What Your Sign Says About How You Love: Chani Nicholas (Best Of)

well hello world world world the whole world welcome to we can do hard things and the stars today my yoga instructor said this she said we were in shavasana which is like this nap you take at the end of yoga, which is the best part of yoga.

Did you say Shavasana?

Listen, I don't care, all right?

It's just a long word and it's a nap. I think she said Shavasana.
And you take a nap and that's what they should do the whole time. And everyone would go to yoga, but it's just at the end.
And my instructor said, we can do hard things, but we don't have to be hard while we do them. Oh, look at that.
Oh, she got, she went up to you. I know.
So anyway, today's super, super exciting. Here's the deal.
We at this podcast are astrologically curious. Yes, we are.
We would call ourselves astrologically curious. We also are all sort of, well, maybe you're not skeptical.
You're not a skeptic, Abby. I would say sister and I, everything.
Yeah. Yeah.
I believe in most things. Yeah.
She believes in most things she just said. Okay.
So there you have it. Like if you believe in it, including ghosts.
Yeah. All the things I believe in everything, a teeny bit and nothing all the way.
That's my rule after coming from some fundamentalist shit in my life. Also, when it comes to astrology, I've always had this like teeny, teeny bias that it's woo-woo and not gritty.
It's like all about self-discovery and not about the world. Like it's all about self and not others.
Then all of these people in my life started saying, I hear that you must look in to this woman, Chani Nicholas. She's going to fix your problem with astrology.
So we have Chani today. I am so excited about this day.
Chani Nicholas is a Los Angeles-based New York Times bestselling author of You Were Born for This, Astrology for Radical Self-Acceptance. She has been a counseling astrologer for more than 20 years, guiding her community of over 1 million monthly readers to discover and live out their life's purpose through understanding their birth chart.
Chani runs her company with her wife and business partner, Sonia Pasi, who Abby and I got to have dinner with and absolutely adore. Together, they launched the Chani app, which offers a personalized daily understanding of the birth chart.
I get a notification every day on that app. From Chani.
Hi, Chani. Hi, Chani.
Hi. Hi.
Welcome. So excited to be here.
Thank you for having me. We're so thrilled.
Ever since we got to have dinner with you all, we've just been waiting for this day. Thanks for joining us.
I have to tell you, when I picked up your book, I loved how you wrote about your life so much. I was excited to get to the astrology stuff.
But the way that you describe how you came to astrology, I thought was so beautiful. So do you mind telling us a little bit about your childhood? Because that's what leads you to the moment where astrology reaches into your life.
So tell me about your childhood, which if you're like everyone else was like super simple and easy peasy. Yeah.
Yeah. Totally uncomplicated and idyllic.
I was born in a place, in a time where people were experimenting with a lot of different ways of living and really kind of untethered from any kind of cultural norm. I grew up in a place where folks were doing a lot of drugs and partying a lot.
And I am like typical Gen X in that we kind of just

raised ourselves. Someone said this on TikTok the other day.
It was like, we grew up around a lot of

adults. Like they were there, but we grew up.
We grew up around some people. They didn't necessarily

