Luminous Living

Next week is a BIG astrological week. In this episode, let’s talk about what you can expect and how to work with this energy.

The key themes are communication and self-expression: finding the courage to speak your mind and make bold, beautiful art.

Full Moon: Gemini 19th

A good day to reflect on your communication habits. Express yourself in some way, whether that’s talking to a friend, singing, dancing, writing poetry...also a good day to brainstorm new project ideas.

Chiron direct 19th

Vulnerabilities. Feeling like the universe is poking at your wounds. Remember healing is a spiral. Things may be coming up again to be worked through and released. Give yourself lots of time to rest if you can. See things (challenges) as learning or healing opportunities

Venus: Retrograde Capricorn 19th

If your relationship isn’t working for your highest good, you’re going to want to throw it all away. If your relationship is good, you might be focused on how it can be even better. Lots of releasing and purging, do a lot of listening and make sure you are speaking frankly.

Sun: Enters Capricorn 21st

Time to get shit done. A good time to plan out the next year. Where can you manage your time better? What values are you bringing with you into the new year?

Sign up for the 2022 Astro Planning Workshop here.

Communication videos:

You are not supposed to be productive all the time! Everything in nature has its season.

So how are you supposed to get everything done while also having time to rest, eat healthy, take care of chores AND have a social life?

The key lies in your Mars Sign. That’s what I’ll be discussing in this week’s podcast: how to find YOUR natural work rhythm that allows you to be wildly successful while maintaining a balanced life.

Mars in Aries = you work in bursts of quick energy. In that way, quick projects may be the way to go. You start projects out really strong, and lose steam or interest along the way. Exercising or any conscious body movement can help channel restlessness.

Mars in Taurus = you take your time doing things. Don’t rush yourself. Other people’s deadlines may be difficult.

Mars in Gemini = you work best when your mind is stimulated and interested. Your work wants to be active, stimulating to your mind. Doing research, having debates with friends or colleagues, reading books, taking courses can help jumpstart your motivation.

Mars in Cancer = though you are very ambitious, you need to feel safe and balanced before you can get to work. Nurturing your body and creating a cozy space to work in can help.

Mars in Leo = you have a ton of ambition and drive, channeling it and sticking to one project can be a challenge. You may find yourself over-committing to multiple projects and running out of steam. Your challenge is to cultivate discipline.

Mars in Virgo = you are the quintessential planner. Your perfectionism may cause you to procrastinate. You are highly ambitious, but fear having too much responsibility because of how much you tend to worry.

Mars in Libra = balance, self-care and luxury, allowing yourself to lie in bed some days and work diligently the next. Patience is the biggest thing you struggle with, when tackling long projects.

Mars in Scorpio = you are ruled by impulses and passions. If you are interested in something, you can focus VERY deeply and for a long period of time. If you aren’t interested, it can be very hard to motivate yourself to even touch it. Your challenge is to cultivate patience and doing things in spite of your desires.

Mars in Sagittarius = you are motivated by this constant pressure to evolve, grow and change. You need multiple outlets and the freedom to do your work whenever and wherever.

Mars in Capricorn = you are motivated by constant internal pressure. Period. To do more, be more, work harder. Being gentle on yourself will help more than you think.

Mars in Aquarius = you work when you work, and don’t when you don’t. This is because you are generally good at being able to tell what warrants deep attention, and what doesn’t. You will expand most on projects that involve other people or have a large-scale impact.

Mars in Pisces = your emotions can either make or break what you’re trying to do. If you find yourself procrastinating HARD, take a look at what emotions you’re feeling and give them some attention. You may feel the urge to use “escapist” means for procrastination -- napping, alcohol, drugs, daydreaming, video games, doom scrolling on social media, etc.

We are closing out Eclipse Season tomorrow at 7:33am UTC with a solar eclipse & New Moon in Sagittarius! 

Eclipses are doorways: ending one cycle and stepping into a new adventure.

Sagittarius energy encourages us to passionately pursue our dreams and asks us, "What do you want AND what are you doing about it?" It asks us, "How are you prioritizing your dreams?"

To help us with working with this energy, I want to draw upon a fantastic exercise from the book 5 Wishes by Gay Hendricks:

Imagine you are on your deathbed and someone you care about very much sits down next to you. They hold your hand, gaze deeply into your eyes and ask, "Was your life a complete success?" Really take this in, reflect back on your hypothetical future life.

Is there anything that gives you pause?

