Synergy to Synastry: Soul Rising Book Club Chapters 24-26 (BONUS) Podcast Transcript

Welcome to the Soul Rising Book Club!

Renee: Welcome back to book club! Today we are talking about chapters 24 through 26. Look how far we are into the book! This is mind blowing and from my perspective, I mean, maybe it hasn't been that long for you, but for me, I started reading this back in December 2025.

So this has been very, very spread out for me. I've never taken this long to read a book, especially that is not that long. It's not that many pages, but we just have a handful of chapters left.

So we will pretty soon be wrapping up this whole book club. But before we get there, let's talk about these chapters.

Chapter 24: The Way Through is the Way In by Carolina Arriagada Gonzalez

First up, we have Carolina and the first thing that I wrote down was geez, what a lack of women supporting women. I think it is such a vital pillar, especially in today's society. It can pertain but doesn't necessarily have to for the intuitive journey.

I would say most of the people that I talk to that are having a spiritual awakening, and naturally the entire concept of this book was just focusing on women, to have a connection, to have community, to not be receiving external doubt when we already have a lot going on in our heads, and not being pitted against each other.

Like of all the conversations I have had with people who you might say, well, aren't they your competition? They're also astrologers or intuitives, and you're all starting your own business. I have never had any conversations, and I personally don't view it that way, but I've never had any conversations with others who are having an awakening at the same time who view it like that.

Like we're all just contributing to the cause, if you will, and trying to help ourselves, support ourselves, grow, develop, and then do the same thing for other people.

She mentioned that challenges from the universe can often target really specific growth that we need. And I personally have found that to be true as well as the notion that progress isn't linear. 

So if we are expecting, and I think I, I said something kind of similar in my chapter, if we're expecting just a, a steady incline, one step at a time, it's always going up or that we're never going to revisit anything.

I think my conversations on this podcast, things I've shared in my classes and in my blog over the years are that we're just peeling layers back. You do that healing work and then some months, some years later, all of a sudden that same topic comes up again, but you are going even deeper or you are taking in the new information and experiences that you've had since then and now taking a different approach so that you're hitting it from all angles.

Shadow Work Journal Promps

And kind of to that point, I went on, of course, a little side tangent because she mentioned in her chapter doing shadow work. And this is a practice that I have done off and on at several different points over the last few years. And I was drawn specifically to compile a list. So I will rattle all of those off and share them in the show notes here about scarcity and power in particular. I think it's going to be interesting to see when this comes out why these questions might be so relevant.

First question, where am I still holding on to fear even when things are OK?

Number two, when I feel the most unsafe, what does that remind me of?

Number three, where do I feel like I have to struggle to deserve more?

Next, what do I judge about how other people spend, save, or talk about money? And as a follow up, how does my spending reflect who I want to be seen as versus who I actually am?

Number five, do I self isolate from others? And if I do, what's the trigger?

Number six, what do I want people to feel when they are around me?

Number seven, how do I react when something doesn't turn out the way that I want it to?

Number eight, what makes me feel confident?

And for our last question, what are some changes I could make today to reach a life aligned with my highest self?

Other Reflections on Chapter 24

Back to the chapter, I had a series of different quotes that I wanted to flag from the section, so I'll go through some of those now.

She was talking about how important it is on the shadow work conversation to honor and tend to the wounds, treating them, quote, "in a way like they are a deeply wounded child that needs nurturing and love."

I wanted to share the quick anecdote here that I had an astrology reading and she was talking about how we could frame self care, so shadow work included, as if it's helpful for us as being a practice of taking care of somebody or something else.

Like if it's hard for us to lock into this type of work, if we can say that our shadow, that our anxiety, or going back to parts work, any aspects of ourselves or our emotions are somebody else. They are a child. They are a plant if we are a plant person. They are a pet if we are an animal person.

We would take care of them. If they are in front of us and we care about them, we would pour into them. We would give them advice, we would encourage them, we would teach them. We would help them grow, sometimes literally. That could be helpful just as a reframe.

