Journey To The Soul
Welcome to Journey to the Soul! This beautiful space is for anyone who is discovering who they are as a soul and on a quest for a deeper meaning of life. We will dive into all things Purpose, Self Love, Spirituality, and Wellness! You will embark on this journey within yourself and reach a new level of depth every time.
As a Spiritual Life Coach & Holistic Health Coach, I am sharing what I have learned from my journey along this path, through my lived experiences, and years of research. I am here as a guide along the way.
If you are ready to connect with your worth and joy so you can live a life of purpose by sharing your light with the world… Tune in!
Lots of love
Jacenda
Journey To The Soul
Embracing Your Timeline: Why Your Past Doesn't Define Your Future
Ever catch yourself thinking you're "behind" in life? That gnawing feeling that everyone else is progressing faster while you're somehow falling short? You're not alone.
These thoughts have been surfacing in my own life recently, prompting me to explore what lies beneath this universal human experience. Despite regularly discussing positive mindset and self-belief on this podcast, I'm still human—I question my abilities, wonder if I'm doing enough, and sometimes wish I'd started sooner on certain paths.
What I've discovered is that while acknowledging these feelings is healthy, lingering in them isn't serving us. When we dwell in the past, it manifests as depression; when we constantly project into the future, we experience anxiety. The real power exists only in the present moment—right here, right now—where we can take tangible action to close the gap between our current reality and desired future.
This realization comes at a significant time as I approach my Saturn Return—an astrological transit occurring around ages 28-30 that brings profound life lessons and restructuring. My Saturn Return falls in my 11th house (governing future visions and community) and in Aries (highlighting courage and leadership), perfectly aligning with these themes of personal evolution and finding my unique path.
Remember: your journey isn't meant to mirror anyone else's. The experiences that feel like delays or detours are actually essential components of your specific evolution, building the resilience and wisdom you couldn't have acquired any other way. Instead of wishing things had happened sooner, what if you poured that energy into taking one step today toward the future you're creating?
Wherever you are in your journey, know that you'll never be in this exact place again. There's something precious about your current circumstances, even as you work toward something new. I'd love to hear how you're embracing your unique timeline—share your thoughts and join our community of fellow travelers on this beautiful, messy human journey.
Instagram: @jacendamarie
Hi loves, welcome to this week's episode. I wanted to sit down with you today and just reflect on something that came up for me and I feel like it's something that is worth sharing. So much of what I talk about on this podcast is just that it's just my life experience, things that I've learned through actual life experience. You know the life that I lived or things that I study, and I share all that with you because it's life lessons and we all live such different lives. We've learned very different lessons. You know what I am good at. Someone else could be good at something completely different, you know, because of the life that they've lived. So we have our own strengths based off of our life experience and what we've been able to work through and live through and experience. So that's kind of what I share with you all here and I really enjoy it.
Speaker 1:It's something that I realized a few years ago how much I just loved sharing about what I had learned, because I feel like my upbringing there was a lot of different things that I feel like people have a negative connotation about, and I actually didn't so much, and I thought it was a way of me teaching people that ultimately, we are given certain cards, but that doesn't mean that our reality is going to be certain things. So this morning I was just thinking about some thoughts that I've been having, and I'm human, we are human, so I talk a lot about having a positive mindset and believing in yourself and the vision that you want in life and loving yourself enough to go do that, like those are very deep topics that we talk about here. But of course, I am human and even though I talk about all of those things, I also very much have my days where I question my abilities, of what I am working towards, if I know enough, if I'm doing enough, just like all of us. Right, those are very real things for every single one of us, and I'm someone that, for the most part, most of her life, has always lived more in the future, constantly thinking about the life that I want to create for myself and how to do that, and I struggled most of my life with just being in the future, you know, and that could show up as anxiety and not really living my life in the now and that's something that I have slowly practiced more and more in my life is just being where I am, and I know that I've talked about that in other podcast episodes and I am nowhere close to being where I want to be with that. It's an active practice for me every single day to soften to my life even more and to just be even more present, and it's just something that doesn't come super easily to me and we all have those things right.
Speaker 1:But something like regret thinking about the past. I have never been the type of person that lingers in the past. It's just not really something that I've done too much. Of course, I've thought about different things and I don't really believe in lingering in the past. I don't think that it is something that is helpful for us in any way. Really, I think it's helpful to acknowledge emotions and to process them, but not to hold on to them too tightly and to let them go and move forward with the life that you're trying to build.
