#23: Astrology 101: How Your Birth Chart Can Help You Understand Yourself in Midlife

Somewhere in our late thirties and forties, a lot of women start to feel like something isn’t working anymore.

The way we’ve been living.
The expectations we’ve been carrying.
The constant pressure to improve ourselves.

But what if this phase of life isn’t a crisis?

What if it’s a wake-up call?

In this episode, I’m joined by intuitive astrologer, yoga teacher, and shadow work practitioner Jamie DeLuccio for a conversation about self-help, self-acceptance, and what it actually means to understand yourself on a deeper level.

Jamie explains how astrology can offer something many women are quietly craving in midlife: a sense of being seen, understood, and validated for who they already are.

We talk about:

• Why self-help can sometimes make us feel more broken
 • The basics of astrology (sun, moon, rising & houses)
 • Why so many women start questioning their lives in midlife
 • What shadow work actually is
 • How astrology can help you understand your patterns and purpose
 • The connection between lunar cycles, ritual, and nervous system regulation

If you’ve been feeling that quiet sense that something in your life needs to shift, this conversation may help you understand why.

And more importantly, it might remind you that nothing is wrong with you.

If you’re curious about your own birth chart or want to work with Jamie, you can find her here:

Website:
jamiedeluccio.com

Instagram:
@jamiedeluccio

Jamie offers intuitive astrology readings, shadow work sessions, women’s circles, and transformational retreats designed to help people reconnect with who they truly are beneath conditioning and expectations.

Resources Mentioned

Pull your birth chart:
astro.com

Learn the basics of your Sun, Moon, and Rising signs, which are the three core placements Jamie recommends starting with when exploring your astrology chart.

We also discuss shadow work (Carl Jung), lunar cycles, and using ritual and quiet reflection as tools for self-understanding.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

A lot of women think what they're experiencing in their late 30s and 40s is a midlife crisis. But I don't think it's a crisis. I think it's the moment you realize you have been trying to live the life that everyone else expected from you instead of the one that actually fits who you are. Welcome to the Next Phase Podcast, the show for millennial moms entering paramenopause, ready to stop fixing themselves and start listening to themselves. Today I am talking with intuitive astrologer and shadow work practitioner Jamie DeLuccio about what it means to really understand yourself. Not the version of you that has been shaped by conditioning and expectations, but the person you actually came here to be. We talk about astrology, shadow work, rituals, and why this stage of life can be the beginning of a much deeper relationship with yourself. Quick note: the internet cut out a little bit here and there on Jamie's side, but you can hear her words come through enough to understand. And more than anything, I think you'll feel her energy and her love for this work and for the people that she works with. I cannot wait for you to meet her. I just know you're going to love her as much as I do. Hello, everybody, and welcome to another episode of the Next Phase podcast. I have my dear friend Jamie DeLuccio with me today. Jamie, you're here. Hi!

SPEAKER_00 1:49

Hi, Stacey. I'm so happy to be here with you and so honored that you want me on your podcast. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Oh my gosh, of course, of course. You were on my very short list of people I knew I had to have. So anybody who is a Mother Plus podcast listener might know who Jamie is. But if you don't, or if you want a refresher, Jamie, can you tell us what you do and why it matters to us?

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Hi everyone, I'm Jamie, and I am an intuitive astrologer, yoga teacher, women's circle facilitator, and yoga retreat host and a shadow work practitioner. And I think that work is important to every human being, one, because a lot of the work I do is about bringing people together in deep authentic connection and helping people to learn and understand themselves on a much deeper level and to also fall in love with who they are, not in a self-inflated way, but in a deep self-love, self-compassion, self-acceptance, self-forgiveness way. And I think the entire world needs that.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

Absolutely. So we talked offline before this interview began because Jamie and I are also friends. And something that came up naturally is that I have been very invested in the self-help and self-development world for a long time. And I've noticed that I have started to pull back from it. Now, I don't think it is all bad, but I brought it up with Jamie, and she had almost a visceral reaction to the word self-help or the phrase self-help. Can you explain to the audience how you feel about women in their late 30s and 40s who are maybe going through a bit of an identity change and what it means to seek out self-help versus what it means to just get more in touch with who you already are. So less changing and more listening.

