scorpio season feels.

note: this post is directly pulled from my 11/3/21 email newsletter without edits. this time, as a bonus, this blog post will include my awareness practice section, which is typically reserved exclusively for newsletter subscribers (subscribing is currently free!). if you would like to receive my weekly note in your inbox along with additional sections and features not included here, you can join my email community.

last time, we began a series introducing my new offering: 1:1 astrocartography sessions!

learn more about how these sessions work and book an astrocartography reading here.

this time, my note is relatively short, and my prime invitation is for you to dig into the scorpio season themed awareness practice prompts later in this email.

what is scorpio season?

depth. passion. power. intimacy. mystery. intensity. courage. magnetism. rebirth. release.

who is scorpio season?

raw. real. soulful. perceptive. psychic. independent. original. sharp. outspoken. clever. candid. honest.

why is scorpio season?

this alchemical time asks us to surrender to the undercurrents of life and to stare our deepest selves straight in the face. ruling the sign of scorpio is the planet pluto, which is often experienced as confronting and sometimes even burdensome— but only ever to call us more firmly into our power and rebirth us into the witnessing of a more honest self.

but like, what the fuck, seher?

i know. it's kind of the most. for me right now, scorpio and pluto are definitely like, “bitch, hi.”— more precisely as a cacophony of varied chaos and grief that i guess are asking me to surrender and release and get clear or whatever. so rude.

but this is how we grow and find more meaning in our joy, right?

so that's why i got all the awareness prompts for you— to meditate on, deep dive into, let marinate in the back of your mind, reflect on, converse about, or throw in the trash (only to later pull out a crumpled piece of email at the exact right moment, and finally be like, “aha!”).

here's to fortitude and agile flow in riding deep and sometimes turbulent waters. and here's to the unique peace and wisdom found when we allow our pain and our shadows tender loving space.

awareness practice.

1. your truth.

which parts of your true self do you have trouble owning and accepting?

where are you not speaking or embodying your truth? how has this been hurting you? what would it look like to stand boldly in whatever it is you have to say and whoever it is that you are— and own it? how would that feel?

imagine your most authentic self. who are you? what is it you stand for? how do you look, feel, think, and move? what do you want? what do you do? what will you not do?

what helps you feel most embodied in your authentic self?

2. facing it.

which parts of yourself or your life do you avoid excavating and taking an honest look at? why?

how have you been lying to yourself or others? are you ready to tell the truth? what might that look like?

which areas of your life could benefit from some radical honesty— whether to yourself or others? what do you need to get more raw and real about in your life?

what’s something you keep trying to ignore but won’t go away? what if you stared it right in the face this time? told it: “let’s go!”? what would that look like? and how might confronting this thing free you?

is there a part of your shadow or darkness that particularly scares or intimidates you? what if you offered this part of you some deep, tender love?

what in your life needs to die in order to create space for the new?

3. desire + risk.

what, specifically, is it that you most deeply desire? what, if anything, is keeping you from this?

what is the one thing that you most earnestly dream about for your life? how would it feel to promise yourself that you’re going to make this happen and believe your own hype?

if you could release the one thing holding you back in your life, what would it be? what’s the first step you can take to make this happen?

what would happen if that one goal you keep procrastinating you finally made a priority?

what’s a meaningful risk you’ve been hesitant to take? how would your life be different if you took this bet on yourself? how would even the simple act of giving yourself this chance impact your relationship with yourself?

4. power.

what is your relationship to power? do you judge it? hide from it? resent it? test it? spar with it?

how do you diminish and undercut your own power? what’s one thing you can start doing today to take your power back?

who would you be if you were fully in your power? how would a balanced and grounded embodiment of power express through you?

5. intimacy.

what can you do to deepen presence and intimacy with yourself? your relationships? with life itself?

