39. Your Body Isn't The Problem - It's The Portal with Vanessa Long

Your Body Isn’t the Problem — It’s the Portal

What if the very thing you’ve been taught to distrust — your body — is actually the gateway back to intuition, wholeness, and truth?

In this episode, I’m joined by Vanessa Long, coach, author, and guide, for a deep and grounded conversation about why so many of us feel disconnected from ourselves — and how the path back isn’t through fixing or overriding the body, but through listening to it. We explore intuition as a lived, embodied experience, how trauma and patriarchal conditioning pull us out of our bodies, and why reclaiming embodiment is both personal healing and collective resistance.

We talk about how systems like capitalism and patriarchy thrive on disconnection— especially disconnection from intuition — and why so many people (particularly women) feel burned out, numb, or “off” without being able to name why. Vanessa shares how tools like Human Design, astrology, NLP, and somatic awareness can help us reconnect to our natural rhythms, discern true intuition from fear, and rebuild self-trust from the inside out. This conversation is honest, earthy, and practical — less about spiritual bypassing, more about learning how to live inside your body again.

Chapter markers are included, so you can jump to the parts that resonate most—whether you want to explore intuition, embodiment, systems of oppression, healing trauma, or practical ways to start listening to your body today.

In this episode, we explore:

• Why disconnection from the body is learned (not natural)
• How intuition actually communicates — beyond “hearing a voice”
• The link between patriarchy, capitalism, burnout, and embodiment
• Trauma, dissociation, and why the body holds wisdom the mind can’t access
• Using tools like Human Design and astrology to reconnect with your innate design
• Why your emotions aren’t the problem—they’re information
• Simple ways to begin rebuilding trust with your body and intuition

If you’ve ever felt like your body is something to manage, fix, or override — this episode is an invitation to see it differently. Your body isn’t the problem. It’s the portal.

Connect with Vanessa - 

Visit www.vanessalong.com or to book a soul design reading, visit this link. You can also find Vanessa on Threads and Instagram at @vanessalong_v7

If this episode spoke to you, it would mean the world if you took a moment to leave a review or share it with a friend who needs it. And make sure you hit follow so you never miss an episode of Conditioning to Consciousness.

You can connect with me on Instagram @jesscallahan_, join my Substack community at conditioningtoconsciousness.substack.com, or explore more of my work at jesscallahan.com.

My Back in the Body Nervous System Healing course is now available! Find it here.

Thanks for listening — I’m so grateful you’re here.

Transcript

Greetings + Intro

Jess Callahan 0:02

Hey guys, welcome back to the Conditioning to Consciousness podcast. Today I am speaking with Vanessa Long. And the subject today is really like all things intuition and how reconnecting to your intuition is just like the road to finding wholeness and purpose and meaning. And, you know, we talk a lot about why we're so disconnected, how the path back is through the body. So like we build this relationship with the body that helps us to decipher really like what the body is trying to communicate. In this conversation, we touch on like the systems of oppression that thrive on this disconnection and how the world is really like experiencing a patriarchal extinction burst right now, which explains some of the heightened cruelty that we're experiencing. Vanessa is a brilliant coach and author, and she offers a really unique blend of like from so many different like areas that help us study the self more, understand the self more, like internal family systems, human design, numerology, astrology. And I love her perspective that like the body isn't a problem to fix, it's the portal to the magic you've been chasing. So here's the interview. If you don't have time to stay for the whole thing, I added chapter markers this time. So you can check out the chapter markers and just jump ahead to whatever it is that most piques your interest. All right, let's dive in. Vanessa, I'm really excited to share this conversation with you today. And I want to just start before we dive in. I think we have a lot of um great stuff. I'm really excited for where the conversation could take us today, but I'd like to just start with like a little bit of your backstory. You know, what brought you to where you are today?

Vanessa Long 1:59

I so I always say my soul design is what brought me here because my whole journey has been learning to identify and align with what my soul intended for me. And that's kind of the more spiritual answer, but really not getting it would be my true answer that I was raised in an alcoholic family. I was dissociated beyond belief. Like I had no connection to my body, no idea what was going on. I just kind of floated through the first 30 years of my life. And then my mom got really sick. And the experience of that kind of pulled me back into my body, back down to earth. And so the 20 years since then has been doing all this work to figure out why am I here and where am I going and what are the gifts that I'm meant to be giving. And more than anything else, how do I finish this lifetime proud and happy that I was here? Because I think a lot of us, especially those of us who identify as spiritual or healers or coaches, we have this lingering, nagging feeling, resistance to actually being in a human body. And my work, my design has been all about like, no, let's say that this is a gift, that this is our sacred physicality, that like being here, being incarnated matters. And we're all here on a mission and we're here to make the world a better place. And then there's this other part that's a little more sassy that's like, and when I go back to being in soul form, I don't want to have to do this lifetime again. I want to do something different. So, what brought me to this is stumbling and figuring things out for those of you that know human design. I'm a three-five, so like I fail at everything before I figure out how to do it. And it's it's just this constant wanting to get it, wanting to be happy because I wasn't. And now I have a life that I love. I live with the man that I love in the place that I love. I'm looking out at the ocean right now, and like it's good. And so now I get to share that with other people and help other people figure out how to make it good.

