's it.

RiRi:               They are changeable things. Okay.

Jessica:            They are changeable things. They're rituals. Habits are rituals. And that Mars and Chiron in Gemini are in your sixth house, the place of ritual, which is why I'm encouraging you to ritualistically return to the body⁠—Mars. Once you let someone in, once somebody gets close enough, you're about to tell them to back off.

RiRi:               Oh.

Jessica:            And I think this is really important for me to say: you're allowed to have boundaries with people even when they're not hurting your feelings or upsetting you. You're allowed to have boundaries with people when you really like them and everything's working well. You can say to someone you genuinely care about that you're super close friends with or that you're really enjoying dating, "I'm going to focus on my art for the weekend, and I'm not going to respond to texts. I'm just going to put my head in my ass, and I'm just going to focus on that. And that's what I'm doing. And xoxo, I cannot wait to miss you and see you later."

RiRi:               Right.

Jessica:            And then dip in a loving way, right? In a consensual way.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            But go. We don't have time to talk about your mom, but I just saw your mom. And so I want to say, when somebody loves you and somebody stays and someone's willing to do the work, you're still allowed to have boundaries with them.

RiRi:               That⁠—yes. Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. You're welcome. Good. Okay. Good, good, good, good.

RiRi:               That makes a lot of sense.

Jessica:            Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And this kind of setup of one leaves and is always gone and then the other one's always there, but it can be a little suffocating⁠—it's impossible to do anything right and to make it work properly, even though they're always there⁠—

RiRi:               Yep. Always there. Yeah.

Jessica:            You are allowed to have boundaries. And so the way to start with that, I think, is the energy bubbles. The energy bubbles will help you to identify what you're actually feeling and be able to start sussing out, "Okay. I feel awkward with this person because I'm geeked out with them because they're smart," or, "I feel awkward with this person because I don't fucking trust them, and I don't know why," because those take different remediations, right? But you can only tell when you have more energy separation.

                        Once you develop that and you have more information about yourself, then you can start having material boundaries with people, like being able to tell people really clearly what you need them to hear that is your truth, so not just getting shit off your chest. But being clear about what you're communicating is a skill you already have. It's not something you need to learn. You're actually really good at that already.

RiRi:               Yeah. I do find myself to be a good translator for myself and for other people.

Jessica:            You are. You're excellent at it.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            You have Mercury in Taurus. You're diplomatic and to the fucking point. You know how to be clear. It's that one cannot be clear about something that they're disassociating from habitually.

RiRi:               Yeah. If it's a negative feeling, I just do not⁠—I don't want to communicate that because I don't want to push people away.

Jessica:            Yeah. And you know what? Sometimes it's really important that you push people away, not throw them away, but push them away by saying something like, "I love you. Don't fucking touch me," or maybe differently, "Please don't touch me." You can push people away in a million ways and not be throwing them away. That's just boundaries.

RiRi:               Yeah. And I don't want to be thrown away. That's the other part of it, too.

Jessica:            Of course. Of course. It's like heads/tails of the same coin for you, right?

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            And I think, when people assert boundaries with you, you act like it's perfectly cool, but there's a part of you that's scared. So you go about fixing it, right?

RiRi:               Yeah. Yes.

Jessica:            But the truth of the matter is, in any long-term, successful intimate relationship, you will sometimes have to push them away because you're busy. They're annoying this month. They're focused on their new crush, and you cannot anymore. It can be any number of things, and that doesn't mean you're throwing them away. And so I would even encourage you to look up⁠—I don't know what way⁠—I feel like it's always going to be kind of like a weird art way, but there's this idea of throwing away putting out a boundary, so pausing or pushing away, not pushing all the way away. But there's throwing away, and then there's the boundary.

                        And I wonder if there's different ways you can explore this concept of, what is the difference between, in your own artistic process, saying, "No, I'm not working with this anymore," versus saying, "This doesn't work in this piece in the way I thought it would?"