SPEAKER_00 3:57

Oh my goodness. You're right. It is like a visceral hit. And I think it's because my entire life I have been on that self-roller card. Like something must be with me. I need to read 10,000 books. I need to go to therapy all day, all night. And what I realized through the practice of yoga, really, and just teaching yoga and also being a student in yoga is that self-help isn't about helping ourselves. Self-help is selling us a belief that something is wrong with us and that something needs to be fixed. When there is absolutely nothing wrong with us, it's like the beauty industry. Oh, if you have wrinkles, if you have gray hair, if you're overweight, all of those things are bad. And here, buy this product, by this product, by this self-help, by this course. If you take this course, then you will be whole. No, that is not true. You are whole. You absolutely are whole. We are all whole. And we have to remember this at a very deep core level that there is nothing wrong with us. So we don't need more self-help. We need more self-compassion. We need more self-acceptance. And we need more self-forgiveness. We need more grace, more mercy, more gentleness with ourselves, more tolerance of being with what is. This self-help is like, oh, we're uncomfortable. We got to fix it. Oh, I have insecure attachment. I'm anxious attached. I'm avoidant attached. It's like, whoa, everyone, slow down. There's absolutely nothing wrong with us. We just have to build our window of tolerance. We have to build the capacity to be with discomfort. We have to be willing to stay with ourselves when we are uncomfortable and not run. We sit our butts down and hold ourselves tenderly when we are feeling anxious, upset, triggered. Discomfort and triggers, they're the journey home. They're beautiful portals of wisdom to our wholeness. And that is why I get such a deep visceral feeling because I spent a lifetime chasing some belief that perhaps something is wrong with me because I feel this way or I get triggered at this moment, or all of our feelings, all they want is to simply be felt. And all of our feelings are so real. And can we just honor them? And can we be with them? The more we could be with ourselves, the more intimacy we can have with ourselves, the more intimacy we can have with one another, which brings me to that whole big piece of belonging. We are all just wanting to belong.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Yeah. I'm just sitting here, like almost gazing at you, nodding, because it feels so true to me right now, or it feels like something I'm striving for. I use the word millennial conditioning an awful lot on this podcast, but I think my generation, our generation, self-help became really big for us when we were younger, and then even more when social media came to be, because everywhere we looked, there was somebody telling us how to be different, how to be more tips and tricks and fitness and skincare and all the things. And it's just taken over our lives. And I did a podcast episode early on in this show that was called Stop Listening to Podcasts because I am the ultimate example of somebody who has been going through my day with other people in my ears all day long. Podcasts, audiobooks, and even some of the more spiritual forward things, like a membership I belong to, which was giving me self-talk tracks on a daily basis that I was listening to in the morning, affirmations, meditations. It's not that these things are bad, but when you literally have no room for your own thoughts anymore, and you're always listening to people tell you how to be more, how to do more, how to be better, you've lost yourself. Who are you anymore? So it's like the greatest message that I can teach myself and help others going through the same thing as me to learn. And I love that you have come to this conclusion that this is not the answer and that the service that you offer, the gift that you have, which is helping people get back in touch with who they are, not fixing it at all, but identifying what it is and then really living into that person rather than trying to change her. Can you explain to us what happens when you read a client's astrological chart and you help them understand who they are because of when they were born and what time they were born, like what they entered this earth to be. What happens there?

SPEAKER_00 9:15

They feel seen and they feel felt for the first time ever. They feel that they have a permission slip to be exactly who they cosmically, divinely came into this world to be. They feel understood, they feel like they make sense all of a sudden. To me, like the word that comes to me is like Kerplunk. They feel this sense of like grounded in self. It's now safe for me to be that, even though my mom said this, or my dad that, or my teacher said this, and this conditioning has happened over time. It's this real true permission slip, just to be authentically, unapologetically, unabashedly who they are. My motto for my business is love who you are. And that's the gift I want to give people through showing them their astrology chart and doing shadow work sessions with them or taking them on a retreat, having them like look in a stranger's eyes and finally feel that sense of wholeness within themselves when they're in connection with another. What happens for them is solidness. It is self-love, self-acceptance, self-compassion, and self-forgiveness for wearing the masks that they thought they had to wear, the performative masks. It's permission to remove them.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

And for our listeners who maybe only know the basics of astrology, so I am a Scorpio, for example, and I can go online at any point or to Instagram or TikTok and type in Scorpio, and I'm going to get somebody telling me how my day might go, how I'm feeling, who I'm a good fit for, etc. How does what you do go a little bit deeper than that? Do a little bit of 101 for the listeners on what this actually means to get your astrological chart read.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