If your life was NOT a complete success -- why not? 

You can use the prompt: "My life was not a complete success because I did not _________________"

Think of/write down as many regrets as come to you -- this may be one, it may be 20...

Then once you feel that you have them all down, flip the script: "My life WAS  complete success because I _______________"

And, lastly, with each of those new positive statements, I invite you to come up with 1-5 action steps you can take in order to prioritize these things in your life.

If you do this exercise, I'd love to hear about it! You can email me at [email protected]

energy somewhere in our chart, so even if it’s not your Sun/Moon/Rising, it will still hold relevance for you.

As with most things in life, balance is key.

Balanced Virgo energy:

Nurturing yourself first, so that you can be of service to others

Compassionate, with good boundaries

Organizing your time in a way that honors your priorities

Conscious connection to your body’s rhythms and needs

Creating structure and restriction for yourself, to support your goals (e.g. getting enough sleep every night)

Too much Virgo energy feels like:

Bossing people around

Perfectionism turned up to 100

Judgment of self and others

Very rigid behavior, being uncompromising

Really mad about being wrong

Not making changes, because you can’t control or predict the outcome

One of the things I do in my work as an astrology coach is to help clients bring their Virgo energy into balance. I’m going to give you two exercises to do this today.

How to find Virgo in your chart:

Go to your astro.com chart. (Get yours here)

Click near the top on “PDF”

Check your personal planets. Are any of them in Virgo?

In the chart on the right, find the Virgo symbol and the House # it’s in. This tells you where Virgo influences you most, in your life.

If you do not see Virgo anywhere, this means it is an intercepted Sign for you. For you, Virgo energy isn’t contained to one area of your life. This means you probably experience it more sporadically. Send me an email and we can talk more about what that means.

Now, let’s talk about judgment.

If you are judging someone else, it is probably because they are doing something that you feel YOU are not “allowed” to do. This unspoken agreement may have come from your upbringing -- a parent telling you to always be polite, or, generally, from your past life experiences. In fact, if you are someone who self-identifies as judgmental, you probably have a LOT of rules for yourself.

The first step here is to notice when you’re judging someone (I like to do this a lot in traffic when I’m judging someone for not using their turn signal), and then to get curious about what unspoken rule for yourself this is bringing up.

Now, let’s talk about control.

Today I have a challenging exercise for you that I love giving to my Virgo clients, especially (but it will help everyone who feels like their overly-controlling self is out of whack).

This is one of my very favorite exercises because it is so simple and effective. I have only ever had to do this exercise once, because its positive effects have stuck with me for years after.

I want to acknowledge that often being “controlling” can be a result of trauma. If you are someone who feels the need to control things because your childhood was chaotic and offered you little control, the exercise I’m going to give you next will be the most effective if you are ALSO working with professional mental health specialists.

Exercise:

Do not give your opinion or try to control the situation for 24 hours.

Rules:

If you do take on this challenge, email or tag me in a post so I can cheer you on!

This Week’s Book Recommendation: Warrior Goddess Training by HeatherAsh Amara

Scorpio Season Overview:

Scorpio Energy

Ruling Planets - Mars & Pluto

Element - Water

Intense, passionate, bold unconcealed truths, unconventional ways of looking at things, burning down anything that isn’t quite working. 

10|23 - Sun Enters Scorpio

10|30 Mars enters Scorpio

11|5 - Mercury enters Scorpio

11|5 - Venus enters Capricorn

11|4 - New Moon in Scorpio

11|19 - Full Moon & Partial Lunar Eclipse in Taurus

Aries Rising - Deep transformation and growth. Learning how to open your heart and trust others more. Releasing deep-seated resentments and past hurts.

Taurus Rising - An emphasis on commitment -- both for yourself and others. Clarifying your priorities. Taking an honest assessment of how you have been contributing to your close relationships.

Gemini Rising - Prioritizing your own well-being. Learning how to balance work and play. Tuning in to your body and honoring its needs.

Cancer Rising - Adding something meaningful to the world through your own creative self-expression. Learning how to have fun and enjoy your life NOW.

Leo Rising - Finding inner and outer forms of security and “home.” Creating a sense of stability and comfort for yourself, not based on others. Maybe even a breaking away from past or traditional forms of security you’ve had.

Virgo Rising - Learning how to communicate boldly, unapologetically and straight from your heart. Having the courage to say no and set boundaries around your time.