6. muse.

if you could pick a scorpio muse to help you embody your unique passion, power, and magnetism— who would it be?

learn to become a self-starter with your self-inquiry

an explanation is
not always a service;
some things
are best discovered inwardly.

inner work, deeper work, honest work, more rigorous work. based on our consumption habits and devolved attention spans, sometimes receiving highly abbreviated educational tidbits can in fact be a disservice to our actual development.

caught in the flurry of our manic scrolling and app-ing, our illusion of education exists in transience; we often take things in intellectually and then file them away somewhere to essentially be forgotten— failing to deepen our awareness and understanding, failing to put anything into actual practice.

this is one of the reasons that with my typical poem/quote thingies on instagram, i originally did not put captions and have slowed down on doing that again.

there is immeasurable value in rigorously engaging self-inquiry on your own; learning to develop your own discernment about when to self-trigger a self-inquiry is straight-up invaluable. in order to be productive agents of change, within and without, we must learn to self-inquire without prompting, directing, or instruction.

yeah, it’s a tall order and everybody won’t get there. but for those who would like to meet me in community, self-inquiry and self-accountability is what imma be dishing. that’s what i am calling in for you— for us.

for me— know that helping you connect more deeply with your own self-inquiry journey + your truth, and bringing our individual reflections into community dialogue (to help better understand and serve our collective), is becoming revealed to me as part of my purpose.

this is the deepest work: awareness work. tuning yourself to know what kind of questions to ask and knowing when to seek out more robust sources (beyond social media) when you need to better understand something (intellectually, energetically, physically, emotionally, or otherwise).

thinking that following mad accounts on instagram and watching all my ig stories all day is good enough for your knowledge intake and reflection is a gross miscalculation.

it is essential to prioritize your personal journey towards a certain sovereign wisdom. without really really learning to tap into, flex, and strengthen our inner inquiry muscle, we can never truly understand or shift anything; we’re just always looking outside, following like robots— turning one machine into another. note: machine = the system.

step into your wisdom, step into your power. from here, you may seek out the wisdom of others with a greater and more meaningful intention. let’s do work, bb’s.

taking credit for our gifts

my virtues
are not merits
i have personally derived;
they are gifts.

people have often told me how they admire how self aware i am and how committed i am to “doing the work.” sometimes as they marvel in awe. there was a time where i pridefully took all credit for this. but as i evolved in my overall awareness, i realized that self awareness and doing the work are largely not a choice for me— it is how i am wired. these are tools and gifts that i have been given.

it dawned on me that the way “ignorance is bliss” for some, ignorance usually results in sheer torture for me; my hyper self awareness persists through all seasons, regardless of what my ego wants. being aware and tuned to the vibration of truth— often painfully so— is my default.

and so, my self-work is often the result of my desperate attempt to resolve some ever present suffering i’ve been unable to silence and suppress. and even when i do succeed at some version of suppression, the truth remains in the back of my mind along with deep unhappiness.

simultaneously, i recognize that i get to take credit for rising to the challenge and making the decision to do the work. because even despite my nature, i can still decide to opt out; there is plenty of work i trade for the familiar comfort of my suffering; these are my edges, i’m working on them— also often by eventual force and compulsion.

the universe ultimately always kicks my ass out of my limiting habituation— just as it is in this new decade. much death is happening to make way for a rebirth i’ve been hiding from for the last few years.

all this to say: often what we pridefully claim as our self-derived virtues are actually gifts. these gifts are here to help us realize our full potential so we can be of service. not so we can be delusional, self-important, holier than thou assholes. i ain’t special. i just got some tools (that i have a complicated relationship with) for the purpose of my soul mission, which, by the way, isn’t even about me— it’s about us.

empty spaces stay empty.

people, food, sleep, tv, internet, social media scrolling, podcasts, music, books, shopping, sex, alcohol, drugs...

any person, thing, or activity can be empty if it is not what’s in true alignment for you in a given moment. it doesn’t matter whether or not the object of your attention is toxic or unhealthy— escapism is still escape; it’s still distraction, diversion of your attention from some sort of truth you are avoiding or maybe even actively running from. i feel you, i feel you so much.

what are all the ways you are escaping yourself? how are you hiding from the quiet space that appears when you just *stop*? that place where you’re forced to sit with your truth, your thoughts, your fears, your insecurities, your unanswered questions, and all your other unresolved edges?

