My First Astrology Reading - Exploring Healing Modalities

Summary

In this episode of the Growth from Grief podcast, host Susan Andersen explores various healing modalities, focusing on her personal journey with astrology and crystals. This is the second in a series focused on exploring healing modalities. She shares her experiences with grief and how alternative healing practices have helped her navigate her emotions. The conversation delves into the significance of astrological readings and the transformative power of crystals in the healing process.

Takeaways

• Exploring healing modalities is a personal journey.
• It's important to find what feels safe for you.
• Astrology can provide insights into personal challenges.
• Crystals can enhance emotional healing and transformation.
• Grief can be processed through various forms of expression.
• Astrological readings can validate feelings and experiences.
• Personal growth often follows emotional healing.
• The significance of crystals can vary for each individual.
• Finding joy can be a part of the healing process.
• Sharing experiences can foster community and support.

Thank you for listening! Visit www.sueandersenyoga.com for Yoga for Grief classes and additional resources.

Transcript

Susan Andersen (00:00.056)
Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode 37 of the Growth from Grief podcast. Your host, Sue Andersen, thanks for joining. In this episode, we're going to continue along this series of exploring healing modalities. But first, I want to invite you to check out that previous episode, episode 36, which you can find on my website suandersenyoga.com/podcasts. Also, I have other information up there about grief healing links to some YouTube videos and blog posts, also in podcasts, as well as a list of upcoming yoga for grief and other classes. 

So I invite you to check that out. Sue Anderson yoga.com. Also, if you are enjoying this podcast, I invite you to leave a review on Apple or on Spotify or just share it with others in your life that are grieving and could use a little bit of love. 

So I mentioned about episode 36. In that episode, I talk about some healing modalities that I have tried over the years. So when my son died in 2012, really the only thing that I could feel comfortable doing was talk therapy, whether that was in a group or just in individual counseling, that's where I really felt safe. 

And so one of the things that's important as you explore your own healing modalities is to know what feels safe to you. And also to not discount something forever. I mentioned in episode 36 that the thought of going to a medium just brought me to tears.

Susan Andersen (02:23.15)
Clearly, that was not the time to think about that. But a couple of years ago, I did a group reading. It was online, but I did a group reading. I got the feel for it and I wasn't nervous. It didn't make me cry thinking about it. Maybe it's getting close to the time to do something like that.

So in this episode, I want to talk a little bit about my first exploration, I guess, into, I'll call them alternate healing modalities, right? So things that I wouldn't or I hadn't tried early on, but over the years, as I've gotten a little bit of that grief out, actually a lot of that grief out of my body. I've moved it in various ways, whether that was through yoga, through just other kinds of exercise, being out in nature, talking, lots of breath work. So to release a lot of that grief tension from my body has opened up the space for possibility.

And a few years back, so this was during the pandemic, I kind of stumbled into an astrological reading. But before I get into that, let me just talk a little bit about or give a definition of astrology. So in simple terms from the Cambridge Dictionary,

Astrology is, "the ancient practice of studying the movements and positions of the sun, moon, planets, and stars in the belief that they influence human behavior." If you check out Wikipedia, it's a much longer definition. And I'll just read a couple of the statements from Wikipedia.

Susan Andersen (04:41.152)
"Astrology is a range of divinatory practices recognized as pseudoscientific since the 18th century that propose that information about human affairs and terrestrial events may be discerned by studying the apparent positions of celestial objects."

Susan Andersen (05:06.67)
So that's a little bit about a background. And let me talk to you a little bit about how I found this astrologer. And I kind of, like I said, stumbled into it. So back in 2020, it was in the fall of 2020. So we're right in the middle of the or the beginning of the pandemic, I had been doing a lot of things online. So a lot of different yoga trainings, different online business trainings, try to understand how to shift my business online. And I have a friend who also was doing a lot of stuff online and she had a Facebook group. And so I joined her Facebook group.

She is a yoga teacher as well. She's a yoga therapist. And so she focused a lot in her Facebook group with topics that related to yoga therapy. And so it was very enlightening, very interesting. But during one or two of these face group lives that she did, she had a astrologer on that her name is Heidi Harralson. And Heidi is an astrologer, but she also works with handwriting analysis. She's done work with the courts testifying about handwriting analysis.  And she also works with crystals and does her astrological readings along with the chart also telling you about which crystals that you should have. 

And so it was really quite interesting. I'm gonna share my screen in a little bit to show you what my chart looked like when she did this reading. So anyway, so the reading was, a prize, if you will. 

