Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Awaken Together podcast.
I am Jenn.
And today you just get to hang out with me as we delve into
how you can use astrology as a tool for shadow work and deeper
self discovery.
Now, if the term shadow work is very new to you on your path,
what shadow work is, is it's digging into the sides of ourselves
that maybe we really try to keep hidden.
It's often the things that we can be a little bit more shameful
of. It can be things that make us feel like we don't fit in
or we don't belong.
It can be the messy kind of less performative sides of ourselves.
And as we peer into these feelings, these thoughts, these sensations,
these actions, we kind of take those things that we think we
can compartmentalize and hide away and ultimately give them
freedom and space to breathe so that we are not moving through
our life so tightly gripping to how it should be.
And instead, we're letting ourselves feel wildly and messy.
And we're letting ourselves expose things that maybe we're
really hard to do before because as you've maybe learned on
this journey, we don't really do great as humans trying to
hide off layers of ourselves.
It can create a lot of monsters and defense mechanisms because
we don't want anyone to poke too deep and in protecting ourselves
with these heavy walls and not wanting to face these sides
of ourselves. What we also can really do is self isolate and
not feel connected and really not be living in our most authentic
truth. So shadow work is so important for just learning full
radical self acceptance, self love and just knowing how to
validate your own experience so that when you meet others,
you can also face the layers of them with integrity or not
meeting people at these superficial layers that are inauthentic
and fake. And we're also willing to see people fully because
we can also notice a lot of the qualities of others within
ourselves. And this just helps with communication, love, all
of the things.
Okay, so astrology.
I have been studying this for six years.
I've definitely had other episodes on the podcast where we
have explored astrology in different ways, but I really wanted
to show that in your birth chart.
So your birth chart is looking at your birthday, your birthplace,
your birth time and pulling up what I like to think of as a
soul blueprint, a soul screenshot of all of the energies
you came here to work with in this lifetime.
I think your birth chart can show you your weak points.
It can show you your strengths.
It can show you the challenges you'll face within your life
path, but it also shows you a way that you can usually step
into higher wisdom.
The more you kind of understand and have higher wisdom about
these things within yourself.
So I actually give pretty shadowy chart readings.
I think it's easy to lean into your strengths.
And what I really like my clients to know when I do birth
chart readings is that we can fall into these really unconscious
patterns and be kind of suffering from the repetition of just
the same thing coming up again and again.
But a lot of times the universe will repeat cycles so that
we will learn to step into an energy differently.
Maybe that means relying more on ourself.
Maybe that means leaning more into others.
Maybe that means letting go of a lot more and we have more
tendency to attach.
Maybe it's the complete opposite.
And I think all of the stories of how we relate to things can
exist inside of that birth chart.
So I wanted this episode to be lots of information of astrology
deeper, but I also wanted you to be able to pull up your
chart and kind of go into a deep dive so that this can kind
of catalyze you doing some deeper self-reflection work.
And I love the validation of astrology.
And I think that this is an excellent tool to do all of these
things.
So if you Google birth chart, you can pull this information
up.
I love Cafe astrology.
I think it's a really easy way for you to kind of pull up a
list and what you're going to look for when you pull up your
birth chart is all of the different planets.
You want to look at what sign they all fall in which zodiac
sign and then you also want to see what house it lands in now
Cafe astrology puts that all in Roman numerals and they're
like back to back on the page.
You can also go to astro charts.
Com.
I think that has a nice little layout of the houses and the
planets.
So if you want to pause this episode for a second and pull up
your chart, maybe get a journal.
I'm going to guide us through to some deeper ways to look at
birth chart in that shadow work type way and you can follow
along with your own chart.
So to start us off, I always love to see the little birth
chart when you pull it up.
It can be this little circle and you can see all these lines
going through it.
So there is 11 main placements to look at in the chart.
There's definitely more that I do in a chart reading but looking
at those basic planets and looking at your rising sign, we
can start to kind of create a little web of the energies we
are working with.