That was something that I had been told and I try to remember that every once in a while when I am neglecting a little bit of those self care practices.

She also wrote in this chapter, quote, "True awakening is not about being apart from yourself. It is about being everything that you are."

And to that point, we are the whole universe. We are source energy. We're connected to all beings and made up of energy and matter and all that fun stuff. So if we are rejecting these parts of ourselves rather than seeking to integrate and understand, then we're always going to have blocks. We're always going to be self sabotaging or holding ourselves back in some way.

And similarly, she had another quote, "Polarity is choice and choice is freedom."

Whenever we have options, whenever we have, again, when we're talking about these different components, we can see what the options are in front of us. Even if it's this versus that, which road are we taking? Which option can we choose? Which choice can we make?

Having the choice period, having those options allows us to connect to freedom. So we are free, and I had talked about freedom, I think maybe in the last section. Every day when you wake up, you have a choice. Do you stay in bed for one minute longer? Do you get up right away? Do you brush your teeth first? Do you get changed first? What do you eat for breakfast? Are you going to work out or do that later?

Like every single moment of our life, every second is an opportunity for choice. Maybe it's just micro decisions, but everything is a choice.

And when we remember that, it allows us to be in a position where we're, one, empowered. But specifically because we are remembering that we are in charge. Like we're in charge of our own life. We're in charge of our own reality, our perceptions, how we are speaking, processing, engaging with ourselves and others.

She also mentioned this exercise of psychically connecting to your inner child or, again, shadow work. Sometimes they intersect. They can be different practices, but they also can overlap in many ways.

And she was talking about in the chapter how you could show love to them. So maybe you are encouraging them or visualizing giving them a hug.

But I thought she had a very interesting tip in here, which was totally running in contrast to everything that I have been talking about and learning from the different workshops in the other chapters.

She was actually de emphasizing connecting to your breath, as in focusing on your breath. Because if you have a trauma response, like if you are doing some of the shadow work and you're getting shot back into a memory and you're getting upset, if you're focusing on your breath, then you might not be able to relax.

So she was saying, and maybe you can do the breath work, but for some people, if you're finding it's not working, I thought she had a great tip, which is you could focus on physical sensations, the feeling of your clothing on you, smells, sounds. So connecting to your other senses rather than just focusing on your breath because you may be someone who in a specific moment, or in general, has trouble getting out of that cycle.

And again, the choice is yours, what works best for you.

In the podcast interview, she was emphasizing how self love and worth are foundational and also connect us to honesty and authenticity.

When we are participating in those types of practices, when we are nurturing ourselves, whether it is through a shadow work practice, through mindfulness, anything else, we can be honest with what is true, what is not true, what's working, what's not working.

And therefore it gives us a fast track to being authentic, which is something that we have also talked about in a lot of other sections.

I know in Rebecca's chapter, when she was talking about radiance, that's being your authentic self. When we are present with our shadow rather than resisting, again, that's the block I was mentioning before, that allows us to actually swerve some of the suffering.

So we might think, "Oh, I don't really want to look at that dark stuff. That feels too heavy." And again, not all shadow work is dark, but a little bit more intense, or just brutal honesty.

If we are resisting, then that's just prolonging because we're avoiding the healing. Versus if we are seeking to embrace, like literally, psychically, metaphorically hugging, connecting to, integrating, then that's more of a release, relaxation, spiritually connected and guided practice rather than continuing to put something under the rug or avoiding it.

And she wasn't making this point in this context, but I did want to share a quote and I do think it ties to a little bit of what I was just talking about, which myself included, but I think all of us need to hear this every once in a while: that control is overrated.

Self-Parenting Tips

Last thing I wanted to mention for this chapter was I of course went on another side tangent and did some research because she mentioned very, very briefly in passing this idea of self parenting.

