The Perfect Intersection for the Soul
Listen here:
Co-hosts of Cheaper Than Therapy, Vanessa Bennett and Dené Logan dive into the world of depth psychology, the powerful place where psychology and astrology meet, and how we can use both to rebuild our severed connection to our own bodies.
People are drawn to astrology for the same reasons others are drawn to psychology. Both allow us to explore the soul, find the Self with a capital S, and tap into that magic that’s beyond what we can comprehend.
If you want to learn why psychology and astrology perfectly compliment each other, Vanessa Bennett and Dené Logan, this deep dive is right up your alley!
We are all little cups of the universe, and both psychology and astrology allow us to tap into the immaterial essence of what we are, find answers beyond the surface, and make sense of the things that are consistent, timeless, eternal and always there for us.
On this episode, you’ll learn;
🌟 What psychology of the soul is and why it always boils down to magic
💖 How to use psychology and astrology to anchor yourself in truth and find safety in your own body
🪔 An emotional, psychic, body practice to recover from codependency
🏵 How to find fluidity, magic and softness in a world locked into a hyper masculine existence
🌎 Why humanity is on a path of collective individuation
🕯 How to be the anthropologist to yourself and turn up the dial on your awareness
📆 Are you an astrology lover curious about what 2024 has in store? Discover your path with our FREE 2024 Astrology Blueprint. Our exceptional Astrologer Connect team offers deep insights, detailed transit reports, and tailored journaling prompts to help you harness the best of 2024. Unlock your cosmic roadmap – visit https://astrologyhub.com/blueprint and get yours today!
🎇 Ready to embark on a magical journey that transforms your year ahead? It’s not too late to join us in the ’12 Days of Solstice Challenge’ presented by Astrology Hub. This free, 12-day challenge offers daily videos, insightful astrological themes for each lunar cycle, personalized intention-setting practices, and a supportive community. Plus, there’s a chance to win exciting prizes! Start co-creating your incredible year now. Sign up at https://astrologyhub.com/solstice
Vanessa and Dené will be hosting their retreat, The Return Of The Sovereign Feminine from January 18th to 21st. If you want to learn how to integrate principles rooted within the feminine with those that encapsulate the masculine in its healthiest form, book your spot here. Vanessa and Dené are generously giving our listeners/viewers $100 off. Use the code FEMININE at checkout.
📆Learn what 2024 has in store for you with our FREE 2024 Astrology Blueprint. Our exceptional Astrologer Connect team offers deep insights, detailed transit reports, and tailored journaling prompts to help you harness the best of 2024. Unlock your cosmic roadmap – visit https://astrologyhub.com/blueprint and get yours today!
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📕 Check out our list of free resources! https://astrologyhub.com/free-resources/
Transcript:
Dené Logan: [00:00:00] So many of us spend a lifetime just like from the neck up not in the space of our bodies and there’s so many layers to what that is like we’ve really been conditioned to reject our bodies and believe that our bodies are a place that aren’t safe. So if I focus outward, then I don’t have to focus on, um, my body, but I think learning to cultivate a sense of safety within can be just so simple.
Amanda Walsh: Welcome to the Astrology Hub podcast. I’m Amanda Poole Walsh, founder of Astrology Hub, and your host for our flagship show. We explore the many ways astrology can support you and your relationships, career, health. Well, hello everybody and welcome. I am so thrilled that you have decided to join us today.
We are going to be doing a very interesting deep dive into the intersection between [00:01:00] psychology and astrology and why they really make a perfect compliment to each other. So I am here with. Depth oriented psychotherapist, Vanessa Benay and Denae Logan. And I’m going to give you a little bit of background about these two amazing women that I have had the pleasure of getting to know over the last It’s like four or five months and they’re just beautiful human beings.
I got to actually be a guest on their podcast, which is called cheaper than therapy. And I’m going to tell you a little bit about it. So Vanessa and Denae are two soul sisters and therapists who connected over their shared love of depth. Psychology, known as the psychology of the soul. It is a template for diving beneath the surface to examine the complex natures of being human while on the quest for wholeness, including the relationship to spirit.
Through their training and lived experiences with depth, yogic, [00:02:00] psychology, and mindfulness, they developed a passion for supporting others and living their most authentic lives while cultivating a fulfilling and rich relationship with the self, capital S. I love that. Okay. So Vanessa and Denae, welcome to the astrology of podcast.
I’m so happy
Dené Logan: you’re here. Thanks, Amanda. Thanks so much for having us.
Amanda Walsh: All right. So let’s talk about this because so many people are drawn to astrology for a similar reason. It seems that you two were drawn to psychology, which is this exploration of the soul. The self with the capital s. So can you tell us a little bit about what that means to you?
