On Purpose with Jay Shetty - Astrologist Chani Nicholas: Feeling Lost in Life? This Episode Will Help You Find The Clarity, Direction and Answers You’ve Been Seeking

Episode Date: December 8, 2025

What part of your life feels unclear right now? What direction do you secretly wish you could choose? Today, Jay is joined by astrologer and author Chani Nicholas for a deeper look at astrology beyond the pop-culture stereotypes. Chani traces astrology back to its ancient roots, describing it as a timeless tool for understanding our place in the world and the inner forces that shape us. Together, she and Jay break down the basics: birth charts, rising signs, the sun and the moon, and how each piece reveals something about our drive, our emotional needs, and the natural rhythms that shape our lives. The conversation deepens as Jay and Chani explore purpose, growth, and personal agency. Chani explains that astrology isn’t about predicting your future, it’s about noticing your patterns, understanding yourself, and making choices with more awareness. She shares her own stories about finding her calling, meeting her partner, and the ways astrology can reaffirm the truth people already sense within themselves. Together, they unpack common misconceptions about compatibility, Mercury retrograde, and so-called “bad signs,” offering a more compassionate, practical way to work with timing without giving up responsibility for your life. In this interview, you'll learn: How to Use Astrology to Find Your Purpose How to Work With Your Saturn Return How to Navigate Tough Life Cycles With Awareness How to Use Astrology to Choose the Right Moment How to Strengthen Self-Agency Through Astrology How to Release a Difficult Year and Reset Intentionally As you move forward, remember that life isn’t asking you to have everything figured out, it’s simply asking you to stay curious, stay honest, and stay connected to what feels true within you. The cycles you’re experiencing aren’t setbacks; they’re invitations to pause, reflect, and realign with the life you know you’re capable of living. With Love and Gratitude, Jay Shetty Join over 750,000 people to receive my most transformative wisdom directly in your inbox every single week with my free newsletter. Subscribe here.  Check out our Apple subscription to unlock bonus content of On Purpose! https://lnk.to/JayShettyPodcast  What We Discuss: 00:00 Intro 01:01 What Exactly Is Astrology? 02:39 Understanding the Cycles We Live In 05:31 How Astrology Evolved Over Time 07:42 Discovering Your Life’s True Purpose 11:34 How to Read and Understand a Birth Chart 14:52 Why “Bad Astrology” Isn’t Real 19:04 What Does Your Sun, Moon, and Rising Actually Mean? 20:16 Living in Alignment With Your Chart 25:30 When Your Chart Shows the Areas You Struggle Most 27:34 Can Astrology Reveal Future Wealth? 29:12 Asking Yourself What You Truly Want 32:42 What’s the Difference Between Fate and Free Will? 36:06 What Astrology Shows About Your Relationships 38:41 Choosing the Best Timing for Big Decisions 47:13 Staying Grounded in What You Feel 52:46 If You’re Not Ready, Focus on Inner Work First 54:27 Noticing the People Who Changed Your Life for the Better 57:45 Inspiring Others Through Your Own Growth 01:03:52 What is Your Saturn Return? 01:10:51 Why You Don’t Need to Fear Your Saturn Return 01:14:19 Is Mercury Retrograde Actually That Bad? 01:18:58 Don’t Use Your Sign to Excuse Bad Behavior! 01:20:22 Are Certain Signs More Compatible? 01:23:14 Making “Incompatible” Charts Work Together 01:25:32 Who Are You as This Year Comes to a Close? 01:33:04 Chani on Final Five  Episode Resources: Chani Nicholas | Website Chani Nicholas | Instagram Chani Nicholas | Threads Chani Nicholas | YouTube Chani Nicholas | TikTok You Were Born for This: Astrology for Radical Self-AcceptanceSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an I-Heart podcast. Guaranteed human. I'm I Belongoria. And I'm Maite Gomez-Guan. And this week on our podcast, Hungry for History, we talk oysters, plus the Mianbi chief stops by. If you're not an oyster lover, don't even talk to me. Ancient Athenians used to scratch names onto oyster shells to vote politicians into exile.

So our word ostracize is related to the word oyster. No way. Bring back the ostracons. Listen to Hungry for History on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Nora Jones, and I love playing music with people so much that my podcast called Playing Along is back. I sit down with musicians from all musical styles to play songs together in an intimate setting. Over the past two seasons, I've had special guests like Dave Grohl, Leveh, Rufus Wainwright, Mavis Staples, really too many to name. And there's still so much more to come in this new season.

Listen to Nora Jones is playing along on the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey there, Dr. Jesse Mills here. I'm the director of the men's clinic at UCLA, and I want to tell you about my new podcast called The Mail Room. And I'm Jordan, the show's producer. And like most guys, I haven't been to the doctor in way too long. I'll be asking the questions we probably should be asking, but aren't. Every week, we're breaking down the world of men's health from testosterone and fitness to diets and fertility. We'll talk science without the jargon and get your real answers to the stuff you actually wonder about.

So check out the mailroom on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your favorite shows. Astrology is the study of how the sky mirrors what happens on Earth. Of your life, of your life's purpose, of your soul. What do you want to do with that? Hey, everyone. Welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become happier, healthier, and more healed. Today's guest is astrologer and author Chani Nichols, whose book you are born for this has helped millions find meaning in their charts and their lives. As we close the year and

prepare for a new one, Chani invites us to reflect, release and step into what's next with clarity and intention. And if you're loving our conversation, I highly recommend you go and grab your copy of you are born for this, astrology for radical self-acceptance by Chani Nichols. Chani, welcome to On Purpose. Thank you so much for having me. It's so great to have you here because I feel astrology is only being talked about more. Yes. People are more and more curious.

They're more and more fascinated. They are. And at the same time, that leads to misinformation and misunderstanding and misconception and excitement and energy and language and vocabulary changing. But with all of that, I wanted to start with a really simple question. And I'm asking this, funnily enough, as much for everyone else as I am for myself as well. For anyone who's heard of astrology, but doesn't really know what it is, what is astrology and how does it work? So astrology is the study of how the sky mirrors what happens on Earth.

astrology in your astrology chart is a mirror of your life, of your life's purpose, of your soul. It's a mirror of the events that also happen on the earth. And when you're born, somebody's astrology chart is literally like a map of their life. It's a map of your potential. It's a map of your problems. It's a map of your growth edges. It's a map of all the ways in which you need to grow and work and change. into yourself. And what it also signifies is that there's this kind of sense of you're an amulet

of the exact time that you were born. So every single moment of life has its own chart. So us meeting today has a chart for it. And it is a crystallization or the chart becomes a map of what we're crystallizing together. So you as a person when you're born, we live. We live. look at, we take a snapshot of the entire sky when you're born in the exact location and the exact time that you were born. And we see where everything was in the sky. And that is the amulet of you. If you so choose to work with it and look at it. So you're looking at everything from the stars, the moon, the position of where you were born, the time of birth? Yeah, we're looking at everything. So literally right now, if we were to take a snapshot of the sky, because we are in this

place. And because it's this time, there's a specific sign rising up over the horizon. The sun is in a specific place in the sky. And everything else out there in relationship to the earth is in a specific place and it's having a certain relationship. And so astrology is the study of those relationships. One of the longest standing scientific documents is from ancient Babylon. and it's a 700-year documentation of the planet's movements and of what happened on Earth during those movements. So it's literally our longest standing scientific record. Humans forever have been fascinated with what happens in the sky.

And if you think about it, I was somewhere recently where there wasn't a lot of electricity and I could have this beautiful swath of sky. And I was like, oh, wait, remember or think about what it was like before electricity. The sky, if you could see it, if it was a cloudless night, it was just like teeming with light. You can see galaxies. I mean, you can see the Milky Way. You can see, and then you can see the planets moving. And so we've always, until very recently, had a very specific relationship with nature, with all of life around us. And the sky has

always been a part of our relationship with life. And the study of the planets and the study of the moon, the study of the sun, the study of the cycles that we live within also taught us how to count, taught us how to understand rhythms. I mean, it taught us math. So it was always an integral part of how we came to understand who we were. And so through the study of the planets for, again, hundreds and hundreds of years, people came up with, the ancients came up with an understanding of what the planets did and kind of what they meant. And so, So we have this lineage of thousands of years of documentation and thousands of years of scholarship and thousands of years of people examining what the sky was looking like and what it meant for

people living that moment out. So you're a moment in time and I'm a moment in time. And that moment in time had a specific essence. And then you as a person with free will, as a soul, you get to live that out and express that however you want. But it is what it is, but you have free will within that. We're going to get to that. I'm going to ask you about that. When did I know it freaks people out? No, when did humans start to develop astrology or start to interact with this mindset that what we see in the sky has relevance to who we are. Because when you say who we are, are you talking about personality, are you talking about, you know, what elements are you talking about?