So I was like, let me look up some tips for self parenting and just rattle some of those off. These are in no particular order, starting with embracing boundaries. So you're doing this to support the life that you want and maybe that life has more sleep, healthier diet, consistent regular exercise, connection to yourself and others, and play in general. So that could be creativity, laughter, any aspect of joy. All types of relaxation can fall under play as well.

Next is developing a mindfulness practice that fits into your schedule and routine. We're trying to be practical here, so we don't want to force anything because that is the opposite of what is going to work and what is going to stick. And you know that if you were trying to parent a child, you have to kind of do what works for them while still encouraging and guiding them. And so we want to do that with ourselves.

And the goal here is the mindfulness practice, whatever it is, whenever it's happening, seeking to support your nervous system. So helping with that nervous system regulation, calming down, winding down, but also could be self soothing tools.

I've given examples based on other chapters for book club of using the different mood draws, using the breathwork, grounding, getting out in nature. So whatever that list is for you, identifying those and then actually implementing them.

Allowing yourself to feel a full range of emotions. So not holding in anger or frustration or holding in your tears. Also leaning into the play and joy, both ends of the spectrum.

Being vulnerable with other people. You are not concealing just from yourself. You're not concealing from others.

While also keeping in mind this is an inner child here. We're parenting. We're not trying to throw a tantrum. So we have to be aware of what our emotions are. It's not just let me experience all emotions and let all of them run wild. We have to know, are we in the supermarket throwing a tantrum? Like what does that look like?

What does an adult tantrum look like for you when you're applying it? It's not just, "Oh, the kid wants a candy and the parent says no." What does that look like for you now? Maybe it is related to food, but maybe it's related to many, many other things.

That is where, when we're developing the mindfulness practice, it will help us be a little bit more aware of some of those root causes.

Also intersecting to a certain degree is using affirmations, journal prompts like the shadow work that we were talking about, or inner child journal prompt questions, or meeting with a therapist to support the mental reframes of any self limiting beliefs or narratives that are just running.

This is when we're talking about deprogramming. This is systems and operations that are happening in the background as your default mode. We want to identify and reprogram them so that they are modernized and they are more supportive of that vision, the person that you want to be, the life that you want to have, and that you feel more at ease, comfortable and honest and in alignment.

And finally, last but not least, a very, very simple one that we all need the reminder to do is ask for help.

Chapter 25: The Art of Being Messy by Amanda DeBernardi

Moving on to chapter 25 with Amanda.

She was initially talking about people pleasing perfectionism, such a struggle, and how that is often instilled through the nurturing, through our upbringing, through what is modeled or reinforced by our family.

And her story was quite interesting because she had a teen pregnancy. And so there's this dynamic of, "Oh no, well, this is a problem. My life is going off course. It's forcing me to be messy when I've been told to be perfect, when I have been encouraged to follow a certain route."

But then she, as one might think, quote, "turned her life around" because she was really successful in school. She was successful with work. She then had her own family. Again, it's all the underlying current of you have to be a certain way. You have to follow a specific path.

So she had this really intuitive nudge to sign up for a Reiki class even though she was like, "I don't even know what this is." And that is taking her off road, having her do something different.

And it was teaching her and allowing her to recognize, wow, just as Erica had talked about in her chapter a while ago about being a highly sensitive person. So when she's doing this energy work and learning about it, she's recognizing in some ways it's the boundaries, the energetic boundaries.

What am I carrying that is not actually of me? This can be, of course, the expectations, the conditioning, but it can be the literal energetics. And as someone who's intuitive, and for those of you who are listening who are as well, it does feel like a radiation off of other people at times.

And for her, the biggest tool, way to self regulate, talking about what we were just discussing in chapter 24, was actually creativity. She had like a tablet and started creating digital collages and that was putting her in a flow state.

And I wanted to read this quote. She said, "The more I released, the more I healed."  So by doing art therapy and returning to painting, which was an interest and passion for her, she gave that energy, the energy that was hers and the energy that was other people's that she had taken on, an outlet to flow out of her body.

