My Dream Trip To Italy + Current Surrender Experiment

Tune in if you’ve ever:

• Felt lost after doing the thing you thought you wanted
• Questioned your passions
• Needed permission to evolve without having it all figured out

Let’s surrender together.

In this very off-the-cuff, zero-script episode, I spill all the tea from my dream trip through Rome, Sorrento, and the Amalfi Coast (spoiler: Sorrento is the real star 🌊). But more than that, I share the weird, wonderful realizations I had while totally not analyzing the astrology on vacation. 😅

I talk about:

• Why astrology started to feel… meh? (yes, I said it)
• My all-or-nothing Manifesting Generator obsession patterns
• How Sorrento cracked my heart wide open with birdsong and bidets🚽💩
• The stairs... SO MANY STAIRS, and why I will never climb Capri again
• The mystery of surrender, joy, and letting go of needing to know the next thing

Oh, and there’s a little rant about $45,000 Louis Vuitton trunks, meeting one of my YouTube heroes in Rome, and a sensual cooking class that changed my life 🍝✨

This isn’t your usual astrology episode. It’s a story, a confession, a giggle, a soul check-in. And maybe… the start of a whole new chapter. I'll keep you posted.

Wanna email me? Do so at... shineyourrayastrology@gmail.com

Want to tell me about something going on in your life that you want advice about on the podcast? Give me ALL the deets (it's completely anonymous) and I will answer with my thoughts on a future podcast episode. The form is here.