feel compelled to like parent. It was a culture that I grew up in.
But in and of that, I grew up around a tremendous amount of addiction and the impacts of addiction on a child is that no one reflects you back to yourself and that your needs are always second, if not 200 millionth on the list of things when the first thing on the list is to get high or to get out of one's feelings, to get out of the difficult thing by using a substance or whatever behavior is happening. So, you know, I think a lot of us have that experience.
This is my particular brand of that experience. And one day when I was very young and I was taken on a situation where I'm pretty sure the adults were doing a lot of illegal things, one of the women that was in this situation, I'll never forget it.
I didn't know what she was doing at the time, but she actually looked at me, which was a kind of rare thing for the adults to kind of take in the children. But she opened up this book and she asked the person I was with what my birthday was.
And then she got my birthday and she like dragged her figure down the page and landed on my birthday and looked up at me and said, you're really judgmental. Oh, my gosh.
And I thought, yes, yes, I am. None of these fuckers have any judgment whatsoever.
I am the one who is like, this is not OK. Yes.
And nobody listens to me. Yes.
So that was my like beginning intro. But that was pretty much all the person said to me.
And I didn't even really know what judgment was, but it felt hefty. It had enough like ballast to it that I was like, yeah, give me more of that.
So then when I was 12, my father had moved into a third family iteration and his mother-in-law bought us all an astrology chart reading like the whole new family. And so we went to it and this woman started talking about how different we all were and why.
And it was so incredibly helpful because again, someone was seeing me and distinguishing all of us. And I was a kid that didn't have any tools.
I didn't have a lot of adults that were interested in being introspective. And so this language was like, oh, wow, this is describing people's not only personalities, but ways of being and why.
And all of it's perfect. And all of us are different.
And I think a thing about being a codependent child is that you don't know how to distinguish yourself from other people and you don't know that you're different because you're so enmeshed with everybody's stuff and you're just trying to survive, which means you're just trying to take care of everybody, which means you don't have needs or they come two millionth on the list and you're always going towards other people. So this woman was able to give me an outline and I felt like I started to exist for the first time or one of the first times in my life.
And she had written a book. And so my dad bought me the book and I've been studying astrology ever since.
She gave you an outline, like a boundary between you and everything because you use the word distinguish over and over again. So basically you're like, okay, I might be with these people, but I am not these people.
I am my own thing to be seen. Wow.
And also like, this is why my stepsister isn't bothered by this thing is so much suffering for me, or this is why my stepbrother, this is why my stepmom, or this is why my dad, or this is why my mom, you know, it like is a really beautiful tool, especially at that age, because 12 is the age where you start to really kind of do that stuff. That really made me think in a totally different way because your child was quite dramatic.
You say that by five years old, you knew the taste of cocaine. Like you were living in an environment that was extreme in that way.
And I feel like we all understand this need for belonging, but it's a very interesting look at it to say that we have a real need for distinction too, especially in a world of chaos or when you're surrounded by folks making really painful decisions. Understanding yourself as separate and distinct from that is a fascinating need that I had never really thought of before I read that part of your book.
Yeah. It was a life raft for me.
And also being, you know, named the sensitive child because things were upsetting and it upset me. It was also really unhelpful.
Am I sensitive or are you just a bunch of assholes is what I've been asking my entire effing life. We can look at that as in both our personal life, but also within the systems of harm and supremacy that we live within.
And we talk, you know, as a community a lot about that, but it's really important to distinguish like this thing is not well and it's making me feel unwell. And that distinguishing is really important as well.
Before we get into that, can you tell me how being judgmental saved you? I just really loved that part where you were excited about being called judgmental because I am very judgmental. And if you could just frame it in a way that is positive.
That works for you. So it allows her to continue to be judgmental.
Yes, I would like to. I would feel good about it, Jenny.
That's what she's looking for. No codependence here.
But if you could just do that, that would be great. I don't want to be judged for my judgmental.
She needs affirmation. So if you could just go ahead and tell us what you mean by that.
Yeah. I mean, judgment in an astrological sense is about being able to parse out what is happening and why it's happening.
And so we absolutely obviously need judgment. And because I grew up in a place where people's judgment was literally disconnected, that it getting high or drunk or like, you know, being in the party, you got to let a lot of judgment go so that you can have this like experience of trying to get to oneness, but you can't actually get to oneness unless you understand who you are and have great boundaries.
So part of my judgment stuff is like, I have boundaries. That is not okay.
This is okay. This is where I stop.
And this is where I have. And knowing that is everything.
Because if I trust my own boundaries, then part of my hypervigilance can deescalate. It might still come up here and there, but also being a kid that grew up in chaos, I'm hypervigilant all the time.
And so if I don't have discernment and judgment about my own boundaries, I'm going to remain in that agitated, hypervigilant state. And that's no good for anybody.
Was coming into learning about astrology at age 12 helpful to understand some of these adults in your life and the choices that they were making? Obviously, addiction addiction and we, Glennon and I know, Amanda know a lot about that, but did it bring a source of empathy or healing in knowing maybe that they are different in the astrological charts than you are and the choices that they made? I think when I am the most compassionate is when I'm reading somebody's chart. Because when I see your chart, I'm inside the setup and I'm like, oh, of course, this is perfect.
This is who you are. I get it.
Like this is your circumstance. This makes so much sense.
And when I'm outside of that, I'm like, no. Also, I think, I don't know if you all feel the same, but I feel like writing about my childhood helps me almost the most in understanding that humans are human and people that raised me were very young, mixed up humans in a lot of pain.
And it helps me to have some perspective on it and understand that none of it was personal. It just wasn't about me.
It impacted me in some really severe ways. That's been my life's work.
But the things that happened to me weren't ever about me. And I think that writing that is really helpful.
And then having their own astrological context has also been really healing for me, for sure. That's great.
The things that happened to me were not about me. Dang.
What you just said about writing being healing, you've also said that actually it brings up so much pain for you too. Giving yourself form in writing your story amplifies the invisibility that you had growing up and how seeing that actually makes it more painful for you in a lot of ways as you get towards the healing part of that.