Yeah, sure. So when I put in someone's birthday, birth time, birth location into a program, what comes up is this circle. And the circle is a snapshot of the cosmos of all the planets, the sun, the moon, and Mars, Venus, Mercury, all of the planets. And it's where they were and what constellations in the sky. And also there's 12 houses. So this tells me like where that energy is playing out from each planet. So when someone says what's your sign, they're really asking, where was the sun and what constellation in the sky was the sun the moment you took your first breath? So astrology 101, without getting too complicated, would say, Let's look at your moon and your rising. I always knew I was a Virgo. And you hear, oh, Virgos are tidy. Well, I'm not really that tidy. Virgos are organized and analytical and helpful. And yeah, I was like, all of these things are related to like my sun sign. But then someone said, What's your rising sign? Years and years and years ago. And I was like, I what's that? And when I found out that I was a Scorpio rising, then I was like, oh my gosh, this makes so much more sense to me. And a rising sign is where the sun rose that day. And that tells you in life where you're going, who you are in public situations, what you're moving into. Then the next part is the moon. So your moon represents your inner emotional realm, how you process your emotions. And then I found out, oh, my moon is in Gemini. And I was like, oh my gosh, yes, I totally need to talk through my emotions. That's someone who needs to really verbalize how they're feeling and talk it out and process externally. And once I knew the sun, moon, and rising, I was like, okay, I really now understand more of who I am. And there's 12 different zodiac signs, there's 12 different houses. And when you see the placement of what house your son is in, for me, it's the 11th house. Makes so much sense as to why my tribe, my people, my friendships are so important to me and why I express my Virgo nature by bringing people together. Because the 11th house is about bringing people together and friendships and community and creating belonging, which is deeply important to me. Astrology 101 is simply just learn your sun, your moon, and your rising and read about it. And then learn the house placement of your son. Then you can look at oh, where is your Mercury? Mercury is how you learn and how you communicate. And you look at where that is and you just start to kind of understand. So having a reading goes much, much deeper than just you're a Scorpio son. It's it's going to look at all the lines in the charts, your struggles, your challenges, your growth opportunities, where you will best express your career path, your destiny, your highest purpose in this life, what you crave and what you long for in a relationship. Venus is going to tell me who you love, how you love. Mars is going to tell me where your more masculine energy in the world is going to be. And then the relationship, the lines between the planets is going to tell me all about what you came into this world to learn and understand. It's just powerful.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

So much. There's so much. And that's why it's always so difficult to communicate it in one podcast episode. But I love starting with the basics because I think sometimes you people might even be a little bit embarrassed to be like, I don't really know what this is, depending on what circles you hang out in. Some people talk about this a lot. And you might be really unfamiliar but curious. There also might be people who are curious, but also very skeptical. And so, what would you say? Why do the stars and the moon, why does it dictate who we become when we enter the world?

SPEAKER_00 15:24

That is such a good question. And I recently had this beautiful man who is like a total naysayer. He was skeptic. And through the reading, I'm less and less of a skeptic, but he asked that same question. So, what I can say is the moon controls the tide. So if the moon can have that much influence on the tide and our bodies are made of water, then how can the rest of the planets not affect us in some or form? And they say the moment you take your first breath, you breathe in the energy of all these planets. And that's what makes you up. I have read over a thousand astrology charts. And I think only one or two times someone was like, this doesn't resonate at all. And one of those times they had the birth time completely wrong. And the other time, the woman ended up calling me back and saying, you know what, this actually does resonate in this piece. And I too am a healthy skeptic. I always say I'm a good mix of science and woo-woo.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

Me too. Me too. And I feel like the more I get into the woo, it's like the more skeptical I still become. And I don't mean that in a bad way, but I like to stay really curious because I also believe that it'll only work for you if you believe it, if it makes sense to you, if you're open to it.