Transcript

Rachel: 0:51

I am back from my dream trip in Italy and I'm so excited to tell everyone about my trip. This is gonna be a different type of episode. I wanna tell you about my trip in Italy. I wanna tie it in with the astrology right now. Um, and just kind of riff, so. I had some really interesting realizations while I was in Italy and. The realizations came outta the fact that I was so present there and enjoying just like this sensual experience that Italy is so much that I didn't have much desire to look at astrology or talk about astrology. And it's almost like my brain got to this like completely different place. It's almost like it got to this place of just like silliness and blah blah and whatever, and ha ha and like making weird jokes and like, I'm the weirdest person ever. Just like every single person on this planet is the weirdest person ever. It just that when you get to know someone, you see how weird someone really is. And I have felt that my weirdness has been like. I don't know. It drained outta me the last four or five years as I started my business and got into the coaching space. Like I feel like I got so serious, like so. I don't know, just like obsessed with always evolving and healing and sounding enlightened and like coming up with something that is just like the highest consciousness perspective. God, I'm getting hot. One sec. And I realized I got so in my head. Like even with astrology, and I don't know what to do about this, so I'm just gonna share it here and we'll see how this goes moving forward. But I don't know, I just feel like astrology pulls me into my head. Every time it was raining out or something and we're taking a break and I decide to look at the charts as I normally do when I'm bored, I would start to analyze and it didn't feel good. I felt like I was using my brain and I had felt so good to not use my brain that when I was analyzing the astrology. I just didn't wanna do it. I didn't wanna do it at all. It's so weird to say that because I've been obsessed with astrology for years now, and this is also just a pattern in my life. Where I get, I get obsessed with things like I'm 110% type person. When I am in it, it's the only thing I think about. It takes over my whole life. I almost need to like transform my whole life to fit around this thing I'm obsessed about. So like. The first 20 or so years of my life, that was nutrition. And it's why I got my degree in nutrition and like eventually just became an intuitive eater because I, if you've listened to my episodes, you know, I learned everything about nutrition, everything about health, everything about food. Only to realize that all the answers were inside myself. Go figure. And so then after nutrition, my next obsession was cannabis. I started growing cannabis and I literally would spend all day with my plants to the point where then I needed to work at a dispensary and I needed friends who liked cannabis. It's like it became my whole life, just like nutrition did, and then that died down.'cause whenever you give like 110% and you're obsessed with something, for years, at least for me, I'm a manifesting generator. I naturally just get like to this point of like, I don't fucking care. About this at all anymore. Like I remember the last couple years we worked, or the first year and a half, I worked at the dispensary, best time of my fucking life. And we got bought by this corporation and it got way more boring. And then I got all these raises and I became this like manager. And it was not fun at all and then if something's not fun for me, I can't do it. Like I literally, I don't have that bone in my body. I know a lot of people have that bone in their body who can just like. Work at a job they hate or like do something they hate and they're fine with it. For years and years and years, I have never been that person my whole life. And it's probably why I've lived a very different path from anyone else that I know. Like the girl who was begging their parents let them go to let me go to weight loss camp when I was nine. Not many people did that, you know? And then became obsessed with nutri, obsessed with nutrition, and it became my own life. So I've always just been, I have to follow the passion I, I have to follow this, my heart. This thing in my chest here, boom, boom, boom. And what usually what happens is like, like I just said, so retreats, retreats came after cannabis. And it always comes after like a big lull. So like I started getting bored of cannabis. I didn't know what to do. I started attending women's retreats to find some sort of relief, and then I started hosting retreats. I became obsessed with hosting retreats. I keep forgetting how many retreats I hosted. It was six or seven in two years, in two and a half years. Actually, I hosted six or seven retreats because I became so obsessed with them. And I filled the first one with 14 people when I had no retreat hosting experience, no clients before, really no friends before. I don't even know how I filled that thing, but I've just learned that passion is my propellant in life. And so then I switched from retreats to talking about astrology and. I don't know where I'm at with this right now, but I feel myself getting a little bored with it. Is it ridiculous to admit that on a, an astrology podcast that I'm getting bored with astrology? I, every time I'm in something like this, I think I'm never gonna get bored with it. It's kind of like friends I've had throughout my life. They're like my best friend and I think I'm never gonna get over them. They'll be my best friend for life. And then life happens. We