I'm just thinking of all the people who have felt invisible at some point in their lives. And there's some irony in that, that, you know, taking this step of claiming your power and claiming your form, whether it's in writing or art or using your voice can also have this kind of shadow pain attached to it.
What did you learn about that?

it was kind of similar to having that first astrological reading you know there's one thing about writing something personal and then there's a whole other thing about putting it in

a book and having it be like in a literal form. And then that thing going out and you've got no control over it anymore.
Like if I write in my journal, no one ever has to see it. But when you put something out into the world, what it did is it shaped me again.
Like I felt the parameters. And what happened for me after the book came out is every night for months,

I'd go to bed and I'd be like, did that really happen? Did I lie? Did I make that all? You were self-gaslating. Yes.
And that is so excruciatingly painful. And it was also just part of my process, but I really felt kind of like, I don't know if I should have done that.
Like I second guessed myself the whole way for months and it took a lot of therapy and I barely wrote about myself at all. Like it's a very small little piece of the book, but even putting out that much was wild for me.
And it helped me to just say at the end of the day, that's my story. Yes.
And I'm not putting it out in the world in a way that's blaming anyone, but I'm putting it out in the world so that I can understand who I am. And so that other folks might be like, oh, this is a portal in and this is how I got here.
And it's so important. It's in everything I do, but it's been very hidden.
And so now I'm in the process of a little bit with this book and writing other things that are much more explicit so that I can also dismantle the monster under the bed of my own life and be like, it's okay. These scary things happen.
They don't have power over me because also they weren't personal. And now I can put it into a context of my life as it is now, because there's been a bridge to somewhere else.
So it's, I think, really important to know where we are and like what skills we have to fall back on or coping mechanisms to work through the major backlash that is going to happen within when you do something that is against the grain of what you were taught. Because I grew up around a lot of drug dealers and the number one thing is you don't talk about it.
It is a secret. The cops will come and take everyone away that you love.

So you are like, absolutely not.

No one can know.

So to say that publicly as an adult, my little kid part is like, what are you doing?

And so any kind of secret that you've held as a child, once you put that out as an adult,