Speaker 1:I have always believed that what we go through in life, our life experience, whether we consider it good or bad, hard or easy a combination of all of those things for all of us most likely is what makes you who you are today. And I think about my life and how I felt, like so many people when I was younger felt bad for me and the life that I was living when I was younger, or this or that, and honestly, was it hard, absolutely. Do I still have to work through some of those traumas today, and will I be doing that for most of my life? I hope not, but am I happy that I've worked on it? Absolutely, and I would not change any of it for the world because it made me the person that I am today. I am more me than I've ever been before because I've worked through so much of those things and I feel like I know who I am. You know, and I feel like many of you probably feel that way too. It's like you experienced something and it tested you and you know it put you through the ringer and after that you just feel so much stronger and sure in who you are, and with me it's very much that way. It's like one thing that I have always known throughout my entire life is how resilient I am, because I feel like I have dealt with so many different things in life and I know that if I hit rock bottom, I would be able to go up again, because I've hit rock bottom before. I've been there. That's where I come from. So it builds that trust within yourself.
Speaker 1:And the reason that I'm bringing this up is because it's not something that I normally think about but, ironically, over the last couple of weeks, it's something that I've thought about more and more, and it was actually a conversation that I was having with my husband last night, because I don't normally think about the past in that way and wanting it to be something different than it was, and feeling like I wasted time and energy on the wrong things and I was feeling it, or I've been thinking about it more the last couple of weeks and I am just me being me in allowing myself the space to explore those thoughts, those emotions, those feelings Because, like I mentioned, I think it's so important for us to do that. I think it's a disservice to ourselves to not look at what is popping up in front of us, what we're feeling, what emotions and thoughts are coming up for us, because they are showing us and teaching us so much about us and what might be calling for more attention in our life. So it's super helpful to work with those emotions and most of the time, we all have our different practices and most of the time I write. I journal a lot. It's one of my favorite things to do, to process through whatever is coming up for me. I meditate on the thoughts.
Speaker 1:I feel like the journaling definitely gives you the ability to just see black and white, more written than versus our mind, which it can be harder for us to actually be like okay, what is that, what does that mean? But when you're writing it down and you're seeing it, it's so much easier for you to be like okay, that's what it is, and you can actively work through it. You know, talk to yourself, talk to your highest self, as you're writing it right and you're able to just process those emotions. So I've just been giving myself the space to kind of think about where these emotions have been coming from. And I know where they're coming from because, even though they don't show up for me very often, I'm pretty self-aware. I do a lot every single day to develop my self-awareness, so it's not new to me these feelings, these feelings. So I know what wound that's coming from.
Speaker 1:And I was just sitting there, you know, and thinking about how I feel like I could have done certain things sooner in my life, how I could have left that job sooner, how I could have started doing what my soul really wanted me to do sooner, how it would have been if I would have had someone in my life you know parents, a mom and a dad that loved me and cared for me, and those are wounds from my childhood, you know, because sometimes I see, especially when I was younger, I would see other people having mom and dad and them having all the love and support that they needed and speaking love into them and building them up to be the people that they're going to go out into the world and be. So I always felt that, but I've let it go throughout my life because I know that all of these thoughts about wishing I would have started sooner or I would have taken that class sooner, that would have put me on my trajectory of what I'm doing now, of leaving that relationship sooner, all of these things that I was pinpointing in my life, it's just I know that it does not serve me to go through those thoughts like to feed into them and to linger there too much, because ultimately, we are all given the life that we are given for a reason. I strongly believe that and I feel like in those times when we may feel that way, whatever that wound may be for you, it's like now more than ever. In that moment, it's our turn to mother ourselves, to nurture ourselves in the way that we are craving. That perhaps we didn't get when we were younger, and that's something that I've been actively trying to do throughout my life more in the last few years, really, that I realized how much I needed that, doing a lot of inner child work and working through so many of the wounds that I had when I was younger.
Speaker 1:And I have worked through, my goodness, so many of them. But there is still a few that are just there and they still come up and when they come up they feel raw and just not the best, you know. But it's part of our process of being human. It's to work through these things that show up and to do it in a way that's loving and honoring of who we are. So I have been giving myself space to process through these things, these emotions, so that I can really work through them and just let them show me what they need to show me and then me move past that, because I know that I am the one that needs to give myself the love that I crave, you know to wishing that I would have had a different upbringing, wishing that I would have started things sooner, wishing that I would have had expanders in my life sooner so I could have not wasted my time doing the things that I thought were necessary.