So the personality kind of test of astrology is fairly new in terms of astrology's long, long history. But humans have painted, like some of the earliest paintings we have from the caves of Lesoth and France, they are the stars, they are the Pleiades, they're the stars that would rise up around the spring. And so it was like the rebirth. And so again, we have to remember like as hunters and gathers, as people, you know, just like figuring out how to live on the earth, we would know what time of Europe was because of, yes, where the sun was, but also because of what constellations were rising. So we were literally like, it was part of our ability to to find sustenance, to understand where we were in time and space. So in terms of understanding

ourselves and our lives and how long that is, we can only go by what we have written down. So that's at least a couple of thousand years old. And I can only assume that it was much older than that because whatever was written down might have been lost. And, you know, the written word is a fairly kind of newer technology in human history. But it's at least a couple of thousand years old that we've been making meaning of what it meant when you were born that the son was doing this or there was say you know this thing happening over here and for a large part it was used to understand like rulerships and it was not used to understand the ways in which civilizations would kind of come about and like when it was good for the king to do this or the

you know so-and-so that was in in power to do that and then slowly over a longer period of it began to be much more about the person. And like, it became more open to the greater public. For anyone who's listening and they're skeptical about astrology, they have their doubts, they're cynical about it. What would you say to them? Great. I love it. Like, you should be cynical. And also, God forbid, we all like the same thing. It's like, I don't think that I don't really even want to live in a world where we all, like, believe in astrology, whatever that might mean. I think diversity is really important. I think that my main agenda is that you understand what your life's purposes and you move towards that with the

greatest efficacy possible and that moves you towards serving the world in your own specific way. I think that for me, astrology is my quickest entry point into that, but there are a thousand and they're all legitimate and wonderful. I just want you to find yours. And so if you don't like astrology, great. I don't know of anybody, and I'm sure there is people out there. I don't know of anybody that has spent a significant amount of time studying astrology, like really thoroughly studying it and then feeling like it had no merit whatsoever. Young, the psychotherapist, psychologist, famously thought it was ridiculous and studied it and converted himself. And then he actually became somebody who impacted the field greatly.

But I feel like most people that don't like it are thinking about sun sign horoscopes, which are like a gateway drug into astrology. Like they're not the thing. Talk to me about the difference between what you're talking about and sun sign horoscopes. So sun sign horoscopes were developed around the time of the printing press so that people could have an easy access point, an easy entry point into understanding their astrology. Because basically, if you knew the day that you were born, give or take, you knew what sun sign you were. But before that, it was very, very focused on the rising sign. And the rising sign is so specific because, again, it's about where you're born in the exact time, because that's the exact time.

because that's the exact piece of sky that's rising up over the eastern horizon. And that's your marker of life. Like, that's your, yes, I'm here. I'm saying yes to this life. I am, you know, separate from the body that brought me here, all of that. So your sun sign is like something you share with people that are born within a 30-day span as you. It's very general.

There's a lot to be gleaned from it, but it's not your chart. Only your rising sign can tell us your end. entry point, and then it sets up the entire chart. It sets up the meaning of everything else for you. So it's like looking at a sliver of a picture, or like even a pixel, instead of looking at the whole thing. So yeah, if you are like, I don't want to be boiled down to a couple of tropes about my sun sign, I agree with you. I don't either. That's why I don't even like talking about my chart in public because I don't like having people think that they understand who I am by something so surface level. And your chart is so much more complex than that. I mean,

there's like there's like fractals of fractals that you can get into of meaning that people, again, spent thousands of years developing and like, and pouring their life into. And so your sun sign is like, it's fun to share. It's very memeable. It's very gamable. It's very shareable. And so it's an entry point, but it has so little to do with the reality of what we're actually looking at when we look at your chart. Yeah, that's relieving. Yeah. That's good. Yeah. It's really helpful because I feel like you absolutely right that it's shareable. It's interesting. It's fun to talk about. But then when you look at how valuable it is or how accurate it is, naturally it's never going to feel that way. It's the same as a broad personality test that divides you into four core

personality types. It's like, of course, we're far more complex and layered than that. And we all believe that, especially as we get older. Can you explain, you've been referencing birth chart and chart? Can you explain what that birth chart is? I imagine it's when you're born, as you were saying, where everything lands in the sky. But can you explain how someone can read that chart. What does that mean to read someone's birth chart? Yeah, so it's a snapshot of the sky, the moment that you were born from the exact location and time that you were born. And everything in it is in relationship to each other. So you're actually describing all of the relationships that make up your life.

And it is, you know, you can look at it through the lens of your personality, which is one thing. I think it can be quite reductive when we do that. But what like ancient or traditional astrology is more about is looking at the quality of each area of your life like where can someone expect to have success where can someone expect to have maybe some difficulty what are the things that are like working for them and what are the things that are going to be a challenge and therefore a growth edge and therefore an opportunity to develop themselves and so you can glean somebody's like nature from it but it's really about like, you know, someone's struggling to find love in their life. And you look at their chart and you see like, oh, yeah, I can understand why that's a struggle. It doesn't mean that they're going to be in a struggle forever. It means that the chart is going to distinguish what the thing is. And therefore, once we know what the issue is, we can work more clearly or more definitively towards the solution for that thing. And so it can be a really great age.

in terms of like what's what is the pain that you're carrying like what are the things that you're burdened with in this life your chart will reveal that and that can also be a real solace because it can feel sometimes like we have this thing that's like against us in life like why don't this thing work out for me or why doesn't this ever kind of take shape for me and when you can see it in the chart you can be like oh okay that's just a a setup but there's other ways to work with that thing but I have to know what the issue is first and so I think that astrology helps us to identify if you have somebody you know adept looking at your chart or if you have you know good education around like what it actually is then we can use the

chart to really open up those doors for us because without knowing what the issue is it's really hard to try to meet it. You can do that through therapy. You can do that through a lot of different avenues. Again, astrology is one of them. How much of this is, is it so important? You just said that the practitioner needs to be adept. Yeah. And it almost feels like to me that the recipient needs to be adept as well. Yes. And what I mean by that, what I mean by that is like, I've always looked at, so I never studied this, but as part of my teachings in the monastery, we had, had people who practiced Vedic astrology, which is thousands and thousands of years old. People had incredible experiences of using, there's places in India's where they use leaves

and there's writings on leaves, there's charts with literally like strings attached. I mean, it's spectacular, the culture and the history of it. But what I found was that, for example, if I know it's going to rain tomorrow and there's an adept weather forecast with, by the way, I don't know who does good weather forecast anymore. But let's say it's going to rain tomorrow. As an adept person who's looking at that forecast, I know tomorrow I better take my umbrella, my boots that I'm happy to get wet in the rain in a rain coat.

And so it requires me to adapt to the information. Whereas often what I've found today is when people feel like they're going through a bad phase, or there's something not working for them. It's kind of like, well, I can't do anything right now because I'm going through a bad phase. And that's like me saying, well, I can't have fun tomorrow because it's going to rain. So talk to me about that. And if I'm wrong, feel free to correct me. I'm just sharing it from what I've heard and seen.

Yeah, yeah. It is the human problem. It is the human condition, I think, to try to reduce things down to something that's simple enough to either blame life on or to try to, like, figure out really quickly. And we also try to, I think, have one answer for everything. So, you know, I mean, I get why it's so. annoying because everyone will be like, oh, Mercury Retrograde. And you're like, no, that's not what it's about. I'm going to get down. I'm going to ask you about that. That's not. You can't do that.

Like, you can't blame ever. I hear people say, well, you know, I'm a Scorpio. And I'm like, that has nothing to do with being a Scorpio. Like, I get the desire to do that. But that's not, you're using a hammer to do everything. And you need a feather sometimes. And like, you need different tools. So, yeah, it's, um, it is a, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, It's an interesting thing because when we're going into a time period that looks really complex astrologically, you want to hold it with like, okay, this looks like it's going to challenge us. It looks like it's going to require a lot of mindfulness from us, and it looks like it's going to require a lot of tenacity, and it looks like it's going to require more from us than general times. Great. So now we know that.

So show up. How can I help people show up to that moment? not reducing it down to everything's going to be awful, or this is why this is happening. Because if we lived in a world where compassion and, you know, thoughtfulness and community and people's health and well-being, we're front and center, then bad astrology wouldn't be that bad. It's not the astrology that's making things bad.

It's revealing or it's giving you a kind of understanding of, again, certain cycles and timings of things. And so if we can see, like, well, what happened the last time this cycle happened and what worked, then we can use it as something that's empowering. If astrology isn't empowering, I don't think you should use it. If you feel like astrology is reducing you to something or freaking you out or making you're paranoid, I don't think it's working. I think you should put it down and not pick it up again until that passes or maybe for the rest of your life. Like, it should help you to feel like you're more located and you're better prepared. Like, it's, I love the rain. So if it's going to rain tomorrow, great. Maybe I can, like,

have, you know, a moody day where I drink tea and write in my journal. That's my fantasy. I have a child, so I can't do that. I love that. I remember days like that. I love that. What's the difference between your sun, your moon, and your rising? Because you hear people use this language. Joel. Yeah, yeah, yeah. What's the difference? What does it mean? Yeah. Well, your rising sign is the marker of your life. It is the marker of your yes to life. So it's the marker of your motivation. It is what you're motivated to do here in the world. And it is your yes. It's like, okay, I'm here. I'm born. Your sun is how you shine. It's like part of how you illuminate, how your soul illuminates things. It's like what lights you up. And your moon is your body. Your

moon is the physical world. If you think of the moon as a reflector of the sun's light, the moon in our chart reflects the light of our soul, the light of our sun. And we can only have this incarnation through the body. And so it's the holder, the keeper of memory. It is about the physical world and the physical realm and how sacred it is to have a body to have incarnated into. And we get to do our life purpose through our body a little bit every day. Come the tiredness and the joy and all the things, but the body keeps the score of all of that, so to speak. Yeah, I'll take any shortcuts that actually works, and that's why I'm all in on Hello Fresh. Fresh ingredients, super easy recipes, and over 80 options every week, so everyone eats. No one complains, and I get to feel like I've got it all together, at least for dinner. And the best part, you're in total control. Skip a week, pause any time, pick what works for you. It's dinner on your terms. They even have 15-minute recipes. Perfect for those nights when everyone's hungry and patience is officially off the mess. menu. And with so many options, even my pickiest eater found something they loved, which means

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Hi, friends. Sophia Bush here, host of Work in Progress. This week we had such a special guest on the podcast. My Forever Flotus, a mentor. a friend, a wife, a mother, an author, attorney, advocate, television producer, and now she adds podcast hosts to the list herself. Friends, Michelle Obama is here. Sophia, I'm beyond thrilled to be able to sit down and chat with you.