RiRi:               Right, like putting something down⁠—

Jessica:            Yes.

RiRi:               ⁠—and picking it back up later.

Jessica:            It doesn't mean you don't value it.

RiRi:               Right.

Jessica:            It just means not all things at all times.

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            And this is a concept and that I don't think will be anything more than a concept to you until you have more ownership of your own energy body, your own physical body, and you have more of a practice of feeling your feelings because all of this can fall into, "How do I not get left?"

RiRi:               That is where I live. I live there. How do I make it so that you don't leave me?

Jessica:            Yeah. And the whole time you're obsessing on that, you're abandoning yourself.

RiRi:               And then I'm creating the conditions for someone to⁠—

Jessica:            Correct.

RiRi:               ⁠—not know me and then leave.

Jessica:            Yes. Yeah. That's right. That's right. And even if they stayed, it wouldn't feel like they were there because they don't know you.

RiRi:               Right.

Jessica:            This is where family patterns play themselves out because we don't even think we're doing it to ourselves, but we are, or we're picking someone else to do it to us. Now, to your credit, you actually haven't picked people who have been doing this to you. I mean, I understand that you are scared that that's what's happening. You haven't let them in enough for it to fully happen.

RiRi:               Yeah. It's mostly just them⁠—I take care of them, and then they leave.

Jessica:            And then they leave. Yeah.

RiRi:               That's the thing that happens.

Jessica:            That makes sense. That makes sense. Yeah. I mean, it's very Mary Poppinsy. You know what I mean? All to say there's going to be a part of your brain in the coming months that says, "Oh, focusing on me and my boundaries is not going to help me to have someone love me and me love someone and for them to stay." But I want to assure you that it is.

RiRi:               Okay.

Jessica:            The work with the self is the foundation upon which you can choose not just to get attention from someone but to get actual care, which is what you want. You don't just want attention. You want care.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            You want somebody who sees you enough to understand, "Oh shit. You're an anxious person." Anyone who doesn't know you're anxious doesn't know you.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            I'm with you 100 percent on that. I really see that your anxiety is, in part, your creative pull. It's not all bad for you, but it is huge for you.

RiRi:               Yeah. My inner world is very stormy, but it's not all bad stormy. It's like some of it's rainbows. Some of it's rain. Some of it's lightning, and some of it's all the stuff.

Jessica:            Yeah. There's fog in there. There's clear skies. It's very confusing.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            But it's dynamic. There is a lot going on in there. And I want to say some of this anxiety serves you and is good for you. It's not always fun, but it's not always torture either.

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            It's about being able to stay with your body. That is actually, for you, what I'm seeing as the move. And sometimes what that's going to mean is feeling your depressiveness. For you, allowing yourself to feel your depressive feelings helps them to move through you quicker.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Trying to repress them makes them drag out. Have you noticed?

RiRi:               I have noticed. I have noticed that if I sit down when I'm getting sad and I just let myself cry, which is a hard thing for me to do⁠—

Jessica:            Yes, it is. Yes.

RiRi:               ⁠—it passes faster.

Jessica:            It passes faster. So my little cheat sheet⁠—it's like my Capricorn cheat sheet because this is a Saturn problem⁠—is when you have a hard time crying, just fucking knock out whatever sappy TV show works on you. Watch it till it makes you cry, pause it, and then let it fucking go.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Sometimes it's really hard to let go of the control that you're so habituated around, so it doesn't matter how you open it up. It can be something stupid like a TikTok that is a cat who had a huge rescue story, and you're like, "Oh my God." It doesn't have to be that deep, although it is⁠—the cat thing is deep, but whatever. [crosstalk]

RiRi:               It's so deep.

Jessica:            It's so deep. I know. I was like, "That is too real." But the key here is cultivating a practice of identifying, "No, these are my emotions, and I'm going to stay with them, and I'm going to be nice to myself. I'm not going to fix them. I'm not going to analyze them. I don't have to figure out where they come from. I'm just not going to abandon myself within them." That practice will change your life, and it will make you deeper, it will make you more self-assured, and it will make you more willing to be real with others. And that means some of your relationships that exist now won't work because they are babies, and they need you to baby them. And that's okay.