Speaker 1:Living in survival mode for so long also blocked me away from seeing so many other potentials in my life, because I was just so focused on surviving. And these were just all the things that I was thinking about that have been coming up for me, and more frequently, and the fact that they have been coming up more frequently has been something that I've been paying attention and honoring. I'm just like, oh, okay. I'm just like, oh, okay, I'm thinking about this thing and it's from the past and I don't really linger here, but it's here, and I believe that that is a call from the universe for me to really work on this thing. But, ultimately, what I came to the realization about again it's already something that I know, but it was a truth that I spoke to myself again it's that, ultimately, I am going to be the one to give myself the life that I want, to give myself the love that I have always wanted to give myself the love that I have always wanted to nurture myself, to honor myself, and it's a lot more useful and helpful of my time to actually focus on what I can do right now, on the here and now, and building the actual future that I want in my life.
Speaker 1:Even if I do feel behind at times, using my energy for the now is the most beneficial thing that I can do for myself. It is not lingering in the past. The past does not serve me. It really doesn't. You know, it's good to go there and honor and accept what's showing up, but it's so important for us to actually focus our energy on what we are building, on what we actually want and I talk about that so much on this podcast, because what you give energy to is either feeding that thing or taking away its power, depending on what you are thinking. And if you are focusing on building the future you want, on being the person that you want, on being the kind of partner that is married to a certain person, whatever it is that you might be trying to call into your life or wanting to create for yourself, it's like it does you so much more good to actually just focus on doing that thing instead of thinking about the past or the future. This goes both ways, because I've also talked about the other side of thinking so much about the future that you're not even in your present. Either extreme does not serve us. When we linger in the past, it's called depression. When we linger in the future, it's called anxiety. And it's important for us to focus on the here and now, because this is where the power lies. Right here, right now, is where you have the ability to close that gap between where you are and where you want to go.
Speaker 1:If you do feel like you are behind in life or you're not where you want to be, it is with the actions that you do today that bring you closer to that thing. It is not by lingering in the past or lingering in the future. It is about being here. So it's so important for us to do that, to focus on those things, to put all of our soul, all of our devotion into our everyday life and doing those things that are going to get us closer to where we want to go in our lives. And the past can give us so much knowledge about where we may want to go. It just gives us knowledge on our life, on ourselves. It's given us a base point of what we may or may not want in our life and it's helpful to look at it from time to time, but it's not helpful to linger. It's a waste of energy, it really is. It's so much better for us to focus on now, this beautiful life that we are given the day Today, are given the day today. What can we do today to get one step closer to the life that we want to live? And I feel the same way sometimes. It's like sometimes I feel so overwhelmed where I am and where I want to go, and I think that's very easy to feel, especially for so many people who have these great ambitions in life.
Speaker 1:There is nothing wrong with wanting certain things out of life a certain lifestyle, a certain house, living in a certain place, having certain things you know, having certain friends, whatever that may be. You wanting, craving something else than what you have now is not necessarily a bad thing. I believe that it is a sign of what you desire to have in this life. Therefore, it should not be ignored, but taken in as information for you to move through your life in a way that brings you closer to that thing. It's so important to have that self-awareness, and I love talking about astrology and numerology and human design too.
Speaker 1:I talk about different tidbits when we talk about certain things right, and the way that I share them is how I use them in my life, and with astrology in particular, I am always looking at any major transits that are going on in my chart. You know what made your energy is changing. You know what's going on behind the scenes and I love using it as more as a tool to meditate on, and the more that I have studied these things and brought them into my life, the more real they are to me, and it just always blows my mind how much in alignment they are with me and my life and my evolution, and that's why I share them with you all, whether it's something that you are familiar with or not. But what I have been slowly anticipating is my Saturn return and for those of you that are not familiar, it's something that I have been thinking about for over a year. I don't know if it's good or bad to know about astrology, knowing certain key, pivotal things that happen in your life. You know big life changes. Your Saturn return for people who don't know is when Saturn transits back and goes back to the exact place that it was in your natal chart when you were born. So you have Saturn somewhere in your chart, in one of the 12 houses, in a certain sign, and it takes about 28 to 30 years for Saturn to go back to where it was when you were born. So when it goes back to that same degree, that same sign in your natal chart, that is what is called your Saturn return, and it's typically a time in your life where you go through like a deep evolution. Where you go through like a deep evolution.