Libra Rising - Lessons around fully supporting yourself (financially, physically, emotionally). Maybe taking big leaps that feel like freefalls.

Scorpio Rising - A rearrangement of self. Taking an honest look at yourself -- your strengths as well as toxic traits. Getting to choose again.

Sagittarius Rising -  A time of increased connection to your own spirituality and subconscious. Releasing that which needs to go -- old clothes, furniture, but also situations and people.

Capricorn Rising - Deepening your connections to groups and communities you are a part of. Some may not be serving you and you may discover new ones to take their place. Branch into unexplored territories.

Aquarius Rising - Big shifts and re-structuring of your “purpose” or perhaps your career. A choice between staying where you are (safe) or jumping into a new adventure (growth).

Pisces Rising - Bridging the gap between where you have been, and where you’re headed. New perspectives and ideas that shift your philosophy of life. Opportunities for expansion, learning and growth.

Shadow Work Exercise: ”Fear & Flip”

You will need: A journal or 2 pieces of paper, something to write with, a timer (you can use your phone), a willingness to feel your feelings.

Step 1: Settle in and take a few centering breaths. Tune into your body and pick one sensation or emotion. Begin writing about what you notice.

Step 2: Underneath what you’ve written, identify what fears are at the core of this emotion. Try to identify at least 3 fears.

Step 3: Flip the fears! What is the opposite of each of the fears you wrote down? Write those down.

Step 4: Set a timer for 1 minute per fear (i.e. if you have 5 fears, it’ll be a 5 minute timer) and breathe deeply, as you read over your Flipped Fears from step 3. Allow any sensations or emotions to arise. If you can, expand those feelings by energetically leaning into them.

Book Mentioned: “Existential Kink” by Carolyn Elliot.

Today, I want to talk to you about self-esteem or self-worth. Before I begin, just a warning that I will be sharing my own self-esteem journey which has themes around bullying and unworthiness. If these are particularly troubling themes for you, this may be a bit of an intense episode.

Okay, let’s get started. I want to begin by sharing a little bit about my own experience with self-worth:

Grew up with undiagnosed autism and ADHD.

Making friends was hard because I didn’t understand social cues.

Felt like everyone else was playing a game I didn’t know the rules to, and would be punished if I did it wrong.

Also moved every year, which prevented me from making solid, deep-seated friendships.

In elementary school, middle school and the beginning of high school I was bullied a lot.

As a result, as an adult I had very poor self-esteem and self-worth.

This led to choosing really damaging, unhealthy romantic relationships that reinforced these beliefs I had about myself.

Really affected my mental health.

I felt broken and unloveable.

Then, something snapped inside of me and I burned all of my bridges and started a new life.

Began to get to know myself:

Discovered personal development, growth mindset (another topic for another time, but basically that I wasn’t stuck and could do anything I wanted), spirituality.

All of which made me want to HEAL.

I devoured all of the information I came across and began to put it into practice.

What I want to share with you today are 3 ways to improve self-esteem/self-worth that I have personally had life-changing results with.

This isn’t to say that my self-esteem is perfect now. I have days where I doubt every decision I’ve ever made and resign to the fact that “maybe all of those bullies were right about me.” BUT those days used to be every day, now they happen maybe a few times a month.

I encourage you to play around with these tips. Experiment. Combine them. Make them your own. Toss out any of them that DON’T resonate with you. You can pick one to start, or try all 3.

Okay, so here are my top 3 tips for improving your self-esteem:

Improve self esteem by:

Quickly bringing it back to astrology:

In the birth chart, we could see this in a few places:

Pluto or Chiron in the 1st House - core wound around the concept of self

Uranus in the 4th House - unstable family life or upbringing

Moon in the 8th House - constant focus on improvement

Book mentioned: The Upward Spiral by Dr. Alex Korb

Thank you for listening! If you liked this, I release new episodes weekly, so make sure you are subscribed to the show so you don’t miss an episode. For more of my tips and tricks follow me on Instagram at www.instagram.com/astrologywithursula and if you’re interested in working with me 1:1, you can book a call on my website at www.astrologywithursula.com

Todays topic is slowing down: Why we resist it & what we can do about it

Why we resist:

Why is it not true:

What we can do about it:

Thank you for listening to this episode of Luminous Living! If you enjoyed the show, I release new episodes every Friday so be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss a thing. For more tips on how to LEAP after your big goals to live a luminous life, follow me on Instagram @astrologywithursula or check out my website at https://www.astrologywithursula.com