Like what is, what is, um, the psychology of the soul? What is the, the self with the capital s? What are those things?
Vanessa Bennett: You want to take that one?
Dené Logan: What is the soul? Um, that is, that’s a big question, right? You know, to me, the soul is the immaterial essence of what we [00:03:00] are, the part of us that continues long after, um, we leave these physical bodies, the part of us that, um, cannot be named, cannot be boxed in, cannot really be described.
It’s, um, the part of us that is, I love to say the I am that I am, the part of us that is, um, if we think of us as ourselves, excuse me, as little cups of the universe, um, that is like the part of us that is the soul space. Um, and so depth psychology to me is really like bringing us back into that space of the sacred and the meaning and um, who we are beyond the physical aspects of our day to day lives.
We were talking about before we hopped on it’s like the, um, Experience and, uh, the study of the numinous and, uh, the parts of our lives that are magical, I think. Carl Jung, who a lot of the, the work that Vanessa and I do is like rooted in Jungian psychology and the study [00:04:00] of Carl Jung’s work, and he talked a lot about synchronicity and, and magic really.
And so I think when I think of depth psychology and how that is different from some of the more clinical forms of psychology, it’s really the study of like the magic of life from my perspective. Oh my God.
Amanda Walsh: I’ve, I’ve chose all over my body. It’s so, so one of the questions I love to ask astrologers, especially the like really seasoned ones who’ve been doing this for decades is how does astrology work?
Like how and why, like what is the mechanism behind this? You know? And it’s amazing to hear these like very educated, logical, brilliant minds literally at the end of the day, boil it down to magic. It’s like, it’s, we don’t, we don’t truly understand it. It is magical because it’s beyond our ability to comprehend.
The end. and [00:05:00] that’s what it is. Um, Vanessa, what about, what about you in terms of the S with the capital, the self with the capital S, what do
Vanessa Bennett: you mean by that? Yeah, I mean, again, kind of going back to Jung, you know, so much of the way that he kind of dove into and structured his approach to psychology and approach to working with people was really all about the path of individuation, right?
So it’s. this path of self discovery that takes a lifetime. I mean, it’s the entire journey of, of while we’re here, right, that we’re on this journey. Um, and it’s this, it’s the soul’s purpose. I mean, it’s the purpose for us being here is to be on this path of individuation. It’s this path of discovering who I am, of creating a home within myself, of, um, you know, bringing people into my sphere that will help expand me and grow me in the way that my soul is kind of meant to grow.
Right. And all of the trials and tribulations that come with that on the journey. And so whenever we say we always say self with a [00:06:00] capital s, it’s because I think we throw the word self around a lot. It’s just part of the english language, you know, myself, yourself, themselves. Um, but when we say self with a capital s, we mean the kind of the continuation of the soul, right?
The self that is on the journey, the self that is on the process, the path of individuation.
Amanda Walsh: I love, let’s, let’s back up a little bit. I love that you two are two amazing women working
Vanessa Bennett: together,
Amanda Walsh: doing a podcast together co creating together. I just, I love seeing when sisters come together and do things like this and co create and put your magic together.
How’d that happen? Like, what, what, you know, where, how did you two come together and how did you decide to create a show together and, and help people in a, in a group setting? Tell us a little bit about your journey.
Dené Logan: Well, I’m laughing because I think Vanessa and I often joke that if you see an introvert out in the wild, [00:07:00] it’s probably because an extrovert found them, captured them and dragged them out of hiding.
And that was certainly the case for us. Um, I am extremely introverted. And when we first arrived at grad school on like literally the first day, it felt like we had been thrown back into high school where, you know, you have breakfast when you first arrived there and everybody’s sitting at tables. And my inner introvert like died inside.
Amanda Walsh: Why, why
Dené Logan: did I decide to do this? And so I, um, You know, just like, of course, went to a table by myself, sat down and started to like do whatever I was doing to entertain myself. Um, maybe looking at my phone or something and all of a sudden I looked up and there was like the most beautiful angelic figure standing in front of me and just said like, hi, and sat down with her tray and just started talking to me, Amanda.
Like she had known me for lifetimes. And I was like, what is happening?
Amanda Walsh: She just kept
Dené Logan: talking and talking and talking and [00:08:00] I was like uh huh and then they like rang a bell or told us it was time to go to the first assembly and she was like you ready let’s go and I was like okay and I loved a joke that like she took me by the hand and we’ve been together ever since.
Oh,
Amanda Walsh: that’s so sweet. Did that feel good for you? Like as an introvert, does it feel good when you sort of get swooped up by an extrovert who then takes you along
Dené Logan: a journey? Oh my gosh, it’s like the most containing, beautiful, like that to me is the evidence of synchronicity and of these like collisions that you just know for sure are meant to be.