Renee's Retrospective on The Artist's Way

So I wanted a sidebar here because this was making me think about when I did The Artist's Way. So for anyone who is not familiar, this is a book written by Julia Cameron. It's a 12-week self help course. So it's a book, but you can buy it, or what I did was I just took a bunch of notes on it because I had to return it to the library.

But I took notes on what the plan was. I read the actual content part, but what you needed to do each week, I wrote that stuff down so I had it and I could follow it over the course of those few months.

And I did that back in summer of 2023, actually right before I registered and set up my business and created my website and then was developing my astrology resources. Like I was doing it during a big expansion time period.

And I thought it would be interesting to reflect on it now that it's been a little bit over two years, doubling down on what Amanda was talking about with the importance of creativity.

And if this is something that you want to work on, this is another avenue. If you want to learn a little bit more about what my experience was like for the 12 weeks, I did the first six and then the latter six as two different blog posts and you can hear what my experience was and how I was feeling about it.

So I read through all of those to just give myself a little bit of a recap and high level and just anything I thought would be of note to call out here.

So the first thing that made me laugh was I continuously was talking about those morning pages.

So for anyone who's not familiar, the instruction was that you would wake up and the first thing that you do before you do literally anything else is you have your pen and your paper and you write three pages in a notebook.

So I had a whole separate notebook. It can be stream of consciousness, it can be anything, but you have to fill three pages. Once the pages are done, then you can pick up your phone or get out of bed or do anything else. Whatever it is that you want to do.

You did that for all of those months in a row, every single day.

What I kept complaining about right at the jump was like, my hand was hurting, my arm was tired from like, you're propping yourself up trying to get it over, if you will, as quickly as possible. So you're just like, "OK, let me just write really fast."

And then it's kind of messy. And then it was trouble. I definitely had a hard time trying to read some of it later. But I very quickly started seeing the mental benefit of it because it would allow me to do a brain dump. I could plan, I could vent about something, and I also could channel.

So that started happening increasingly. Once I had adapted to the practice, it just became a quiet time where I was just writing and then I would recognize a shift that was happening as I was going through that.

Oh, I was getting information and then I could highlight or circle some of it and then go do that. Like go write that down.

It became a nice opportunity in setting my day to connect with my spirit team, even though that wasn't really the intention of it. It was just a fun benefit.

This is, yes, a creativity practice, but you are looking holistically at your entire life and your relationship with play.

So at different checkpoints, there were journaling prompts. I am two years out and I am working on all of the same things that I was trying to work on at that time, which was an earlier bedtime, less tech use, actively playing more, and some sort of a daily breathwork or mindfulness practice.

So across the board, I have made improvements in a lot of these areas. Do I do all of them all the time? No. But I also kind of, once I finished that course, felt like its own era. It feels like that was so long ago. I've lived so much life since then.

Ultimately, I've kept returning back to some of these themes and changes in my lifestyle because they are important for my wiring and how I function. And whenever I do participate in these, I see immediate benefit, which I was writing about during this program.

I also included potential hobbies. I did a brainstorming session one week and I have actually taken up two of them, technically, which was exciting. It was like, oh, I wasn't even trying to do anything here and I did.

So one of them was embroidery. So I do have, let me show one of them now.

In the fall of last year, 2024, I started taking up embroidery. So this is an unfinished piece, but I have a bunch of different projects. Several of them I made for Christmas gifts for people. And then this is one that I was working on at the end of last year.

And then I didn't work on it at all for like six months and then I just picked it up the other day and did this color. So I still have to finish this.

But yeah, just having something that, like Amanda was talking about, when you do one of these, because it's every single thread, every single one you're putting in, you just completely lose track of time.

You're like, oh, it's been an hour and a half. How did that happen? So it really does get you into a flow state, which I think works pretty well for me.

So is it something that I do every day? No. But in part that's because I read a lot. I've been increasingly reading books and that would be time that I probably would swap out, where it's a tradeoff of doing one versus the other.

And then another thing I had suggested as a potential hobby was just reviewing or talking about or posting about movies and music.

