278. Presence, Surrender, And The Quiet Truth Of Who You Are

This week was a solo episode where I talked about some of the biggest lessons of this year.  We follow the thread from people-pleasing and “I don’t know” loops to a grounded path of self-trust, using human design and astrology as tools while rooting in the body. Four pillars emerge: intentionality, receiving, presence, and surrender, brought to life through raw stories, pattern interrupts, and practical ways to unhook from old narratives.

• human design and astrology as maps, not masters
• moving from outsourcing to embodied self-trust
• triggers as mirrors and pattern interrupts
• duality of anger, grace, and spiritual growth
• intentionality in habits, communication, and choices
• receiving support, love, and money without shrinking
• presence amid distraction and family life
• surrendering timelines and outcomes
• body image, honesty, and compassionate care
• dating patterns as reflections of inner work
• awareness increasing real free will

Blog Post on Suffering

2026 Astrology Forecast & Planner

Where you can find Rochelle:

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Email: info@rochellechristiane.com

Chapters

• 0:02 Welcome And Podcast Purpose
• 0:47 A Coffee Shop Spark And Manifestation
• 2:32 From Codependence To Self-Trust
• 5:17 Human Design As A Doorway, Not A Destination
• 8:18 Duality: Feeling It All And Letting Go
• 10:03 Triggers As Mirrors And Pattern Interrupts
• 12:58 The Four Pillars: Intention, Receiving, Presence, Surrender
• 15:19 Intentionality In Daily Choices And Habits
• 19:49 Receiving Without Resistance
• 21:34 Practicing Presence In A Distracted World
• 24:11 Surrender And The Limits Of Control
• 26:36 Embodiment, Body Image, And Compassion
• 30:08 Both/And: Neutrality And Emotion
• 33:06 Authentic Desire Beyond “I Don’t Know”
• 36:56 Dating Patterns And Emotional Availability
• 40:06 Healing Material Attachment And Self-Acceptance
• 43:24 Inner Child, Play, And Remembering Aliveness

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:02

Welcome to the Rochelle Christian Podcast. I'm Rochelle, your host. I'm here to help you come back to your body, take charge of your emotions, and live life on your terms. This podcast is a space for raw, real conversations about what it means to trust yourself, lean into your power, and create a life that feels aligned and alive. We'll explore human design, astrology, and other tools to help you understand your unique energy. More importantly, though, we're gonna talk about what it means to actually live and embody these aspects. So each week I'm gonna share stories, lessons, guidance to help you navigate life's challenges and really own your magic. So if you're ready to step up, take control, and show up as the most authentic version of you, let's begin. Welcome back to another episode on the Rochelle Christian podcast. I was sitting in a coffee shop doing some writing work, and I felt this immediate like drop-in, and I was kind of done with what I was writing about, and I just wanted to come and have this conversation. I said and about 16 times just now, but I was thinking about what I wanted to talk about this week. And I've been very much in my manifestation journey, manifestation journey. I've been very much in unhooking from old narratives, old patterns, outdated stories, contemplating what authenticity even means because we've had piles of conditioning, piles of stories before we were even conscious that we were taking on these narratives. So to unhook from stories that we might not even be consciously aware that we have is like climbing up a mountain that we can't even see the top of. It can feel like that. The key is to really be aware in the moment, to really be curious. And I wrote a post on Substack. I believe it was called Are We Choosing Suffering or Why We Choose Suffering. I'll link it below. So if you want to go read it. So if you've been here for a while, you know that's part of my story. If you are new, I'll share it again. But I came upon human design about seven years ago. And I come from a background of being codependent, being people pleasing, not knowing myself from the other. Like if somebody didn't tell me what I was supposed to be doing or where I was supposed to be going or what my purpose is or anything, I didn't know what I wanted. I started going to therapy, and my therapist would like, what do you want? What do you want a partner? What do you want in a career? What do you want in life? My answer was, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. And if you've been in partnership with me, that is always my immediate subconscious like response in the moment. I don't know. And then I have to pull back and stop myself. Like I'm not repeating a pattern. But I don't know could have been the phrasing of my life. And so it's interesting when I get in those moments now and I'm like, I don't know. And I have to pull back. Like, I do know. I do know. I just don't want to say it. So going back, I came from this place of complete enmeshment with other people, partners. And I found human design. I think I had found it before I started the podcast because I believe that I started the podcast to kind of talk about all these things I was learning. I was in school for integrative nutrition, was just finishing that. And