So what I want you to do is to write down all of the different
planets, write down your rising sign and then what sign all
of those falls into and then another column you can put what
house that lands in now your rising sign is always going to
land in house one that goes for everybody because the rising
sign determines how the sky is oriented.
So therefore it helps kind of shuffle all the houses into a
nice little order so that you can kind of see which sign
lands in which house now going over elements first the air
elements and astrology are going to be Gemini, Libra and Aquarius
the earth signs are going to be Taurus, Virgo and Capricorn
the water signs are going to be Cancer, Scorpio and Pisces
and the fire signs are going to be Aries, Leo and Sagittarius
So what you want to do here is see how many of each elements
you have that really can help to draw already a blueprint
of some of those energies you're dealing with.
So we consider fire and air to be more young energy or masculine
energy. If you have a lot more air and fire, you typically
can propel things forward in kind of a more linear way.
You propel, you get excited, you move forward, you move towards
your goals and there is a lot more kind of forward momentum
that is like steady.
Now, if you have more water and earth, those fall into the
more Yen, more feminine type placements and those often go
in a little bit more cyclical patterns.
You study into the undercurrents, the emotions a little more
and that usually lands a little bit more into intuitive knowing
for timing versus always kind of moving at a steady pace.
So if you know you have these energies that already kind of
gives you a way to create communication.
If you know that you struggle with constantly moving in a
more linear way, then you can also use that as communication
to your loved ones, the people around you that you are kind
of going through a little cycle of deeper feeling.
Maybe you need more space and time and maybe it's not as easy
to always charge forward.
Now, if you have more masculine, more young energy, this is
what I have more in my chart.
It has been really helpful to have communication with my
loved ones that just because I move in kind of a quicker, more
linear way doesn't mean that I'm expecting the people around
me to mirror this energy.
It's an energy that I can work with, but I don't expect people
to be able to match that energy all the time.
And so I think it's really beautiful to embrace that these
are qualities that can be different within people, but that
doesn't mean that one is wrong versus the other.
It just means that if the people around you have the opposite,
there might be a little bit of a different language processing
understanding and finding language in that meets to that
can break up some of those shame patterns of why do I always
feel so much or why do I always have to move so forward and
not feel as much and I think in between we need the other
balance anyway, we're meant to carve out kind of our weak
points and look into ways we can facilitate that.
So for me being more young and masculine means that I have
to actually schedule out time to feel my feelings more.
I can move in such a thinking head processing type way that
I don't drop into my body.
So this is why doing yoga dancing shake meditations all of
the things that drop me into my body have to be a part of
my schedule because very easily I can skim over those things
and not do the work for myself.
So I hope that makes sense in a way where we're not shaming
ourselves for not having what we lack, but we also understand
that we can fall into one of those energies more.
Now the other really fun thing I like to look at there are
three types of modalities in astrology cardinal fixed and
mutable.
Now, these are the different signs kind of qualities behind
them.
The cardinal signs are always going to fall at the beginning
of a new season.
Cardinal energy helps us launch into the new.
It helps us propel forward.
It gives that initial spark that initial flame fixed energy
is always going to stabilize a season.
So fixed energy likes to stay more consistent.
It's way slower to change, but it helps to really lean into
full embodiment and then mutability mutable signs are our
shapeshifters.
They shape us from one season into the next.
So anytime I'm doing a chart reading, I like to look at how
many of each of these my client has so I can see what energy
they kind of lean into because of the different signs they
have their planets in in their birth chart.
So starting with Cardinal, the Cardinal signs are going to
be Aries, Libra, Cancer, and Capricorn.
So you can put Cardinal by those if you have a planet placement
and then looking at the next the fixed signs are going to be
Taurus, Scorpio, Leo, and Aquarius and then our mutable
signs are Gemini, Sagittarius, Virgo, and Pisces.
So as you look at these qualities within your birth chart,
if there's kind of an even balance in those in your chart,
then you don't necessarily have to look into that in a very
deep way.