We talk about it all. Life, love, motherhood, martini's. Vodka martini, dry, straight up, olives. Oh, olives. Very cold. My girl. Barely any vermouth. What's next?

What she's, what? watching on TV. I am a white lotuser. I am a real housewives person. I love the dating shows. And tennis. I just find that to be a bit meditative. You do not want to miss this. Listen to work in progress on the IHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. So when you're reading someone's birth chart, you're seeing all of of these. Could you give examples of what would fit into each one for anyone that you've read before? Randomly, obviously, not. Yeah, yeah. Well, like when someone has a Leo rising, then they're motivated to show up and really shine in the world. They're motivated to

illuminate something, to be charming, to be adorable, to be like a recipient of people's adoration or attention. But what it also does, the rising sign gives you a key to the meaning of your life because the planet that rules that sign is the planet that steers the ship of your life. And so if you feel lost, if you feel like you're not sure what your purpose is, one of the quickest ways to understand it astrologically is to understand where the planet that rules your rising sign is. And so if you're the ruler of your rising sign is in, your 10th house of career, then it's going to be a major part. If it's in your sixth house of service, then maybe your volunteering is going to be, you know, it's like where are the planets

located and what job are they doing? The planet that rules your ascendant is literally at the helm of the ship of your life. And so quite often when I give people readings and over the years, I've given mostly strangers readings. And, you know, back before Zoom, before the pandemic, when we were all on Skype, I wouldn't even see the people. I mean, I guess we could have cameras. But mostly it was like I was almost like on the phone with people and like all over the world.

And so I didn't know them. I had never seen them. I don't know anything about you. I'm just going to read your chart. I'd start there. And 99% of the time, people would be so relieved to hear that that's what that was. because quite often they hadn't been fully living into it. Or it was just so innate that that's always what they did.

And they're like, oh, that's, yes, that is that thing. That's what I've always been known for. And so when you're not living in accordance with these kind of like signs, to me, in your chart, if you're not living in accordance with your purpose, then everything is going to feel wrong. And everything's going to feel misaligned. And like for myself, I never thought I would write a book. It's not anything I would ever think of. But nothing in my life was working. And I felt so stuck. And I felt like such a failure. I felt like I couldn't figure out my place in the world. And I started writing and people started reading it. And it started to take off. And I was like, what is this? This is wild. And it wasn't until I started working with my teacher, the person who was. like really teach me about the lineage that I practice in, that I understood how important it was to follow that mark in my chart because the ruler of my ascendant is in the third

house of writing and speaking and teaching. But that's nothing I had put together before. You can look at your, you know, you know, you can look at yourself in the mirror. You can read your, you can look at yourself all the time and not get it. The beauty of having a therapist or a guide or a coach or an astrologer, somebody that's got some wisdom. is that they hold that third space for you so that you can have that kind of self-reflection. So coming to know that, like, that natural inkling in me was there in my chart,

gave me the permission to just fully do it. And then everything started to work. Like, overnight, people started to pass my stuff around. I met my wife within six months. I mean, like, things just blew up. And it was because of that, I remember the moment where she was like, well, the ruler of your sentence in the third house. And I was like, oh, and it all just clicked.

And I'd always wanted to write, but I never thought I was smart enough. I didn't think I was educated enough. I didn't think I was able to do it. And it's literally one of the things that changed my entire life. And it's right there, plain as day in my chart. And I didn't see it for like 20. 20 years. Wow.

Because I started looking at astrology and understanding my chart at like age 12. Wow. So, but I didn't really, I didn't really know what I was looking because I didn't have traditional astrology. Right, right, right. So, you know, when you meet your teacher, also everything really starts to come into practice and into place. And so when I met my astrology teacher and she taught me this really ancient, traditional way

of doing astrology, it just landed everything. And it was like this whole rubric that was so clear and so concise and so specific. And so not about my intuition or not about, you know, what I felt about the chart or anything like that. Not about like, oh, I knew this Scorpio once and they did this. It's like really like, no, if this is here, this means this. Yeah. Do this and see what happens. So you're actually saying that astrology is guiding us.

When you say purpose, but really you're talking about activity, task, methodology, like you said, writing, speaking, teaching, those are very occupational in that they are an activity that someone can take out. Yes. You're saying that astrology, am I right in saying that you're saying astrology shares your purpose and it defines purpose as activity of greatness? Yes. And it can get more complex than that.

that. So say if the ruler of your ascendance in your eighth house, the eighth house is a place of loss and grief and mental anguish. It's also a place of inheritance and other people's money, and there's a lot of things connected to it. And so when you see somebody's, you know, when you see a significant placement in a part of the chart that's really difficult, you have to wonder if they've got there yet. But often when I see really significant placements in difficult houses in the chart, I'll ask, like, are you, are you a grief doula? Are you someone who does trauma-informed counseling? Are you, you know, do you feel really receptive to other people's pain and suffering? And so it's not as clear sometimes, like sometimes it is. Like, you could go and study

and be, you know, someone who does hospice work or something like that, if that called to you. But sometimes it's a little bit less specific, but it's very important still for that person to be able to move towards that area of life and know that the inklings that they have towards that area of life are very much embedded in their life's purpose. And I've just seen time and time again once you take that action towards that, that things just start to open up and fall into place. And then you find your way to do that signature in your chart. Can your astrology tell you whether you're going to be a millionaire or a billionaire? Well, there's a famous quote attributed to J.P. Morgan that says, millionaires don't use astrology, but billionaires do. And it's not clear if he actually ever said that.

But he worked with an astrologer, Evangeline Adams, for a very long time. And he was actually like a student of hers. He got readings from her, and she taught him. And so he used astrology to do. his banking. So I think that there are definitely signatures that can tell you when somebody is really adept at working with the material world. And whether they engage with that or not is also their choice. I see a lot of people that have a lot of talents in their chart in their life and they don't necessarily engage with it. You also have to have the friction. You also have to have

the thing that spurs you into action to make use of the gifts that you've got. But your astrology doesn't tell you whether you have that part? Yeah, it does. Yeah. So your astrology could literally say you have talent, but you have no spark. Well, I wouldn't say that to somebody. I would say if someone has a really like easy setup, I would say the most important thing for you to do is to embrace the struggles in your life, is to like really lean into

what is going to challenge you and who is going to challenge you and what's going to help you to struggle to find your own way and don't lean on the things that are necessarily so easy. It's fascinating because I can think of so many people in my life. Right? Yeah, and it's interesting that astrology also, I assume by what you just said right now, believes in growth being critical for humans to live a great life.

I have a lot of friends who say to me, and they're not speaking astrologically, they're just speaking in self-awareness. And they're saying, Jay, this is just who I am. They're like, Jay, you're ambitious, you're driven. Yeah. You know, I'm not. Yeah.

And so, you know, this is just my life. And I'm like, well, I don't know if I was always ambitious or driven. I feel like there were skills I learned and habits I developed and there were coaches and mentors in my life who taught me certain things and you can build confidence and you can build skill sets that allow you to live a better life. And I don't just mean materially. I mean spiritually as well. Yeah.

And they'll be like, no, no, no. But, you know, some of us are wired like you and some of us are not. So is that true? Is that? I mean, I think there's some truth to that. Okay. But I think you can choose to not rest there, right? Like it's, what do you want from this life?

It's really about that. Like, are those people happy or are they suffering? Generally not. Right. But are they interested in their suffering enough to do something to change it? And so what I'll look for is time periods that will come along and kind of put the pressure on. and be like this you're going to if you haven't done your work if you haven't individuated if you haven't really tried to build something in yourself of your own efforts

then this period of time is going to really be rough but that's good for you like you know like Saturn will come along as a planet of boundaries and structure and it will come along and hold you in place until you figure out how to either find another way to move or to like lift the weight that's on you enough times until you get strong enough to move it completely. And Saturn's a planet that you can also look at in terms of your life cycles. So Saturn comes along every seven years and does something really important. So at age seven, it comes along and helps you to distinguish yourself a little bit from your parents, helps you to find like your own. And then at age 14, age 14, usually it's that

It's called a Saturn opposition, and it's usually a time where something happens in our life. And, you know, we're 14, so it kind of makes sense, psychologically speaking. But something happens where we're like, wait a minute, this is what I want, this is what you want. These are the expectations you have on me. This is what, and then at 21, we have another one, and it's part of the adult cycle. And then from 28 to 30, Saturn closes the loop, and we go through something called a Saturn return. And that's where we move through our first really big third. threshold where we move from whatever remnants of being a child or whatever remnants of being a

young adult kind of like have to trickle away and we're asked to move and cross a threshold into our true adulthood and to take responsibility for our decisions and our actions. And so if you miss that, if you're like, nah, it's going to be harder and harder. You'll have like in the next seven years, you'll have another moment of struggle. And so that like saying the seven-year itch is interesting because it is like a Saturn cycle. And even in marriage, right? Like most divorces happen at five to seven years. Oh, that's interesting.