And I'm going to say that I have technically done this because through this podcast, I have talked about movies, I have talked about music several different times. So I'm going to give myself a little bit of credit for having done that too.

Next thing, to hold myself accountable, was I wrote down in week five small promises that I wanted to make to myself. So here's the ones that I wrote.

Number one, no social media while laying in bed. I did do that for a while. I am back to doing this again and I know that I need to not do that. That I'm not allowed to go on to any social media until I physically get up is an adjustment that I need to reinstate.

Number two, daily yoga to heal my body. No. However, in the last week or so, I have been doing daily yoga. So I have just kind of organically come back to doing this practice because I've been realizing while my body's stronger, I definitely need it. So that is in progress. So I will give myself a little credit there.

Number three, creating for fun. I definitely am doing that now. The embroidery is an example. I'm not always writing or designing just for purposes of the podcast or for my business or work.

Number four, loving myself more than attention crumbs. So this was a big picture thing. And I think I talked about this in some recent book clubs or maybe life updates in discussing how I'm reflecting on how I view relationships.

Obviously during this entire time, and by this point, I had been out of my last relationship for a whole year when I was doing this. And now I'm a few more years out from that.

And yeah, I'm much more cognizant of that piece. Like it doesn't really matter if someone is tangentially interested in me or like, oh, someone likes you on a profile or whatever. It doesn't mean that they're a good fit and it doesn't even necessarily mean that you need to go out of your way to even entertain it.

So I would say I have a shift there. And then the last one, number five, was hydrating sufficiently. This one I'm pretty good about. I do have some days where I'm like, wow, I'm so dehydrated. But I'm very cognizant of this one.

I have done all of them off and on in some period of time over the last few years. And I am currently actively doing four of the five and aware that I need to do the fifth one. So I'd say that's pretty good.

So I had learned, in summary, the value of slowing down and monotasking. I definitely am very aware of this now. Focusing on sleep, still aware of this. Been a problem. Generally better than I had been a few years ago when I was doing this.

Free form creativity, making a point of stepping out of your comfort zone. I have definitely done a lot of that over the last few years. And then of course trusting the process, which I talk about constantly.

Other Reflections on Chapter 25

So back to Amanda. She did mention in her bio right at the end that she uses the moon for self care. So Amanda, if you watch this, I am so curious what you actually do for your practices because I had done my workshop on self care based on your moon sign.

So I'm curious if you do it that way or if you are looking at the specific moon phases, which is what Claire was talking about in her workshop. Sharing is caring. I would be so interested to know exactly what you do and how you are syncing your wellness practice with the moon.

And as a quick note from her interview with Divine Flow, she was talking about, kind of similar to what I mentioned with the morning pages, doing morning art. And she was saying it can count even if it's just like cutting receipts or random scraps of paper and gluing them together and putting a little paint on it.

Art for the sake of art. It's not because it's quote good or bad or it needs to be presented or shared, but just doing something that's tactile, that's expressive, that creation process. Having art be a mode or medium of translating your emotions and, again, getting them out.

So that could be another option for people too. Maybe the idea of doing the morning pages, maybe you heard me trash talking them a little bit too much, but don't knock it until you try it because there were benefits. Maybe doing the art piece might be more your speed or your preference. So it gives you a couple options here if you want to try out some sort of creative morning practice.

Chapter 26: Rebel with a Cause by Rosa Maria Velasquez

Last chapter for the section with Rosie.

I do want to mention, if you are reading this chapter, and I do talk about it a little bit here, that there are content warnings for death and substance abuse. So be mindful of that as you are reading this chapter.

I wanted to say up front that something that I really enjoyed about this chapter overall was all the pop culture references. It was super fun. I know Holly did that a little bit. I did that kind of in my chapter, but just trying to make it feel playful.

So I thought that made it entertaining and added just the right amount of levity when there was a lot of wounding and trauma conversation, similar to Carolina as well. But there was a lot of heaviness in the chapter. It struck a nice balance to have the fun jokes and the references and the call outs.