Now, if you notice you have a lot more of one and the other,
I like to talk to my clients about this.
Now, if you notice you have a lot of Cardinal, you might get
so excited about new projects you launch into things, but
your follow through can really lack and instead of feeling
shame around that and you know, kind of building a story that
I can never make anything happen for myself.
I have so much trouble like actually fulfilling the stuff
that initially gets me excited or I wish that I could hold
passion for longer periods of time towards the same thing.
You can realize that this is just a quality that your soul
was given to work with and then find people that can help
carry that out for you.
You can even use that as a form of communication to say,
I really, really love getting things going.
I have a gift for it.
I really need the accountability or I would need the added
team effort to sustain it because that's just not as easily
my strength.
And so I would need a little bit more support.
So it's communicating an emotional need versus necessarily
taking the stress of all of that and then continuously kind
of bombarding your life or erasing what you've done.
You can also build on the things that really matter knowing
that you just have to keep finding that initial spark to
move forward.
Now, if you have a lot of fixed energy in your chart, fixed
energy takes a long time to change.
Fixed energy is so steady for the people around you.
It can help them kind of hold time because you kind of have
this strong sort of trunk that people can lean on because
of your consistent way of processing and doing things.
Now, the trouble with fixed energy and the thing that can
be easier to build shame around is it can be tough to listen
to the opinions of other people.
It can be tough to kind of process information quickly.
So using your words and communication to say I hear what
you are saying.
I hear what you're asking of me.
I hear what you're trying to communicate, but I need longer
time to process this information and coming up with systems
for your loved ones, the people around you to give you that
extra time needed to feel to process, but also making sure
that you don't just shut people out because you feel like it's
such a challenge to change and integrate that information.
You can let other people's opinions come in and instead of
just being overwhelmed by it and shutting it out and feeling
like your stuff isn't heard.
I think fix can get really trapped in their way of thinking
and it's important to allow expansion and growth to happen.
It's just going to probably move at a different pace for you
and you just want to make sure that no one feels shut out by
that rigidity.
That also is a huge strength for you.
Now, if you have a lot of mutability in your chart, you
are my people to me.
Mutability is interpreting information on a lot of different
planes of reality.
When I am interacting with something, I am viewing it through
so many different perspectives, so many lenses, and I'm kind
of reading a bunch of different realities almost at once is
truly what it feels like to have lots of mutability.
It feels like there is endless possibility to what could be
happening.
So there can be really poor self boundaries with mutability.
You can get so excited about everything.
You can see the vision of what every single person, every
single item, every single element in nature is all trying
to tell you.
And even though that can be this incredible intuitive psychic
sort of superpower, it also can mean that you can get lost
in other things and really lose where you start and other
things begin.
So boundaries, I think, for the mutability people are so
important so that you protect yourself.
I have to be really careful about what I even give a little
bit of my time to because I will portal into the world of
whatever that is.
And I just want to make sure those are things that are also
going to be filling my tank in some way as well.
So with this information, we've now covered the elements and
the modalities that are within the signs of our chart.
Hopefully that helps you kind of already start to unpack the
depth that can be found within the birth chart.
And it can also provide some languaging because I really
think the biggest element of shadow work is knowing how to
kind of advertise for the things that maybe we feel more
nervous about or a little less in control of.
I know for me, my birth chart is so full of weak points.
And now instead of just like not communicating those things
and then finding that they continuously come up in the ways
that I have relationship conflict or that I fall into
impulsive patterns or I've fallen to escapism patterns.
I can ask for help or communicate my perspective better
so that the people around me are not getting hurt by my
behaviors and I can communicate through what could be maybe
misperceived if I didn't have that level of self-awareness
that I think that can help with.
Now a few other things I wanted to share in this episode
that can be a little more higher level for studying your
birth chart.
I am going to do a little brief overview and I think I've
done this in another episode of astrology, but all of the
different houses, I'm going to give just a general blueprint
and I want you to see if you have some houses that have way
more planets than other houses.