start to grow apart and I don't want to be their friend anymore. I'm like, Nope, nevermind. I thought I felt that way about you at one time, but not now. You know, I've had that with boyfriends too. Has not happened with Ryan. I don't think it'll ever happen with Ryan because he evolves and grows with me and he just gets more and more exciting. I think he's my longest friendship relationship I've ever had. That's been this intense and this deep and has gone through this much evolution. So what I'm getting at is right now, this kind of, this fits in with the astrology. Right now Jupiter and Gemini is squaring the north node in Pisces and the north node in Pisces is with Saturn. And so while I'm not analyzing and looking at a lot of astrology, I was looking at that and how I'm feeling because with the North node and Pisces we're really feeling into, and I'm really feeling into what am I feeling? Instead of being so logical about it, like anytime I've ever gotten into this passion in my life, this thing that becomes all consuming, that that transforms me into a new way of being and a new way of living. It's come from that, a feeling, not a thought, and I can feel the energy shifting in me right now. And my brain is freaking the fuck out. My brain doesn't know what's fun. Next, I have some ideas, but I don't know, so I'm just taking it one step at a time. But basically with this aspect, it's like a lot of these thoughts could be coming up like Jupyter and Gemini. Gemini is what we know. So I'm, I'm having a lot of thoughts coming up. I'm having thoughts come up around like, well, you have to make money. Well, you just had your website built. Well, um, you know. You just started this business, it's doing pretty well. Are you really going to, like, lean into something else now? Again, I'm not saying I'm gonna lean into something else right now. I'm just telling, I'm just telling you what's going on in my head right now. My mind is just not wanting to analyze things and I'm not wanting to overthink, I'm kind of sad that I'm back from Italy because it felt so good to be in the void in Italy and now that I'm back home. It doesn't feel as good to be in the void because I don't have all this new beauty, like new experiences to like, you know, distract me. Basically. I can't escape anymore. And so what was fun for me is reading Reddit stories. I've been obsessed with reading Reddit stories recently. There's a few peak creators that I follow. One is Story Time Society, and it's so funny'cause whenever I play Story Time Society, Ryan gets so annoyed. He hates that he does not like listening to this girl at all. And it's funny because I really enjoy listening to her. I just like her personality and her energy. I don't agree with most of the things she says, and I know that's why Ryan doesn't like to listen to her because she says some shit that I'm just like, damn girl. We would never really be friends in real life because I do not think like that. And that's kind of toxic and know and what the fuck. But I don't know. I just find her fun and I like her energy and so I still listen to her. It it does something for me, even if I don't agree with anything that she says. I'm kind. I'm kind of just like that kind of person. Are you that kind of person? I don't know why I love listening to people. If I just like your vibe. I don't care what you're saying. Like I don't care if I don't agree with you. I don't care. I'm not a political person. I've never been political, but I do have certain political views that people talk about that I'm like, absolutely no. Like absolutely no. Like I'm, I'm not like, I was never on the liberal side and I was never a Republican, but I definitely am not on the Democratic Party side at fucking all at, at fucking all. And I guess I'm just telling you that. And if you are, I'm sorry. You might hate me, but I'm not. I am for transgender people, but not. How fucked up it's gotten. I'm actually for real transgender people. Not this fake bullshit. Sorry, if you just wanna stop listening to me after this, but this is my truth and that's because I know real transgender people and it is an insult and it fucking insult where this movement has gone. I might even cry over it. Okay? It's because someone who's so important to me. Um, I guess I'm gonna tell this story. No, it's completely off topic. I'm not gonna tell this story. So why did I even get onto this political thing? Oh, I just like to listen to people who I don't agree with at all. She agrees with all of these things that I so don't agree with, but I just really enjoy listening to her and I just like her, so I don't care that she talks about all of that stuff. So I've been really enjoying Reddit stories and on some of these Reddit stories that I listen to, they give their own advice and like their own reactions and. I think I'm gonna start a YouTube up around that, or maybe I even put it on this podcast and maybe I put a form out for you guys and you ask questions for advice. And hopefully it's not just about astrology. I know you're listening to me for astrology, but if you haven't noticed, I like to use astrology to give advice. To talk about how to navigate life, and one thing I can say about myself is I am the best friend you will ever have because I give the best advice. I see you to your core. And I see your highest self and I hold you to your highest self, but I also am like the best at pumping you up as a friend, and I can be fun and funny and silly and all the things. And so I've been thinking about just reading some Reddit stories in addition to doing some astrology and then giving