you got to like reparent that little kid part and do all that work to tend to all those parts that are like, you just broke all the rules. I don't know what to say.
The cops are coming. You're on your own.
Yeah. Where are you at now? Yes.
And also there's a little, there's got to be a little part of that little child in you that's going, yes, thank you. I knew that was bullshit.
You're taking care of me now. Yeah.
Thank you. But that's a boundary issue.
Again, the part about boundaries that's so helpful is knowing in advance when you set this boundary, there will be a backlash. Don't be surprised.
That doesn't mean that's a wrong boundary. It is inevitable with setting it.
So when you just saying right now, when you liberate a secret that you've been holding, you should expect that yourself is going to attack yourself for doing that because it's contrary to your self-preservation when you were young. So that's very helpful.
And then you just hold yourself's hand during that time. Yeah.
You hold your own hand. Yeah.
You befriend that part that is terrified and was too young to be handling the situation that you were in and therefore created coping mechanisms and parts of self that would come in and do the protective stuff that no one else was going to do for you. And you befriending all those parts is I think really key.
Hey everybody, it's Hoda Kotb and I would love for you to join me for new episodes of my podcast, Making Space. Each week, I'm having conversations with authors, actors, speakers, and dear friends of mine, folks who are seeking the truth, compassion, and self-discovery.
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So one thing we have in common that is, I think is really fun, is that, so you try to avoid, astrology just kept poking itself on your shoulder your whole life but you were like no you say in the book I want to do something respectable which I find hilarious right so you kept trying to be respectable didn't we all for a while and then one day you said you started writing you just kind of gave into this. You started a blog.
You said, not because I thought anyone would like my brand of astro-political self-help, but because if I didn't channel everything that was awakening me, it would backfire on my system. Okay.
So I just want you, for all the pod squatters listening, tell us what that means because I felt that in my soul. That's why I started writing.
I started a blog too. I didn't think anyone would be interested, but I thought if I don't do this thing, I'm going to make myself crazy or sick because I feel like I have to, even though it won't matter.
What did you mean by backfire on my system? It was like something was erupting in me. I had re-engaged with the part of me that is really like more radical.
One of the great things that I got from my childhood is I grew up around and inside of like hippie culture 101. And I know how to live on the outskirts.
It's part of the reason why I wanted to try to living on the inside, but like to live outside of societal norms is really comfortable for me, it turns out. And it's something great about my childhood.
And I was re-engaging with that part of myself because it had kind of gone dormant for a while. And as all of the education that I was receiving from amazing teachers at California Institute of Integral Studies at my bachelor completion program, they like reignited this, my own activism.
And I was seeing things in the world and looking at the astrology and being like, oh my God, this is so obvious to me. And I couldn't but write about it.
And so I was like, I don't know, blog spot? Like what do the kids do? And because I think when you feel invisible, which again, a lot of us do for various reasons, you don't think anybody's going to pay attention to anything you're doing. So you're like, well, I'll just do this and no one will know.
and I don't know what made me put it online. Well, I do.

I can look at my chart and be like, there's a part of me that just barrels forth head first, does the thing. And then the part of me that like afterwards is like, what did you do? I can't believe you did that.
So that part of me was actually getting very activated by transits, which was like midheaven, the part that intersects with the world. And it's so fiery and so self-starting that it just, it was like a moment that I didn't really think about it.
I just did it. And then I just kept doing it because it felt really good.
Because it felt really good. It felt really good.
It felt like what actually for the first time in my life, I felt like I was connected to something. I felt like I was in relationship with something.
I had struggled so much in my career and trying to figure out who I was or what I wanted to do. And it made me feel like I wasn't alone.
And it was that feeling. It felt like I was like, it was like a religious experience almost like something's talking to me and I'm talking to it.
And I didn't want to lose that because it was the first time I felt it really clearly and consistently. So I'm, I actually am good at showing up.
Like I'll just keep showing up to the thing that has energy. Keep showing up to the thing that has energy.
Jenny, what the hell is astro-political self-help? Yeah. Got to get into this.
Listen, I, I feel the same as you Glennon. I am deeply annoyed and incredibly critical at anything to do with healing the self that does not then connect to healing the world via dismantling systems of oppression and supremacy.
and of course I'm not the only one who thinks this but one cannot be without other. We can't only be trying to fight the stuff out in the world that we need to fight without doing inner work, but we cannot do the inner work without connecting it to some other thing.
So that's always where I've written from and done my work from is like, okay, let's understand how to hold our pain and sorrow and suffering, contextualize it, understand our life purpose through the blueprint of our chart. Then let's let that move us into action.
That gift is then supposed to go out into the world. And that is how we are meant to be of service, I believe.
And I believe our chart, our astrology chart, if it resonates with you, there's a lot of other things you can do besides astrology, obviously, but it can give us the shortcut to that. Oh, this is where I can take action.
This is where I can be of service. This is how I can da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
Good. Go.
I love it. You said you're interested in healing, but you are really interested in systems change.
And I love that because some people might look at an astrologer and be like, what the hell does system change have to do with astrology? But anyone who is in a healing role or a quote unquote, you know, self-helpy industry, like anyone that could be looked at as like the healing industrial complex. If you're not, if you're not looking to the systems change, if you're focused on just the healing, you're perpetuating the demand for healing, which is driven by the system that wounds to begin with.
So all of the people like you are so important because you're connecting those dots. You're saying, I'm dealing in your healing and I'm also going upstream and trying to deal with how you got wounded in the first place.
Do you feel like enough people are doing that? What is your take on that industrial healing complex? I think the philanthropic industrial complex and the healing industrial complex are invested in one thing, which is self-acclaim. I think we want to feel good about ourselves and what happens when we do good, quote unquote, inside of systems of oppression.
It doesn't mean we're trying to dismantle the system itself. It means that we are trying to assuage our guilt and get good PR.
A lot of the times that's what's happening. Show me people that are invested in eventually getting to the point where we are obsolete.