She mentioned having nightmares and premonitions starting when she was around seven or eight. Also the fact that she is a highly sensitive person. So that's like our buzzword for this section, people talking about being highly sensitive. That she wanted to be normal.

And this is a theme that I know came up in Nicole's chapter way back when, and something that I related to as well because I don't know exactly when I started having my experiences because I think I just wasn't really clocking them.

But whenever they were, I was pushing them away and ignoring them and not bringing anything up about it. So I'm sure this is super relatable for a lot of people as well. It's like, I don't know what's going on. This is weird. And so I'm just going to put that over here and not go there.

Her experience of actually being super aware of and knowing, all right, this thing is happening, definitely happened a lot sooner than it did for me because mine was a little after puberty that I was like, OK, something is going on here.

Did I have my formal awakening of acknowledging what was happening until much later? Yeah, sure. But she definitely was more connected to it, more engaged with it sooner than I was, even though maybe our timetables for when these experiences started happening were pretty similar.

So again, it's individual difference of how people are going to react to what is happening and what is presenting.

And for her, she took a very different route than I took. Again, different stages of life is a factor. She was saying she was acting out, she was being careless, she was being reckless.

And it was when she got sober, a couple years sober, that she actually started the more mystical side of her journey, more of the woo realm, and receiving messages about past life patterns of escapism.

Just as a point of contrast, the messages that I have received about past life cycles are not about escapism, but they are about being seen. There's a friction between the two of them. It's not necessarily about me wanting to hide and wanting to run away, but that I won't necessarily feel comfortable being looked at.

So they are tangential, but they are not a one to one. And it does bring me back to the idea of the witch wound, which we have talked about some other times and I have cited some books on that.

But yes, it's just so interesting as a pattern to see. And it hasn't come up in really very many chapters in this book, but it has come up, some version of that, a few times.

And she mentioned a quote, kind of to that point and this theme that we're talking about of trying to connect to authenticity, by saying, quote, "you shining bright because you love who you are makes any place you are a bit sunnier." Super cute. And so true.

If you walk in somewhere and you're in a bad mood, same as you can read other people's energy, they can read yours. Like, OK, so what is going on with this person? Like what is happening? The vibe is off.

When you are bringing a joyful energy, and not one that is manufactured and forced, not "I'm trying to put on a happy face," but you just feeling yourself, you being connected, being present, that radiates way wider and has a greater impact upon other people, a positive influence on other people, when it is really truthful for you.

Something that Rosie mentioned was that she works as a hospice chaplain.

The Role of Death Doulas

And, surprised to no one, I had to go on another little research venture here because it has been brought to my attention multiple times when I have been read by other people, the idea and suggestion that I could be a death doula if it was something that I wanted to pursue.

And I haven't really researched it extensively. So conveniently, of course, I think a few weeks ago, there was a podcast that came out, which I'll make sure to link in the notes, that was talking about death doulas.

And I'm like, OK, well, I'm going to be saving that and listening to it. And then this came up here and I was like, OK, I'm going to listen to that episode and then I'm going to do some initial research and share what I'm finding in case people are not familiar with this concept or you're just curious to learn a little bit more.

I found in the podcast that there has actually been a rise in death doulas since COVID. And we have to remember here that a lot of these spiritual awakenings had a spike also around the same time period, into 2021 and 2022 as well.

And maybe this is related to COVID and maybe it's just kind of all of the above blending together and a change in climate, as in social climate and society, that there are more conversations happening online around death and grief.

So I want to delineate here when we're talking about hospice care. This is the medical side and they can work with death doulas, but they are serving different functions.

But generally, end of life care, specifically death doulas, support the transition from this life to the next, or whatever you believe, through potentially spiritual methods, but also very simply through companionship.

So this could be that maybe they are in a hospice or not. They also could be at home and loved ones can't be there every single second of the day. So this person could be there to simply sit with them, or maybe speak to them, but just so that there's someone else around.