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            But other people will start to come through that wouldn't come through now because all you know how to do is kind of baby them.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And the people who would meet you at that equal level don't really want to be babied.

RiRi:               I would love daddy instead of baby.

Jessica:            Yes.

RiRi:               That's the goal. That's been the goal for so long.

Jessica:            That sounds great. Honestly, I don't think it's as far from you as you feel that it is. Okay. This is what the cards are telling me. What the cards are telling me is that I'm not understanding how scared you are of being sad.

RiRi:               I feel, in order to keep myself going, I can't let myself get as sad as I know that I actually am.

Jessica:            So, bad news, you're wrong. Good news, you're wrong. You are as sad as you are.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And by not feeling it, that just means you're fucking dragging it around with you everywhere you go as opposed to being like, "I'm going to give myself 48 hours this weekend to just explore what it means to be really sad." And if the worst-case scenario is true, that you then slip into a depression and you start to lose yourself, may I introduce you to pharmaceutical drugs? You are an adult, and you can get them. And you won't lose yourself lose yourself, right?

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            You won't. And what I'm recommending that you do⁠—it would be better for you to do it with a shrink. I don't know if you have a shrink. Get a shrink, for sure.

RiRi:               I'm working on it.

Jessica:            Great.

RiRi:               I had a session today.

Jessica:            Oh, congratulations.

RiRi:               Yeah. [crosstalk]

Jessica:            And did you like the person?

RiRi:               Yeah. She's cool so far, but it's only been two sessions, so I don't⁠—I'm not [crosstalk].

Jessica:            It's hard to know. It's hard to know.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And I'm going to give you this advice very emphatically: tell her what you want. Tell her what isn't working. Do not be shy or coy with this person if you can avoid it.

RiRi:               Go hard.

Jessica:            I know. But you know what? You can write it down on a piece of paper over the week and then come in and be like, "I'm going to practice being direct." And if this person doesn't receive it well, fire them and find another fucking therapist.

RiRi:               Right. Right. "You work for me."

Jessica:            Who's the boss? You're the boss.

RiRi:               I'm the boss.

Jessica:            You're the boss. That's right. Okay. This is what the cards are telling me. Do you like predictions? Do you want a prediction?

RiRi:               I would love a prediction.

Jessica:            Okay. Here's your prediction. If you are willing to forgo some unpleasant episodes of feeling really frustrated and feeling really sad, if you are willing to stay with yourself through those periods even though you're going to feel worse than you feel now⁠—differently bad but worse, objectively. I'm sorry. I don't want to send you off and be like, "I believe in you. Bye," because⁠—I mean, I do, actually. I do believe in you. But what the cards are showing me is that it is really hard for you to let go of your established way of taking care of yourself, which is taking yourself away from the peril of your own emotions.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            And so what I'm seeing is that's going to be a process that you need support around. And this is why we have therapists. But it will take you being willing to be like, "This is the third time I've hit a wall, and this wall feels worse than the other walls. And I feel like I'm making no progress. In fact, it's getting worse." It's that kind of thing.

And so what I want to advise you to do is to be really curious about whether or not what you're doing as you practice feeling your emotions more⁠—whether or not it's helping you or hurting you, because I don't want to give you a reading and to be like, "Go and trust all pain." You know what I mean? This needs to be an ongoing dialogue you have with yourself, hopefully friends/therapist kind of thing.

RiRi: Yeah.

Jessica:            To a certain extent, you'll never know because nobody knows. That's just fucking life. There's so much unknown. On the other hand, you will practice knowing. You will practice knowing what the actual boundaries of what's safe for you to experience versus what's not safe as you develop your skills of tolerating your emotions. You're scared you're going to lose yourself lose yourself, like into a serious, crazy bad abyss.