Yeah. Yeah, it's that friction point. Fascinating. Okay. Well, you write in your book that our chart isn't our fate. It's an invitation. And I think this idea of fate and free will, and you mentioned it earlier, but what does astrology believe about fate and free will?

Do we have agency or is everything predetermined? You and I right now are in this city. We're not in a city. We're not in France. We're here. And so there's certain conditions here. We can't do everything here. But we can do all the things in this city that we can do. And so it's the same with your chart. It's like you're given a landscape. What do you want to do with that? How do you want to approach it? And how do you want to work with these really specific skills and this really specific set of? up. Yeah, it's almost like I was born in London. Yeah. You were born in Canada. Yeah. And that created a certain environment of what was available, what I was aware of, what was possible. Yeah.

But somehow I've ended up in L.A. You lived in L.A. and you live in New York now. Yeah. And if someone told me all the way up until the age of 28, which is when I moved to New York, if anyone told me that. If anyone told me up until that age that I would ever live in any other place, Apart from northwest London, I wouldn't have believed it. Wow. Oh, so you left London at 28? Yeah, the first time I left was when I lived in India for a period of my time as a monk. Yeah.

And then I left when I came and lived in New York first and then now L.A. And so the reason I'm bringing that up is to say that there is more choice and free will and agency than we sometimes think when you're looking at astrology and you might consider everything's predetermined. Yeah, yeah. Like, I know, you know, I'll see, like, harrowing transits come up for me. And I have to be like, I'm not going to catastrophize this. But I have to work against it. You know, it is just a natural human thing.

And then I'll live through it and I'll be like, oh, that was totally different than I thought, but it's so emblematic of what it was. And I absolutely needed to go through that. It's always about, like, distancing yourself enough from the thing, from your astrology chart, from the thing that you're going through so that you can understand what life is trying to teach you. So when people come to me and they're like really in trouble

or they're really in a lot of pain, sometimes it can help to be like, yeah, this started six months ago and it's going to last for like another eight months. You're in the middle of it. You know what it is. This is it. Like how else to,

how do you want to hold this? How do you want to work with this? What is this teaching you? Like, this might be some suffering, but what else is here to teach you? Or what is it here to teach you? What can you learn? And if I am struggling and I look and see I'm in a challenging aspect, then I can be like, oh, okay, then it's not just out of the, it doesn't feel random, I think, for some people.

And so that's the other side of like, Mercury's retrograde something's going to work out. We don't want to do that. But we do want to use it and be like, okay, it's just a time period. It's just a cycle that we're in, that I'm in. Does your astrology tell you who you're going to fall in love with? No. It tells you, though, what you need out of a relationship. Interesting.

So it tells you the quality and the nature of the person that you need. So for me, also, I didn't realize this until after I had. met my wife, but I really need somebody to like work with me. I need someone to be like right. I need someone to partner with me in every single way possible. And when we met, she just did that instantly. And I was working with my teacher at that point and she pointed that signature in my chart out to me and I was like, oh my God, that's what she does. Like me and my wife met and I didn't even know how to put a PayPal button on my website, like on my blog. And she put it. And she put put it on there in like two seconds. And I was just like, wow, you're a magician. And we just became

business partners like immediately. And so then we grew this business together and then we created an app and, you know, the rest is kind of history. But she was an immediate partner for me. And that is a very specifically accurate, you know, like read of my chart. So you can see like what kind of qualities and what kind of nature you need from somebody. Does it predict when you're going to fall in love? I mean, I'm sure those Vedic astrologers at the Ashram would say yes. There's certainly definitely timing techniques. There's like ancient timing techniques for everything.

I think that they're correct. They don't necessarily, I don't know if they'll always say like how long it will last. Some astrologers are excellent at doing that. But I think that what's more important is understanding yourself, understanding the qualities that you need in a partner and finding that energetic match with somebody else before you really even touch the astrology. I don't know. I think I'm not as interested in finding out when something's going to happen in my life as I am and understanding who I am. I can agree with you more. And what I've got to give this moment and like what's possible

here. Like what could I do with what I have? Because I think that our agency is the greatest power that we have. And so again, I never want the astrology to get in the way of you understanding your agency.

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or wherever you get your podcasts. I imagine, though, that's the kind of questions people ask you. Because when I talk to my friends who go to astrologers, it's constantly to figure out, like, when am I going to meet the guy? Or, you know, when should I, you know, when should I think about selling my company? Or when should I start my company? Or those are the questions that I'm hearing that they're asking and then they tell me what their astrologer said. Yeah. And sometimes people will be as specific as you should marry someone whose name begins with R and you'll probably meet them in the next six months. Yeah. Or they'll get an answer that's like, well, you're not going to find someone for two years. Yeah. And so, what do you make? You're saying that that could be accurate, but you're saying that's actually not the best use of astrology almost. Well, that's up to you. Right. Right. It's like, what do you want to use it for? I don't use it for that because I don't think that's helpful for the people I work with. Right. I think that picking a time to launch your business is great. If you

like give me a time frame, if you're like, I want to launch it in the next three months, I'll give you the best day and time within the next three months to launch it. Talk to me about that. So how is that calculated and why is that important? You just look for the best signature within the time frame you're given. And what is? You don't have like forever. You just have like the time frame. So people want to get married. I'm like, well, what's the best day in August to get married? And then I have to look at a time that's like reasonable to get married. Like I'm not going to say four in the morning. I'm going to say I'm going to look for like an evening period or afternoon period and then look to see. I want the conditions of the planets associated with the

event to be good. So if a wedding, I want Venus to be good. And if Venus is really not in a great situation the month you want to get married, then I'll look for something else. Like I'll ask you, like, is it really, do we have to do August? Could we do July or is that totally out of the question? And if it's out of the question, then it is. You just, you have to live your life. And how does that impact the quality of a marriage or a business? Well, it is the imprint of it. So it's the launch of it. So it's the mark of it. And so you don't want to play God with it. You know, there's, there's problems with every moment in time. There's problems with every chart. You just want to look for something that's relatively auspicious. Yeah. It's like trying to find a sunny day. Yeah. It's like no one, like you don't want to get married on a rainy day. Yeah. And so you're trying to find, like, that's just a natural.

trillinkly. And so you're saying similarly on a plantry sun level, like you want to find a day that feels auspicious for a better word. You know, you're trying to find a word, a day that has good energy. Yeah, it has like a good coming together. Yeah. Of things. It's got like a good, a good picture to it. And so you want to begin something. If it's within your control, you want to begin something with as much on your side as possible. Yeah. Yeah. But then the thing you have to learn is that's still up to you. Like, that's yours to still learn. You can pick the best astrology chart in the world, but if the person you're getting married to isn't the right person for you, like, it's not going to do that much. Maybe the divorce will be better. But it's still like,

you still have to live your life. You still have to take the actions. You still have to do the hard stuff. You still have to show up. What do you feel having helped so many people being deep into this work? How have you seen astrology really help people? Where has it truly changed people's lives? I think it really truly changes people's lives when they need the confirmation that their soul's purpose is what they think it is. So, like I remember when I met my wife, I refused to look at her astrology chart. I didn't want to see it. I don't want to know. So I sent her to my teacher. And she got a reading and my teacher didn't know anything about her. I looked at her chart and said, oh, your life's work is in the realm of gender-based violence.

And she was like, yeah, but she was a banker at the time. And she wasn't valuing that part of her work, even though it was something she had done since she was 16. And that reading gave her the kind of affirmation she needed to move fully towards it. And it's one simple thing. You know, it's one thing that someone says to you. And it's quite often at those junctures in our life, we just need that one thing, that one person to just hold that little bit of space for us to say, yeah, you are. There it is. It's plain as day.

And then you can, then you, again, have to go off and do all the work. Astrology is not going to do the work for you. Yeah, you have to act on that insight. Yeah. But that insight can be so reassuring and reaffirming totally because everyone else has been reminding you of the opposite ever since you were born. Right. We have a lot of obligations. We have a lot of responsibilities. A lot of people want us to be a certain way, not because they're bad people, but just because of whatever conditions we're in. And astrology is one tool that can help you to distinguish yourself and really see yourself a lot. more clearly. And so when you do, I think if you're conscious, then you can take action.