Jess Callahan 4:28

Yeah, it's I think you named something there, the like stumbling along, sort of. Like, I think that there's a lot of people that can really resonate with that because you know, you mentioned you had this like trigger point that sent you inward, right? I think it was your mom getting sick. And so when you have that like moment that's like, okay, it's time to go inward, I think a lot of people can relate to the idea of just like stumbling through it. What were like the the biggest guides for you on that journey of like going inward and reconnecting?

Vanessa Long 5:04

I remember uh the first two you know mentors that I found were Wayne Dyer and Carolyn Mace. And I don't know if that's what you were going for, but I remember I was working as a personal trainer, driving hours a day, and I got a couple of their CD sets, and I was listening to them over and over again, learning this idea that there is a way to create your life the way that you want it to be, instead of just accepting the way that you think your life should be and the way that you were taught your life should be. And so those are my first two. I did actually do sacred contracts training with Carolyn Mace eventually. And so that was kind of the first two that introduced me to this idea that the world could be more than just what I see and what I've experienced and felt. And um, and then it just went on from there. In 2011, I became an NLP trainer and master coach. So that was huge for me. Uh, learning hypnotherapy and timeline therapy, like all the things, but just learning that like my mind in a very tangible way is creating my reality. That was huge for me.

Jess Callahan 6:24

Yeah, it's a hard concept, I think, for a lot of people to grasp because it I think that we do sort of just like follow, follow the map, buy into the way that it's supposed to be. And so um it's easy to look outside of ourselves for answers and maybe also blame, I guess. Like, um, but that centers control, right? It centers like control that you can literally go inward and and create any any life that you want. Why do you think it is that people like I think that, you know, you mentioned your first 30 years, you sort of just floated and um just went with how it was supposed to be. Why do you think so many people live so much of their lives like that? Because I do think that's true. I think there are a lot of people that do sort of just float along for a while.

On how trauma is passed down -- epigenetics, behavioral conditioning, past lifes

Breaking the cycles of centuries of conditioning

Vanessa Long 7:16

I think there are probably lots of reasons that people do it. For me, for my clients, uh, for the people I talk to, it tends to be complex trauma that we were experiencing things as children, that we have broadened things from past lives, which I know you know about, but we have these belief structures that teach us, especially as women, especially as people in a feminine body who were encultured in a in a feminine body, that our body is untrustworthy and it's bad. And, you know, we get our period and it hurts. And it is so natural to want to get the heck out of our body and be anywhere else. And when we have experienced trauma, especially when we're very young, we there there is often a very uh visceral experience of like, I was watching what was happening, but I was over there or I was up there. And so we learn and are taught and are rewarded for being as far away from our body as possible so that we can continue to function in a logical, linear, rational, good student, good girl kind of way and take the insult. I don't know. This is a pretty deep answer to the question, but like, let's just go there, right? Because I don't like surface stuff at all. But like when we live in a patriarchy patriarchal culture that teaches us that we are inherently bad, inherently sinful. And for a lot of the history of the Christian church, that as women we were inherently evil without a soul. Why on earth would I want to be in my body? Why would I want to know what's going on? So instead, I was just over there being a good student, you know, fumbling along and trying to fit in. Yeah, man, that's I appreciate so much that like I don't I don't like to do the service stuff. I'm I'm with you. I'm like, we we go deeper, we don't go at all, you know. But um, but no, I think that it is is really true. I think that we've been taught to believe that, like, well, okay, but like all of that was like that didn't even happen in your lifetime. Like, why should it affect you? But it does, it lives on in us through, you know, past life imprints, through epigenetics, if you need the science, right? Like if you don't want to believe in past lives, fine. But like if you believe the science, like epigenetics in science have proven that like the expression of our DNA changes when we, you know, when there's trauma in our lineage. And so if our grandmothers and great-grandmothers have, you know, were violently suppressed, right? Like if they, you know, they were labeled as um having like hysteria, right? Like they were diagnosed with hysteria and institutionalized and silenced. There was like a bed rest tactic that happened for a lot of women where they were literally made to like lie in bed on their own in total isolation from everyone, including their kids, until they could just like shut up, right? Like stop being too loud, stop being too emotional, stop um, start conforming. Like that imprint lives in us. And so when we are carrying, I think some of the trauma maybe, but either way, trauma that lives in women, you know, that we can't quite label. Sometimes it's because it's not ours, like in this actual lifetime. Do you think that's true? And do you see that in your work? 100%. Absolutely. And not only is it epigenetic, and not only is it past life work because I do a lot of that as well, but who taught you how to live? Right? It was these women who were taught by those women who were taught, and so if you were say adopted and raised by your non-biological parents, you'd still be expressing the biological lineage due to the epigenetics, the past life stuff. But we also have the enculturation of like this is how you be good, and that stretches back unbroken for hundreds, thousands of years. And we end up in this place where we're the chain breakers, we're the ones who are looking at the way we were raised, the way that our women have always lived, and say, Oh no, I don't want to do it this way anymore. And we are trying to figure out how to do it differently. And I think that's why our souls have incarnated, and that's certainly the people I work with. And I just wanted to add that like if somebody told me, Well, but that's not even happening anymore, I would call bullshit on that. I hope it's okay to score.