So if you have a lot of planets that fall into house 1 to 6,
those planets are going to fall below the horizon line.
If you have more planets in house 7 to 12, those are going
to be above the horizon line.
People that have more below the horizon line typically seek
more privacy.
You usually kind of lean more into emotional securities
and the people that have more above the horizon line typically
engage in society a lot more.
You can have a lot more social energy.
You also can feel pressured to kind of do things for society
more versus there being a little bit more intimacy and family
oriented kind of rooting that can come with having more at
the bottom of your chart.
So you can add up like what how many you have in each house
and I'm going to give a general overview of all of the houses.
So house 1 is the house of self.
Here is where we really get a lot of how we are perceived,
how we initially respond to things.
It can show a lot of how we view ourselves, how we present
ourselves to the world.
House 2 is the house of our personal possessions.
It's the way we value ourselves.
It has a lot to do with the things that we actually create
for ourselves.
So this is one of the money houses.
This is our own kind of personal security and that can be
both emotionally and tangibly.
The third house is the house of communication.
It is the house where we really can see our early learning
experience and how our immediate environment plays into what
we know and how we speak and communicate.
The fourth house is the house of family.
It's the house of home.
It's where we really want to be secure, where we typically
can see a lot of the patterns that happen within our family.
The fifth house is the house of play, pleasure, inner child
healing.
It's the house of romance, so there is a lot of fun, exciting
energy that can be found in that fifth house and what we do
with our creativity.
The sixth house is the house of health, mind, body, routine.
It shows a lot of our work ethic and how we kind of meet
the day to day and how that kind of funnels into how we take
care of our physical and mental health.
The seventh house is the house of marriage and close and
intimate relationships.
It can show a lot of information about our business partnerships
as well as our really close intimate partnerships.
The eighth house is the house of intimacy, merging.
It's the house of other people and how we kind of merge and
blend with that.
It can show a lot about our sex life.
It can show a lot about how we're going to transform and
mutate through stuff in this lifetime.
It is also known as the house of death because it is a shadowy
house that can show a lot of how we change and also where
we can struggle actually meeting those things such as intimacy.
The ninth house is the house of higher wisdom.
Higher education.
It is also the house of adventure and travel.
It shows how we learn from other cultures, other experiences,
learn by doing and how we integrate all of that into a higher
self understanding.
The 10th house is the house of career.
It's the house of reputation, social reputation, how we want
to be seen.
It has a lot to do with what we put out into the world and
what we end up leaving a legacy with.
The 11th house is the house of groups.
It's the house of friendship.
It's the house of our hopes, our dreams.
This has a very like higher ideal kind of energy to it.
How we connect with the society systems.
How we plug into groups of people and how we all kind of grow
and expand the future together within that house.
The 12th house is the house of dreams.
It is the house of our subconscious.
This is also another darker house because usually the energy
in the 12th house is really hard to get a grip on.
It's hidden away from us.
So it can be harder to access without outside feedback or
just really plugging into deep spirituality and tuning into
other realms to kind of get a deeper understanding of that
energy.
So looking at all of these placements, you're going to have
some houses that don't have any planets at all.
That does not mean that that energy is a problem for you or
that there's not a story there.
Just that when we have planets in certain houses, that is
usually a more amplified energy and every single planet has
a different meaning and how it can manifest energetically
for you.
There's also looking at the relationship between all of the
planets and how they relate.
So if just the simple searching of suppose you have Jupiter
in the first house instead of just searching Jupiter in the
first house, we also as astrologers would look at what
planets are aspecting Jupiter.
So is there other planets in the same house as that planet?
Is there planets across from that planet?
And there's different angles and different understanding.
This is all higher stuff that you can find within a deeper
dive of your birth chart.
But when you are just doing kind of an initial kind of shadow
work type of view on your chart, I think some of the weaker
points that we can have trouble facing the areas of life where
we can have the most challenge.
We want to look to the planet Saturn and we want to look to
the planet Pluto.
Both of those planets have a lot and yes, I'm going to keep
calling Pluto a planet.