If they are nearing end of life and they are at home, they, yes, could have a home health aide or in home hospice care, but they're only going to come to the house for X amount of hours a day. So same thing. They're not going to be there all day long. This person could also assist with taking care of things around the house.

A death doula is also an advocate around the death plan, advanced directives, all of the above. In this podcast they had someone who was a death doula. She had been doing it for the last eight years and she brought up a point I think is really important to consider.

When people have a judgment or questions around what this person is actually doing and the value of it, they are trained to not influence the person about death beliefs. If someone asks them, "Oh, so what do you think is going to happen after I die?" or "Do you think there's an afterlife?"

They're really not supposed to be saying anything. They have their own beliefs, but they're just supposed to encourage or coach that person to do some processing. And again, this individual does not have to be a trained therapist. They could be, but it is not a one to one.

These schools and development programs vary in price and quality because there's no standard path for how you take this role on. So that's why if you want to work with a death doula, you really have to look into their specific experience and talk with them and see what they are bringing to the table.

But you could be someone, maybe you are speaking to a therapist, you are speaking to religious figures, you're speaking to a death doula, you're speaking to hospice care people.

Like you could have a full team of different individuals who are bringing varied perspectives. I would be curious because they didn't talk about the spiritual side at all.

But what I kind of have in my head is that energetically they could do Reiki work or healing of some sort or visualization, especially depending on whether this person is consistently conscious or not.

Or helping them to literally, spiritually, energetically transition to the other side or just intuiting to get messages from them depending on what state they're in, or maybe just as they're passing.

So I think there's a lot here and I know I have the option to probably just continue coming back to this and ideating about this more. But yeah, it was nice to explore this a little bit further.

If Rosie, you want to chat about it and tell me about your perspective, would love to hear it.

Rosie's Podcast Interview

Other things that Rosie brought up during her chapter, the podcast, and then she did do a workshop: This resistance that we have where we're not feeling ready, that's OK.

We can just do the first layer of the onion of healing and care and mending and introspection. And we can come back to some of the other ones later. But just knowing that it's OK to not be ready for the surrender, for the release, for taking everything head on right away. When we're ready, you know, the universe can test us, but we'll have other opportunities to do what is necessary.

I love the message that she had in the podcast of just focusing on trying to be brave. It is the fearlessness. As much as she in some ways was saying, "Oh, I was being careless," well, she was also being really brave and bold and unfiltered at the same time.

So it was just about channeling and redirecting some of that big energy into avenues that were more constructive rather than destructive. Another line that I wanted to share was she was mentioning, going back to the beginning, women supporting women, but just people supporting people, that we can, quote, "light each other's candle."

Reflections on Rosie's Meditation

Last thing, in talking about the workshop, she was going through a meditation. So this was audio only. And I just wrote down some thoughts, some things that stood out to me.

And then there were a few points where she had different prompts and I just channeled and wrote down what came through. So I'm just going to share a little bit of what my experience was.

So something that she noted was, quote, "we may have plans, but we know we are not in control." This is again getting back to yet another theme that came up earlier. This idea of control mentioned by Carolina in the first chapter.

This idea of creative expression, release, connection, what's in our control, what's not in our control, and trying to experience more flow. When we are flowing, we don't need control and rigidity.

And to that point, she said, "fluidity is key to reframe and reimagine." We're weaving our reality. We are forming it again with every choice, every decision that we make.

And a very important reframe that comes up a lot, and of course I had written this down already, which was separate from the research that I had done earlier for the shadow work questions: Oftentimes we fixate on needing more money, but is it that we need more money, or we need more time, or that we need to maybe even shift our relationship with both of those?

Now getting into the prompts that she had during the meditation itself, one of them was, "What would make my heart swell?" And I was kind of surprised by this answer, but what came in right away, all caps, was travel.

And the context that I was given was it's an easy way to transport and access energy, like of different realms and eras, history, ancestors.

And it functions as a shortcut, which again, I know we've talked about locational astrology, astrocartography, this idea of you tapping into this energy center and activating a different part of yourself to get information.