Vanessa and I knew almost instantly, I think. You know, she said it maybe at the end of that first weekend, like we’ve known each other for several lifetimes and we were meant to find one another again. It’s like she just knew. I probably didn’t know because I wasn’t looking up. I was looking down, but she knew that we were supposed to be in one another’s lives.
And I felt such an instant sense of safety with her that I think those are the moments [00:09:00] that that are evidence of magic to me.
Amanda Walsh: All right. Well, how about you, Vanessa?
Vanessa Bennett: I’m like, I love it. I’m like, yeah, that’s what happened. I just adopted her.
Amanda Walsh: But from your perspective, what were you, were you specifically drawn to her?
Were you,
Vanessa Bennett: what was going on? You know, it’s funny because I, we will always joke, you know, that me as the extreme extrovert that I am, I could have a conversation with a brick wall and I always say, and it will be riveting. I promise. Um, Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I can walk into a room I can walk in anywhere and I will find somebody and I will start talking, you know, it’s just kind of a skill that I have.
But there were a bunch of tables open and you know, I just saw her and I was just drawn to her and that’s who I decided to sit with. And I guess for me, it was not like there was no consideration, there was no, not that I remember, you know, it was such a, I, I kind of can be very definitive in the way that I, I move through the world.
I’m a Taurus. I’m very like, purposeful and like, there it is. And I think today was just that person. I was like, this is where I’m [00:10:00] sitting. And. We chatted, and I swear I remember you talking too, it was just me talking the whole time, and then I just, I just knew, you know, I don’t know, it was a knowing.
Amanda Walsh: All right, I know everybody wants to know now, what are your sun, moon, and rising?
Vanessa Bennett: So, I’m a Taurus sun, as I just said, um, Libra moon and Aquarius rising. Okay,
Dené Logan: nice. So I’m Capricorn Sun, also Libra Moon, and Scorpio Rising. Okay.
Amanda Walsh: All right. Whew. Let’s talk psychology
Vanessa Bennett: and astrology. I know
Amanda Walsh: you both have had experiences with astrology. I know that you both had readings through the Astrology Connect platform, actually.
Um, when you, well, how did, how did you first get exposed to astrology? Was it before psychology or after psychology? And how do you see these two complementing each other? Hmm.
Dené Logan: Well, for me, it’s interesting because when we were in grad school and correct me if I’m wrong, Vanessa, but I feel like [00:11:00] you maybe had more of a conceptualization or understanding of astrology than I did.
It felt very ethereal, like hard for me to understand, like people would start talking about astrology and I would sort of zone out. in grad school. And then, um, actually, I remember quite specifically that at the beginning of 2020, I had my first natal chart reading and it was such a, like, cataclysmic life altering experience for me, truly.
I felt and, um, God, I want to, what, Saffron Rossi, am I saying her name wrong?
Vanessa Bennett: Saffron. She was also a teacher at our university. So she was a Pacifica teacher, which is. The connection.
Dené Logan: I want to give her a shout out. It’s like just that profound and she’s so unbelievably brilliant and it felt like someone was telling me about myself in a way that felt so unbelievably healing and like confirming of every struggle I’d ever felt in my skin.
I think I cried my way through the whole thing. [00:12:00] Um, and it was just like, I was forever changed by that experience and I understand now why today. Young. had so many of his clients get astrology readings because I have since, um, really made it a practice to recommend it to clients who are just really struggling and grappling with a lot of like self judgment or like there’s something wrong with me.
And I find that it always has an impact, you know?
Vanessa Bennett: Yeah. Yeah. I think, I mean, I think you’re right when I’m actually thinking about when my, I suppose like introduction to astrology was. I I always like to say, like, I was kind of born a hippie. I’ve always been a hippie. I came out a hippie, um, which is hilarious considering I, you know, was born into a family of, like, military Reagan Republicans, and I was, like, a little kid that was, like, saved the planet, you know, from the day I could talk.
Um, I was always into it. Always. I don’t remember a time that I wasn’t. And what’s funny is that for me, You know, I, I’m pretty ADHD and I am very structured. I tend to be very [00:13:00] logical. Um, but I see things in patterns and I, I see things in structure, right? Structure is really helpful for the way that my brain works.
And so astrology for me was always really helpful because it was a way that I could structure things and understand things. Um, in a, in actually a very tangible way. And so a lot of people don’t look at it as tangible, but I actually always did. Um, and so things, it was just like, oh, this is this, and this is your moon, and you know, this is where your, that makes sense.
And so it, it would help me in that way. It’s only been, I would say, since going to grad school, which we went to Pacifica, um, if anybody’s wondering, because we’re like, where is this place? I’m sure. Um, that I started realizing the overlap, right? And I think I’ve always been fascinated by people, by how we worked, the way that, you know, why we thought the way we thought all of these things.