Susan Andersen (07:34.318)
I actually don't even remember what the contest was, but you were sharing things in Facebook and then they would pick a person, know, draw a name, so to speak. And that person would have their chart read in another Facebook group. So I won this.

And so it was really quite fascinating, quite interesting. I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I guess I was a little skeptical, but I was also kind of curious, really curious, like, what's this all about? I knew nothing about crystals. So I knew nothing about astrology, nothing about crystals. And so...

You know, I was curious. I was up for it. I wanted to see what was this all about. So I'm going to share my screen and show you what this chart looked like. So this is a natal chart. So when you're getting an astrology reading, the practitioner asks you for your date of birth, time of birth, city of birth. I think that's all the information they ask for and then they're able to look back and see the position of all of the planets, the stars, and these are the houses, the 12 houses, and then all of these little, I think they're called glyphs, represent either astrological points.

Susan Andersen (09:41.74)
They could be like, this is Aquarius, this is the moon, this is Chiron, this is the sun. So they're planets or they are the zodiac, right? So in the zodiac. And then with Heidi's reading, she put for me, because this was online, she actually put all of these little crystalsbnext to certain areas where she thought they would be most helpful to me. 

Normally to get a reading, you would do this in person and she would just have these crystals. So this was what was presented and she talked about the importance of some of these stones. So I'm going to stop sharing my screen for a moment. I'll come back to that. 

What was interesting about it was because this group was really focused on people that had different autoimmune disease. And she kind of focused her reading to the group explaining how using my chart, but explaining a little bit about how this chart could affect you physically. The information that I was getting, how it was going to affect me physically, and then how to use the stones that were suggested. How to use those crystals.

So it was interesting, but it felt incomplete to me because I don't really have any autoimmune disease. I have a couple of things, but not to the extent of what a lot of people in the group did. And of course, because she was talking again, a little bit more to this group and using my chart as an example, it really wasn't specific and personal to me, when the astrologer looks at these charts, they can pick out different things based on these different houses. 

Susan Andersen (12:07.178)
And so like the eighth house, for example, could be the house of death, the house of taxes. It has multiple meanings for a lot of these different houses. And so I asked her for another reading. So the first reading, was short, it was done in a Facebook group, and really not specific to me, although she used my chart as an example, I wanted to dig a little bit deeper and understand a little bit more. So I asked her for another reading. 

And so in December, she did just that. She gave me another reading and that was, definitely more in depth and more specific to me.

Susan Andersen (13:13.742)
So I'm bringing back the chart for a moment. We're gonna focus here in this eighth house. I'm gonna tell you a little bit about what she told me about this eighth house and also about these crystals. Just a little bit of an overview of that without getting into too many details. So the first thing when you look at that house is that you see that that eighth kind of pie is that you see that there's a little glyph that represents the moon. And that's that little shape right here. It does look like a moon. this little glyph next to the moon is called Chiron. 

So I'm going to read to you. I'm looking at some notes that I have here about the reading. And I want to share with you some of the things that she told me and the significance to me, how I felt about the reading. So what she told me is, first of all, that the moon has a lot to do with your feelings, your relationships, your relationship with yourself, mothering how you respond to your mother, how you respond to your children. 

And then Chiron, next to it, has a lot to do with healing inner child wounds. So she said that at the time, so remember this is December of 2020, I was spending a lot of time dealing with emotional wounding.

And that was absolutely true, absolutely true because I was still working out and still working through a lot of grief. I had started teaching yoga for grief classes online during this time and I was still kind of working through, still felt a lot of grief in my body, especially in my chest.

Susan Andersen (15:38.482)
That was definitely true. The other thing I learned about this eighth house is that it's like the house of death and a lot of represents taxes, inheritance, estates, all of that stuff. A lot of these houses, remember these houses are these numbers, represent various, have various meanings, right? So there's multiple meanings to each of these houses. So this also this house has to do with, it has to do with death and dying, but it also has to do with transformation and new beginnings. 

So when the moon is there, it represents what is most dear to us, our personal feelings and our emotional body. So having that in that placement, it's really, really hard. It meant that I had a lot of work to do. was still needing nurturing. I still needed a lot of nurturing. 

And so the pearl right here was the crystal that she associated for me for this eighth house. Now, remember, she did these crystals before she really knew a little bit more when I had this opportunity to talk to her outside of that Facebook group. And so the pearls are, she calls it the coziest crystal. She said that it was really important for me to wear pearls, hold them, to meditate with them, and to keep them on my body, even sleep with pearls. 