advice. So if you have a certain scenario that's happened in your life, like a crazy scenario and you wanna send it into me, that could be a really fun thing that we start to do on this podcast. I'm just spitballing here. I'm spitballing'cause I wanna have more fun and um, I don't understand why I can't just do it on this podcast. I know it's the Astrology Magic podcast, but why can't we, like I can do whatever the fuck I want. It's my life. I guess I could start another podcast, but that feels like more work. And I'm about ease and simplicity. My son is in Taurus. I'm about simplicity. So yeah, I guess I'll tell you a little bit about Italy. I, this was my dream trip. It was exhausting, because. So much walking, so many more stairs. No one, there's, there's so many lies. People told us about Italy. So many things people did not tell us. So, for example, the Al Mafi coast, we spent nine, 10 days out of our trip. We got a house in Sorrento and we were gonna explore the whole Al Mafi coast. I will tell you, I like Sorento the most. Sorento is the goat, the best of the whole trip. We went to Rome five days before we stayed in Sorento. Sorento fucking kicks Rome out of the water like. Well, also, me and Ryan just aren't city people. We're ocean people, farm people, nature people, people, people. Well, especially Ryan. Ryan's a people person. I love people too. I just more so like to be around people who are open and happy and in good energy. I don't really like to be around like snobby. I'm cool type people like, like I like. I think you know what I'm talking about. And Sorrento just kicks all of the boxes. Beauty to the nines. It's not all stairs, which I'm gonna get to in a second. The al Mafi coast, it's gorgeous, but you go there and it's just stairs, your whole life is stairs. If you go to the El Mafi coast, I don't really get it. I was actually severely disappointed with the El Mafi coast. I watched so many YouTube videos on the Amalfi coast saying it really worth it. Everyone said it was worth it. I don't know what they're talking about. I don't get it. REO is equally as beautiful, but you can actually walk places and the people are awesome and it's easy to get around, and it's not like all exclusive and like it's a, it's a very affordable, it's not cheap, but it's very affordable. And Yala Mafia Coast is just not like we went to Positano one day and I wanted to see the shops and the towns. We start walking upstairs only to find out, we were walking upstairs forever and the stairs went nowhere. It was just a stairs path to get higher and higher up Positano.'cause there's literally nothing to see except for this little strip of land at the very bottom, at the smallest beach ever. And then like shopping. So basically the El Mafia coast. Yeah. Beautiful. You can take a little screenshot picture and it's like postcard beauty, but the beaches aren't very awesome. They're small. You either have to get like a beach club pass or they're rocky. Just not that nice. To be honest. It was one of the things with Sorento too. We went to the beach in Sorento, like also a small beach, but then they all, we went to this Rocco thing. It was very rocky. It's very rocky at these beaches, so. And we'll say that's, that's a little disappointing. But we went to Capri on my birthday that day was really awesome. We took a private boat and we got these yummy trees on board in Prosecco and they brought us all around Capri, and we got to see. All these different monuments and a guy gave us like a guided tour and it was super cool, but when we actually went on Capri for four hours, we had like this four hours to ourselves. I did not need four hours. I did not like Capri itself. It was probably my least favorite place that we went to in Italy. Again, you have to climb basically a mountain to get to. The shopping center, we found out at the end that there is this I don't know, like a shuttle thing that brings you up the mountain from the boats to the center, but then the center wasn't even fun. We climb a mountain to get up to, we're all the action is, and it has all these really high-end stores like Gucci and Louis Vuitton. You window shop and there's a trust in front of you that's$45,000. I'm not buying a$45,000 Louis Vuitton chest. Basically every store up there was like that. Even, when I'm a billionaire, I will not buy a$45,000 Louis Vuitton chest. I think it's embarrassing. I think it's, I just don't, I'm not a designer person. I have very strong feelings about all of that. I just feel like it's like Hollywood stuff and it's just like about, look at me. It's like some sort of brand. I could give two shits about brands when I have billions of dollars. I'm not buying Louis Vuitton. I will never buy a designer bag. I don't feel cool buying a designer bag. I feel cool bringing. All of my friends on amazing lavish trips, treating people who deserve it to amazing lavish things like getting things for people, like giving back with my money. I don't want a$45,000 Louis Vuitton trunk. So Capri also attracted a certain obviously caliber type of person, and. There are a lot of wealthy people I am friends with that are good vibes, awesome people, but a lot of the people that we are running into there just kinda like had their nose down or up, whatever the nose goes with these people that, you know, I'm talking about like it was definitely people who had a lot of money who were a little snotty about it, not the kind of people with a lot of money who are fucking awesome.'cause I know tons of those people. And yeah, it's just not super easy to make friends and like have cool conversations with