I had discovered human design. I had discovered my astrology, which blew my mind. I was like, I am more than a Taurus son. This is wild. And I then redirected my codependence to these systems. Well, my human design says this, my astrology says this. And it was sort of again outsourcing myself to something because I didn't quite trust myself yet that I trusted in this system that other people believed in. And so I took a year off completely. I was like, I'm just gonna throw the whole fucking thing away and I'm just gonna listen to my body. Even if it's a trauma response, I'm still gonna listen to it. If it says fuck no, I'm not gonna do it. If it says absolutely yes, I'm gonna do it. And so I didn't fully, fully lean into this experiment, meaning I still had judgments and fears and all these other things, but I really didn't have something to hook into at the time. And so I just started listening to my body. What does my body feel like when it's a no? What does my body feel like when it's a yes? What does my body feel like when it's in a pattern? What does my body feel like when it's a trauma response? And sometimes all of these are really hard to discern from each other, especially trauma, which of course there's big T trauma, there's little T trauma, and it's all your experience, and there's no right or wrong about it. And it was a journey. It was a journey, it was an experiment, and human design is an experiment in itself, right? I talk to people sometimes who are just not on board with human design or they've been through human design and then they threw it away because they just want to trust themselves and they don't want to outsource themselves. And it's all right. You're right, I'm right. I just had a conversation on the podcast with somebody about emotional authority, and I could see in her face that she wanted to say something, and I was like, what do you have to say? And she was saying that she's just gotten so used to herself discerning and trusting herself and her emotions that she doesn't necessarily follow her emotional authority. She just knows. Which to me feels like emotional clarity, right? When you just know. And regardless of whatever you're believing in whatever your thoughts are for human design, whatever your thoughts are for astrology, there are certain things that we can all agree to, I guess, right? And at the end of the day, I believe human design specifically is like the key to open the door to self-trust. Because you begin to see yourself. It gives you a pathway out of the mind and into the body. Whatever you do with that beyond that, that is the beauty of human design, in my opinion, especially when you've come from a place of people-pleasing, codependence, or whatever, you know, form of that that you've come from. When you're trying to make sense of things, it gives you a course. It gives you a pathway, it gives you a blueprint, it gives you a map, and you can begin to really learn yourself through these systems. I always say I found human design, I found astrology, and everything I thought was wrong about me was in my design. So I was like, I no longer have to be ashamed of my dramatic emotions. I have a moon, square, Pluto. And yes, those are all words and whatever, but it helped me understand myself in such a beautiful way, right? And so I find the truth in it. I find just absolute amazement with it continually. But what I have discovered along this whole journey is there's duality in all of it, right? It's we're all mirrors for each other. There is no right or wrong. There is no you and me at the end of the day. We're all part of one greater experience. So human design is true and also trusting your body is true, right? We can have experiences and be present with them and also be ourselves, right? And so, what does that even mean? Like when I'm unhooking from a story, I'm allowed to feel angry about the story. I'm allowed to feel what I'm feeling while also trusting that there's a higher purpose to it, trusting and forgiving and surrendering and doing all the spiritual, if you're not, if you're listening to the podcast, I'm air quoting and all the spiritual things that make me good and da-da-da-da whatever, while also being pissed as hell, right? About the experiences that I've experienced. Because for a long time, I think, or a lot of us tend to want to embody the light and love, you know, all of the really the affirmations, and I just want to be positive and uplifting and high vibe. And yes, of course, that's a goal. But the law of correspondence says as above, so below. I'm currently working on writing a post. Hopefully, it'll be out by the time this comes out. If it is, I'll link it below. And it's called understanding or navigating the upside down. So if you've watched Stranger Things, you know what the upside down is, but it's essentially a mirror image of our 3D reality, but it's just like a darker version of it. So you have like your demigorgons and all that kind of stuff, like the monsters and Vecna and all that. That's down below. And they can tear a, you know, a hole in the fabric of reality and come into um Hawthorne, I think. Is that what the town's called? Anyway, our 3D reality. But it really is this law of correspondence. It is this as above, so below. There's a mirror image, right? They they can follow people in this alternate