Jess Callahan 12:13

Totally fine. Totally fine.

Vanessa Long 12:14

I'm a gun because that needs it. Like, uh huh. How many women I work with midlife women, and so we're all experiencing perimenopause and going through all these symptoms. We have this accumulated toxic load, and we're all going to the doctor, and the doctors are saying, Well, you're just stressed, it's just anxiety, it's all in your head. You know, I had a serious injury in my pelvis and the physio. He said, Oh, it's just the pain map of your brain manufacturing pain. And I was like, Okay, I'm never coming back here. And we live in a culture that tells us we have to be super skinny, super quiet, you know, basically sex dolls that are walking around to be pleasing to the male gays. I mean, we get paid less. There is no foundation for saying that this isn't happening anymore because it still is. You know, femicide, uh, sexual abuse, women are the primary target of those acts of violence. So it is still happening. Yes, we carry the trauma of our own individual experience, we also carry the collective trauma of the weight of history coming down on us. So it's a lot.

Beginning the inner journey to deconstruct the conditioning

Jess Callahan 13:32

Yeah, yeah. Well, and even if like like terms like hysteria were removed from the DSM, right? Like the diagnostic manual, however many years ago, I think it was like in the 80s, like like it's still the even though the diagnostic mechanism isn't still there, it's still happening. Like they're just not using that word, right? Like there's just overdiagnosis of so many different conditions. And there's um, you know, people just like culturally, it's like if you do show too much emotion, you're still labeled as hysterical, as somebody who, you know, like mainstream, right? But I'm I'm heartened to see that there's so many communities, you know, mostly, mostly women. There are men who are starting to really like understand, I think, the importance of expressing emotion and the fact that emotions have been so repressed and reconnecting with our bodies. Like, I think that is part of this like collective awakening, the ripple that's happening. Um, people are going inward. So, so I guess for the woman who is living in that place where she's she's being shaped by patriarchal conditioning. She knows something is feeling um, she's kind of, you know, that feeling like it's like there's this feeling that I hear so many women talk about where there's just misalignment. You're ready to sort of burst out of the life you're living, do something different. But like words like patriarchy are still hard to hear, you know, it's like, well, patriarchy, it's divisive. Like, like, what's the path for that woman? Like, how does how does she reclaim herself? How does she start to go inward?

Vanessa Long 15:18

I think, I think there are many paths. And that's what I love about it so much is that I believe being in tune with ourselves, being in alignment, living out our soul mission, that is our natural state. So there is a yearning that is in all of us to get to that place and to live in that way. And so, especially as we go through the midlife transits and those big portals that open for us, it is natural and healthy to feel that discontent and the rage and and the emotions. And for me, I think the first and most important step is to start to believe that you're not feeling this way because you're broken. Because I think that's the message that most women have received their whole lives. And so when they hit this point, they try to repress it, they try to drink their way through it, or they'll go on a medication, or they'll find something to not feel the feelings that are coming up, to try and stay busy with everything that's going on in their world and not do this work. So for me, the first thing is to just be aware that what's happening is supposed to be happening, and that the emotions you're feeling instead of being the enemy that you've always been told they are, are actually your greatest wisdom.

Jess Callahan 16:49

Yeah. Wow. You put that really like, I don't know, that was um uh such a such a clear way to understand it. I'm thinking about the moment like um during my like period of disconnection from myself before my fibromyalgia diagnosis, like before I really realized, you know, like after that diagnosis, sort of being like, I'm not, I'm not living like this, like I'm figuring this out. And that's the moment, you know, you go inward and start to peel the layers back. But earlier, um, you know, anxiety, so many women have been diagnosed with anxiety, face anxiety. And I'm not by any means saying that medication isn't helpful for people. I benefited from it, definitely. But as I'm hearing your words, I'm like, wow, what would have happened if I would have felt that like tightness in my chest and that like buzzing and just gone into it first, you know, like gone into it and said, like, what is this trying to tell me? And instead I did bypass it and I got medicine. And that's not to say that that was the wrong thing, but I didn't, I did not take the path at that time of feeling the feelings and figuring out how to release it versus going inward. And I think it's this it's a journey. Everyone has their own journey, right? It's it looks different for everyone, but I just don't think that these conversations and tools have been like widely available, you know, and and and like you said, like the doctors just say, like, well, it's in your head, or here's some medicine. Like we have so much more power, I think, in our own healing than we realize.