people on Capri I mean in Positano. We actually had some cool conversations with some guy at lunch. Sarto though made for the chill, made for like meeting people, talking, having conversations, people so sweet Like all these small mom and pop shops. I got so much linen. Oh my God. I have a whole new wardrobe, literally of all organic linens, real natural fibers. I'm so excited about it. So yeah, liked Positano more than Capri, but I loved the Capri boat trip. But I didn't wanna see any more all mafia towns after we went to Capri and Positano, because I was like, I'm done with these stair villages that are all stairs and little beaches and little shopping. Because also I was shopped out. I spent way more money than I ever thought I would when I was there, and I don't have credit cards. So, um. Hmm. But yeah, I, got like so much food. I probably got like 20 pounds worth of olive oils and like pestos that I brought home with me because the food was everything. My favorite part of the whole trip was in Sorento. We did a cooking class the second to last day we were in Sorrento. And oh my God, me and Ryan loved it because the, the people who were doing the cooking classes were awesome. They spoke pretty good English too, and we were just like fucking around with them and joking and like, our whole crew was American actually outside of the Italians who owned the farm. But we were fucking around the Italians. Like they were super cool and awesome. All the Americans were awesome. We were talking about weed. We were. Like having wine, the conversation was flowing. It felt like I was, I don't know, in college or at summer camp when you live with all your friends and you're just having the best time ever. And it was the best view ever and definitely the highlight of their trip. I highly recommend a cooking class in Sorrento, especially where we did it. You can email me if you wanna know if you're going to Italy and I'll send it to you. The Airbnb we stayed at in Sorento was the best ever. So our Airbnb host, whoa. So our Airbnb host, Joel, his name was Giovanni. His birthday was actually the day after mine, and when you go to Italy you have to give people your passports. And so we gave him our passport, so he knew which day my birthday was and when we came back from our. Capri boat trip on my birthday and we get to his house. He's like our little taxi. He taxied us around everywhere. Everyone needs to stay with Joe. If you go to Sorrento, Sorrento, that's how I was saying it the whole time. It's so, I, I kept saying to Ryan, I just like staying in Sorrento. Um, so Joe, he taxied us everywhere we wanted to go. We didn't have to pay for any taxi. And in addition to that, he owns a bunch of farms. So like this Airbnbs on all farmland. And when we got there he gave us like this olive oil, their farm makes and lemon cello. And he gave us multiple bottles of the lemon cello and he gave us, um, garlic, they grew and chili peppers. They grew and all these different things. And I ended up cooking really yummy meals that our Airbnb, our Airbnb was huge. It was like we had our own apartment like. It was huge. Two bathrooms. I love, uh, what are they called? Bide bed. I heard someone saying the correct accent on YouTube bed. It's, I love it. I love the bide. You get some clean action down there. You know, especially ladies, if it's your time of the month. I don't know if this is TMI for people, but I had my time of the month while I was there. I loved having a BB day. I loved it. Oh my God. I felt clean all the time. I was just like, yeah, like, oh, it's just so good. Again, it was like all the sensual pleasures, even the washing felt sensual. But this Airbnb we stayed at, it overlooked all of Sorento, so it's on a farm overlooking all of Sorento. We had multiple places we could sit out and watch the sunset at night. We honestly loved coming back to our Airbnb because it had the best views of all of Sorentos, so cozy. We could have food, we had cheese, we had wine on the balcony. A lot of the nights it was so nice. Um, you could hear the birds like just constantly so many birds. It was orgasmic with birds. And on my birthday we get home from Capri and Joe gives us, gives me, he like saws my birthday and gave me all these like, amazing pastries from, I think this bakery that's down the street. So it's another amazing thing about this Airbnb. Me and Ryan met our, we call'em our Italian grandfather'cause it's like. A couple minutes down the street and we'd get yummy pastries every night. He had gelato. We'd go there in the morning and he'd make us espressos and he was so jolly and he tried to give us things for free and we were like, dude, no, we're paying you. Everything here is like a year. It's like so cheap. Please let us pay you. We have a picture with him. He's fucking awesome. Um, we met this girl who owns a lemon cello and olive oil farm at that pastry place. She gave us a free tour of her farm.'cause we ran into her multiple times at the pastry place to the point where she's like, let me give you a free tour of my farm and freed lemon cello and free this. And we were just getting, this is why we love Sorento. We were just like meeting people and getting like hooked up left and right and everyone's so friendly. And then Joe, his birthday was the day after mine and I didn't know, so he gives me my birthday gift. My next day he's like, I have something for you guys tonight too. And he gives us this lemon dia. It's like some, I forget exactly what it's called, but it's this national, I don't know, it's like the, the dessert of, and it's so good. And apparently in Italy when