SPEAKER_00 16:50

Yeah, this guy who came, he had his arms crossed. And, you know, astrology was not something he ever even considered or wanted to believe in. But when I noticed he had a lot of Leo in his chart, I said, How comfortable are you taking up space? How comfortable are you being seen? And he was mentioning some of his struggles and challenges were about constantly being like talked at and over like powered. He was having a hard time with that. And I said, It's because your chart is actually saying that you're supposed to be basically standing up and saying, hey everyone, look at me. I deserve attention right here in general. So when you're not living in alignment with what your chart says, you're going to feel a constant sense of frustration and this unlife. And can I ask, how old was the man about? He was in his 70s, late 70s. Wow. Okay. I know. Yeah. So all this time, his whole life, he didn't honor that piece. He sat back and just waited for someone to choose him.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

I find that very empowering and equally sad that so many of us are going through our lives living by some manual that's been created since we were young. And then it's not until we reach a certain point. Now I would venture to say that a lot of times that is late 30s, 40s, maybe 50s, because they call it midlife crisis. But it's really something shifts in you. And it's hormonal and it's other things too. And you start looking around, questioning like, am I living the life that I want to live? Am I acting the way I want to act? Am I surrounding myself with the people I want to surround myself? These are the questions that have been entering my brain over the last year. And I just find that speaking to somebody like you who really helps people to understand how to understand themselves is very exciting. I want more of that and I want more people listening to know that there's a whole other side of them that maybe they haven't even explored yet. And it might be the one that like brings them to their their best lives, not to be all Oprah.

SPEAKER_00 19:10

Well, it can bring you to a midlife awakening, a metamorphosis, one that awakens you to your true nature, which I believe is what we're all here for. This man he grew up thinking that it was selfish to take up space. It's not polite, it's not good manners, and that goes against everything in his chart that screams like he's supposed to be free and playful and childlike and bring that playful innocence where our struggles are usually tends to point us toward our greatest freedom if we're willing to try the opposite of what we've been doing. Because the definition of is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Right, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 19:58

Do you find that a lot of the people who come to you are closer to midlife?

SPEAKER_00 20:04

Yeah, for sure. They are definitely between the 30s and beyond. I think they're just like, someone tell me how to do this different because I'm so tired of it. And they hit their 40s and they're just like itching to break free from the chains that have binded them.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Yes, yes. Itching, yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:25

I call it itchy on the inside.

SPEAKER_01 20:28

I like it. Yes. That's it, right there. Can we talk about shadow work? That is something that you do help us understand what a shadow is, even, and then what does it mean to work on one shadow?

SPEAKER_00 20:42

Yeah. So shadow work is uh a phrase that was coined by a man named Carl Jung. He was kind of like one of the fathers of this type of work. And he would say our shadows are the parts of us that we do not want anyone to see. Our jealousy, our rage, our messiness, our perfectionism, our disorganization. And he believed that until you make the unconscious conscious, it controls your life and you call it fate. So until you're willing to actually turn around and look at your shadow, to look at the parts of yourself, you're basically being controlled by all of these, these parts, these external entities. So shadow work to me is really a journey to wholeness. When we learn to hold our jealousy, when we learn to hold our rage, when we learn to hold what we would call our gross parts with so much love and compassion, we then begin to integrate that. And then for lack of better words, we are unstoppable. At that point. Because when we can hold all of our parts with such love and compassion, we're unmoved and unfazed by others. The stories we tell ourselves and we believe to be true are always tied to our shadows. Oh, so and so didn't call me back. I must have done something to hurt them. They don't like me anymore. They're selfish. What a bitch, or whatever it is that we tell ourselves, oh my gosh, like how often are they so wrong? But when we live in the stories, when we live in the shadow, we perpetuate that. So until you make the unconscious conscious, it controls your life and you call it fate. So let's go with that story of, oh, so-and-so didn't call me back. And they're just selfish. All of a sudden, if I believe that story to be true, I start putting an energy frequency out. And then the other person might feel it. And then I'm creating the reality. I'm maybe being short with that person. Meanwhile, the person's on vacation and we forgot, you know? So shadow work. It's about learning to love the parts of you that you want to disown. A shadow is everything within yourself that you want to run from.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

The first thing that comes to mind for me when I think of that is my insecurity in my disorganization. And the thing I always repeat in my mind is I know what I'm doing, which is the opposite of what I feel most of the time is I have no idea what I'm doing. And so I have so much insecurity and just like I go through every day looking around, like, am I supposed to know what I need to do next? And why is my house such a mess? And why can't I get my shit together like everybody else my age?