One of the things that I also learned in this reading was the different things that you could do with crystals. 

Susan Andersen (18:05.036)
So you can put crystals in a room, you know, the art of Feng Shui, you can wear crystals. you know, pearl earrings, pearl necklace, for example, for me, you can sit and meditate with this crystal. So 20 minutes in a meditation holding the crystal. 

And because crystals are energy, then you begin to kind of feel this energy. So once you tune into the crystal, that could happen to you. I did not spend a lot of time doing that. I actually wore the crystals and I still do. So Pearls was definitely one of the things that she thought would be comforting to me and that I should wear, should have those pearls. 

The other crystal there is rose quartz. And rose quartz was also very important because that would help me you know, connect again, it's a connecting with my heart, a connecting with my emotions. And it was just something that lined up for me with these positions of planets and the zodiac sign. Now, I didn't own Rose Quartz at the time, but she said, you know, this is one of the most important crystals for you and you really should go get that, you know, as soon as you can. And so, you know, I thought about that. Okay. I understand that that is really important. 

Susan Andersen (20:20.948)
The other thing about rose quartz is that is it's a super healer of the heart.and all the emotional chakras. So that was really important for me to have that crystal. And she encouraged me to, when I get this crystal, to warm up my hands, put the crystal in there as I warm them up, and then that energy field will start to move.

This was really very interesting. I'm gonna stop my sharing for a moment. This was really, really fascinating to me. I felt like, wow, you know, now I kind of feel better, if you will. Like, okay, I can understand. It just made me feel better about my grief. I don't know if that makes any sense, but I guess it gave me a little bit more clarity into how I was feeling, right? That it's okay that I was feeling this emotion and that I was feeling wounded. I needed love. I needed to work through all these things, which I knew. And it just, I guess just validated how I was feeling.

Now, the other thing that she told me was this also, as I mentioned earlier, this Eighth House is a house of transformation. And so as I worked through these feelings, as I could let go of this emotion, continue my healing work, that this would transform and I would begin to get in better touch with my mission, my mission on earth, what I am meant to be doing here. And that would become clearer. And also that as I worked through these emotions that I would open up to joy. 

Susan Andersen (22:45.516)
Now, when I heard these two things, that was so validating for me for two reasons. One was that every year since like, I guess, 2019, I started the year with a word and my word in 2020 was intention, but my word for 2021 was joy. And I had already decided that that was going to be my word before I had this reading.

So that was significant to me, that my word was joy, that I was going to be working towards joy, and that my transformation, as Heidi was looking at my chart, as I work through everything, then I will find joy. And so that was just wonderful to me. 

The second thing about being able to find more clarity about my mission, also was something that I had been thinking about. This is when I really began my shift from a yoga teacher to a yoga for grief teacher. And so that was just really, important to me.

It really gave me a new perspective. you know, I think when I think about the healing process, this was really a shift for me, you know, having this reading. It just felt like it brought me a little bit more understanding of myself or validating, validation of myself, how I've been feeling. And I thought that it was just an interesting experience. And I have had three more readings since then. it's fascinating to me. And I just like to pick out, so to speak, the nuggets and get these readings at different times.

Susan Andersen (25:06.658)
The last thing I want to mention is about the rose quartz. you know, she was telling me how important it was for me to get rose quartz. Well, the day after I had this reading, I was gifted a rose quartz angel. And I couldn't believe it. I was like, my gosh, this is crazy. This is my most important crystal and I've been gifted it. So it kind of all came together, I guess is a good word to explain it. It all came together and it is something that I will probably continue to do. just, again, I find it very interesting. It's, you know, helps me just clarify things, I guess, for myself.

It's a little bit like a sounding board. And I just, again, I just find it very interesting. So that is my experience, my first experience talking to an astrologer. And I will provide information about Heidi. She does readings online that are recorded. If you want to talk with her and understand more about the crystals that you might want to get to help your journey, your life path. 

This is the first in the series. The next second episode, I'm going to be interviewing my friend who's also an astrologer, Lori Latimer. We'll have a conversation about how she came into this world of astrology. She has also experienced a lot of loss in her life and how she's felt that's been very helpful to her having this other perspective. Thank you for listening to this episode. 

I'm really curious about your experience with astrology - message me let me know how that's felt for you and I will see you in the next episode. Bye for now.