Speaker 1:Saturn is the planet of lessons, of discipline, of devotion. It's a planet that brings a lot of messiness into our life. Sometimes it could feel like maybe it can upheaval a lot. So typically during your Saturn return, it could feel like maybe it it can upheaval a lot. So typically during your Saturn return it can feel like a lot of life-changing things are happening. You know a lot of lessons. It can feel, maybe, like we're muddying through life a little bit. Life is maybe going through a little bit slower motion because Saturn is typically slowing things down. So we can learn what we are meant to learn, devote ourselves to what we really want, to devote ourselves and establish systems and ways to do it in a grounded way. So this is not necessarily the energy of doing it quickly and it being a one and done thing. Rather it's about kind of building a strong and solid foundation for what is to come.
Speaker 1:So Saturn, depending on what house it is in, will highlight those things in that house. That is the area of your life that you're going to be working on, those things. Essentially, that's what's going to be highlighted for you. So I have been anticipating my Saturn return, which I actually go into in about three weeks, sometime in May, and I have been looking at the house that it's in, I have been looking at the sign that it's in and I've just kind of been meditating on it for over a year now, over a year now. And it's just funny because to me, these feelings that I was talking to you guys about, that were showing up for me or have been showing up for me more frequently, is so tied to my Saturn return, because my Saturn return is actually to happen in the 11th house, and the 11th house in astrology has to do with your friends, groups that you're in humanitarianism, and it's also the house of the future. So the house of the future, so any legacy that you're trying to build, these are long-term goals and your hopes and wishes.
Speaker 1:So what do you want for your life? Not at the small scale, but at the grand scale. It's like what is that vision for you In 30 years, in 40 years? What do that vision for you in 30 years and 40 years? What do you want your life to be? What would you have wanted to be devoted to? And that is exactly what these thoughts were kind of bringing up for me. I know more or less what I want to devote myself to, more or less what I want to devote myself to.
Speaker 1:I have gone through a big transformation and realignment over the last few years in my life of really just coming back to myself and grounding again into my values, into what I feel like I am meant to do in this life. And these feelings that were popping up for me about feeling like I'm not where I want to be. It's a reminder for me, as I'm getting ready to go into my Saturn return, of where I really want to go right. It's like when you have a dream, when you have a vision, when you have certain things that you want out of life if you really want them. Most of the time they're not going anywhere. They are those thoughts that you just can't stop thinking about. They're always there and a lot of the time so much of the time they fuel you, they give you energy when you know that you're working toward these incredible things. Toward these incredible things, and I just love to be able to look at this. You know, knowing that, as I'm going through my Saturn return, it's essentially I'm being asked to come into alignment with what I really want in my life and to do what is necessary to build those things, even if I am not where I want to be. That doesn't change the goal, that doesn't change the vision, that doesn't change those yearnings that you have within yourself. That just means how am I going to devote myself further to this? How am I going to get there, even if I'm not where I want myself to be? What can I do in the next year to bring myself closer to that? What can I do in the next five years, ten years?
Speaker 1:This is about building something sustainable that is meant to last. It is not simply about building something quick that is not in alignment with us that is fleeting. This is about building a life that stays. This is about building a life that is not going anywhere and may even live beyond you. Maybe the work that you do is something that helps generations to come, maybe the art that you create is something that inspires generations to come, and that is what this energy brings. And I'm just sharing it with you all because, like I mentioned, so much of what I share with you is my experience and things that I've kind of learned as I've gone.
Speaker 1:And this is going to be one of those things too, because I am going into my Saturn return with just a level of awareness and leaning into what I'm being called to learn, and leaning into what I'm being called to learn, what I'm being called to look at, and knowing that it's in this part of my astrology chart in my 11th house, knowing that it's in Aries, knowing what that means, you know, and just leaning into that energy, leaning into all the things that it's wanting to teach me right now. Right, and with the energy of Aries. For me, it's also about being more in community versus alone, and I've talked about this in another episode as well, about how I have my South Node in Aries and my North Node in Libra, but I also have my Mars in Aries and my Saturn in Aries. So there's a lot of conflicting energy for me because, even though I have always been a person that has gone by their beat of their own drum and is very comfortable being independent, not needing anyone and being, you know, just my own person and not really letting other people in, that's just not something that's meant to serve me in this life. So I'm also leaning into the energy of what else this Aries energy is trying to teach me with my Saturn return, you know, because it's still there and I'm still meant to lean into it to some degree, but not in the way that I have for half of my life when I was younger, but just learning to be more with people, more in community, in collaboration, and still allowing that Aries energy to guide me, to allow it to take me where it wants to go.