it's your birthday, you give the gifts. We found out. Or people give you gifts too, but it is customary for you to give food and stuff. And so then before we left, we went to the baker, Ruby loved, and we got him more of those lemon DeLucia, whatever they're called, and we were like, here, this is for your birthday. So we got treats on my birthday. Then he gave me treats on his birthday. It was just. Everything so good. I didn't even talk about Rome, but Rome was cool. The highlight of Rome was we took micro doses to go to the Vatican. And it was really cool to see all the art, like of mushrooms I'm talking about. And we saw like the art and we walked through the gardens and it was really cool. We couldn't go into the Sistine Chapel because literally the day I got tickets for, I bought these two tickets back in February, but the day we had tickets for, it was the day the Pope was getting picked. I think he got picked while we were there because we were there at like 1:30 PM and I'm pretty sure everyone said he got picked around that time. We just weren't paying attention. So that was really cool. We went to this really cool market called The Pistachio Market, and Ryan got like a whole new wardrobe in Italy also. He got it at that market and I got Yummy Coco with Pepe and a really cool thing it was that day we watched this YouTube called Yes Theory and Yes Theory. They have like 10 million followers on YouTube, but me and Ryan watch them because they travel to all these different places around the country and it feels like you get to like, experience new places through them, through traveling through them. And so we've been obsessed with them forever. And we're walking back from the Testo market and I decide to take a picture of this gelato place I wanted to see how many stars it had to see if we wanted to go to it later. When I stop us to do that, Ryan was like, Rachel, is that. Tomas from Yes Theory. And these guys are I think European, they're not Italian, but they travel all over the world. It could be anywhere in the world, but they happened to be right there in Rome. And we stopped and I was like, that is him. And so he went to the ATM. We didn't wanna say hi while he was at the ATM'cause we thought that would be weird. So we waited for him to be done with the ATM and we came up and we were like, Tomas. And he said, yeah. And we're like, oh my God, it's you. And we got to meet him and that was so cool. So that was definitely the highlight of our round trip is running into Tomas from Yes Theory, Rome itself. Really cool. I probably could have stayed three days and been more than happy. I don't think I really need to go back now that we stayed five days. By the fifth day, me and Ryan were like, get us the fuck out of here. Sorento, though we could have stayed in the rest of my life, I think Sorento is gonna become a place we go back to as often as we can. So that was my Italy adventure. My cup is so full, my closet is even fuller. And, um, yeah, it's really good to be back with Pierre. And now I am doing astrology because it's still fun for me right now. It's just, I don't wanna be analyzing it as much as I had before. I don't know, just like I don't, it's funny, my Jean keys says this, that a big part of my purpose in this life and what I'm here to do is I have a hidden purpose and part of my journey is realizing that my outer journey doesn't matter and controlling my outer. Goals, like manifesting things doesn't matter, and that life is gonna become way more a part of my inner journey and I'm here to experience life and that every life experience will just crack my heart wide open with the sheer mystery of life. And I really do feel like that's what's happened throughout my life is. I've really gone from learning and trying to reach goals and build certain things to realizing that I don't care about achieving things. I don't care about having the goal of making a ton of money, and I don't care about, I don't care about any goal anymore. I really just care about living my life every day the way I want to and following the fun and doing what's fun and allowing life to unfold. And I really believe that's what we're here to do. I've really come to realize that we're here to just learn lessons and experience and get to feel and touch and taste and love. And that's another thing my Jean Key says I'm here to do. I says, I'm here to love another more than anything. And. I know that's true for me because the love I have in my heart for people when you're in my heart and I love you, I love you more than anything. And when I love something like astrology, or whether it was nutrition or cannabis, I love it more than anything. I, it's funny because before I read that in my gene keys, I'd always tell Ryan, I love you more than anything. And then it said in my jean keys, you're here to love another more than anything. I'm like, that makes sense. That checks out. So this is where I am on my journey right now. I'm gonna keep posting to this podcast for as long as it feels good. I'm gonna keep talking about astrology for as long as it feels good, but let me know what you think about the Reddit stories. If you want some advice, some life advice, and you wanna gimme some scenarios, I'll put a form down below. It's a completely different episode, very off script, and it's just me and my adventures, so I love you. I wanna get to know you more. Feel free to email me anytime. I'll put my email down below. Let's hang out. Let's talk. I just wanna have more friends. I want like people to be like, yeah, this is me. I resonate. Let's talk and I'll see you on the next episode.