Human Design, Gene Keys, and more

Vanessa Long 18:27

And and I look at that like that moment where you felt that in your chest. Well, of course you would have chosen a specific path because that's what you were taught was the right way. When were you taught how to wield your power, how to wield your magic, how to go into your body and experience the power of it, the intuition of it, and then manifest that into form. Like, when were you held by elders? And this makes me cry because like we have been so cheated by this system that didn't teach us to respect our power. And and you are a hundred percent correct. I always speak about that with my clients that uh if you have a prescription, you keep taking the prescription and we can do the work around it because we need to be functional in order to go there, right? Like we need to feel safe enough to go there. And so for me, the NLP was huge, and then I got into gene keys and then into human design, and that journey has really continued for me exploring this idea of I'm not an accident or a mistake, and I'm not broken. So let me figure out how all of these things I was taught were wrong and bad about me, and that I judged as wrong and bad about me, are actually my gift, my design, like my unique. I think of it as an energetic thread that I'm here to weave into the tapestry of human evolution. Like we are on a path, we're going somewhere, and each one of us has an energy that is unique. And when we align with that and express it, it makes the world a better place in a very tangible way.

Jess Callahan 20:27

Yeah, yeah. We're just um, I think we we fall into this place where we think we're supposed to be like these cookie-cutter molds of other people, and we're just supposed to be like carbon copies because you don't want to speak up or speak out or offend someone or say something different or be misunderstood. But I think that I love how you describe it like a tapestry. I actually I do a lot of, I create a lot of tapestries like in my own, in my own just like creative time. I'm looking at one of the ones that I'm like, you know, in the process of creating. And I love that idea of just like I see them as like creative meditations, like weaving, weaving my story like into the world. So, okay, let's talk about the tools then. I know um there's you work with a lot of different tools to help people read, but I think it's really powerful, you know, they're all connected. Some of our, you know, they're all connected, whether it's through like ancient wisdom or tools that have been channeled more recently that still come from like this place of collective consciousness, right? It's all connected. Um, I think that, you know, if we talk about the tools as a way of reconnecting with ourselves, finding our intuition, which I think is deeply related to that place of magic. Um, I don't know if you agree if you, you know, we all kind of see it a little differently, but like, could you talk a little bit to how using these tools, however you frame it, helps you connect to your intuition? And then maybe let's start with like your favorite tool. Which one do you like think can can be the most powerful for people?

Vanessa Long 22:07

Nope. I won't do it. Okay. Okay, okay. It's my favorite tool. And and that's actually part of my design is that my brain is so holistic and the view that I take is so all-encompassing. Every person gets the unique perspective. And I will pull from different techniques depending on what someone needs in the moment. So, you know, maybe we'll go do a soul retrieval and like bring back a part, or maybe we'll do an NLP technique to just shift the way that you're thinking about something and perceiving it. And then when I do the soul design work, like looking at astrology, human design jinkeys, success codex, I like to use them all. And I have tried for the past like four years to pick one lane and stay in it. And like, okay, I'm only gonna do human design readings, or I'm only gonna do this. And that's great. And my clients get great results with it, but it never felt complete. So what I'm doing now is I just look at everything and then I can pull what I see. I call them the golden nuggets, like, oh, this is what we need right now, and then we can go in and play with it. So I apologize for refusing, but I will not choose my favorite. I love I love that. I don't want any other ones to feel that. I want to know that they are loved in my world.

How to reconnect with intuition

Jess Callahan 23:39

Equal opportunity player, right? That's right, that's right. Well, I think it takes a it takes a special person to be able to, like they're really complex tools. And so for you to be able to have a perspective that allows you to sort of have that overarching view over so many of the tools, like I they're very related. I know there's a lot of overlap, but they're also really nuanced. So I actually think it's really cool that you're able to like to pull in that way because that's a really complex like way to work your brain to be able to like just see the patterns like that. So um, okay, so then how so how does using if somebody wanted to reconnect with with all of these tools in mind, maybe what what's an example of like how these tools help somebody reconnect with their own biology or energetic patterns, let's say, like but they're they're like energetic rhythms and intuition.

Vanessa Long 24:36

Right. And let's bring in that intuition because I didn't answer that part. And I think we need to start with a definition of intuition because it's a complex term, it's an idea that we all hold in our neurology and have uh you know images around what intuition is for us. And I think that's really important. And what human design tells us is that we all have different ways of accessing our intuition. So every person, if you came to work with me, I would like I'm sitting here looking at your chart right now, and I'm like, so for you, I would definitely start with your sacral and your spleen. And that is where we would start because what human design tells us, and this is the key thing, I do a lot of trauma work with my clients, and I talk about parts, so from internal family systems, and our parts and our head, and I always do this like I'm cupping and cutting off at the neck. So from like the chin up, this is where our trauma wants us to live. This is where our cultural conditioning tells us that we are safe, we are smart, we are linear, linear, logical, reasonable, rational, non-emotional. And the subversive beauty of human design that helped me to fall so deeply in love with it was to say actually, nobody is meant to be living from up here. We are all meant to learn how to be embodied in our own unique way, and our wisdom 100% comes from our body in some shape or form, and that authority that we have. But I like to go beyond, you know, traditional human design authority to look at well, what is it, what are all your centers doing together? How does your body talk to you? And where is that wisdom and where are you meant to make decisions? So your intuition could be a still small voice that talks to you about your health and good choices. And it comes, I mean, for most of us, our intuition comes from the gut. And there is a lot there with like plexus and nerves and from a shocker place, from an intuition place, if you have your emotional solar plexus defined, then you are going to get intuitive hits from your emotions, but more than that, you're going to get intuitive hits from the divine because the emotional solar plexus is our spiritual conduit. Like it is how we connect with the divine. So we're going to receive that feeling of intuition that there is information flowing into me from outside with a sacral that's defined, our intuition is pleasure-based. It's going to feel like passion and joy and fun. And I'm leaning forward as I say it because for me, I get a physical, I trained my body to give me a physical yes-no, where I move forward or I lean back. And then with the spleen, which is also across the middle here, we get this quiet voice that is also body-based. It's very ancient. It's it is, I think, what most people think of when they think of intuition. It tells us don't go that way, do this, don't eat that. You know, for the love of all things, holy, like, don't eat that. And we either listen to it or we miss it and experience the consequences. So the way that I think about intuition is that we have trillions of cells in our body, some with our DNA, some with not our DNA, but we are connected to all of them and they're all talking to us. And we can tune in to any part of our body and hear the cellular consciousness giving us suggestions that are beyond our reason and our rational ability to tap into it. So maybe that's intuition. Maybe the intuition is we connect to a past lifetime and there is a thread connecting like through our soul to that lifetime where we hear whispers about what we should be doing or shouldn't be doing. And for me, a big part of the work is learning to discern all of these voices. When am I hearing the divine? When am I hearing my my belly? When am I hearing a past life? When am I hearing parts? Because that is the biggest mistake that most people make is they hear a voice inside and they think it's a voice they should listen to. But for most of us, we are almost entirely in our parts. And so the voices we're hearing are not intuition, but fear.