RiRi:               Yeah. Point of no return kind of a thing.

Jessica:            Correct. Correct. And so you avoid anything that might be associated with it. But I'm recommending⁠—and I'm not recommending you do this alone or without consideration and care, but⁠—is that you practice tolerating just small, teeny-tiny, small amounts of those feelings more and more so that you can find out, is this actually your intuition telling you to stay away from this? "This is a bad place inside of me that I will not survive," or, "Do I just need to develop the ability to pull that little kid me out from underneath the table and have them sing and dance through the fucking house?" They can go back in there, but they don't have to live there. They don't have to live under the table, self-soothing. They get to come out.

                        And that doesn't mean the table goes away. I think this is really important, that there's this part of your process that is so confusing to you because you're like, "I know that this works and makes me feel safe."

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            But it doesn't keep you safe. It keeps you stuck and small. This process I see taking a couple years. Not ten years. Not ten years, but not months. I want to be clear. This is, like, 36, 37 years in the making.

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            It's not going to be fixed in a couple months with a good therapist. This is a process.

RiRi:               I want months.

Jessica:            Yeah. Of course, you do. Yeah. Of course. I respect you. I respect you. But this is why I want to be specific that if it's slow going, that doesn't mean it's not working.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            If it's slow going, it means you're really doing it. That doesn't mean you won't have meteoric moments where shit comes together. But we're talking about tolerating sad, bad, and scary motions. Nobody does that quickly⁠—I mean, unless you⁠—you know what I mean? You're too good at avoiding it. You're so good at it.

RiRi:               I really am.

Jessica:            Yeah. And so what would be your motivation to stop being good at that, to all of a sudden, overnight, one day stop being good at that?

RiRi:               I mean, I would know myself deeper, I guess, and make it easier for other people to know me.

Jessica:            Yeah. So that's the outcome, and that's the reason to do it. That's the outcome. But in the moment⁠—and I'm just saying this so you have empathy for yourself and you stop being such a weirdo bully towards yourself about this.

RiRi:               I'm so mean.

Jessica:            I know. I know. So the thing you just answered⁠—it's the outcome. You want the desired outcome. But that's not the same as wanting to experience all of your emotions, which is the actual problem, right?

RiRi:               Right.

Jessica:            The outcome of experiencing all of your emotions and not abandoning yourself and keeping others at bay because you don't want them to have to experience these emotions either⁠—all of that is the work. That is slow. It is slow.

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            But the inevitable result is all that interpersonal stuff that you wrote in about. And you'll get that. In this moment, I can feel there's grief and there's sadness. There's a little bit of relief, but there's exhaustion. There's a little bit of anger and agitation. There's a lot of emotions. They don't feel like they're boiling, but they're starting to overwhelm you a little bit. They're starting to press on you, eh?

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            Yeah. Okay. So what I'm saying is practice staying with that longer than you want to. That's all. And that's why this is slow, because it's not like you're going to automatically be like, "Okay. I'll just stay in these emotions for the rest of the night tonight. And then what if I wake up with them, no problem, tomorrow?" No. That's unrealistic, right? But it's like, when you go home, if you would typically smoke a bowl or whatever, wait ten minutes longer than you otherwise would. I'm not saying wait a year or whatever. I'm just saying create more space before you hop on your phone and scroll through social media⁠—the things you do to disassociate and kind of regulate your emotions. Instead, practice just sitting with them and maybe playing with different Glinda the Good Witch bubbles.

RiRi:               Okay.

Jessica:            But stay in your feelings and know that whatever narrative that your brain starts⁠—because I'm seeing what you do now. So you start to feel bad for longer, and now your brain starts to go to negative talk.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            So, when you start to have that negative talk, that's also a distraction. That's the same thing as smoking a bowl. It's the same thing as scrolling through social media. Yeah.

RiRi:               I've never thought of that voice as a⁠—it's usually like a, "Why are you doing this right now?"

Jessica:            Right. It's a parent. It's a parental voice, right?