reality. Some of them can be in both places at once, but essentially just saying it's all true at the same time. Your experiences are your experiences. Your experiences are valid, your anger is valid, your sadness is valid, your grief is valid. Now, of course, we don't want to get stuck in that continually, but feeling your feelings and being present with it and moving through it and honoring it is such a part of the process. I had a moment yesterday where I was triggered by something. Now, of course, our triggers are always lessons for us. They're always mirrors for us. They're showing us where we still have work to do. So I can, on the one hand, be grateful for the trigger and on the other hand, be pissed as hell that I'm feeling triggered over something ridiculous, right? And be like so frustrated that I was even triggered in the first place. But it's something for us. So I can be grateful, like God, universe, source, all the words used interchangeably, whatever you believe in, like, thank you for showing me this, for showing me where I still need to heal, where I still need to do the work, where I still have a limiting belief. And my limiting belief that came up, immediate response was this is why I don't ask people for help. If I mean, I've had people in relationships and partners that are just like, you're the lone wolf, you don't need support. And it's like, no, but I do. I want to be supported so badly, right? Like, I want to be seen, I want to be valued, I want to be all these things. And also, I'm have come become accustomed to having to do all that for myself, providing for myself because nobody helps me. I'm air quoting it. That's my story. And so in that moment, I noticed my immediately thought pattern of this is why I don't ask for help. Nobody wants to help me. I'm not supported, I have to do everything but myself. And I was getting mad about it. And rightly so, okay. Like that has been the past, but the past is not this present moment. So in that moment, I chose, I was like, you know what, God, show me how you see this person. Show me this person from your perspective. And it completely shifted the perspective, it completely shifted the experience. And I was able to see on the flip side what I couldn't see from my limited egoic perspective in that moment. And so it was beautiful to be able to flip the script. And also, yeah, I was really annoyed in this situation. And I think sometimes I forget to allow myself to actually sit in the feeling of annoyance or anger or bitterness because we don't want to live there, but it's a part of the experience, it's a part of what we're moving through. And so I was able to see this person from a different perspective and then release the emotion that I was feeling around the situation and just go do the thing with no anger, no resentment, no bitterness. But I had to like, I literally told myself, pattern interrupt. We're not gonna go down this rabbit hole. We're not gonna go down this narrative. This is not who I'm choosing to be in this moment, right? And so there are three things that I feel like over the course of my journey, I have come to, and I'm sure they will evolve over time. They will change as my consciousness evolves and all of these things. But there are three things right now that I'm paying particular attention to and want to embody more. Number one is intentionality. I remember listening to a podcast years and years and years ago, and they were talking about it, it was almost 30 podcasts. So Krista and Lindsay have both been on the podcast separate and together. This podcast, separate and together. And I think Krista was talking about, I mean, they were both talking about just being intentional or setting an intention before they entered a room or got on a podcast. And I was on a walk, and I think it was actually 2020, I think it was COVID. And I was on a walk, and I remember thinking, I wish I could be intentional like that. But I'm so quick with my energy that there's no time to pause. And this is also what I think Saturn and Pisces is teaching us that there can be a surrender in the structure. We can have structure in the flow, right? We need structure in the flow. And I think that we think if we create structure, we're limiting creativity. I have Saturn in my fifth house, so I feel that strongly. I feel sometimes I'm like, um, how do I like I just lose all creative expression? I'm like, let. But it's like when I create those structures, it allows me to be more creative. When I am setting the time of like, hey, I'm gonna write for 30 minutes. Let's see what comes through. No phone, no nothing. Like, especially now with the phone, we need to create that structure. So intentionality is number one. Being very intentional about how you spend your time, who you spend your time with, how you're showing up, how you're engaging in things, right? How you're healing, how you're working, what your day looks like, what habits are supporting you, what habits are not, being intentional with your life. And this isn't to say overthink it, this isn't to say overstructure it, this isn't to say overanalyze it. It's just like have fun and have flow, but be intentional with it. An example, you know, I've been off and on alcohol for a while, and I feel fine, I feel good, let's say, when I'm choosing to drink when I'm being intentional