SPEAKER_00 23:48

I just so appreciated hearing you just share out loud your insecurity and vulnerability. And I think so much of shadow work too is just being able to say it out loud. And what would be different if you could accept and hold your unorganized, messy parts that like you're telling yourself, I know what I'm doing, but inside it's the opposite of what you really feel. So what if you let yourself completely and intensely sit right next to that messy part of you and tell that messy, unorganized part of you that doesn't know what you're doing? Hey, you belong here too. You belong with me too. You're welcome here, honey. I love you. I'm with you. What if we did that with all of our parts? And all of this sounds really inspiring. And yeah, that's hard sometimes. It's hard, even for me when I look in the mirror. I'm like, wow, this past year being so intense for me. I can see the pain and the trauma on my face. Like, I could see the aging, and it's like a constant put your hand on your heart, Jamie, and just hold yourself. Like you're okay, honey. I got you. Even if your face is changing, your hair is just changing. I got you, babe. It's constant, just that real deep self-love. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:17

Coming home to self-we all need to hear that. Absolutely. But I have had the privilege of getting my astrological chart read by you. One of my favorite things about my chart reading with you is that I have such a fear of aging. Ironic, considering the topic of this podcast. But one thing you identified for me is these beautiful things that were going to happen in my 50s. And it was the first time that I had considered that there was better to come, more to come. Like it's it hasn't even begun yet. And so I find that so exciting. And something that I think a lot of people listening can maybe benefit from is just when you get your chart read, you get to find out that there's so much more. And that just because you turn 40, the world isn't ending. And in some cases, your world is really just beginning.

SPEAKER_00 26:18

Yeah. I love that. I love that you had that moment that made you just feel a sense of hope. We don't get to choose always what happens to us in life. And aging is one of those things we don't get to choose. We're aging every second. But how do we fall in love with the moment? How do we fall in love with where we are and who we are beyond our skin and our bodies? And how do we live each day like a ceremony, like ritual? We don't get to choose what happens to us, but we get to choose how we show up and how we respond to life and how we react and who we are. And so much of conditioning has told us in order to be worthy, in order to be loved, in order to be attractive, you have to look, be an act like all of this. And it's like take our power back and know right here, right now, like we are enough.

SPEAKER_01 27:17

Um, switching gears a little. Something I teach my listeners about is cycle syncing, which is following your cycle, altering the foods you eat, the way you rest or choose to socialize, and exercise based on your cycle because your hormones change and throughout the month. And as they change, the way that you treat yourself and listen to yourself should also change, that you shouldn't go the same speed all month long because our bodies are experiencing changes throughout the month. And something you brought up to me was that women's cycles can also align with the lunar cycles, which is exciting to me because not everybody here has a either regular cycle, is still cycling, or they're on a form of birth control that means that their body isn't naturally cycling, but you know, that the pill is telling them when to bleed and when not to bleed. So this idea that we can still cycle naturally by getting in tune with the moon feels really exciting to me. So I was hoping you could explain to the audience what it means to do that.

SPEAKER_00 28:29

Oh, yeah. The lunar cycle, when it goes from Aries, which is the first sign of the zodiac, all the way around Taurus, Gemini, all the way around back to Aries. That takes about 28, 29 days. And that's the length of a woman's cycle, which this just like lights me up so so much. So a lot of women will menstruate on the new moon and/or the full moon. I know for me it's now full moon, but there will be a time in the year where all of a sudden something is off and then it switches to the new moon. And I just think it's so magical that that happens. Like something is controlling me. So I know if you talk to a lot of your listeners, or if they comment on this, if they hear this, like how many women menstruate on the full moon or the new moon? And so that's just a beautiful thing. And I love that, like we all share that as women together. But for those women who are not experiencing their menstrual blood and their cycle, to actually just follow the lunar rhythm. Like when it's in Aries, there's a little more like fire, a little more energy. And when it moves then into Taurus, there's a little more of like a slowing down and a little more of like grounding. And then it goes into Gemini. Maybe you're feeling more social and more talkative and more communicative, and then it goes into cancer, and maybe you're feeling a little more internal. So you'll notice external, internal, external, internal with all the signs. And every two and a half days, the moon changes into another sign. So it goes all the way around, and you just get to live in these like small little rituals of your day. And that's a great way too for people to really learn about what are these signs all about? Because they live within all of us. We all have 12, all the 12 zodiac signs in us somehow, some way.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

Oh my goodness, this would be so fun. Just even just to try it for one month, right? I I think I might create it based on the transcript from this episode. Or can you tell the audience where what they can Google even just to get those signs in the right order and understand?

