The Designed Life

What if the things you believe to be true about yourself, your life, and what’s possible for you aren’t the whole story?

In this episode I explore the process (and practice) of learning to question the limiting beliefs, narratives, and assumptions that can keep us confined to familiar patterns, even when we’re ready to step into something new.

I draw from my own experiences and coaching methodology to unpack why this practice is so important when navigating change, working through conflict, or creating a new version of your life. I explore the process through the lens of the body and nervous system, our relationship to time and pressure of productivity, and through personal reflection and self-inquiry.

Additionally, I share two practical ways to begin incorporating this practice into your everyday life.

Whether you’re navigating a relationship transition, reimagining your career, questioning your sense of timing, or simply feeling confined by the story you’ve been telling yourself, this episode is an invitation to loosen your grip on what you think you know and make room for what else might be possible.

Connect with me:

• Life Coaching
• Website
• Email
• Instagram
• Substack
• Threads

In this episode, I’m joined by Nicole for a conversation about what happens when we stop forcing ourselves into the paths we think we’re supposed to follow, and start allowing something deeper to lead.

We dive into Nicole’s mediumship work: how she works with clients’ future selves, spirit guides, soul contracts, ancestral patterns, and other spiritual frameworks.

We talk about the moment when a calling finds you, rather than the other way around, and what it means to build a business around intuition and surrender.

Finally, we discuss resistance – both the resistance we experience internally and the resistance other people may have to the work we’re doing – and the importance of trusting that not every person needs to receive the same message or follow the same path.

Join us for a robust conversation about following your own intuition as a path for building your most successful life and business.

You can find Nicole via:

• Her Website
• Her Instagram
• Her Podcast

Over the course of the summer, I found myself navigating a bit of an identity crisis in my work. I had reached a point where astrology, as I had been practicing and teaching it, felt like it was holding me back from the deeper, more integrated work I wanted to offer. Rather than blowing everything up, I decided to step back, live the questions, and give myself the space to discover what was actually calling me forward.

In this episode, I'm sharing what feels like the final update in this series (both other episodes linked below) from the uncertainty of not knowing to the clarity I've found on the other side of the conflict. I explore how my experiences with design, yoga, coaching, astrology, somatics, creativity, and self-expression have come together to reveal a much clearer direction for my work.

What I discovered is that the conflict itself was the catalyst. The very questions I was wrestling with helped me recognize a framework I had been developing through years of personal experience, education, experimentation, and working with clients.

If you're currently navigating a transition, questioning your direction, or feeling the tension between who you've been and who you're becoming, this episode is an invitation to stay with the questions and trust what they might reveal.

Mentioned:

• Eps 058: Life Update - Crossing a Threshold
• Eps 062: Living the Questions & Experimenting w. Identity in Your Work
• Giana Cerasia

Connect with me:

⁠Life Coaching⁠ // ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack⁠ // ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pinterest⁠ //⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads⁠ //⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website

This Libra season can potentially defined as the deep work of letting go.

We begin with the equinox and an invitation to pause, recalibrate, and take stock of what feels balanced – and what doesn’t. But this season is also the beginning of a much deeper process. With Venus preparing to retrograde through Scorpio and Libra, followed by Mercury retrograde in Scorpio, we’re entering a period of heightened vulnerability, relationship reckoning, difficult conversations, and profound internal change.

In this episode, we explore what it means to resource yourself before entering a season that may leave you feeling exposed, tender, or raw – and how to find the internal anchors that help you remain connected to your values and sense of self when the external world feels uncertain.

At the heart of the episode is an invitation to become more comfortable with conflict and discomfort, to look beneath the surface of our relationships and values, and to recognize that sometimes letting go is what creates the space for something new to emerge.