about how I'm showing up. So if I know I've had like yesterday, actually, this is a perfect example. Yesterday, I so I from July until literally, I think the last month, I really I didn't drink. I think I had like one or two drinks. And last month I started dating someone and we went out for a drink, and I was like, oh, it was fun, right? It was I was my intention behind engaging in it and having a drink was just to have fun, enjoy myself, and I did, and it was great. And then, you know, sometimes when you open the door to those things, especially with everything in Pisces, and I have my Pisces in my eighth house and Jupiter's there, so it's so easy to like fall into those, and I know my personality. I know I have an addictive personality, and so I just like stay away from those things. I don't engage because I just know myself. I know myself well enough. I have enough self-awareness to know what happens. And so, um, so anyway, so I am going back to reverse. I'm going back to a thought pattern. Okay, so I started drinking, um, just a few here and there, and then my family came in town. So we were drinking like the whole weekend, and I'm just like, this is not how I want to engage my energy because I feel unmotivated, I feel disoriented, I feel distracted, I just feel groggy. Like it's not like how I want to operate from day to day. No shame. And I've released the shame for myself. Like last weekend when I was drinking with my family, I was like, you know, I'm just gonna enjoy it. I'm just gonna have fun. I'm gonna enjoy it because I know I'm gonna get back on um to what feels good for me. So, anyway, all that being said, so I went to Trader Joe's, so they have these little bitty bottles of champagne that I just love, and it's perfect because it's just like two glasses, maybe. And so I got one little bottle, and I got a text message from somebody that really activated my emotions. And so, like a big part of me was like, hey, you got that wine in the fridge. Let's just let's just go drink it. Let's just have a couple glasses and go to bed and be done with it. But I knew the reason I wanted to drink was to not feel the heightened emotion, which wasn't gonna make it go away permanently. But in the moment, yeah, it was gonna make it go away. And it's such an easy fix, right? It's such an easy fix. So I didn't have the drink because I knew that that was why I was going to have it. My intention behind having the drink was to numb. So just being aware of my intentions, being intentional about how I show up, how I communicate, how I present myself, and coming back to authenticity, which was the start of this whole thing. Being intentional about who I am moment to moment, because you can be doing all of the work in the world, right? Sometimes we feel really stuck and we're like, why is this journey not? Or why am I not like further along in the process? All of our journeys are so different. We're all experiencing different things. We all have to move through different things, and again, there are piles of shit on top of our authentic self. We come into this world as this innocent, pure, authentic, vibrant, loving little being. And then just parents pile on top, friends pile on top, teachers pile on top, coaches pile on top, doctors, all of these narrative society. And all of a sudden, it's like that tower energy, right? In in in uh the tarot. Whoa, it was like, what is the word I'm looking for? It's like the tower, tower energy and the tarot. Underneath the tower is actually the work. The tower card isn't the crumbling, it's not the lightning hitting the tower. The tower card energy is actually the foundation, what's underneath the foundation. And that's that inner child, the pure essence of who you are. Everything else has to crumble and get out of the way so you can rebuild, but we have to like do the work, right? And 2025 has been a crumbling, a shedding, a pulling apart, right? And so even Neptune stationing direct at the last degrees of Pisces. I you can find all the stuff on social media that I've been posting about it, TikTok, Instagram, I posted about it. But essentially, it's like what part of you is dissolving so that you can come back to your spiritual soul self, right? So intention, right? And being intentional can help us slow down, be in the moment, right? And really be aware of the narratives that are showing up, the subconscious beliefs that are showing up. Because if we can't see it, we can't work with it. Awareness is like key. It's the first step in all of this. The second thing is receiving. So many of us want to receive, but we don't allow ourselves to receive. We want to control the situation. We want to know how it's gonna look like. And when we are given something, so often we're like, oh no, no, no, no, not that. I don't want that. Or you really don't have to do that, right? Like, no, I can't accept this, I can't take this. Just take it, receive, say thank you, right? This is like, especially like in the service industry, I see it all the time where not so much now or yeah, not so much now, but like before there are certain places where and it really shows you people's money stories. But I've seen people receive or being been offered really large tips, and the server's like, no, no, no, I can't take that. Why? Why can't you take that? Your job is here to get tips, and