Until we have consciousness around something, we don't really have a lot of choice. But once something comes into awareness and consciousness, we then have choice. What am I going to do with this information? How am I going to act? Is this mind to do something with? And so if you need that, then a good astrology reading should be able to give you the shape of yourself in a really clear and specific way. And then you get to choose what you want to do with that information. Yeah, absolutely. Do you believe in divine timing? Yeah, I mean, I work in timing. It's like my whole life. My whole life is timing and yeah I really do and I think that astrology is a part of it it'll tell you about your life cycles that you're in but you again have the agency to meet those moments with your work and

your effort and your consciousness and then you can I think speed up everything but that requires you to say yes to the things that are yours to say yes to. It requires you to say yes to your talents. It requires you to say yes to your agency and then to fully, fully own it and everything that comes along with it and then move boldly in that direction. And then I think that time starts to kind of meet you in a way. As I'm talking to you, I'm just thinking we're asking all the wrong questions of astrologers. Like I'm just like, when I think about all my friends and every question. They asked them like, wow, we're asking bad questions because there's just so much more. And it's kind of like how, you know, there's that, I don't

know who said this, but the whole idea of how if aliens came down to Earth and saw us or just staring at our phones, they'd be like, why are you wasting life? Yeah. And it almost feels like that, that what we're going to astrologist for and what we want to use it for seems to be so rudimentary compared to what it truly can offer when, as I'm talking to you. Yeah. I'm like, wow, it just feels so much bigger than that and so much deeper than that and so much more meaningful. And we're using it to figure out, like, you know, am I going to meet my person in three months? But that's because that is our insecurity. Like, that is what people are struggling with is really that question is actually, the question may not be ideal, but it's coming from a deep rooted insecurity of am I lovable.

Yeah. And that's because through time, we have felt that we're not lovable based on people we've dated, family, experience. So to go back to that and expand my compassion, it's like, well, actually the question we're asking is based on this deep feeling of just not being loved. Yeah. And therefore, we're not really asking, will I find love in three months? We don't really care about that. But we're just like, will I ever find love is really the question I'm asking. And I'd like to have it to happen tomorrow because I'd make my life better.

I think it will. How would you, yeah, so how would you guide someone who is going through that experience that I just mentioned to you when you're reading their charts? and of course their chart is going to say what it's going to say which we you know you can help me hypothetically but yeah what happens what are you if someone comes and they're really they're just like you look I got broken to make something yeah so like I got broken up with yeah two years ago

yeah I am still getting over it I've been dating this guy I don't know if he's into me I can't even tell but I just really want to settle down like I just want to fall in love and get married and have kids and have a great life and I'm a good person and I've got my career sword and that seems to be going well. Every straight woman out there.

Totally, totally. And I have a lot of friends who are in that position. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. They're coming to me, so I'm asking you. I will anchor myself in what I'm feeling from them. So I'll have the chart, but what you're saying is you're not over him or you're not over the breakup yet.

Like what happened? to you. What are you still holding? Like that's when I just want it human to human. Like there's the chart, but like can we just have a conversation about what you're holding right now? And like that is a legitimate feeling of frustration and despair and feeling like you're going to be left out of a life cycle. Like, you know, you're not, you're not in it. It's missing you, it's like passing you buy. And that's a real feeling. And it is also situated in a greater context where there's a lot of people in your similar situation that feel the same way. So you're also not alone. It's your personal life and it's also there's a sense of like there's another thing happening. And then I'll go

to the chart and see what I can talk about. I want to talk about the person that I see in the heart that will be your partner and I want to talk about that and be really specific about it and then I want you to meditate on that I want you to sit and this is from Catherine Woodward Thomas calling in the one one of the best meditations that she ever gave me and I've given it to millions of people is to sit in meditation and just not no thoughts about no specifics about like who the person what they look like or what they do for living none of that what do they feel like, what does their energy feel like? And what do you feel like sitting across from them? And what is that energetic match? And then I just want you to go out into the world and feel that. Who has that

energetic resonance for you and who doesn't? So there's this things you can get into all the details in the chart. But then there's just the like, let's just be human and just acknowledge that what you're carrying right now, it's really hard. And that loneliness is really. And that loneliness is really real. And I don't want to diminish that at all. And all I know that you have in terms of your agency is to, yes, work on yourself and develop yourself, but also just to, like, be with it. Yeah. You know, like I was 38 when I met my wife. I had had a bazillion relationship. I was like, I'm just going to be alone forever. I had totally given up on it. And then it was like I walked out of that life and into a totally different life. And that can feel like a setup, too, to say to people

because, you know, it's like I got, I feel like I got really lucky to meet her in this lifetime. And it's a really, I feel like a really rare, special relationship. And I also did everything I could. I did every course. I did everything under the sun. And then I did just kind of like let it go. And when I met my teacher and when I was, when I started to feel like I was meeting my life's calling and my purpose, I did everything I could to anchor myself to that. And I do feel like there was some kind of synergy there. So everyone has some kind of story like that. And each of ours are so specific. And I always say to people, what if you don't meet them for another 15 years? Like, I don't know. Maybe you'll meet them

tomorrow but what if you don't how are we going to make sure you live a full and beautiful loving life and like you've got tons of relationship and tons of intimacy and joy and bliss and fun like what do you actually need to do to feel like you aren't holding yourself back from life because somebody else hasn't shown up yet we have no control over I feel like the moment my wife was ready to meet me she appeared like out of thin air and like I day before it just wasn't ready. And I'm older than her. And so it was like, I was like, oh my God, like I'm, that's it. Like I've, I've lost. I'm too old now or, you know, all the things that come with being out of sync in those kinds of ways. So we each have our own journey.

We don't know why it is. And yes, the chart will speak to it. But I first and foremost want to hold you as a human and acknowledge what you're struggling with. And then that's a real. struggle and those are real fears. Can people miss the love of their life, success, that moment because they weren't prepared at the right time? Oh gosh, that's I I think that for me I have certainly done things to delay my own success and my own arrival. I have burned bridges. I have done things in the past that I look back on and I'm like, oh my God, but I was so full of insecurity. I felt so unlovable. I felt so all the things that I didn't know how else to act. I was coming with my best and it wasn't meeting the

situation. So in one way, it's like, well, I wasn't ready for it and I had to learn and grow and you know really like kind of wrestle with life and learn and so I wasn't quite ready for it but I don't know if you can miss it I don't know I think I feel like that's kind of fatalistic I just feel like when you that you you won't catch the other relationships maybe or the other job opportunities like you will lose some stuff if you don't know how to show up for it but it doesn't mean that it won't come back in a different iteration. It doesn't mean it will never exist.

Yeah. It just means it could be delayed. Yeah. And then you've got to wait for the next bus to come. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you got to like figure out what you're doing with yourself. Are you going to read a book or you know waste your time on TikTok? I don't know.

Like, what are you going to do in the in between? Yeah. Does astrology believe in the idea of the one, that there's one perfect person for you or that there are many people who it could work with? I don't think it, it doesn't have that kind of judgment. It looks at the chart. Like, you can see when someone will have. multiple significant partnerships you can see when people have multiple children you can see like

there's our there are ways of seeing those things and then there's you know it's really important for us to understand like how how we work right so like if i understand how i work then every relationship i'm showing up to is going to have a greater potential for me to learn from and so the one, I don't know, like everyone that I'm in a relationship with is so important to my life and my understanding, like every single friend, everyone in my company, everyone teaches me so much because I'm always learning about how I'm dealing with another human being, given the conditions I'm dealing with them in. So I think everyone is the one that we're, if we're in a relationship and we're in contact, like, that's it.

And then there are these people, like no one else in my life made me feel seen the way my wife did ever. No one got me. I don't trust anyone like I trust her. Like her talent, her instincts, her intuition, her knowledge, her wisdom is for me just unparalleled. So the synergy between us when we met was just undeniable. There was too many things that happened that were like that was. How did you know that I was going to say that? Or how did you pull that book out?

I was going to give it to you. You know, there was just so many things that occurred that I was like, this is bigger than the two of us. This is something else. This is a third thing. And that is so unique and so special that you might call that the one. And that's fine if that's the language. I just think it's really important to recognize when those things occur.

There are some people that come into your life and they just change the entire trajectory of it. I've had teachers like that and I've had, you know, this relationship that has been like that. And everybody else was really helpful. You know, it was fine. It was fine. But this is a distinct category in and of itself, I think, when, and that's my calling. Like, that's my life story. Yeah, yeah. I know people that don't have that story.

different story. And so some people's one is their career or their art, their calling. Like, that's their one. And that's beautiful. And I just, I want us to live in like a village full of really distinct different humans that do life in all kinds of different ways so that we can share child care. And I love that. Not everyone should have children, not everyone should get married, you know, like some of us should live on the outskirts. Some of us should live in the center. Like, some of us are cooking for everybody. Some of us are teaching. Will your astrology tell you that's better for you? Like, does astrology predetermined whether you're going to have kids or not? Like how many kids you'll have? I've had a Vedic astrologer tell me that I wasn't

going to have kids and I do. How do you, how do you reconcile that as someone who practices who believes in? I understand why he said that. And yet, it's not true. So it's like, it's a certain condition in my chart and it's like not great for having kids and you could i mean i'm queer so the way we had a kid is different than how heterosexuals have kids so if he was trying to look at my chart through a heterosexual lens then yes he's right but interesting you know so it's really about the astrologer and where they're coming from i've had an astrologer look at my chart and be like i don't know how you're ever going to find love like basically you're doomed so how is so how do you reconcile that? I was like, that's a really awful thing to say to somebody that's not helpful.