Follow along with the edited transcript

In this episode, we explore:‍

• The equinox and finding balance
• Libra energy, relationships, social harmony, values, beauty, and justice
• The Aries full moon 3º
• Mars entering Leo
• Mercury entering Scorpio
• Difficult conversations, power dynamics, and the tension between the individual and the collective
• The Libra new moon 10º
• Venus retrograde in Scorpio
• Grief, absence, loss, and learning to find ourselves in the void
• How conflict can become a catalyst for deeper connection
• The relationship between global social change and our individual relationships

Connect with me:

Life Coaching // ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack // ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pinterest //⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads //⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website

Jess and I are back! This time with a slightly different kind of conversation: a reflection on getting married in the same summer and everything that came with our experiences.

From navigating family dynamics and other people's expectations to receiving unexpected amounts of love and support, both Jess and I found that getting married became a powerful process of release, integration, creativity, and transformation.

We share the behind the scenes stories of our unconventional and very intentional wedding experiences, including week-long celebrations, vision boards, astrology, community, private vows, chosen family, and the small personal details that made each celebration feel uniquely like us.

This conversation is ultimately about more than weddings. It's about the value of ritual in modern life, consciously crossing thresholds, creating experiences that reflect who you really are, and allowing yourself to be changed by the moments you choose to celebrate.

This episode is an invitation to get curious about the rituals and experiences that help us mark who we've been, and who we're becoming.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why getting married ended up being a much bigger emotional experience than either of us expected
• Navigating other people's expectations and projections around weddings
• Letting go of responsibility for other people's emotional experiences
• The surprising vulnerability of bringing different communities and family members together
• How friendship and chosen family can support us through major life transitions
• Receiving love, affection, and celebration – and why that can be unexpectedly emotional
• How being celebrated can change the way you see yourself
• The importance of asking what feels good rather than following tradition automatically
• Why ritual and threshold-crossing still matter
• Weddings as a creative act and expression of a shared life
• The astrology behind our celebrations
• The subtle psychological shift from being two individuals to becoming a unit
• Why commitment can create an unexpected sense of freedom and spaciousness
• Integrating after a major life event and navigating the post-celebration comedown
• What we would tell anyone planning an unconventional or deeply personal wedding

Connect with Jess via her:

• Website⁠
  
• 
  ⁠Instagram⁠
  
• 
  ⁠Threads⁠
  
• 
  ⁠Podcast⁠

Connect with me:

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Astrology Readings
• ⁠⁠⁠⁠Life Coaching
• Design Services
• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack
• Instagram
• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads
• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website

I’m approaching 10 years of working for myself, and for the first time I’m looking back at the full arc of my entrepreneurial journey – not just the revenue numbers, but the lessons, relationships, risks, failures, pivots, personal growth, and unexpected opportunities that shaped the business I have today.

In this episode, I walk through my business year by year, from starting my own design business in 2016 at age 27, through opening and eventually leaving a yoga studio, navigating the intensity of my Saturn return, becoming a life coach and astrologer, paying off significant debt, buying a house, experiencing some of my highest-earning years, and then navigating the contraction and financial uncertainty that followed.

I’m also sharing the parts of entrepreneurship that don’t always make it into the success stories: fluctuating income, debt, changing relationships with clients and collaborators, the ways our lifestyles can take time to catch up with our income, and what it feels like to realize that you business (and your life) can change direction more than once.

And, of course, I’m bringing astrology into the conversation. Looking back at the last 10 years through my own chart has given me a fascinating way to understand the rhythms of expansion, contraction, identity shifts, financial lessons, creativity, and career development that have shaped my work.

Entrepreneurship isn’t a straight line. This is the first in a few posts where I take the time to look back at the data of my own life and recognize how much I’ve actually learned – in hopes that it offers you insight and support in return.

Connect with me:

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Astrology Readings // ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Life Coaching // ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Substack // ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Pinterest //⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Threads //⁠ ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Website

After the expansion, visibility, and self-expression of Leo season, Virgo asks us to gather everything we’ve experienced and make sense of it - to come back down to earth. It’s a season of refinement, discernment, organization, and practical action, but also a season for noticing the extraordinary richness contained in the smallest, most mundane details of our lives.