Um, I don’t think I ever realized that there was an overlap until going and finding a school like Pacifica, which is so feminine in its essence. You know, the energy of Pacifica is so feminine. And when [00:14:00] I was drawn to it, even though the feminine at the time frustrated it. Yeah. the shit out of me because I was so in my hyper masculine.
I just realized how much actually I had been missing. Um, and I think astrology was like a key component to that. It was like, Oh, you’ve been, you’ve been using it in this way, but there’s also this other way, right? Which is the magic. I think that I didn’t really understand at the time. Really
Amanda Walsh: fascinating that you bring that in this whole feminine essence, because I would say for me when I was New York city corporate,
Vanessa Bennett: You
Amanda Walsh: know, I can’t imagine I could that it was somebody and I was reading it or hearing it.
People would say that say divine feminine or sacred feminine. I’d always be like, what is that? I mean, that sounds fascinating, but what is that? And it was almost that part of that seed that actually brought me to Hawaii, which then brought me to astrology. But I’m so curious when you say Pacifica is [00:15:00] feminine.
And you were missing something about astrology that like the more feminine aspect of astrology. What do you mean? Like, what are you referring
Vanessa Bennett: to? Yeah. I mean, I think that, and I don’t think this is just my personal experience. I mean, I think that we, you know, today talks about this all the time as a, as a people, you know, we’re so locked in such a, such a hyper masculine way of being and existing in this world.
And we have lost touch with. Anything feminine right in its essence. Um, and so that way we lost touch. I mean, it’s been, it’s been demonized purposely right for so long. Um, and you know, then I came from a family like I just mentioned the kind of family that I came in, which also very much like hyper masculine.
Everything was logic. Everything was structure. Um, you know, I’m from the northeast again, New York. So it’s very like cold weather, blue collar, pull yourself up by your bootstraps. We don’t really We don’t have emotions, suck it up, that kind of feeling, you know. And I, I just don’t think I ever fit. Like I said, I was kind of born this [00:16:00] hippie, but I was in this world and I think I was always seeking some more fluidity, some more magic, some more softness, some more, right?
All of these qualities of the feminine, just energetically, but didn’t have the language for it. And I was in New York City in corporate as well when I decided to go back to grad school and I had looked at a bunch of schools in New York. There were tons. I mean, I was looking at Columbia, some amazing schools and I went and I visited Pacifica and I stepped foot on the campus and my whole body, like I got chills on my whole body and I welled up with emotion and I remember in that moment being like, this is where I have to be right.
I just had to follow that knowing and When I say the school is very feminine in nature, it is very fluid and there’s a lot of misspellings on their syllabus and their syllabi and their structure is Very lacking. And so for me as like a producer who’s very masculine, it was infuriating. [00:17:00] And also it was great.
It was exactly what I needed, you know, because if I had gone to a school where like everything was buttoned up and structured, I probably wouldn’t have gotten actually what I was, my soul was really longing for, which was again, the magic, the stuff that can’t be named, the stuff that can’t be put into a box or structured.
Right. And I think that was so much of what at least Pacifica gave me. But yeah, I mean, I, I would put astrology into that same category, you know,
Amanda Walsh: see a lot of clients. You talk to a lot of people on your podcast, you know, you have an amazing like Q and a that you do on your podcast, which I’ve tuned into and love just hearing your perspective and the way you reflect things back to people. It’s beautiful. What, what would you say is the biggest thing people are struggling with right now?
Like, what are you hearing kind of over and over and
Dené Logan: over? You know, I think the thing that comes up so often, and I think this is a little bit, we are living through a space of, [00:18:00] you know, what Jung would call a collective individuation process where we have, you know, people are struggling with like, The certainty that I have had that I had, you know, sort of based my life around and the five year plans and everything that I had believed to be true about my life and society and the world around me, a lot of that has been not only challenged in a really profound way over the last few years, but a lot of it’s like, um, the veil of the matrix of some of, you know, what we’ve been living in.
Um, yeah. Has sort of been lifted. And there are things that just all of a sudden we can’t unsee that things were never really the case. And I think, you know, some of what Vanessa is speaking to when she talks about us really having lived for a very long in a wounded masculine paradigm was that we sort of believed that our safety, um, Could be found in certain structures and government [00:19:00] entities and ways of being and living a good life that would keep us safe.
And, um, all of a sudden we’re sort of confronted with. And if that’s not true, what then? And I think we’ve been a society that has really been void of really knowing how to be and not just Be in our, like our feminine soul space, but like be in the wonder and in the unknown and in the like, if I can’t know what tomorrow is going to look like, what do I anchor into to give me a sense of, um, here’s what I know to be true, no matter what happens.