you're saying no. The universe is trying to give you something, and you're saying no. Like it can be uncomfortable. I've received a few large tips where I'm like, oh, but I just say thank you. Thank you. I'm receiving this with love and gratitude. Thank you. That's just a small example, but receiving, right? We say we want to receive, we say we want to be open, we say we tell the universe, oh, I want this, I want this job, I want this career. And yet, first of all, it's never gonna look the way that you think it's gonna look, right? And sometimes you have to receive something that gets you that's like a bridge to the thing that you want. But if you don't receive the thing, how can you get the end goal? Right. So receiving, receiving, just receive, allow yourself to receive, and it can be really hard. Even like, yeah, receiving help, receiving finances, receiving love, receiving whatever it is, and understanding that it's cyclical. The more you give, the more you're gonna receive. But if you give without receiving, you're not allowing the cycle to happen, right? So intention, receiving presence. Like I feel like the answer is always in the moment. The answer is always when you can be present with it, when you can be present with the emotion, when you can be present with your kids, your partner, present with cooking, whatever it is. And we're so distracted now. Social media and like whatever it is. Like, even I will sit there and notice. I'm like, I'm on my phone creating a post or editing something, and my kids are like trying to talk to me, and I'm like, you know, and I have to like really be intentional in those moments when I catch myself, put this phone down, be like, you know, what do you need? How can I be here for you? Let's be present, let's be here. And in return, I have to urge my kids to put the phones away. Or, you know, like my son, he found this old phone that was in one of the drawers, and I let him have it, which is what it is. I want to say it's a mistake, but it is what it is. So I let him have it. There's no service to it, it's just Wi-Fi based. It's a glorified iPad essentially, but it's an old iPhone, so it freezes all the time, but he loves it, so whatever. So, even like today, he woke up. It goes in my room at night, 8:30 at night. He brings it in my room. And he woke up this morning and plugged it in to charge it in the other room. And I guarantee that when I pick him up, he's gonna ask, Did you bring my phone? And so it's even in little moments to be like, we don't need it now. We can be here together. Uh, when we eat dinner, there's no phones, which sometimes is a struggle. There's sometimes an argument that ensues when we have to shut our phones off. But especially for me personally, I have feeling cognition in human design, and so technology really messes with my ability to like tap into the frequency of the moment. Oh my gosh, there are more than three things. Like those are like the I feel like the three core lessons I've learned: intentionality, receiving, and presence, being with specifically around our emotions, right? Presence in always, because again, I do think of all the people I've interviewed on the podcast, you know, I think that we think there's some big elaborate um like a ha, this will fix everything. And it is, and I truly do think it's presence. Presence to everything is the answer to everything because when you're present, you're engaged with source, you're engaged with yourself, you're engaged with those around you, which in turn is source, right? Because we're all fragments of source, we're all source in ourselves. But yeah, this is the one that comes up all the time. What I'm always trying to like pick at, like, well, how do you do this? Or, you know, how do we shift our perspective? How do we stop self-sabotaging? How do we do this? And of course, there are like different things, but it always comes back to some variation of presence. Be present with yourself. Be in meditation because when we're in meditation, we're present. When we practice breath work, we're present. When we EFT tap, we're present. When we work out and move our body, we should be present, right? Not always. We can be listening to music or listening to a podcast, whatever it is, but presence. Presence is huge. And I'm gonna tack on because another one that I've been learning, I have Jupiter moving through my 12th house. And so another huge lesson for me has been surrender. This is actually, I think, one of the hardest ones for a lot of us. Surrender. What does it even mean? Surrender, let go of control. Because again, like I said, things are never going to look the way that you want it to look. You can control and try and plan for every possible outcome. And maybe you're really good at that. But the universe, the the thing that you want is never gonna, it's most likely gonna be better then. So if you cap yourself with only one way of things happening, either it's not gonna happen because that's not the way that the universe wants it to happen, and that's not what the universe has for you, or you're just limiting yourself. And so surrender to the fact that it's not gonna look the way that you think it's gonna look. Surrender to the fact that it might take longer. And I I will say, I'm still figuring this piece out, but I will say that when you surrender, it actually