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            It's the same thing as scrolling through social media. It's the same thing as smoking weed. And let me tell you what I mean. It's a distraction from feeling what you fucking feel.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            So this voice that you have⁠—you developed this voice as a way to create structure out of the chaos of your childhood. Unfortunately, when we have chaotic childhoods, we tend to either go fucking full chaos, or we become our own inner parent. But no child is good at being a parent, and therefore, we tend to be fucking terrible at it. And so your parent is an asshole.

RiRi:               It's also like an echo of⁠—I would often, from my mother, hear, "Oh, you're having a feeling. You'll get over it."

Jessica:            Right. So it's like a literal⁠—

RiRi:               So then I was like, "I have to get over it."

Jessica:            I see. I see.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            Okay. So here's the move. When you start to feel yourself slipping into that narrative, be like, "Oh. That's"⁠—come up with a name for it, a nickname for it. It's like the mommy voice. It's the asshole parent voice⁠—whatever you want to call it. You'd be like, "Okay. There it is. On a scale from one to ten, how hot is it coming in?" Ten is the fucking hottest; it's burning you alive.

                        Identify it as a part. It's not the truth. It's not wisdom. It's a part. And it's coming in hot. It only ever comes in hot, which is why you are going to be like⁠, "Okay. So, on a scale from one to ten, what is it?" This is a way of shifting your mind's attention from the narrative that it's barking at you and finding the actual you, the you that can be like, "This is coming in hot. Oh shit. It's coming in at a seven," because I started to see it in you or hear it or whatever, and it was coming in at a six is how it felt to me. Does that feel right?

RiRi:               Yep.

Jessica:            And it's like it tells you that it's going to handle your depression, but it's an asshole, and it's not helping anything.

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            So that voice is also something⁠—you're going to identify it. You're going to number it. And then you're going to do your best to breathe into wherever in your body you are feeling the anxiety or emotions or unrest. Okay?

RiRi:               Yeah. It makes sense to name it and then give it a rating and then put breath to it.

Jessica:            Yeah. You don't need to be like a hero about this. It's about building a muscle, but it's a muscle you really don't have. And so it's going to be a slow build, and that's okay. Better build it slow and strong than quick and hurt yourself.

RiRi:               Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Jessica:            So you don't need to tolerate these feelings for an hour. I'm not recommending that, because there's a reason why you're not doing it. Right?

RiRi:               Yeah.

Jessica:            But you can tolerate it for 30 seconds.

RiRi:               That's true. I can.

Jessica:            And some days, you won't be able to. And that's okay. On the days you won't be able to⁠—or you might go for four days and be like, "Oh, I completely forgot this homework, and I can feel the difference. I need to practice it, and now I'm back to square one." Fine. There's no rush. Ultimately, what this is is a practice of coming into alignment and reunion with yourself.

RiRi:               Right. Right.

Jessica:            And nobody's naturally good at that. So give yourself the grace of baby steps.

RiRi:               Baby steps.

Jessica:            Yeah.

RiRi:               Yes.

Jessica:            You don't start as Yoda. You start where you're at, which is like a very scared child singing to themselves under the table.

RiRi:               Yes. That is⁠—

Jessica:            That's where we're starting.

RiRi:               Okay.

Jessica:            Yeah. That's where we're starting. So you be kind to that kid. Don't you be a fucking dick to that kid. Be nice to that kid. You know what they need. Right?

RiRi:               I do know what they need.

Jessica:            This is a practice of very much remembering to return⁠—when that voice comes in, to be like, "It's coming in hot. It's mean. I'm not letting it near that kid."

RiRi:               Yeah. The kid gets to⁠—

Jessica:            They must be protected at all costs.

RiRi:               Yeah. Protect the baby.

Jessica:            Yeah. Protect the baby. Yes.

RiRi:               Protect the baby.

Jessica:            Protect the baby.

RiRi:               Thank you so much.

Jessica:            It is my pleasure.