Speaker 1:Aries is very trailblazer energy. It's going to go, do what it wants to do what it wants to do and with this house, it's just about doing it in a way that is sustainable, doing it in a way that is going to last, and I'm really excited to see what the Saturn return will bring for me my first one and just explore it and lean into it. I know that I've talked about as well. You know when I talk about astrology or you know numerology and different things like that is if it resonates with you just being open and curious and I, like I mentioned, with the numerology you know personal years and different things with numerology I just like leaning into what I'm being asked to lean into and that's very much what I'm going to do with this Saturn return too is I'm just going to lean into the energy. I'm just going to show up and learn the things that I'm being asked to learn. And if you're listening to this and maybe you have already gone through your first Saturn return, maybe you are getting ready to go through your Saturn return.
Speaker 1:You go through about three in your life. If you live to be about 82, I believe, 83. You go through one in your 50s, you go through one in your 80s and then you go through one in your 28 to 30. And everyone's is a little different depending on when their birthday is and all of that jazz. But it's just so cool to be able to look at these things and lean into them and grow. So I will share more on that as it goes, but to end this episode, I just wanted to go back to the original point of this conversation of if you feel like you are behind in life.
Speaker 1:And I think that if you are actively working on creating that life that you want for yourself and you are just doing all the things and wanting to stay devoted to yourself, if you are listening to this and you feel like you are behind in some aspect of your life whether that is maybe you wanting to be married by now, or you wanting to have children or a family, or you wanting to create a certain community of like-minded women and friendships, or you wanting a certain amount of money in your life, you wanting a certain house these things are going to be different for each and every one of you, but I just ultimately want you to know that you have your own life and your own path, your own becoming. It doesn't serve us to look at others, look at things beyond our life and wish that it were different, or all of those things. I think it's so important to look at what's in front of us. Comparison is not helpful here in any way, shape or form, and it's so much better for us to just know that our life isn't going to look like anyone else's Anyone that we may know, our friends, people we see on Instagram, on social media, on YouTube. Our life is not meant to look like another person's, even if it's someone that inspires us, even if it's someone that you like and enjoy. But just know that your life is not meant to look like anyone else's. It's meant to be yours and yours alone. Therefore, it will not look like anyone else's. It is going to look like yours, and that means that you're going to have your own timing. You're going to have your own path. You're going to have your own evolution, own timing. You're going to have your own path. You're going to have your own evolution. Your life is going to unfold the way that it is meant to, and you need to hold on to that and know that if you are just staying devoted to that future and putting your energy toward those things, it is inevitable that it will come to you. And while you're there, while you're doing that, just enjoy the process. Just enjoy being alive, enjoy being a human, enjoy your life, enjoy where you are, because you will never be here again. You will never be in this exact place in your life ever again. Be in this exact place in your life ever again.
Speaker 1:If you are child-free and yearning for a child, you will never be child-free again. Therefore, just indulge. Enjoy being child-free, even if it's not exactly what you're yearning for anymore, you know. Enjoy being able to stay up later or wake up later, or being able to go out and do things with your own freedom. You know, whatever that may be for you, if you're calling in a new career in your life, enjoy having maybe the little bit more freedom that you have now before you go in and step into that new thing, because whenever something new comes into our life, there is a give and a take.
Speaker 1:So, even though you might not be exactly where you want to be being where you are now, there are certain things that you might never experience again in this moment and that alone should make us stop and just live our life with wonder, because you will never be here again and that alone is a miracle and should just allow us to want to just enjoy this ride.
Speaker 1:Enjoy this crazy ride of being a human, because not everyone gets to live the life that we do exactly like we live it. Not everyone gets to live in the country that you do, to have the freedoms that you have, if you are a woman, to have the freedoms that we do. I mean, there's so many different ways that we can look at it, but I think I'm done ranting for today. I really wanted to just sit down and talk to you guys about this today. It was on my heart and I wanted to share it because I feel like that's a sign for me that someone else needs to hear it too. So I will talk to you all in my next episode. I am sending you so much love and so much light, wherever you are listening from, until next time.