you already know that everything you ignore is still alive, manifesting in an array of shades in your life— no matter how far you push yourself down. so the question becomes:

would you rather be perpetually teetering, running after yourself cleaning up arbitrary messes as you juggle the storm of your life— or could you be open to greeting the storm within so your life might meet an ease and joy greater than you could ever imagine?

rude ass people

i’ve been trying a thing. when i come across stank people in real life, i take pause after my initial feeling of offense. i create space for the possibility that they may be going through something or that the only way they know how to cope with their trauma is by being an ass.

doesn’t make it “right” but it’s also their very real reality + ultimately has nothing to do with me. their choices are their own business. their capacity might be less than mine, so i also count my blessings. i try to have compassion instead of taking it personally. within reason, i think it’s better for all involved.

a messenger on the c train

universal confirmation. today it came through my brief but profound encounter with tamara and trinity on the c train.

our connection occurred in immediate, rapid, and seamless succession. the entire interaction was probably no more than a few minutes.

upon walking in, tamara sat right next to me on the fairly empty train and tiny trinity swung around on her mother’s lap in glee. i wasn’t looking at them as they walked in, but i felt their energy pulling me to turn my head.

i looked up and over— trinity’s face was looking up. she was so joyous. “you’re excited, aren’t you?!” she smiled and wiggled around a bit more. 

tamara then fully flung us into the vortex we’d collectively activated; she began talking as if she were reciting something just for me.

‘telepathy? i believe we [humans] were originally telepathic but were socialized out of it for economic gain.’

she’d seen the google search results for “telepathy” on my phone; up until that point, i was fully engrossed in deciding whether or not to post the above graphic. as part of this process, i’d looked up the dictionary definition of telepathy to decide if i should post the graphic with or without explanation. would people be able to connect with such an “out there” declaration? and per my last post, would they get it? did *i* even get it? similar to my poem-quote thingies, the phrases for my word illustrations come largely from spontaneous, intuitive downloads.

i then flipped my phone screen to the graphic: “telepathy is natural.” the words encompassed the exact sentiment she’d almost compulsively given me a mini speech on. i told her the universe had clearly sent her to me as confirmation.

she began asking me about myself and i wanted to know more about her. my stop came within seconds. though i wanted to skip my stop and talk more, i made the split second decision that it was more “appropriate” to carry on with my intended route. i left with great hesitation, lingering outside the door as i waved goodbye.

“post it!” tamara yelled out, smiling.

some people who cross our paths are meant more as messengers. fitting that the sweet fleeting moments we share are a beauty their own.

<3

hello, shadow.

i’ve been hearing the word “negative” a lot in the wellness space recently; negative feelings, negative energy, negative people, negative habits, etcetera.

to call something negative is to negate it— to remove credence and worthiness from it. it is a dangerous judgment that we  casually make on all sorts of things, people, and situations on a daily basis.

as you may have read on a recent post about  permission and empowerment, i believe our words impact our subconscious and well-being more than we realize.

what actually happens when label our feelings, for example, as “negative?” well, our subconscious becomes conditioned to believe that these particular feelings suck. and then we may be led to believe that we suck, or are weak, or are failures. it doesn’t matter if these beliefs reach our conscious minds or not— our subconscious, the chief control center that pulls our lil human puppet strings, will be operating on these beliefs.

okay, so let’s say a person’s subconscious has decided they are whack as hell because they have challenging feelings they’ve judged as “negative” (and then probably suppressed or brushed aside). let’s say that this person’s conscious mind believes that they mostly like themselves. let’s posit this person also happens to be simultaneously living their best life on the outside— because that high-functioning “fight” of fight-flight-freeze fame is some real ass shit when your subconscious is trying to overcome your conditioning by giving you the illusion of safety...

what can happen from here is that the suppressed emotions and unchecked self-judgments can turn into mental or physical illness. they can also turn into chronic, seemingly random “the world is against me” life patterns— in relationships, career, whatever. these are classic examples of stagnant or blocked energy/qi/life force being expressed via the body-mind connection.