SPEAKER_00 30:49

Yeah, I think if you just put in what is the order of the zodiac signs from Aries to Pisces. Aries is the first, Pisces is the last. Okay. And then they even go with seasons too. So winter, spring, summer, fall, like in the follicular and the luteal, like the ovulation stages of your menstrual cycle, that all makes perfect sense when you look at it. It's so juicy and rich. And it's like, how are we all not taught this by our mother's, mother's, mother's, mother's, mother? There's people who feel like, oh, it might be against my religion, or but it's just this beautiful, natural, rhythmic, harmonious cycle. And if we were all taught to live more connection with the earth and with the cycles of this beautiful glowing sphere in our sky, oh my gosh, how much more at peace would we all be? Like more content just to live a life of ritual like that.

SPEAKER_01 31:49

I'm so glad you said that because I am craving more ritual in my life. I think we all could use it, spend less time scrolling and reading the news, and more time being with ourselves, being in silence, lighting a candle, journaling anything. But there's so many things that can be a ritual. And I just find that whenever I find a new way to create a ritual, I get excited. Things that I would never have thought of had I not talked to you. Let's try to follow the energy of the moon through the month and see what happens. That's beautiful. And I talked before on this podcast about smudging and what it means to just really feel the energy in your environment and clear that energy and spend some time with yourself doing it and sit with yourself and see how that feels. And I just I think we all, whether you want to quote unquote believe in it or not, we all can acknowledge that slowing down and being more intentional with our time feels really good.

SPEAKER_00 32:57

Yes, I have been saying lately that I am now the sacred gatekeeper of my nervous system. And so in saying that, it is making these choices to say no to more social events. So many people talk about healing. It's healing is is simply just learning to be with what is, being with yourself, and then being able to be with yourself and stay with yourself while in connection to others, where a lot of people lose their sense of self and connection to self. But I I hear you when you say you are looking for more ritual in your life, because the truth is that's really what we're all longing for more of that. We're all longing to belong, we're all longing to belong more to nature, to belong more to ourselves, to belong more with others. It's you, yeah, we everyone is wanting more ritual, more ceremony, more sacredness. And yet, what is it that keeps us scrolling? What is it that keeps us choosing disconnection?

SPEAKER_01 34:08

I think that we are afraid of the silence. I think we're so used to constant stimulation and noise and something to do and something to learn that when we step back and say, I'm going to try to meditate today, and then you have to sit in silence for even two minutes. Everything in your nervous system tells you, no, this is bad. This is bad. This is bad. I don't want to hear my thoughts. This is scary. This is oh, reach for your phone. Reach for your phone. It's safe there.

SPEAKER_00 34:42

Yes. I agree with you a hundred percent. I'm thinking of even last night, I was just listening to something that was really lighting me up. And I will say, too, when you said you had a podcast that was like no more podcasts, yay, I love that. And I invite everyone to try a no self-help summer. So no podcasts, no books, no, I mean, unless you're in crisis, of course, therapy is necessary, but no therapy, like only play. I want everyone to prioritize play. So I wanted to say that before, but last night I had that experience of being in the kitchen and I was really listening to this podcast. And there was this moment where I was like, you know what? What I need right now is silence. And I turned off and I was like, oh, there's my thoughts. There, I caught myself thinking about things. And I went to go put the podcast right back on, and I was like, whoa. And I chose not to, and I chose to be with my thoughts. And the thing too is, I don't know about you, Stacey, but like when I choose, when I'm really anxious and I want to run from whatever thoughts I'm having or what's going on in my head, when I actually like literally force myself, like grab myself by my shirt and like put myself down right on my like little meditation cushion. Oh my gosh, my nervous system doesn't feel like, oh my gosh, this is wrong, this is bad. It actually feels like, thank you. Thank you. But I'm not saying that that's the experience for everyone.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