This Virgo season may not be the loudest or most globally dramatic stretch of the year, but it offers something we haven't had much of lately: the opportunity to come back into the details of our actual lives.

To ask what needs to be adjusted. What needs to be tended to. What needs to be released. What needs to be rewritten. What needs to become more authentic.

And perhaps most importantly: what can we create when we stop trying to make everything perfect and start paying attention to what is actually alive?

Ultimately, this is a season of course correction. A season for refining what isn’t working, breaking free from perfectionism and self-criticism, tending to what needs care, and getting more intentional about the person we are becoming—and the relationships, communities, and systems we want to participate in creating.

In this episode, we explore:

• The Virgo–Pisces axis and the relationship between intuition and understanding
• Mercury entering Virgo
• The final North Node Pisces eclipse in this series
• Venus entering her pre-retrograde shadow
• Jupiter trine Saturn and values-based action
• Mars square Saturn and the frustration of having to slow down or tend to something before moving forward
• The Virgo New Moon and rewriting relationship narratives
• Uranus retrograde and becoming more authentic in social spaces
• Chiron returning to Aries and revisiting wounds around identity and leadership
• Ending Virgo season with clearer communication, creativity, and big ideas

Mentioned:

• Uranus in Gemini article

What if developing a relationship with the natural world could be less about learning everything there is to know about plants and more about slowing down enough to notice what is already around you?

In this conversation, I’m joined by folk herbalist Amelia, who describes herself as someone who “nourishes the sacred and wild relationship between people and plants.” We talk about her journey from the corporate travel industry into herbalism, the dandelion that became one of her first plant allies, and what it means to relate to plants not simply as resources we consume, but as teachers, guides, companions, and members of our larger ecological community.

Our conversation ultimately is about the responsibility that comes with returning to relationship with plants: understanding ecological impact, sustainability, harvesting and sourcing practices, and the ways colonialism has disrupted and erased plant traditions and the cultural knowledge held by the people who have stewarded them. We end by considering a simple but powerful practice: becoming more curious about where the plants we eat and work with actually come from.

Find Amelia on her:

• Instagram
• Wild Wisdom Program

Connect with me:

• ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Life Coaching
• Threads
• Website

Mentioned:

• The Apprenticeship by Giana Cerasia

I'm joined once again by my friend and fellow astrologer, Jess Ellen, to tackle one of the most common questions we receive from students and clients:

Which house system should I use?

Together we explore the philosophy behind astrological house systems, how they developed, why different astrologers practice with different systems, and how both of us have expanded our own perspectives by working with charts through different lenses.

Rather than trying to convince you that one system is objectively better than another, we invite you into a more curious relationship with your own chart, and with astrology itself.

We also discuss how different house systems can reveal different layers of meaning, how astrology evolves alongside us throughout our lives, and why trusting your own lived experience is just as important as understanding astrological technique.

Whether you're brand new to astrology or have been studying for years, this episode will help you approach house systems with greater clarity, curiosity, and confidence.

This is Part 2 of Episode 57: Introduction to the Astrological Houses. If you haven't listened to that episode yet, we recommend starting there before diving into this conversation.

Connect with Jess via her:

• Website
• Instagram
• Threads
• Podcast

What happens when you've built a successful business, but realize the version of yourself that built it isn't quite the version that's meant to carry it into the next decade?

In this second business update, I'm sharing where I've landed after stepping back from much of my astrology content, loosening my creative structures, and spending the last several months living inside questions rather than rushing toward answers.

This episode explores the tension between discipline and freedom, expertise and curiosity, identity and evolution. I reflect on how we can hold onto what is true about ourselves while allowing the ways we express those truths to evolve over time.

I also share what I'm currently experimenting with in my own business, why I've intentionally slowed down before making any major changes, and how I'm learning to trust friction, uncertainty, and creative silence as necessary parts of the process.

Download your free Identity Evolution workbook here.