And I think that certainly, um, some of the tools that I’ve used to navigate some of the uncertainty that I’ve experienced over. The last few years and that I support science with are things like astrology, things like, um, some of the more magical elements like tarot and astrology and like really like using these other ways to connect to spirit and something that like [00:20:00] anchors makes me feel anchored when I feel a little bit lost in like, oh, the over the, um.
Uncertainty feels overwhelming to me, right? And so I think just there’s so much uncertainty around like what the world is going to look like next week for so many of my clients that it’s like we’re, we’re learning to utilize new tools for when the world isn’t what we, we thought we could like bet upon, you know.
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Let’s make 2024 a year to remember together. Get your free copy@astrologyhub.com slash 2024 guide. Good. And you know, it’s, um, at our 2019 forecast for 2020. So we did it in 2019, but it was a forecast for 2020 and we had been doing an entire 2020 prep series because astrologers kept saying everything’s gonna change.
All the structures are going to be challenged. The ones that are built on, on faulty ground are going to fall. And it was like, whoa, I mean, they were making such bold claims that it was like, you, you better be paying attention, you know? But one of the things that some, one of the astrologers said at that 2019 forecast was, We Are going to have to get [00:22:00] comfortable being uncomfortable.
This is going to be the new space in which we will be navigating our lives. And so we may as well get comfortable in it. And I love that you’re helping your clients actually do that with tools. Because often the astrology will tell us, will give us very clear indicators of the energy that we’re
Vanessa Bennett: going to
Amanda Walsh: be working with.
But it doesn’t always tell us how to do that. It doesn’t, you know, it definitely tells us that this is what’s happening, but then that level of like, all right, what are the practices, what are the ways to actually tangibly work with this, with this energy? And I, and that to me is one place where I do see that astrology and psychology can really compliment each other.
You’re a trained psychotherapist, you’re trained and, and giving people those, those tools. And I, I can see that, that really being beautiful. What about you? I mean, Vanessa, would you echo the same thing Denae said or, or
Vanessa Bennett: would you add [00:23:00] or what, what would you say? Yeah, I would definitely echo. I mean, I think the, the area that I would add to is, you know, and this is another overlap.
I think that Denae and I have that we connected on when we first met was that we found our way back to. the path, at least of kind of the beginning of healing, um, through body oriented practices. And so both of us have a background in yoga, um, you know, a long standing practice of yoga. And I think it was through yoga that door kind of opened for a lot of other gateways, right?
And so I think what happens a lot of times people come to me struggling with exactly everything that today is saying, um, and then they say, and it’s tangibly showing up in these ways in my relational struggles, right? Um, it’s myself, my relationship with self, but it’s also my relationship with other people.
And so often I think what I’m I find myself doing in my sessions is the tangible kind of, um, I think I have to put this into words. It’s like [00:24:00] resourcing. It’s using the body as a resource, right? And so it’s, it’s tangibly teaching tools of how do I connect back to my intuition? How do I connect back to myself as the, the knowing, right?
I was saying earlier about my body had that knowing. And I think for so many of us, we were so disconnected from self. Now that’s just not just spiritual self. That’s my body as well. Right? Um, and one could say, obviously they’re all connected. And so I find that a lot of the tangible tools that I’m working with in sessions are body oriented tangible tools.
It’s like bringing us back into the wisdom of the body, the wisdom of the intuition that we’ve turned down. Um, and that we’re doing what Denae is saying, which is like, we’ve been taught to reach outside of ourself. For some kind of knowledge or some kind of, you know, safety, whether that’s in shopping, whether that’s in social media, whether that’s in my romantic relationships.
Right. Um, and so, so much of that work I think that I do with clients is really coming back to like the actual body, the [00:25:00] self, the tangible self. And how do I start to build the, the trust that was kind of severed or lost. It’s perfectly
Amanda Walsh: beautiful that the Taurus is using body into their bodies, you know, but it’s so true.
And I think so many people probably in our community can relate that it was some sort of experience in the body through the body that helped them to start to awaken. Yes. And, and I’ve also experienced myself that one, a few of the things that I have to prioritize. Is morning meditation, but also walking and movement and these things that actually helped me be in the body because the body is our conduit to the divine.
Exactly. We were given this incredible vehicle or temple, whichever way you want to think of it, that literally. Locks us in with that divine frequency and when we’re [00:26:00] disconnected from it, we’re also disconnected with our intuition, all those things. I would love to ask you, can you give us a practice? Like if there’s people out there that are like, I know I’m disconnected from my body.
I’ve been disconnected from my body. I, I feel even shame or, um, you know, like a, almost
Vanessa Bennett: a purposeful pushing
Amanda Walsh: away because I’ve been taught that my body’s. not right or to be shameful or, you know, all the things. I mean, this is just, it’s endless, right? The, all the ways that we’ve been told and taught to disconnect from ourselves.