Trust me, it's so on brands that it got demoted.
You know what I mean?
You know what I mean.
So looking at both Saturn and Pluto, look at what house those
two land in.
Maybe we listen to all the definitions of that house and
knowing that Saturn, even though we eventually will go through
our Saturn return, which happens around like 28 to 31 and
then I'll happen again at 58 to like 61 and then maybe 88 to
91.
The Saturn is really kind of this old wise teacher planet.
It teaches us how to move through a weak spot with hard
work, consistent effort and a lot of challenges.
It helps to teach us that challenges don't always have to
be perceived as bad.
They help us have to work through an energy that maybe doesn't
come naturally to us.
So I don't even think Saturn should be viewed in such a harsh
way, but because we all feel so much more comfortable when
life is really beautiful, everyone likes us.
We're being perceived really well.
We have all the resources we need.
That's just not always the case of life.
So looking to Saturn will show us what area of life we've had
to really face some tougher challenges and you can kind of
get an understanding of the area of life where you're also
meant to immensely grow.
I can give my own just higher wisdom from my own birth chart.
I am a Saturn Aquarius and that is in the sixth house for
me.
And so that is the house of mind and body healing, daily
routine, our work ethic.
And for me, I dealt with so many physical body problems
as I was growing up.
I was really overweight.
I got bullied and kind of made fun of for my weight.
I think I was really seen as less than a lot of the time.
I had a lot of shame patterns around my body.
I used to weigh myself so many times a day and I just really
was disgusted with how I looked.
I had no self-respect and so that manifested in really poor
habits.
It manifested in me really blocking a lot of people out in
deeper ways because I just didn't trust that they could possibly
like me because I just didn't have any self-love myself.
And I also went through a lot of physical health problems.
I have hypermobility.
I had a lot of joint problems and pain growing up.
I feel like it was really tough to trust my body's like physical
abilities.
And I also went through the patterns as I got older and I
kind of work through a lot of self-love and healing for my
body.
I also dealt with the other shadow of this house and that was
burning myself out by working so hard and going so hard that
I literally destroyed my mental health got really burned out.
And so a lot of the lessons even within that was I felt a lot
more worthy when I was working really hard and when I would
get recognized for my work, but at the cost of my mind and
body being balanced and doing it in, you know, safe boundaries.
So for me my Saturn return and being now on the other side
of it, I have this really beautiful way of meeting routine.
I make sure that it's expansive enough for my neurodivergent
mind.
I've learned a lot about my mental health and the boundaries
within that.
I've also learned how to always show up for my body and care
for my body.
Pay attention to what I'm putting into my body.
I care about my mind and body more than anything else.
I will put it above everything because I know when I don't
care about it.
The ripple effects are so loud because this is an energy that
I came to really sit with in this lifetime and pay attention
to now looking to the planet Pluto.
Pluto lumps us into generations.
So Millennials most will have Pluto and Scorpio most Gen Z is
going to have Pluto and Sagittarius and it's really interesting
because I think that we go through shadow work as a generation
too.
So Pluto Scorpio shadow work has really been to dig into
the truce.
A lot of us have exposed our family brought up secrets that
maybe no one had brought up in generations and we are doing
the mental health decluttering to actually expose the truth.
So there is so much more mental awareness of patterns.
We are the first group to go so hard in therapy, which is
so Scorpio right dig into the darkness of all things question
everything and then Pluto Sagittarius as a generation is really
here to own just that honest truth fiery type of spirit Sagittarius
cares about the planet at large being honest and meeting things
with integrity protecting what belongs to us in a bigger more
societal collective sort of way and I love that the Pluto
Sagittarius generation is really kind of saying screw it to
the standards of like I have to work and over martyr myself.
There's a lot more authenticity and freedom that is valued by
this generation and looking to where that Pluto energy manifests
in your chart Pluto teaches us not only how collectively we
meet inner meet society, but Pluto also can show where we transform
immensely in this lifetime.
It's a very shadowy placement.