Jess Callahan 30:01

So, okay, that's I have a question, and I'm interested in your take on this. Because as I'm hearing you, I'm thinking like my I'm separating my thoughts. Like my experience is totally aligned, but also totally different, not different in any of the way that you're talking about intuition. But um, okay, I have aphantasia, which means that I have a blind mind's eye. I don't see any imagery. If I'm in a meditation and somebody wants to guide me to a garden, I'm like, there's no garden here. You're crazy. It's blackness, right? I don't hear anything either. So when you talk about hearing voices and stuff, um, like for me, I don't, I don't have a voice inside of my head that's also linked to Aphantage. So like I couldn't just recall a tune from a song because I just I don't have that. So I feel, I have deep feelings. So where you might say is would you say this is related? Like where you might say you hear these different voices from different parts, you could feel it. Like I'll spend time is this sort of saying the same thing. Like I spend time figuring out where an emotion lives in my body so that I can maybe hear the voice. I'm putting that in quotes. It's like um, I know that intuition for me lives in my like solar plexus chakra area. That's where I feel it light up, a little, maybe a little bit between solar plexus and sacral chakra, but that's where I feel it. But fear for me lives in my throat. Um, frustrate uh frustration for me lives on like the front of my face. So I can I can sit with an emotion and figure out. And so would you say that that's sort of the same thing as hearing?

Vanessa Long 31:44

Yeah.

Jess Callahan 31:44

Like if you're okay, so it's just like the different sensations that you're feeling. You have to figure out what hearing, in quotes again, means for you.

Vanessa Long 31:53

Right, exactly. And you can go through all of the different clairs, right? Like, are you seeing it? Are you hearing it? Do you taste it? Do you smell it? Is it uh a feeling in your body, like an internal kinesthetic? Do you get a tingle on your skin? Um, or do you just know something? You know, and you have clear cognizance where something just pops into your head and you're like, oh, okay, I I know this now.

Jess Callahan 32:18

But that's a whole self-trust thing too, right? Because then you're like, did I concoct? Like, that's I have clear cognizance, and it's been a really big process in building self-trust to be like that knowing that just dropped in isn't something that I manufactured. We doubt ourselves, you know, or like, wait, no, I probably just thought that. But you have to build the self-trust.

On overcoming fear and how our parts try to keep us safe

Vanessa Long 32:37

You have to build the self-trust and it's also learning to discern where those drop-ins are coming from. Right. Because if it is if it is coming from that fear that's in your throat, which, oh my goodness, we go, we could go into that and do so much work around that. But I won't do it to you right now. But like if it's coming from there, if it's coming from what I call your parts, and then it drops in and you have this knowing, it could keep you away from the next bridge to your destiny because it's trying to keep you small and safe. And for women especially, and when we have those throat blocks, right? It's about fear of being heard, fear of being seen, fear of being too big, too loud, too misunderstood, and then the very real consequences that come from that. So our parts will try to keep us safe by convincing us that oh, you don't want to do that.

Using these tools to connect with inner wisdom

Jess Callahan 33:41

Yeah, it's such a trap. It's like it's such a trap. I have, if we talk like astrology, um, I have Chiron in Gemini, and I have, which is, you know, the wounded healer. So that's like a wound of voice, right? And expression, thus the podcast, right? It's like a healing journey for me, but it's so connected. It's so like, it's so connected. Um, okay, so if somebody then reconnects, they connect with their intuition and they're they're just starting to listen and tune in and trust their body. Um what's some of the ways that the tools, like what are some of the powerful ways that these this combination of tools can really guide someone on an inner journey path?