Is there anything kind of simple that you could, that you
Vanessa Bennett: could give to people? Yeah. I mean, look, I could go into more of the like mindfulness based cognitive therapy tools and techniques, which are all, you know, meditation structured and kind of foundational, but I feel like many of your listeners probably No, some of those things, you know, um, the thing that’s actually coming up for me while it’s a body [00:27:00] practice.
It’s kind of like, um, It’s a, an emotional, how do I, I’m going to make something up here, an emotional psychic body practice. It’s like this connection of the three, which is like a lot of the work that Denae and I do is around recovery from codependency. Right. And it’s, it’s, it’s a very like foundational element, the work that her and I do.
And. I like to talk about how one of the symptoms or signs of disconnection from self is how hard it is for us to actually know what we’re feeling, what we’re experiencing, what our needs are, what our desires are, right, how to communicate that. And so I’ll go through a lot of these things with clients or in workshops and most people are nodding and nodding.
And I’ll say, you know, while I might have a hard time being with anger or recognizing even when I’m in joy, I never have a problem recognizing when I’m resentful. And everybody always kind of snickers and smiles and shakes their head. And I’m like, it’s the one thing that we can all agree, we know what that feels like.[00:28:00]
I don’t know why that one is the sticker for everybody, but we all know it, right? And so an actual practice that I use is having people tune into the feeling in their body of resentment. What does that feel like? And I always say you’ll get plenty of practice. There will be opportunity. It doesn’t have to be some huge resentment.
It could be like a tiny little whiff of it. But I say, like, be the anthropologist to yourself. All you’re doing is noticing. Turn up the awareness dial on resentment and just focus there for a couple weeks. And every time you get this little paying in your stomach or like that tightening in your chest and you’re like, there it is.
You can pause and know that your codependency in some way is being activated. Something is not being said. You’re not, you know, you’re not communicating something. You’re, you’re brushing something under the rug. You’re, you’re allowing a boundary to be crossed, right? All of these things, that’s what that’s indicating.
And for some of us, that’s like, that’s the first thing that we grasp at. And so it might not be, it might not sound like a body [00:29:00] oriented practice, but it is in essence because it, it registers in your body. And so we need to really get familiar with what that feels like. Like, I know what resentment feels like in my body.
I know it to a T, right? And it’s, it’s a practice. It’s kind of a skill or like a muscle to build to get familiar with that.
Amanda Walsh: Dependency. That’s a big one. I mean, in terms of relationships. Is that the one that you see the most? Like the,
Vanessa Bennett: the, the biggest issue? Yeah, right? Because we basically say we’re all codependent. I mean, we’re like, we’re like, this is the hill we’re going to die on. We’re a codependent society. We all struggle with it in some way.
So, I don’t know, Danae, what you would say, but I would say, yeah, that’s the biggest one.
Dené Logan: Yeah, you know, I think so much of what we ultimately speak about a lot is that what codependency is, is a way that we learn to self regulate through our relationship to other people. So if I can control what you’re doing, how you’re doing it, if I can sort of manipulate that, or people please, or be [00:30:00] who you need me to be, then I’ll be okay.
And to the point that Vanessa was just making, until we really know how to come back into our bodies and be with ourselves, we will attempt to control the world around us too. Cultivate a sense of safety. And, you know, I think for me, one of the most profound experiences of my life and it sounds so silly every time I say it, but it’s the truth was just coming into the felt realization that there was no feeling that I would have that would kill me.
But if I allowed the feeling to like be felt and move through me, that eventually it would pass and I would still be there and I would be okay. Um, yeah. But I love what you said about, you know, so many of us spend a lifetime just like from the neck up, not in the space of our bodies. And there’s so many layers to what that is.
Like we’ve really been conditioned to reject our bodies and believe that our bodies are a place that aren’t safe. So if I focus outward, then I don’t have to [00:31:00] focus on, um. My body. But I think learning to cultivate a sense of safety within can be just so simple. You know, if I feel like I’m in that state of panic and I want to control something external, what I love to say to clients is do me a favor, like if a client texts me and they’re like, I’m having a panic attack, I’ll say, okay, do me a favor, take your shoes off and go outside and walk around in your yard for a little bit.
And then text me and tell me how you feel after doing that for 15 minutes. And I’ve never had a client that hasn’t been like, Oh my God, I’m fine, I’m okay now, right? But there’s something alchemical that shifts within us when we get back into nature and be with ourselves. And I like to keep it simple around like, just letting you feel the sensation of your feet in the grass because so many of us have been conditioned to really be disembodied where some of the other embodied practices that You know, we might get to later can feel really hard in the beginning.