Because you've learned, you've taught yourself. And the second part of what I was gonna say is that it just takes repetition and time and trust building. I think that when it's new to somebody or when they've really been immersed in the digital world or their work or whatever it is for a very long time and they're just starting to become aware that their nervous system is a disaster and that they need to spend some time meditating and journaling and in more ritual, the very beginning part is going, is going to suck because it's hard because your body's not used to it and your nervous system is uncomfortable with it. But the more we do it, the better we get at it. And I also have talked before on my intentional use of brushing my teeth without scrolling my phone, which maybe to some people is natural, but I think so many of us carry these phones around. And anytime we have, if we're waiting in line, for example, at a store, we're gonna look at our phone. If we're waiting in the pickup line for our kids, we're gonna look at our phone. If we're brushing our teeth, we're gonna pick up this filthy thing and scroll on it and then use those same hands to put water in our mouth. So the point is something as small as I no longer brush my teeth with my phone and instead I let my thoughts roll has been really beautiful. A bigger thing for me has been when I go on walks with my dog. I was really good for a while at as soon as I entered nature in any way. So a path, a trail wasn't just concrete. I made a promise to myself that I would switch off the audiobook, I would switch off the podcast, and I was just alone with my thoughts. Even I have slipped on that over the last couple of weeks. I'm not sure why, but I'm just, oh no, no, no, I need something, I need something. And so I've had to re-mind myself, reforce myself to be like, no, you can do this. You can do this whole walk. And the other day, I happened to have forgotten my AirPods, and it was the greatest gift because I had to walk in silence, and it was so much better than it would have been had I chose to listen to X podcast, you know?

SPEAKER_00 38:24

I love that. Yeah, yeah, I do know.

SPEAKER_01 38:27

All right, Jamie. For everybody listening, first can you tell us if we want to do it on our own, how can we read our own charts? And then tell us if we don't want to go through all of that, how you can read our charts.

SPEAKER_00 38:42

Okay, so if you want to read your own chart, here you go. You're gonna have to look up what each of the little glyphs mean. What does the sun look like? What does the moon look like? And then looking up the glyphs of the signs. The first one being Aries. It's in red because it's a fire sign. And then go to Taurus and then go to Gemini and learn about all those things. And then you can say, okay, I have my son with the circle with the dot in it in this. Oh, that's Leo. Yes, I'm a Leo son. Okay, what house is it in? Oh, it's in the fourth house. Okay, so now I have Leo's son in the fourth house. Look that up. Start there. Then go, where's your moon? What house is your moon in? The houses are the pizza pie slices of the chart. And I use Astro.com to draw my charts. I love Astro.com. So, yes, have someone maybe tell you all these things or plug it into a program that can tell you all of it and then go down the rabbit hole with each little piece. Um, your relationship to the sun, the moon, and the rising is going to be the most amount of information with yourself. And of course, if you want me to read your chart, I would absolutely love to read it. Every astrologer reads different. When I read it, I'm not gonna talk astrological jargon to. I'm just gonna simply say what it is and speak to that very intuitively and what comes up for me. There's directives, there's a lot of goosebumps that happen. Every chart reading is a beautiful new experience. You can reach me at Jamie DeLucio, J A M I E D E L U C C I O dot com, and we can schedule you for a reading.

SPEAKER_01 40:29

Good, good. I hope you do. I hope whoever's listening who needed to hear this does it. Jamie is wonderful, as you can see, and she's so warm and just the greatest lover of people you've ever met. And so it's a really, really wonderful experience. And she gives you the file afterwards so you can revisit it whenever you want to. One thing that I still haven't done that I've been dying to do is have my children's charts read because as mothers, I feel like we can benefit so much from understanding our kids a little bit more based on their charts. So that is my next step with Jamie. One more thing, Jamie. Can you tell anybody who's listening what your retreat is about coming up in case they're interested?

SPEAKER_00 41:15

So the one in May is called Truth Rising. Satya is the Sanskrit word for truth. And it's going to be in Nicaragua. It's at a place called Verdad. And this retreat, all of my retreats are about deep authentic connection to self and to other. They're all about belonging and learning the art of staying with yourself and deep connection together. But this retreat in particular is all about coming back home to your absolute truth, who you are beyond those performative masks, beyond the conditioning. And then I have another retreat coming up in November, which will be at Gateway, Colorado.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

Oh my goodness. I think retreats are so life-giving and we all can use them. The hardest thing is making the time is asking for the time off and knowing that you're gonna leave your kids and all the things, all of the hurdles. But it's I don't know if I've ever spoken to any woman, any mother, especially, who's told me I went on a retreat and I really regret it.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

It's not worth it. Yeah, I think the hardest part is the commitment, the saying yes. And then once you do, the second you get on that plane, of course, you feel like you left your kids and some of the responsibilities behind, but you're truly giving to yourself in that moment. So wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 42:39

Thank you, Jamie. Thank you for your time. Thank you for your gifts. Thank you for being my friend. Thank you. I hope everybody listening got something out of this. I know I did.

SPEAKER_00 42:50

I did too, and just from hearing some stuff you shared. Thank you so much, Stacey, for having me. It was really an honor to be here.