shortens the time because now you've given up the control and the need for it to look a certain way. And I think like surrender and presence kind of go hand in hand, right? Um, but yeah, just surrender to the things that you can't control. Surrender to universe, source, again, whatever that looks like for you. Um discernment, trust your body. This is an this is another big one. Especially when it comes to authenticity, uh coming inside, because I think this is the your body. So we are souls having a human experience. We are souls here meant to experience the body. And I think that when we're not taking care of our body, when we're not in our body, we there is a part of ourselves that feels disconnected because this, this right here is what it's for, right? And it's not always comfortable, right? Like it makes me like, oh my gosh, I could cry. But it's like, how often do we look at our bodies or look at ourselves that we don't like what we see? And it's like we do so much work. I do, I'm speaking for myself. I do so much work around, you know, I work out, I do like mirror exercises, and sometimes there are moments where I just, you know, look at myself and I'm like, ugh. And also there are moments when I'm like, I love myself head to toe because why shouldn't I? Right? Why shouldn't I? And it's all true at the same time. I can look at myself and love myself and also sometimes see things that I don't necessarily like, you know, or it's like when you're at the gym five, six days a week and you're feeling bloated because it's your period or whatever. You're like, ugh, right? Like we all have human experiences as part of it. But being in your body, feeling safe in your body, feeling good in your body. And I'm also very aware that I am very fortunate and blessed to live in a body that feels good 98% of the time. I'm extremely grateful. I do not take that for granted. Because I know some people listening, some people, you know, a lot of people out there live in chronic illness, and um that's a journey in itself. And I hope that there are people on the podcast or just anywhere, right, that can support you in that journey. But having a connection with your body, and I think that sometimes having pain in the body forces you into the body, right? It forces you in those places when it would be easy to disconnect otherwise, right? And so, where did this train of thought come from? Presence, surrender, being in the body, that was, yeah, it's a really huge piece to the experience being in your body, um, experiencing the body. That's again, I feel like a huge piece of this. In in Dolores Cannon's book, The Convoluted Universe, I think in the beginning, the first chapter, she said that Earth uh wasn't always Earth didn't originally have human life, human life. Our souls came here as sort of like a vacation because we could experience pleasure and emotion here, where your soul, think about your higher self, you know, when you're coming into that higher self energy and source energy, you're so neutral. You can see things from a neutral perspective, you don't feel heightened emotions, you're just neutral, you're good. You're just like frequency and source and all these beautiful, beautiful things. That it's funny that we down here who experience pain and pleasure and all of these varying emotions crave to be to that place. And yet, according to the convoluted universe, our souls who don't experience those came here as sort of a little vacation and got addicted to it. And then that's why we have human life, right? Like we come into these bodies, our souls choose these bodies for a very specific reason. And it's always that, again, that duality, as above, so below. But we always want what we don't have, but we can have both, right? I can meditate, I can intentionally come to a place of presence, surrender, receive that clarity, that neutrality, that just conscious like energy. And I'm going to say I'm not gonna live there 24-7, although I do believe it's possible to live there 27. And also I'm emotional enough and in tune with my emotions enough and in tune with my body enough to actually know that there's beauty in the sometimes chaotic experience of emotions. Now, do I want to live in my emotional state like that all the time? No, I love the neutrality too, but it's both and right, it's not just one or the other, it's both of them. So being in the experience, not living 24-7 in the chaotic experience, right? But experiencing it is such a beautiful part of life. And I think a lot of us resist it, which our body holds memory and back, wrapping this up in a bow, um, finding our authentic selves and deconditioning from the narratives requires all of these things so that we can attune to that place of quiet neutrality that is source, our higher self, God, our authentic self, and understand what we desire, what we crave, how we want to express. I believe astrology is a beautiful map to that. It's not the answer. You are the answer, right? You hold the answer, you hold the truth in yourselves. You are a living, walking representation of it. And also, astrology is a beautiful compass to help you find your way. But it's like, how do you want to express? How do you want to feel? How do you want to show up? Really asking yourself those questions. And again, when I would go to therapy, what do you want? I don't