Vanessa Long 34:31

Okay, so the way that I usually do this is someone will come to me and get a soul design reading. And then I will go through, they'll ask a question, like, I really want to be able to express my truth or what's my soul purpose, or whatever is in their way, whatever they're struggling with. And then I will go through their charts and I will come up with an answer and I'll record that and I'll send it to them. And that kind of gives us a launching off place where they can say, okay, I know how I'm supposed to function, and I know how I am functioning. How do we get across that gap? So I'm always looking for like, what's the gap that's ahead of us? How do we get across it? And for most women, it is like I've already said, you know, we have this urge to stay small and safe and invisible. So it's how do we take up more space? How do we learn to trust the voices or the feelings or however we perceive it that are inside of us? And one of the things that we do, especially if you're a line six or a line three in human design, or you have a lot of those in your design, is you kind of just have to do it and see what happens. Like I listened to this voice, it did not work. So maybe that wasn't the right voice to listen to. Or I did listen to this voice and it didn't work, but it felt awesome. So I'm gonna keep listening to that voice. And so we learn through experience from a very kinesthetic place. One of the things I love to do with my clients is I'm putting my hands on my heart because one of the things I love to do is to check when I hold on to this thought, like however it has arrived, when I hold on to it and I speak it, do I expand or do I contract? Because your body is where your wisdom is. And so learning the tells of your body, not the fear-based ones, but the expansion, the destiny-focused ones, they are your wisdom. And we all have that. And even for people like projectors who only have a couple of centers defined, speaking what you think might be truth out loud, even if you're in a room by yourself, so you can hear it and perceive it like from the outside coming in, can give you a powerful awareness in your body, if you're in your body, about whether it's expansive or contractive. And so we were designed to feel our way along these paths to the life that we want to have.

Jess Callahan 37:16

Well, but if you don't have somebody to help guide you on the different areas to explore, you being, say, a guide, but you're also following all of these guides, right? Like when you look at somebody's chart, you can if somebody comes to you and says, like, say I came to you and I said, I really would, I really don't know what my purpose is. I'm feeling like there's just something missing. I've been like building this life and I'm busy, but I just don't feel like I'm doing the right thing. How would you start?

Vanessa Long 37:52

So I'm I'm looking, right? I'm like, well, I would look at your natal chart. And anytime somebody asks me about purpose and why am I why I'm here, I start looking at South Node to North Node, Chiron, and mid-heaven. Those are like the first four things I look at because if we can nail those, we are 90% of the way there. And then I look at like what cool things are happening in their chart. Like when I look at yours, I'm like, oh, you've got a stellium. Like, let's play with that and see what happens. And you have these bundles of placements that are all kind of hanging out together. And we look at that, but I also listen to what you say. And when you said, I'm busy, I went, Oh, I wonder if she has the 3420 channel. And wouldn't you know when I look at your human design, you have the 3420 channel, it's the channel of charisma, it is the defining manifesting generator channel, like it connects your sacral, and it's this big swoopy channel that connects your sacral up to your throat. And the vast majority of people I work with, instead of them being like leaned back in their sacral and receptive and charismatic and like just the sexiest freaking people to walk the earth, they're in hectic busyness. Because when you stay really, really, really busy and your parts convince you to be really, really, really busy, you will never connect to your body and you will never connect to your purpose, and your parts will have their way with you for your entire life. So it it changes, right? But for that, that's what I'd look at. I'm like, oh, you've got that channel. We need to like unhook you from the belief that being busy is valuable.

Jess Callahan 39:49

Yeah, okay, that's that's fascinating. And so as I dropped into that, that was my former life before I, you know, to did all the things to make the shifts. And as you're describing it, I'm like, I it would have been so much easier to just know that and like figure, you know, instead I like stumbled along. But okay, if we go back to our the chart, astrology chart. Okay. North, if you what like just um generally speaking, like north node, south node, Chiron, mid-heaven, you look at those mostly because of why.

Vanessa Long 40:24

Okay. So South Node, from an evolutionary astrology perspective. The South Node is where you have spent the first part of your life and past lifetimes developing mastery. Like you are so good at your south node. And in this lifetime, so it's like your karma, you're bringing it in to kind of work through it, to process it, to put a bow on it, so that you can focus, and where you're aiming is your north node, because your south node and north node are always directly across the chart from each other. So it's like you're literally leaping across the chart from south node to north node. And in this lifetime, you're meant to be working on north node. Your mid-heaven is the highest point on your charts, like high noon. And because I work with a lot of business owners, uh, especially like coaches, spiritual healers, like especially coaches. I work with a lot of coaches because I've been a coach for a long time. Um the mid-heaven is your leadership. The 10th house, it's on the cusp of the 10th house. And the 10th house is all about you on stage, the movement you're leading, the message you're bringing. And so it's like, how are you here to change the world? Which is what my people want to know, right? Like, what am I here to actually do? How do I create my legacy? And then the Chiron, I mean, you want to be careful getting me started on Chiron. It's like it is my favorite thing. Um so Chiron is this portal that we go through. To me, it is the midlife portal. It happens at around age 50. Mine was 49, it can be a little bit later than that. But it is uh from a success codex standpoint, is where I was really taught about Chiron. It is your sacred wound. It is the piece of collective human suffering that you have taken responsibility for. It's like the core wound in Gene Keys, is another place I really like to look because I'm looking at how have you been uniquely designed to suffer so that you can learn how to process and work with and heal and release that suffering. Because when we work on those core wounds, on that Chiron wound, and we get up on top of it, like where we're not in the shadow frequency with it anymore, where we're we're getting it, then we change the world with it. Because Chiron goes from sacred wound to sacred gift. So the thing that has hurt me most is literally the reason that I incarnated. Like it's how I'm here to change the world.