I haven't gone on a trip in a while. I'm going to be traveling to a few different states this year, but nothing international. And it's not exclusionary.

The other thing that came through was it allows you to bend time because everything feels different. Breaking out of the routine by just being somewhere else. Even if you're doing some of the same things that you might do at home, just being in another location for some period of time is an energetic shift.

As an aside, this wasn't a journal prompt. She started using some rain sticks at some point and that just gets me every time.

Like there was this whole section. If you're someone who likes ASMR, it wasn't the whole thing, but there was this one section where I was like, "Oh my gosh, my whole head is tingling." 

So to cover quickly the last prompt that she had was, "What is your dream?" And again, this seemed like it really aligned with the other prompt, which was, quote, "to be everywhere at once."

And I was like, wow, this is a really strong Pisces sentiment, which is interesting because Pisces is what I have in my ninth house of long distance travel, and that's learning and growth and expansion, and I have Mercury there. So that's my mind. I think there's a little bit to that thematically.

And I did also want to mention, maybe hopefully she will appreciate this, but at the end she was kind of giving us a directive and affirmation. So she was calling us a rebel.

And when she said that, I was like, oh man, that felt good. Like I felt good when she said it.

And then also being called a lightworker. And I felt like this warm shiver in my chest. 

So yeah, I was very surprised to have back to back physical reactions when she was just saying those couple comments at the end. I would be interested from anyone else who did the meditation if you've had a similar experience.

Final Thoughts on These Chapters & Upcoming Podcast Schedule

Thank you so much for listening, or watching if you tuned in on Spotify. Yeah, I hope you enjoyed these chapters. Some interesting topics and themes. And yeah, it felt not that the other chapters weren't reflective, but there was just kind of a weightiness.

And I know this is a book on spiritual awakenings, but kind of a very heavily spiritual, I don't know if it's ancestral, but undertone to what was discussed in these chapters. Something really fundamental. Again, bringing it back to flow.

It's like our life essence and the prana and the chi that we have talked about multiple times in this podcast.

It felt like there was just this undercurrent through the stories that I was discussing today and a lot of lessons and reminders coming through about returning to our wellness practices, our self care, our parenting of ourselves, inner child, shadow work, and not being afraid to look at what's dark and being very encouraged to play with what is in the light.

So I think a nice balance overall across all of them.

If you enjoyed this book club, don't forget we have a couple more sections of the remaining chapters.

In the next episode in the feed, we are going to be stepping away from book club. We're going to be returning to the Celtic Lore series for Part 2, Celtic Lore in Modernity, talking about the impact and influence of Celtic lore, as in stories, upon present day pop culture and how people can engage with it a little bit right now.

So it's definitely a fun one. I had a really good time doing research, really for that whole miniseries and the whole podcast overall. But yeah, there's some really good stuff in there.

So I hope you enjoy it and look forward to you hearing it. And otherwise, yeah, happy reading.I hope you're enjoying this book as much as I am. Yeah. Let me know what you thought about these chapters. Can't believe how few we have left.

So we have chapters 27 through 29, and then we're going to be done. So very, very exciting. And if you happen to read ahead, reminder: no spoilers. I haven't read those chapters yet.

I am very excited to get through the rest of them without rushing, at a calm pace, enjoying, savoring them, and then being able to share my thoughts and reflections and talk about them.

If you ever want to write in or leave a comment on my social media posts, you can get the contact details for my email, the podcast email, and then social media or Buy Me a Coffee. You could also leave a comment on there as well.

So I would love to hear from you if you are enjoying the book, and of course from the authors. Don't hesitate to reach out. I would love to continue to chat and network with people too.

Outro

I thought so many times, let me just take this thing off, and I didn't because then I wouldn't have continuity.

This light just completely bakes me in here. And I tried to change it because I usually have it and I like it a little yellow, but I tried to put it on dim.

It's a little too dark for video, but I'm like, I have had this thing on for too long. Melting.