know. What do you want a partner? I don't know. What do you want in a career? I don't know. Right. I've done a lot of work to now, I know. I am so I know, right? And I also have to leave space now for the this or something better because I've worked so hard to get the I know what I want, but also I also know it's not gonna look the way that I want it to look. It never does. And you know, the whole journey of like working on manifestation and working on myself, it's really beautifully fascinating because I see the quality of people that now come into my life that embody so much more of the things that I'm looking for. Like when I first started dating after my relationship, I will say my last like my marriage ended. I will say that this is like my greatest gift, and the thing that gets me sometimes most of the time, I will always see somebody's heart. Even if you are an absolute asshole, I know that there's a genuine piece of you inside of there, and everybody shows it in moments. Like my ex, like not kind a lot of the time, but he had those moments where I genuinely knew like that it, but that was the thing, that was the potential. That's who he was in those small pockets of moments, but that's not who he was overall in the in the big picture, right? Like I was staying with him for his potential for those pockets, but it wasn't like the big picture. And so I can easily say that everyone I've dated since has been a genuinely like good person, and has a lot of red flags in the beginning, right? I see less and less red flags now, and that's beautiful. Like, yeah, at this last one was like not super long, but that one got me. It got me a little bit because so many boxes were checked, like just a legitimately like good person, I feel like emotionally intelligent, communicative, just wasn't ready to show up in the way that I'm looking for, and that's it is what it is. Uh but I'm also proud of myself that I've gotten to the point of meeting people like that that are emotionally intelligent. And I feel like over the last year, so for a long time, my thing was I would attract emotionally avoidant people or an emotionally um, I don't know, unintelligent. I don't know what the word is. Uh just weren't in touch with their emotions um for various reasons. And so the last one that I ended that was very um emotionally unavailable. So what I was looking for, emotional unavailability. Uh I was like, I am seeking emotional availability and I will discover that pretty early on now. And so anyway, anyone I've everyone I've dated over the last year has actually been really emotionally intelligent. So it's like I know I'm getting closer. I've had a lot of work to do, and I'm getting closer to that. And I don't know where this whole thing spawned off of. I was talking about um, I was talking about, you know, authenticity and all that kind of stuff. Anyway, anyway, all of that being said, these are just like, I feel like the big lessons that have been coming up and really seeing my patterns, which is really uncomfortable and challenging because it takes intentionality of slowing down, of journaling, of asking, of getting curious, of letting go of shame, right? Like I I think I I don't know where I talked about it. Maybe in the uh maybe on the newsletter, but real quick story, and then I'm gonna wrap this up. I, you know, I'm a Taurus Sun, mid-heaven, Mercury. I love things. I grew up in Dubai, and so I all my friends had like the newest phones, the newest technology, and I didn't, and it was fine, like it was what it was, but I always wanted the newest phone. I don't know what it was about the phones, but like I didn't get an iPhone until long after everybody else had iPhones. Like all my friends in in, I don't know if it was high school, but college for sure, we're getting like iPhones and iPods. And and if you're old enough to know what an iPod is, like I know they don't, I don't think they make iPods anymore. Um but yeah, I was always like, oh, I want like the newest tech gadget. That was just like that's my like material thing. And I know the lesson of Taurus, the the lesson of a Taurus experience is not attachment. And in my old version of I was so attached, like I had to have it was like a a need, like a frantic drive to like have the newest thing. So anyway, I can still like feel it now. But yeah, and so I never really had the newest phone. Uh, if you're old enough, you know, those little, little like Nokia's that had like the snake, and it was like the block phone. We used we all there was one point we all had those, but you always had that one person had the like the highest uh tech, you know, most recent phone anyway. So as an adult now, I you know, also I have a degree in photography and my bachelor's in photography. So I love, I like love taking pictures. And I used to always carry around this big bag with me that had my camera and my lenses and all this kind of stuff. And so obviously, as phones got better, I didn't have to carry this big ass bag with me anymore. I could just have my phone. And so I always have a pretty recent uh phone. But in the past, every time I would buy a new phone, I had this guilt and I was like, ugh, and I would feel ashamed about it and I would have to make excuses to myself and I feel like I was making excuses to other people of like why I was getting the new