Jess Callahan 43:26

Yeah. Wow, that's a I love that description. I've never actually really looked at it from the perspective of like collective healing and like the part of healing that you're here to work on. And that's really cool. That's um it does. I think it just like helps people understand how the things that they're going through have purpose as much as it sucks sometimes. Like it's purpose for your own healing, for your own lineage, but like for the collective too.

Vanessa Long 43:53

Yeah. And it's got to be for self first. You know, that's a mistake that a lot of us make is we're uh again, this. Patriarchal conditioning conditioning tells us that we have to fix everyone else. Like, I don't need anything. I will heal the world. And so, no, that's not how it works. Because on an energetic level, if you are still living in the shadow or victim frequency, that's all you can put out. You have to raise your own frequency. And then that starts to ripple and create transformation in everybody that those ripples touch. I'm so passionate about this. Like we overgive and burn out and get resentful. And like we undercharge so dramatically. And I went through this for years where we undercharge so much that we can't pay our bills. So then we have to go get a job. And then we're like, oh, I guess I wasn't meant to be a healer or a guide or a coach. And it's like, no, you just had a wound that you didn't deal with and it took you out.

Collective healing and the extinction burst

Jess Callahan 44:57

Mm-hmm. Yeah, it is. I really think that I mean, we've been taught so much like about like disconnection from ourselves, disconnection from each other. We doubt ourselves. And so we don't like lean into our gifts in that way. And I think that, you know, if you look at like large scale, the path that we're on globally in the US, like it's it's not a great path right now. And I think as much as people want to like don't want to hear it, I think like the path to healing is through doing the work ourselves. Like it starts with each of us going inward and and um do doing the work to connect with our gifts and to see ourselves and love ourselves again wholly and and that you know, ribble effect and be being able to pass that healing forward and that love forward. And um, but it starts here, I think. You know, it starts here in those these moments where we do like go inward and we take the time to say, like, I'm not going to, you know, to live by this like conditioning or these stories anymore. Like, let's figure out what my story is, you know. Um, so I don't know. I think that do you okay? I've I have one last question for you, but do you have anything else to add on any of the like the tools or the process or reading a chart?

Vanessa Long 46:23

I have two things that are popping for me. So I want to get into them. Okay. One, when I look at, so I'm an agent of chaos. One of the ways I describe myself is like I'm the grenade that gets thrown into people's lives to blast them out of the neurological ruts that they're in so they can choose differently. And uh, before we started, I was saying like one of the things about me is the more chaotic things are, the more grounded and energized I get. I look at what's happening in the world right now as appalling and horrible as it is. I keep a firm connection to a vision of the world where this kind of thing no longer exists. And the way that I see it is necessary chaos to shake people out of their numbness and stasis and into a place where they can choose differently. And I also know that with something as uh huge as patriarchy that has dominated the world for so long and dominated human minds, one, it takes a lot of chaos to shake that up and shake it out. And two, as the people protecting patriarchy are backed into a corner and they see this inevitable trajectory toward good and toward evolution and toward something better, when they see that inevitable trajectory and they feel it, even if it's not conscious, they're gonna fight. Right. I feel like that's what we're in. And so I while having the grief and processing and like all of the emotions that go with it, I also feel very excited about what's on the other side of it because I believe so deeply in human good.

Jess Callahan 48:22

Yeah. Yeah, I think that that's a really important point to make. And I think I see myself as like a bridge sometimes between the two worlds, like feeling the darkness, so that I can, you know, alchemize it into something else, like hope and love and a path forward. Um, but I think that it's hard, like especially during certain moments. Like, oh yeah, I like that you named that you are somebody who can live in this chaos and be energized. Um, and you know, that you can name it and sort of like explain it in that way. Because for me, as someone who's just like a really deep feeler, I have porous energy, I have to do a lot of like energetic shielding and energetic protection. And during times where we are at these like peak moments of like things are just hard. Um, I have a hard time. I have to be really diligent about pulling my energy out of that space and reminding myself to see the hope, reminding myself that this is the chaos moment, the extinction burst, the, you know, it's the it it is a necessary step on that path to collective healing. It's a really good reframe for me just to remember like, but look at where we're going. It just sucks getting there.

Vanessa Long 49:31

It does. That like true words right there. It it sucks getting there. And I think it's really important that as powerful women, we keep our at least part of our vision tapped into the world we're inevitably heading toward. And and I would offer that like with the porous energy and and that experience I have been the queen of burnout in earlier years. It's only because I've been doing this work and really committed to the energy hygiene that I'm able to stay present because otherwise I would just stuff my face and sleep and burnout. And I have done that for the first several decades of my life. And so now it's a very different experience where I feel like I can hold the container a lot more. And still sometimes you just need to turn off socials and like unplug. Mm-hmm.