It can be really hard to stay with myself through some of that. So like if we keep it [00:32:00] simple and just get outside, breathe some fresh air, like you said, go on a walk that brings us back into the space of like, I can stay with myself and I can be okay. And the feelings will pass. And I actually don’t need anyone to be anything other than exactly who they are in this moment for me to find my center within myself.
So good.
Amanda Walsh: Wow. And so true in this connection with nature. I mean, it’s, it’s
Vanessa Bennett: one of the
Amanda Walsh: core things that we talk about here at astrology hub because, because astrology is really just the study of natural rhythms, natural cycles through itself and our connection to it. And you know, we, we might say to our astrology lovers, just go outside and be under the moon.
Similar to just go outside and put your feet on the grass, go outside and look at Venus. If you don’t have to do anything, just, just look and if there is something that happens, I love hearing from you that there’s never been a time that that hasn’t been a grounding presence for people. But if you think about and something else you [00:33:00] brought in, it’s so like that, that feeling that I’m having, is it going to kill me?
Think of all the energy we spend trying to avoid feeling things and all the like trying to control the environment so that we don’t have to feel something. It’s like that, that thing that you, you both have just brought in is it’s simple, but it’s not that easy to do in practice. And it’s super profound.
It will change everything if we just allow ourselves to feel. What is moving through us? So wow, for people like our audience out there, if you imagine that they’re your clients, what’s something that you want to leave them with? Like, what, what, what is something that you feel is just really helpful to keep in mind right now?
Hmm. Hmm.
Well, [00:34:00]
Vanessa Bennett: looking at tonight, like you go first,
Amanda Walsh: you know, I
Dené Logan: think what I want to sort of be. The mantra that I offer others that I certainly hold on to myself is that there is an intelligence to all of this. There is something that is holding all of us in the grand unfolding, if you will. And I think that so much of the reason that we attempt to control and You know, maneuver and manipulate and do all of these things that we’re talking about to keep ourselves safe is because we control, we don’t trust and if we don’t trust life, then we really feel like life needs to be what, you know, I need it to be from what I believe will keep me safe or keep me happy in this moment and a lot of times what I think, you know, and if you think about it in terms of astrology, what is so beautiful is all of this is unfolding.
in like a beautiful, synchronistic [00:35:00] way to support who we are meant to become. And I think if anything, that is what the last five years of my life have just like brought in on such a visceral level. Um, all of this is happening for us. We don’t have to control a thing. It just becomes like, how do I come back to these tools that we’re talking about to bring me back to myself and back to the willingness to trust?
Right. And it is a willingness. It’s like, can I be back in that willingness again and again forever? Amen. Because all of us will forget, all of us will feel like it’s not accessible, but it’s a practice that we can bring ourselves back to at any time. Like, I trust in life. I trust that I’m held. I trust I will get through this and that this feeling will not last forever and I’ll be okay, you know?
Amanda Walsh: Word cosmos, order and beauty, literally, there is an order, there is a beauty, there’s an intelligence. It’s just like what you just said, but we do [00:36:00] need to remind ourselves. And I love that you, you bring in that it can be a mantra. No, I’d love to say life is happening for me. Life is happening for us. And, and yes, we fall back on the tools and then can we enjoy it, right?
But can we just, can we enjoy this? Wild ride of life, the ups and the downs and the twists and the turns and the unknown and the known and all of it. Yeah. Beautiful. Vanessa. How about
Vanessa Bennett: you? Yeah. I mean, I, I think that the biggest, um, kind of. I suppose that I, I like almost belabor to my clients that I find myself saying it repeatedly over and over even in just like one session is really around this idea of, um, you know, I meant, I mentioned this earlier.
This is a lifelong process, right? There’s no right or wrong. We don’t get letter a grades for doing it better than other people. Um, and so we’ve got to [00:37:00] be able to find a way to. I suppose like, like you were saying about, it’s like, it’s like finding joy or finding the silliness or finding the humor in the human experience, right, as we’re stumbling along.
You know, I tend to, um, and just the way that I, the way that I suppose I communicate and the way that I am, like, I’ll tend to be like, Oh, that you looked like kind of an idiot when you did that, didn’t you? And like, we’ll both laugh, right? Like, did you feel like an idiot? You know, and it’s like, this is how I will literally sit with clients and I’ll be like, well, I did this thing and I really put my foot in my mouth, right?
I felt like a complete moron and we’ll joke and it’s like, you know, somebody will say like, oh my God, I did this thing. And I’m like, good. Oh, are you uncomfortable? Good. How was that for you? You know, and I’ll, and I’ll prod them about it. And it’s like. You’re, you’re not immune from feeling stupid, from putting your foot in your mouth, from fumbling your way through it, from screwing up, you know, relationally in that moment, from screaming at your kid, from [00:38:00] all of these things, you know, that we all try to like, Oh, I’m not healed.