Even if you think that's true and you think you're right, I don't know how that's ever going to help me. So as an astrologer or a coach or a therapist, even if my person in front of me takes it all with a grain of salt, I have a tremendous responsibility to be very encouraging of somebody's best to come forth. I don't need to make them feel doomed. That's everybody, already does feel doomed. Like we already go there. So what can I do to help fortify that person, to help them find their power, their creativity, their special thing in this life, and to move from that place? I don't need to make you feel like you've got a lack of anything. And I also don't need to predict everything correctly that you're ever going to do and say and be. I want that to

be part of the mystery of who you are. I just think that you have like, I don't know, when I see somebody's chart, I'm so fascinated. Like, I'm like, oh my God, you have this thing and you do this thing. And it's the exact replica of you're living it out. You don't even know it, but it's the exact signature. Like, that's so beautiful to me. So my work is mostly incredibly awe-inspiring, because I don't have people coming to me with questions of like, when am I going to meet the one? And I really do have people coming to me with questions of like, okay, I've done this huge career and now I'm at this other place and I'm wondering what else there is or, you know. That's beautiful, yeah.

Yeah. Or I'm in this really dark, hard place and I feel like the world's turned against me and I'm like, I'm in that kind of crucible place. And then I get to be like, yes, I see that and I'm with you. And like, this is part of your journey. and I know you've got what it takes to move through this, and I just want to witness that with you. Like, I get to witness people's awareness and healing

and their journey and their gifts. And I get to remind them of how powerful they are. You know, people, like, I'm sure you have this too, but, like, people with extraordinary, like, talent and success doubt themselves so much. And I'm like, you too? Yeah, yeah. You struggle with this insecurity.

You struggle with this. self-doubt, wow, it's just the human condition. Yeah. You know, it's incredible that we're so alike in that place. But there's so much to what you've said about the adeptness of the practitioner, like the practitioners that you met that told you, hey, you're doomed, you're never going to find love or whatever it may be. Like, I was thinking about it because I think the often skepticism is, well, if everyone's

telling you a different thing, then it's not an exact science. And there can't be truth to it then. Right. And I was thinking about even medically, like I remember this is a long time ago now, but a doctor checked my throat because I felt I had a sore throat, but it was really bad. I was like losing my voice. It was painful. And he said, yeah, you got a sore throat, just take antibiotics or whatever, and I took them.

Four weeks later, it was really bad. And I went to the doctor. I went to an E&T surgeon, E.N. Nose throat surgeon, to be really clear. And he immediately said to me, he goes, you've had polyps growing. in your throat for at least X amount of months, I can't remember now. And I was like, wait a minute, I literally just got a check four weeks ago. And he goes, no, these are pedunctulated polyps. They're big. Like, they couldn't have grown in four weeks. And so I'm like, I met a doctor who wasn't an expert, who was a doctor, but didn't have the right tools or whatever you want to call it. And

then I met a surgeon who was very adept at his job and immediately saw what the problem was and I was in surgery and had to get the polyps lazied from my throat. But all of that to say, I think sometimes people look at astrology and it's got, oh, well, if three people said three different things, then obviously there's no truth to the actual thing. Right. But that's not correct, because like you're saying, there's so much left to interpretation,

cultural understanding, you know, disposition of where, does that make sense? Yeah, and that, I'm saying in defense of. No, I understand what you're saying. I think if astrology works, the three astrologers should come up with the same thing, the same reading. And that's part of why we made an app, because my theory is if it works, you should be able to pull up your chart in my app and get some kind of guidance from it and get, feel seen, feel witnessed, and feel like, oh, I make sense to myself just because the technology of the astrology is sound when it's used well.

And I think that, you know, we're humans. And so you have to take that into account that when you're going to another human for advice or for their expertise, you're going to have your own relationship with them. You're going to walk into the room and they're going to have a reaction to you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And it's up to them whether they deal with that in a productive way or not. Yeah. Yeah. So many people talk about Saturn return.

Yeah. What is it actually? It's when Saturn comes back to the same place it was when you were born. And because Saturn is the planet that, to the naked eye, is the last planet in our little solar system, it was thought as such a big moment because every 28 years you go through this closing of a loop. So between the age of 27-ish, 28, 27 to 30, you go through this kind of closing of a door and a threshold experience into a new stage of life. Saturn is the planet of responsibility and of adulthood. And it's also the planet that's of mortality.

It's like, hey, I'm the time lord. Like, you don't have all the time in the world. So at 30, you should be going through some kind of crisis. Some kind of like, oh, I guess I'm going to get old too. And you should also be doing things that require everything from you. Saturn is a planet of discipline and hard work. And so this is the time to put your money where your mouth is, to be in the game fully, and to, again, own your choice.

And to say, I chose to do this. And it's also a planet of separation. So in some way, shape, or form, we usually separate from our family of origin. Maybe that's psychologically. Maybe it's physically. Maybe we get married. maybe some kind of big life transition happens at that time that distinguishes us from our family

of origin. Not that we're not still part of it and we could still be living at home even and well for the rest of our lives. But there's something here that's like, I have to build a really solid foundation in the world that is mine, that is apart from the thing that I come from or apart from the convenience or the comfort of the people that, you know, hopefully you have people that love you and you can feel like and fall back on them. But you need to understand that you can go out there and do something for yourself or that you can separate in the ways that you need to separate, psychologically, emotionally, sometimes physically, sometimes monetarily.

That's not a negative thing at all. That's really good. But then why do we talk about it in such a... Because the Internet. Because people are like, oh, my Saturn return was awful. Yeah. And then they blame everything. everything on the Saturn return. But a Saturn return should be a time of, of a kind of like,

again, discipline, awareness, strictness almost, like severity sometimes, but also like so much joy. Like in my Saturn return, I moved to L.A. And I was, I didn't know anybody here. I didn't have any money. I didn't have any context. I didn't have anything. And I was like elated. I really did walk out of my life. I was living in Toronto. And I left and I started this whole new chapter here. And it was on my own terms. And I had to really prove myself to myself that I could do this. And there were days where I didn't have anybody to call and there were financial struggles and I didn't have a car. And it was a whole thing. But I did it. And that, no one could ever take that away for me. And as much as I believe in community and I believe that we shouldn't live in an

individualistic kind of culture, we have to do those things that help us understand what we're made of, that help us understand, like, put me anywhere and I'll figure it out. That's how I function at least. And so that happens at, there's a version of that that happens at 7, at 14, at 21, and then at like 28-ish, that's the big one. I can relate to every single thing you just said. Yeah. Every single thing you said. It's so vivid for me. It's like 14 in, I mean, this is small, but I remember at 14, that's like the age in England that you decide what you're going to study for like, you do it quite early, I assume. So I remember like fighting with my parents about

what I wanted to focus on and I won and did what I wanted to do. And that's when I first felt confidence in who I was in my ability. And then 21, going on 22, I decided to go live as a monk. Oh, my God. So that was a big decision. And then 28, I moved to New York. And I was in New York for two years going through exactly what you said when you moved to L.A. Yeah. And it's amazing how that tracks in now on 38.

So I've been through 35 as well. Yeah. Which was an amazing year. You planned a seed at the Saturn return cycle of your own selfhood, of your own adulthood. Yeah. You're like, I'm going to stake a claim here. Maybe this is hard. Maybe it sucks.

Maybe I'm lonely. Yeah, yeah. But I'm doing this. Yeah. And this is my choice. And then by the time you get to 36, you're at that next first quarter square. And you get to see what worked. Wow.

Like what from that seed that you planted at around 30 is growing. Right. And then you're like, okay, I'm either going to double down on that now or it's not a viable option. And so it's this really, I think, really helpful kind of growth cycle. So it's so important because we almost look at all the wrong ages. Like, if you look at the material take on it, it's like we look, obviously, we look at like 16 or 18, becoming an adult, like sweet 16 birthday, 18 to become an adult, 21 sure you graduate, so that feels on track.

But then it almost feels like after 21, no one cares. And then it's like, I'm 30 and I'm 40 and then you're just scared about, you know, the next decade, yeah. So it's less about growth. It's less about, I loved what you were saying about how like from 28 to 30 that, whole idea was I'm locking in. I choose what I focus on. The discipline, the grit. I mean, I can relate to every single one of those things. I have to put, I have to invest in myself. So we're talking about those people earlier that maybe have a really easy situation. If they

don't do that Saturn return thing and they just kind of fall back on what's easy, then at 36, it gets harder and then again at like the early 40s it does too and it's Saturn is also this like market can feel depressive until again you kind of start to work towards well what is the discipline that I need in order to do this but some of us really like thrive on discipline and some of us really have a hard time with it you know there are signatures in the chart I have I have some friends like this that there's just so good at having fun and so it's hard to to like gather them and to like help them to focus because part of the signature of their life is to like enjoy things. And then you have to kind of like work against that somewhat.