that’s poo, you guys! you know what’s more fun? deciding that our “negative” emotions are not fucking negative. they just *are*— they simply exist. what our challenging or lower-vibrational emotions actually are are *information.* they’re a little autonomic flag or response that goes off to tell us that there’s something to look at— that something within us is out of alignment. both internal and external stimuli, as we know, can trigger these flags.

when we allow our understanding of challenging emotions to be that simple, we take the charge and judgment and feelings of failure and overwhelm off of them. doesn’t “challenging” sound more accurate in this context? what we’ve historically called “negative” emotions are actually emotions that are challenging us to stop and pay attention to what is challenging us deeper within.

this is shadow work. there is a reason why i made the background of this graphic a bright, optimistic yellow. because shadow work— going deep inside our “dark,” hidden places— can be *simultaneously* nerve-wracking, scary, exciting, life-giving, confusing, nourishing, illuminating, intimidating, empowering, and even joyous. the binary of this experience itself is the heart of shadow work: the recognition and compassionate acceptance of the inherent duality of the earth plane and the human experience. we can hold seemingly opposing forces at once— and when we do, we can let out a deep sigh of relief. we are still here, we are still whole.

as someone who devoted about half a year in 2016 to go deep into my shadow— i kind of made healing my job— i can tell you that it is profoundly liberating, comforting, and transformational. funny, because it was only when some people close to me judged me (out of concern and a desire to help) for being “too deep in it” that i felt devastated and started spiraling; i was the greatest mess for those two weeks that i chose to accept their assessment that i was wallowing and attached to my pain.

and this is what causes most of us further pain when addressing pain— the judgment of the pain itself and the shame that we are feeling it. this response creates contraction, which in addition to amplifying the pain, restricts the healing process. healing requires the opposite of contraction: expansion.

once i decided that i no longer believed their judgment, i immediately came back into my power; i allowed myself to embrace my deep *knowing* that i was in fact sitting squarely inside my pain so i could offer it recognition, honor, love, compassion, and space to fully express itself— and in so doing, i was alchemizing this energy, freeing it from contraction back to its natural and neutral state of “is-ness” (the natural state of all beings).

now coming back full circle to applied practice per the language piece;  particularly when speaking about personal and interpersonal development work, i do my best to avoid “negative” as a term. instead i try to use phrases like the following:

• lower-vibrational energy
• challenging emotions
• non-resonant people
• limiting beliefs

even though these aren’t perfect themselves (because labeling is a function of separation and supports the illusion of 3d duality— all is ultimately neutral and oneness), i believe they have a much lower charge than “negative.” really, you can use any of the above prefixes interchangeably for a variety of uses.

less limiting language and harsh self-judgments, more loving, accepting, and seeing the whole as all parts worthy! there are no mistakes, all is by design. <3

remember to exhale

some years ago, a therapist told me that i tend to subconsciously hold my breath. i learned that this habit comes from subconscious anxiety (probably amongst other things) and that such limiting of my oxygen intake can erode my health over time. i was paying attention.

now when i catch myself— which is typically daily— i let out a big, big exhale.

and then i let in a big deep breath and exhale again— slowly or swiftly, whatever is needed in the moment.

i often say to myself, “exhale exhale exhale.”

this becomes a pretty powerful opportunity for in-the-moment awareness as well. i might ask myself:

• what am i “holding my breath” about?

• or, what am i holding onto?

• what am i afraid will happen?

• is there something i’m secretly dreading?

• what am i hiding from?

• what might be making me feel tense or uneasy?

• do i feel unsafe right now? why?

• am i disallowing flow and trust in this moment somehow?

• am i simply holding onto generic anxiety because that’s what i’m used to?

what often arises upon answering any of these questions is a realization of some sort of subconscious “clenching.” typically, this clenching— or bracing— is the result of repetitive thoughts or beliefs about the “reality” of our world, our lives, ourselves being erroneously deemed truth and subsequently embedded as a broken record in our subconscious.

once we recognize this subconscious fight or flight (or freeze) loop is silently draining our life force, our exhale allows us to gently recognize and release our false narratives, moment by moment.

exhale and let go, loves. i’m doing it right here with you <3