Like I’m doing it wrong. I thought, I thought I already did that work. I thought I already healed that part of myself. I hear it all the time, you know, and I think that that is usually some form of like the lesson I’m constantly trying to impart on people is like, there’s no such thing. You don’t get it right.
There’s no such thing. You don’t get a grade. You know, there’s no letter. Um, you screw up, you learn from the screw up. You screw up again, you learn from the screw up. Um, can we just be malleable and evolve and be in this like fluid nature of evolution, right? Um, and I, it’s hard. I get it. It’s hard for people.
You know, we want things to make sense and be black and white and be structured and feel safe to Danae’s point. Um, but I do find that when we can make fun of ourselves actually and loosen up a little bit and realize how silly we all are and all we all look. Then it just becomes easier, you know, to be in our own skin.
Amanda Walsh: Oh, that’s so awesome. When we can laugh at it, we’re free of it. Yeah. I mean, it’s, it’s, if we can’t laugh at [00:39:00] ourselves, if we can’t laugh at a situation, it still owns us. Totally. We get to that point where we can laugh and see the humor and, um, that’s a really good indicator that we’re liberated from whatever the embarrassment or the, you know, whatever it was.
I’ve loved this. This has been so much fun. If there’s people that I know you’re doing an event coming up soon. I know you have things you obviously have your podcast cheaper than therapy. Go check it out. It’s so good. Um, but you’re having an event very soon, like a retreat. So if somebody wanted to jump in, tell us a
Dené Logan: little bit about that retreat.
Yeah. So, you know, as we were talking a lot about this idea of returning to the feminine principle and that we’ve been a society that’s been out of alignment with the integration of our masculine and feminine for a very long time. And, um, we believe, and we know you believe, because we talked about it when you were on the podcast a little bit, that there’s like this rise of the feminine principle that the Aquarian Age ushered in.
[00:40:00] And so, um, we’re hosting retreat called The Return of the Sovereign Feminine. And we’re really, you know, to be a women’s retreat and it’s all about like how we step into an empowered space of integration starting off the new year. So we love that we’re doing it, um, January 18th through the 21st because it gives us an opportunity to sort of kick off the year in a really bold, intentional.
Unapologetic way. And so, uh, we’re going to be in Malibu, California with a group of women coming together in divine sisterhood and talking about all of the things that we dove into a little bit together.
Vanessa Bennett: Yeah. Um, we’ve got, um, me and another fellow Taurus will be cooking and nourishing all of us and her food is divine.
So just think four days of not having to think about cooking is also a big part. Um, but yeah, you can go to, you know, either of our Instagrams, the cheaper than therapy page, my website, uh, Vanessa Bennett. com. Um, all the information’s [00:41:00] there, the signups there. Um, and then. For anybody listening, if you want, we’ll give you a hundred dollars off the, the amount.
If you guys want to use the code feminine, when you, when you check out, you’ll get a hundred dollars.
Amanda Walsh: Thank you. I didn’t know you were doing that. That’s so nice.
Vanessa Bennett: No holidays price.
Amanda Walsh: When I was going through my divorce, I had this moment of realizing I couldn’t. I literally couldn’t spell the word sovereign.
I didn’t know how to spell it and I was
Vanessa Bennett: like, I still have a hard time spelling it. But to me, it was so symbolic. Symbolic, right?
Amanda Walsh: Like I, I don’t know what, I don’t even know what that means. I don’t know what that word is. Yes. And it was literally this moment of like, I remember I would speak in we, like I had, I could never speak about I, I only could speak in we.
I don’t even know what summer is. So I love what you’re doing. It’s it’s some, the work that we’ve been doing over the holidays with our community has, has been very feminine in nature as [00:42:00] well, connecting with intentions, connecting with ritual, really inviting people into space to connect with. Nature through ritual and ceremony connects with the moon cycle and allow that to infuse our rhythm of life.
You know, it’s there, it’s like, it’s there up in the sky. We get to just tune into it and then, and then bring it into our lives and it’s anchoring. It’s, it, that is, we can find safety quote unquote in that. You know, instead of looking for it in these external structures that are clearly not worth our trust.
Yeah. We can look to the things that are eternal and timeless and consistent and always there for us. So I love the work you’re doing. Thank you so much for being guests on this show. Thank you for featuring astrology hub on your show. And I just, I just feel there’s such a beautiful synergy between what you’re doing, what we’re doing
Dené Logan: here.
So thank you. Thank [00:43:00] you so much,
Amanda Walsh: Amanda. Same. Thank you. All right, everybody. And thank you for tuning in. Thank you so much for being a part of our community. Thank you as always for making astrology a part of your life. We’ll look forward to connecting with you on the next episode.