Jess Callahan 50:28

Yeah. Yeah, I know it is. It's a lot of just like constant energy management and figuring out, yeah, your boundaries and your borders. And um, I'm thankful to, I can't believe I'm I say I'm I'm grateful to have had the fibromyalgia diagnosis, honestly, because I think that's the thing that helped me really figure out how to manage my energy and and just knowing and witnessing that sometimes um no matter how much energetic shielding and hygiene work I do, as somebody who keeps a foot in both worlds, like sometimes I do just have to feel it. And you know, that's okay too, um, as long as there's a path.

Vanessa guides a closing meditation

Vanessa Long 51:10

Yeah. And that is the essence of the Chiron wound, like to your fibromyalgia. Chiron was never able to heal his own wound fully. But in the process of trying to figure out how to heal the wound, he became a master healer for everyone else. And that is is like the essence of the Chiron wound is like, I don't need to be perfect to share this gift with everyone else. Um okay, and then the other thing that I wanted to do just before you move into that last question was you kept asking, like, how do we get into our bodies? And so what I wanted to do was just is it okay to do like a quick little breath thing? I'll I'll make it fast.

Jess Callahan 51:59

No, actually, don't make it fast because um that was no, I mean, do whatever feels right for you because that that's that was my um my next question is is like what's yeah, I know. So so in line, so in line. Just how can somebody start to just like like one, you know, a tip to go inward? And so you're gonna do more than give me a tip, like you're gonna just do the thing. So yeah, let's just do the thing. Because let's let's do this.

Vanessa Long 52:23

So put your feet flat on the ground if you are sitting, if you are laying down or your feet are up, just picture roots growing out of your butt, out of the back of your legs, down out of your feet. And so, what I want you to do is take a breath in. Don't care if it's through your nose or your mouth, my goodness gracious, whatever feels best. Breathe in and out and breathe in. And as you breathe out, I want you to imagine these roots reaching down through the floor, through the earth, deep into the ground. Breathing in every time you exhale, imagine just letting go of anything that's ready to release into these roots as they stretch down into the earth, toward the molten heart of Gaia, toward this beautiful warm energy, red earth energy, breathing in and out, and dropping down. And see those roots wrap around this energy. See the roots turning red as you breathe in, breathe the energy up through the roots, up into your body. Breathe out, let go of whatever is ready to release, breathe in. And we're gonna keep it short here, but like do this until you feel the click, the shink. And maybe it's a sound or maybe it's a feeling in your body, or like, oh, there it is. There's that connection, and it's a warmth that flows up and through you. And then what I want you to do is drop your awareness as far down into your belly as you can, however, that is for you. And then ask the question what would be joy for me now and see what answer comes up. And again, it might be, as Jess pointed out, a feeling in your body, a knowing in your mind. You might hear a voice, see an image. What would be joy for me now? It might be a sandwich or a nap or writing a letter, it could be anything. Breathe in, breathe out. Just bring your awareness back up and open your eyes and come on back in the room. And that's one way that you can start to experience what it's like to be safe in your body. I love that. Can you feel a difference? I'm curious with your authentication.

Jess Callahan 55:03

Like, can you Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've done a lot of mind training just to know like when you talk about the roots um and like visual cues, the red, like I have mind pathways where I automatically substitute that for a feeling. Like maybe it's a warmth, maybe it's uh I have to immediately, but that does take um training, you know, like I because I had to name it, I had to figure it out. And then I and now I know right away instead of getting lost in it. I did catch myself getting lost for a second and being like, wait, no, go into the feeling. Um, no, I think that for me, when it's a powerful moment like that, like I'll get the imagery or the knowing quickly, you know, like and so when you're like, what will feel joyful for you? Um, like as as we're recording where I'm recording from, it's like it's a warm, sunny day for the first time this time of year. And I was like sunshine on my skin, like go outside and walk. And um, and so yeah, like that's that's what I'm gonna do after our meeting. I'm just gonna go let the sunshine, you know, bask over me. And I think that will feel joyful.

Vanessa Long 56:12

I love that. And as a warning to everyone listening, your parts will try to shut it down. Like with Jess, I know you'll do it because you have done so much work, and I bet the parts will still be bringing up obstacles, like, oh, maybe you should finish this first, or you know, like, let's make sure the recording worked. And and like it will try to pull us, our trauma will try to pull us away from doing what our body tells us is the good thing to do, because our parts want us to stay unpowerful. And when you follow your joy, you become powerful.

Jess Callahan 56:55

I feel so seen because I know that parts of me would have started popping up. Like, did the recording work? What else do you have? You have homework to turn in within a few hours, and don't you need to do, but like, no, I'm going to override all of those little voices or nudges or feelings, and I'm going outside. It's what I'm doing because that's what feels right. So my gosh, thank you, thank you, thank you so much for being here for you know all of your insights and for leading that beautiful meditation. I'm just so grateful that you took the time to be with us today. Thank you. I'm so glad you invited me to be here. So much fun. Thank you.