It's often full of a lot of stories about losing power losing
control getting maybe overly confident in power and overly overly
controlling and there's usually a story behind the ebb and flow
of both of those patterns wherever we find Pluto.
So once again seeing what house that lands in and maybe just
doing some journaling and reflection on the power and control
issues of that area of life you faced.
So for me, I can give another tangible example Pluto lands
in my third house.
That is the house of communication your immediate environment
and what it teaches you and I really went through so much like
religion trauma and learning disability stuff.
I'm dyslexic and neurodivergent and I had a lot of things kind
of thrown at me at a young age that affected the way I wanted
to use my voice.
I feel like I would either over control conversations because
I didn't want anyone to see anything about myself or I really
didn't give very much at all and significantly held back and
then a lot of people would take advantage of that energy too
because I wasn't holding strong in any boundaries or personal
power around my voice and I learned that as I change my immediate
environment, I wasn't, you know, really dealing with a lot of
the mindsets that were given to me by my family and I started
actually zooming out and changing that I was also able to grow
my mindset my thinking how I actually expressed and use my voice
and I've been able to find a much better kind of power and
control balance and go through a lot of transformation about
the importance of me using my voice and how powerful it can
be and how my way of thinking is super deep and powerful and
that it's so important to get out.
It's not always easy.
I would still say that's very vulnerable for me no matter how
much practice I get, but that is a way I've kind of really been
able to face those stories of my past and go, you know, I was
really doing exactly was I as I was supposed to those old
stories aren't something to hold a lot of shame around.
I can release the emotions of past versions of me and trust
that I needed those lessons so that I could learn how to adapt
and grow and shape shift into a different version of me that
can be more accepting of that vulnerability of that placement.
So I hope this was a fun episode.
I hope maybe you got a few nuggets from your birth chart and
hopefully overall you got to see that astrology has all this
fun depth to it.
I think it can be really fun.
If you want to journal further on these topics, you can just
do a little Google dive.
Start diving into some of the energies and then sit with some
of the stories of your own life.
I think the birth chart in retrospect is so fun to look at.
I as an astrologer can help guide you through your entire
chart, but only you are going to hold the stories behind all
of those placements and know just really what you're feeling
and thinking journey has been around what I am sharing.
Now, if you want a birth chart reading, you can go to my website
at Senseful Wellness.com and you can schedule a chart reading
with me.
I love to be able to share this as a tool and
a few other resources.
I love the app, The Pattern.
I think the pattern is a beautiful way to start reading
into your birth chart in a less technical way, which can start
getting you thinking and reflecting on some of these things
so that you can dive deeper into that self-acceptance.
I also think just listening to any astrology podcast, any
astrology audiobook, I love just hearing the perspectives
of astrologers because I think you can expand your learning
and remembering that there is no set language here of astrology.
I think your lived experience teaches more about the chart
than anything and it's just really fun to see now how big
astrology has gotten now that we have technology and we can
really dive into bigger patterns what people who have passed
away's life story contained what their birth chart said and
we can pattern recognize a lot bigger with all of the technology
that can run data reports and see all of this.
So I've loved to watch this language become such a louder
more accepted tool.
And yeah, a few final announcements before I close out this
episode.
So if you are listening to this in real time, I wanted to give
a couple final announcements.
Kat and I are going to be hosting our next awakened together
witchy retreat in Salem.
It's going to be so magical.
We already have a really exciting schedule.
If you want to take one of our final slots, we have two left
and you can go to Kat's Instagram.
She has it linked.
It's Catalyst Living or Kat Eriksson.
Or you can go to my personal Instagram page, Senseful.
Wellness and check out my link in bio.
We have a direct link there to where you can lock in one of
our final slots.
And the other thing I wanted to share is we have been doing
this podcast ad free, but we wanted to share we created these
little tote bags with our awakened together logo by buying
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You help support us just getting some revenue from all of
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We have the totes linked and up on our link in bio.
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Thank you all for being here for another episode and we will
see you next time.