phone. So the other day I was up for like an upgrade. So I was like, okay, I accept that I appreciate and want to have the newest phone. So I have that, you know, on the ATT plan, it's like the you pay a monthly for to be able to early upgrade, whatever. So I have that on my plan. And so I got the thing. I I think I got it like a month ago that I was eligible for an upgrade and I had everything loaded in the cart, and I was like, you know what? I'm not gonna do it right now. And so this like cycle came around and I was like, you know what? I don't have attachment in the way that I used to over this, but I would like the newest phone. So I got the newest phone. I'm first of all, I'm obsessed. I love, I don't know, not everybody like likes the look of this new iPhone, but I I love it. Anyway, that's a side note. The whole point of this was to say that who I am as a Taurus really likes things. I like to have the newest phone. I love to take pictures. I'm wildly impressed with the camera capabilities of this phone, just saying, if you're thinking about it, like I'm I love it. And so anyway, so I got it and I was like, wow, I'm so not attached to like before, if I ordered it, I would be like sitting there and be like, when is it gonna get here? Or I can go pick it up, or I need to get this the fastest that I need to. I didn't feel that energy this time. I was like, huh, I was oddly unattached while also really wanting it. And so that was like kind of a new energy. And so there's just like these things that you know, sometimes we don't realize how much we've healed until we like look in hindsight. And that's kind of the point of that whole story was like, I I feel like 2025 has done a number on so many of us. And it's just been lesson after lesson after lesson, beautiful lesson, painful lesson. And so it's like, how are we moving into 2026? And so those three, four, I guess, four things are like my words, plural, entering 2026, intentionality, receiving, presence, and surrender. Can I do all can I embody all of those every day and connect more closely with who I was as a child? I do the tubiomagnetic work and the I can't remember what they call it, the magic something. There's a challenge right now. Magic something rather, I don't remember what it's called. It's basically a revamped inner child workshop. And, you know, there's all this like journaling prompts, and I just, you know, my memories as a kid, I would like dance and sing to Disney movies with my brother, or we would just play, or I'd dress up and then we just come, I I called them these little clipper clapper heels that I used to wear. They were just like tap shoes that just like made noise. I used to wear dresses and I used to just love that kind of stuff. And somewhere along the way, I just lost that vibrancy, I guess. And so as I'm, you know, again, navigating authenticity and what it looks like to show up truly as myself in my own energy, I'm coming back to a lot of those places of like what excites me, what feels good to me. And so it's, you know, doing the journaling, doing the reflecting, noticing the patterns, noticing the triggers that come up and really being attuned to my body. What feels good, what doesn't feel good, what excites me, what doesn't excite me, what drains me. Really asking those questions and doing it with awareness. Because if I again, I if I I could walk around, and I loved, you know, in that esoteric astrology book, and I've shared the quote before, but it's like, do we have free choice or is it all destined, right? Like, do we have free will? That kind of big question. And the more aware we are, the more free will we have, because we're not in response, we're not in reactive mode, we're not in response mode. We're choosing because we have awareness. So I hope this podcast supported you. Sometimes I'm like, I should plan some of these things, but I am just every time in the beginning, when I would sit in there are a few things, a few topics that I really, really want to have like authority in, I guess. I'm air quoting it, that I will do my research and I'll read and you know, whatever. But I I yeah, in the beginning of my podcasting journey, I would plan and I'd write these scripts, and it just never felt authentic to me. Authentic, there you go. So now I'm just like on these solo episodes, I just flow with it. Like whatever's meant to come through comes through, and we roll with it. So I hope this episode was supportive. Share it with a friend. Um, if you value it, if you got value from it, follow me on social media. Every link you need is down below. I am reworking Astro Design School, so I will be talking about that soon, but you can get a one-on-one session. I have a deep dive into your transits currently, like what's going on with the transits on your chart right now, that you can get as well. Um, HDU 101 course is available. And all the other ways that you can work with me and follow me, connect with me, substack social media, all the things are down in the show notes. YouTube if you like video, and Spotify, five stars. Just click. If you want to leave me a review on Apple, love it too, or Google or Amazon or wherever you're listening. But Spotify is just those five stars. Just click it. And it really does help. So I appreciate you so much. Thank you for listening, and I will catch you next time.