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So if someone's about to enter their sat and return, what would you recommend they do? Do the things that are hard, that are going to require everything from you, that are going to be worthwhile in the long run. Like what is going to be satisfying to you seven years from now? Do not think about instant gratification. Do not, this is not a social media game. Like, this is about if you only had seven years left, what would you do? do? Like, what do you want to make sure you've left here? And what would move you deeper into your integrity so that you were proud of even having attempted it? And if it's not that serious, then it's not really either part of your side and return or it's not going to last for that long. And so if you, it's a lot of times people will get to that age and you'll start to see their life crack because

they've spent their 20s in an industry that maybe wasn't the industry of their dreams or that took everything from them and they realized it's not really their calling. And so they've been locked in this maybe like corporate thing or they've been locked in this other, you know, relationship. And you start to feel the cracks show at around 28, 2930. And so this is your chance. This is like a portal of time. I mean, any day is your chance. But this is a time where the pressure and the gravity of what doesn't feel good in your life will become really acute. So if you're fearing your Saturn return, you're actually fearing the truth of your situation. And you're fearing confronting what you actually need to do and the work it will take to do it. And that's

fine. You can fear it. But you can also just like embrace it and move into it. And and be okay with, I think you also have to be okay with being alone, going it alone. You have to be okay with doing something that wasn't expected. You have to be okay with disappointing people. It's a time where you're supposed to learn about boundaries. And so if you can't have a boundary with yourself, which is to say, I will not abandon myself, then it's going to be really rough. But if you promise that you will not abandon yourself, you will not abandon your gifts and your talents and your inner knowing, then the Sodom return will really set you on a course that feels like liberation because it's stripping you down and being like, it's this or it's going to be like what pain do you want to choose? You want to choose the pain of choosing the thing you know you need to choose? or do you want to choose the pain of denying that?

And that's kind of the crossroads that the Saturn Return finds us at. You have totally redefined my perspective of Saturn Return. Oh, good. Brilliant. It's so much more powerful as well. Yeah, it is. It's so powerful. It's so empowering.

It's so clear. It's so, better than, it's so clarifying to know what you need to focus on and what this period of life is about. And also just like the willingness to get on with it and build. and, you know, create. Yeah. The other word that's thrown around is Mercury RetroGate. Yeah, yeah.

And so I was like, so what is Mercury retrograde? Yeah. And how does it actually affect you? Yeah, it's very common. It happens three to four times a year for three weeks a year, three weeks each time. So that's like at least nine weeks a year out of 52, it's going to be retrograde. So because it's so common, it is so prevalent and it is so misunderstood. So I wish no one ever mentioned Mercury retrograde because I think it's the main reason why people hate astrology because someone at the office will be like, I told you everything was going to go wrong because Mercury is retrograde.

It is a planet of communication and is a planet that can rule every, and we, you know, rely on gadgets and technology and that's all the ways in which we communicate. So there's some very famous, you know, things that have happened during a Mercury retrograde with tech companies that are kind of comical. I'm sure they're really difficult for the people that are working in them. But for, like, sites to go down and for communication to be bumpy is what is supposed to happen during Mercury Retrograde. But it becomes this catch-all for everything. It becomes a catch-all for everybody's every emotion. It becomes a catch-all for every single thing going wrong ever in the universe. And so then it loses its definition and it loses its specificity and it loses its meaning.

So it's something really common that happens and what it's trying to teach us is stop, pause, and turn around and look at what just happened. Review where you just came from. Review the document. Do you need to send that text? Like it's a good time to practice. even whether or not you believe in astrology, it's just like a good time to practice mindfulness and thoughtfulness

and reflection. And that's really what it's about or it's supposed to be about. It's just like a good time to be reflective. And I find that it's a, it's a, I also have a tech company. So I think that sometimes we feel it a little bit more acutely than other people.

If something's going to break, it generally does break during Mercuriatur. And I hate it because I'm always telling people it's not, you know, I'm like, don't make it. such a big deal about it. And then I'm like, oh, my God, here it is again. But what I also find having a team, and this is for, you know, we all have a team, whether it's a family or housemates or business or whatever, is that the team, whatever the team's working on, like the system

that we've put in place to work on a project together, if there's cracks in that system, it'll reveal itself and I'll be like, oh, well, we didn't put this thing in place. So then the thing went out completely wrong. And why didn't we have that system in place? And everyone's like, I thought you were doing it. I thought, and so you tend to find the ways in which we haven't systematized something in our life. That's so interesting. I love that. Yeah. And that's such a more sustainable, sustainable solution. Yes. Because if you figure out the system, then the next time Mercury is in retrograde, the same thing can't break. Right. And it's just like for life. You're like, oh, well, this was always going to break. Yeah. So it just broke now because it's time for it to

break, but this was never going to work long term. So I can't, and I'm not going to get mad at the planet. I'm going to be like, okay, where else in my life am I not paying attention to this thing? Where else in my life am I not seeing that like this system doesn't work? Or there's, there's a malfunction here. And I need to adjust the way in which I'm approaching it. And also, it's just a really good time to think, like, how am I communicating to the people in my life that I work with. Like, are they receiving, are they hearing me, am I saying things that are getting the message across? Like, what do you need me to say more of? Or what do I say to you that, like, shuts you down? What do I say to you that makes you feel smaller? And do I say things to you

that make you feel a certain way that I don't want to do that, but I might be doing it unconsciously. So it's a good time to also think about the ways in which we speak to each other. And I think because our cultures so like go, go, go and forward, forward, these are just invitations to be more reflective and considerate of what we're saying and how we're saying it. Do you think sometimes we use charts and signs as an excuse for a our bad behavior or acting in that way. Always. I wish, I wish, I wish we didn't do it. Because I, it's not what it's about. It's never, um, it's never the reason why someone's acting badly. Interesting. Yeah. It's not because their sign. It's because a need isn't being met or,

you know, there's, they're disregulated or, you know, there's something else happened before they walked in here, they might do it in a certain style that might be in accordance with what you think their sign means, but it's not that. As humans, we're always looking for patterns. And of course, as an astrologer, I love to look at patterns because I look at cycles and I try to see like, oh, what happened 300 years ago when Pluto was an Aquarius? Oh, we had an industrial revolution. Oh, Pluto just went back into Aquarius in March of 2023. Oh, that's when Chachybt exploded onto the scene. Like, that isn't another industrial revolution. And there's a million signatures that you can look at like that.

So it's interesting to see like these big cycles. But because humans always want to find pattern recognition, what we tend to focus on is like, that Gemini broke my heart. And so I'm going to see that characteristic in every other Gemini that I ever meet, you know? And that's, I just don't think it's helpful. We often hear about how certain signs are compatible and certain signs are not based on what you just said. Awful advice. No good? Every sign is compatible.

No way. There are specific ways in which the signs will, like, say, so when people talk about that, they're often talking about their sun sign. So that's, again, one tiny part of someone's whole entire chart. I really want to look at the moment that you were born, you have this full picture of the sky, and the moment they were born, there's a full picture of the sky. How do those two pictures line up? Because there's all those different points. I need to know what style is your Venus, what style is their Venus? There's no bad combination of Venus signs.

There's just styles. Like your style of being your sun sign and my style of being my son's sign will have a relationship in a certain way. But that's also obviously based on us. But it's not about there being good and bad matches. There's about being, there's certain resonances with certain signs. But you shouldn't be with somebody just because there's ease. Like that's silly. And it really is about the whole entirety of somebody and their chart and the whole entirety of you and your chart. And how those full two things go together.

But I don't think you should look at somebody's chart until you know them. because we'll make assumptions yeah yeah i think there's such a negativity bias that we have obviously naturally as humans yeah as soon as you hear like you said oh my last x was a german like yeah this one is too or oh the chart said this and this is what yeah yeah yeah i don't i just don't think it's helpful when you're trying to meet somebody and get to know them so when you're dating you'd suggest we actually just date the person yes i would love that if we if we have a like them and things are getting more serious, and we believe in astrology and value it, then that should come later.

Yeah, then you can see, like, okay, where do we come together? Like, what are the things that we would be good at doing together? Or you would just probably notice, like, oh, yeah, that is what we naturally do together. How cool that that is reaffirmed in our charts. But I think you should always come to a first date or a situation where you might be meeting someone and really, again, try to feel what it feels like to be with them. What is the energy between you? Like, do you feel safe? What is your body saying? Like, what are they telling you? What are the little things they're telling you that you would normally not listen to? Are there

red flags? Like, there's a million things to look at and pay attention to before you get to an astrology chart. Can astrology charts tell you about some of the long-term red flags? yeah yeah like what yeah like where you'll have like communication issues down the road where like your venus is like my venus isn't a certain sign your venus isn't a certain sign so if it's really different or if they don't have a relationship with one another then we're going to have to work to kind of like connect it you know there's things that will eventually aggravate you about any person that you're with long term And those differences and disparities are in the charts.

But they're also in the relationship so you know what they are. The chart will just kind of confirm that those are differences. And these are where you come together and this is where you kind of go your separate ways. Or this is where you will generally tend to like miss each other. Like my wife and I have very different incompatible charts and a lot of things just don't go together. There's obviously places where it's like full harmony. But then there's places where we're just, like, kind of alien to each other almost. And it's not that I don't relate to those parts of her.

She doesn't relate to those parts of me. It's just we do it so differently. Yeah. And that's what makes our relationship, you know? It's like, oh, that's what she's doing the thing or I'm doing the thing. And that makes me have to struggle to, like, appreciate and understand somebody else. and there's always going to be that disparity in any relationship. Yeah, I can agree more.

I feel like we always want everything easy and single and pre-packaged and it's like... Well, yeah, I can agree more. It's almost like that balance between it shouldn't be excruciating or torture you, obviously, and then it can't ever be fully seamless and easy. Yeah, that's only when we're first born, hopefully with our parent, you know, like... If that. If that, yeah. Most of us don't even have that, but that's what we're, I feel like, trying to get back to that totally, that total union. And that's not what being a human is. We have to separate from each other and we have to find those places of difference.

Yeah. As it's coming up to the end of the year and people may be looking back and thinking this year didn't go the way they wanted to, maybe they didn't make the progress in their career that they wanted, maybe their relationship. is just about surviving, maybe they haven't found a partner that they're looking for, how would you encourage them to release this year so that they can truly move into the next year with a healthier mindset and approach? I think that one of the things that's important to remember about this time of year, at least in the northern hemisphere, is that we're moving into more and more darkness. We're moving away from the great activity of summer. and we're moving into the quietness and the stillness, which again is hard for most of us

because life is so busy. But I think it's really important to allow yourself to think about this frame of time, especially as we move closer to the winter solstice, as being a time where we're just allowing a waning of energy to occur. And we're allowing that waning of conscious activity to help us transition into a place of stillness and regeneration. And then if we don't allow those times of release, like if the year was hard, it was hard for, I think, most people in a lot of different ways, in a lot of different places. And so if we don't allow certain times, especially at the end of the year to unwind and to fully kind of just like let it be. Like whatever this year has been for you, that happened. It impacted you. What is it that you're left with now?

And just allowing some days, especially, you know, in December, especially as we move towards the 21st of December, the solstice, to just be. with what was. Who were you at the beginning of last year? Who are you now at the end of this year? And have those moments of reflection. Because you know, like the year will change and things will open up and it'll be busy, busy, busy and it'll be a lot of things. But astrologically speaking, 2025 was one of those like game-changing years where all of these major planets change signs. And so it was a signal that this year was going to be very different than years that we've had in the past. And there was going to be things that were going to happen this year that we're going to impact us for decades to come. So if you feel like you haven't been able to do all the

personal things that you wanted to do, yes, like we're in the midst of a massive transition and a lot change. And so you're also caught up in a greater cycle of things. We're in a collective thing right now. And so the world is working and looking differently. And so allowing yourself time to just reflect, and not even so much with your mind, but just like allowing your body to decompress in any way, shape, or form to just deal with the image. impact of what this year has brought, I think is a huge gift to yourself. And allowing yourself some time, again, if you don't have kids, allowing yourself some time to write, to reflect, and to reset. Like, you can reset. We can take a pause. We can, you know, turn the off switch

off. Like, let it drop down and give yourself a minute to, you know, to. be a human. Yeah. And just like let the reckoning kind of happen, but allow yourself to be human. Yeah. And just be as much as you can. It's the gift of darkness. It's the gift of winter. It's the gift of this time of year is to just like less and less and less and less because it'll all come back and back and back and back. So any of that stillness, any time you can get out in nature, anytime you can gaze up, at the sky. Anytime you can really truly be present with your people. Like hopefully there's gatherings and hopefully there's, you know, places of warmth and connection in your life. Just let yourself be filled back up. If this year has been disappointing, do what you can to fill

yourself back up at this point. And are there any habits or practices you recommend people take into the new year or to set themselves up for that new year to make it different? Yeah. So I do, have, you know, like we have on the app, we've got readings for the new year, you can map out your whole year. If you want to use astrology, I go through each month and tell you about the energy and the pattern of that month. And like, this month is like go time. This month is going to look a little clustered and a little bit more difficult to like, we can do this and this and this. So every week I give you specific things to do. I'm quite action oriented and also reflective, but I do like to say, okay, this is what this time is good for. This is what we can do.

And so I go through each month. So you could always listen to all those readings and kind of plan out your year, month to month. And there is a ritual for the solstice that we have on the app because I think it is a really powerful moment. It's obviously the longest night and shortest day. But from there, the light starts to increase. So any intentions that you set, anything you do around the solstice, if you think in terms of cycles, brings the ever-increasing light with it. So it's a really good time to think, allow yourself to move into stillness and get really contemplative, fill yourself up, and then see, like, what are my intentions for this year? And plant those intentions by writing them, you can burn them if you want,

gather with friends, talk about them. How are you going to bring? bring life into your intentions. Like, what are you going to, you want to, again, clear space, get clear about it, write them down, understand what it is you're moving towards. And then what are you going to do? We have to feed those intentions then every day. But if you want to think of it symbolically, the winter solstice is that time when the light just continues to grow into the next six months.

So you could use that as an encouragement. Jenny, you have completely expanded my viewpoint, opened my mind in an incredible way, and answered so many, hopefully not stupid questions. Oh, my God. Beautiful. I've learned so much, and I really am so happy that for your success and your ability to help so many people, because I can easily tell from sitting with you for the past couple of hours that everything you're doing is coming from a great place, but also is truly trying to guide people towards their great. greatness and their best self and, you know, through all the amazing teachings and studies and resets that you've done. So thank you so much. Thank you so much for having. We end every episode of On Purpose with a final five. These questions have to be answered in one word

to one sentence. Okay. So you have a sentence. You have a sentence. Okay. So Charlie Nichols, these are your final five. The first question is, what is the best advice you've ever heard or received. If you choose it, do not feel sorry for yourself about it. Your agency is your greatest gift and your greatest power. The moment you feel sorry for yourself, you decouple yourself, you do yourself the greatest disservice. If you choose it, do not feel sorry for yourself about what it takes to make it happen. You can un-chuse it, but if you're choosing it, this is what it is. Do you still want it. Such a great answer. I love that. So many questions. So good. No, that's great. That was great. I loved it. Second question, what is the worst advice you've ever heard or received?

Someone telling me they didn't know how I was ever going to find love. I don't know if that's advice, but yeah, yeah, yeah. Question number three. Does astrology tell you when you're going to die? There are ancient timing techniques that do. I do not dabble in those arts. Tell me more about the arts. Tell me more about the arts you don't dabble in. I don't want to know that. There are timing techniques. There's like mathematical equations you can do.

There's ways that you can tell that. There are people, very few. Most astrologers would say I won't do that. Because I don't, I don't, that's not a, that's not an art form that I need to look at. It's above my pay grade. Yeah, got it. Question number four. what's a misconception about astrology that you'd like to debunk?

That there are certain signs that are good or bad. They're all bad. Yes, they're all problematic. Explain. What's the right answer? Well, everyone, every single sign is an archetype. So the archetype has qualities of both, like, magnificence. and horror, because they're reflective of us.

So everyone's a problematic fave. Fifth and final question, we ask us to every guest who's ever been on the show. If you could create one law that everyone in the world had to follow, what would it be? I've listened to a lot of your episodes. I don't remember this question. Oh, it's always lost. Okay. Because I haven't finished that.

Yeah, exactly. That's what I'm learning, Chani. Yeah. The law is that everybody's child is. is yours. I love that answer. That's a great answer. Never had that before. That's brilliant. The book is called You Were Born for This. The app is called the Chani app. Chani Nichols, everyone. Please share what you learned on your Instagram stories, your TikToks. I'd love to see the clips that you all create and the parts of this that you're going to practice. Of course,

use the app if you're someone who really wants to know your chart and understand how your next year of 2026 is going to map out. And of course, go and grab Chani's book. You were born for this astrology for radical self-acceptance and follow Chani Nichols across all social media platforms if you don't already. Chani, thank you so much for being here today. I hope this is the first of many times that you'll come on the show and enlighten me and our community and so grateful for you. And thank you for answering all the questions wherever we went. So grateful to connect with you. Thank you so much. Thank you. If you love this episode, you'll love my conversation with Dr. Joe Dispenter on why stress and overthinking negatively impacts your

brain and heart and how to change your habits that are on autopilot. Listen to it right now. How many times do we have to forget until we stop forgetting and start remembering? That's the moment of change. I don't care how many times you fell off the bicycle if you ride the bicycle now. You ride the bike. Hey, I'm Cal Penn. And on my new podcast, here we go again. We'll take Today's trends and headlines and ask, why does history keep repeating itself? Each week, I'm calling up my friends like Bill Nye, Lily Singh, and Pete Buttigieg to talk about everything from the space race to movie remakes to psychedelics. Put another way, are you high?

Look, the world can seem pretty scary right now. But my goal here is for you to listen and feel a little better about the future. Listen and subscribe to Here We Go Again with Cal Penn on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. This week on Dear Chelsea with me, Chelsea Handler. Nicholas Sparks is here. I would imagine that you've gotten a lot of feedback about setting a standard of romance

that a lot of men can't measure up to. I have heard stories. At the same time, I've had seven marriage proposals in lines to sign my book. Really? Up to the table. Doodle drop to his knees. I'm like, dude, you're in a Walmart

in Birmingham, Alabama, you know. Listen to Dear Chelsea. on the IHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, friends. Sophia Bush here, host of Work in Progress. This week, we had such a special guest, a mentor, a friend, a wife, a mother, an author, attorney, advocate, television producer, and now she adds podcast host to the list. Michelle Obama is here.

Sophia, I'm beyond thrilled to be able to sit down and chat with you. Listen to Work in Progress on America's number one podcast network. iHeart open your free iHeart radio app search work in progress and listen now this is an iHeart podcast guaranteed human