Every piece of work, every work that we do, every activism that we engage with should be that. So eventually this won't be needed.
That's right. It's so good.
I don't want to be a good person inside of a horrible system. I want the system to change so that we all have the ability to get educated, to have healthcare, to thrive, to have food, to just have the basics so that we can remember who we are and why we're here, which I think is to love and help each other.
But we can't get there because there's so many things that are constantly bringing us into chaos and crisis. So I want to be invested in not needing to do this work eventually.
I want to solve the problem. And I want to talk about how we solve the problem.
The self-help industry needs people who need help. Right.
Exactly. And it's like, we have to, the work that we're doing is hopefully putting ourselves out of work.
It is an and both because God helped me. We need people who are self-aware and emotionally intelligent and like are working on their own self-healing who show up for world healing too.
You can't have self-healing without world healing, but I also feel like you need a little bit of self-awareness before you get to the world healing also. I mean, yeah, we need a balance of both.
But like, God help me if I'm talking to a bunch of people that have an incredible amount of privilege and I'm not at least like a hot poker.

Yes.

Being like, okay, let's use the privilege.

What else is the point of life?

Let me just say, oh, I have this.

Let me help.

So let's talk about this because I wanted to figure out how do we do this.

Yeah.

In a way where everyone who's listening gets a little bit of, okay, I'm this and we're doing sun signs. I'm learning, Chani.
I'm learning. We're going to do our sun signs.
We're not going to do our rising signs or our moon signs or our houses. I'm learning.
I mean, I might allude to like. You can do whatever the hell you want.
I'm just trying to prove that I know words. She's just showing off that she knows those words.
Well, Glennon, what is a sun sign? The sign that the sun was in when you were born.

What does it mean?

What's the symbolism? It's your big sign.

It's your major sign.

You know what?

Let's let Chani do this.

How about that?

And then I'm hoping, Chani, that for each sign, that we have something that that sign can do to take care of their own healing.

And something that that sign might be excellent at contributing to the world.

It's healing.

Thank you. that that sign can do to take care of their own healing and something that that sign might be excellent at contributing to the world.
Yeah. It's healing.
And can I just say one thing that you said, Jannie, stopped me in my tracks. And for me, it's the ultimate reclaiming of this idea of self-help.
You said that what your goal is, is to really slow down enough to know when you're dysregulated so that you can help yourself in that moment so that you don't do what comes axiomatically to you and then feel like shit after it. But you can really stop in the moment and help yourself.
And so I don't know if any of that kind of dysregulation is typical to different sun signs or how we can really slow down and help

ourselves because we're not really looking for help outside of ourselves. We're looking for ways

to notice and to be able to show up as partners to ourselves to help ourselves in those moments.

So what does that mean? What does it mean to be dysregulated? And Chani, how do you

Thank you. And to be able to show up as partners to ourselves to help ourselves in those moments.
So what does that mean? What does it mean to be dysregulated? And Chani, like, do you have, how do you appear when you're dysregulated? I appear to blame everyone for everything. Oh, that hurts.
Everyone is against me. Everyone's trying to ruin my life.
And it's everybody else's fault. Is that wrong? Is that incorrect? No.

It's pretty solid.

I'm not going to get anywhere that I like.

That's for damn shit. I can be right or I could be, you know, like at ease a little bit.

So that's how you know you're dysregulated.

And then what do you do to regulate?

Like what do you do to get regulated again from that?

I mean, my God, isn't that the crux of every therapy, healing, good talk session? The way to get there is to recognize the disturbance internally and to then outwork on this until the day I die and probably when I'm just a ghost, but like,

how do I pause and be like, wait a minute? I could get high on my own supply and my own anger

and like just spiral out and have a whole good time just like raging in my head.

Or maybe I could ask myself what's going on. And if I can get to the like, hold on,

what's going on? Then I've got a window. Then I've got a little like tiny avenue of space.

and then I can get to the like, hold on, what's going on? Then I've got a window, then I've got a little like tiny avenue of space. And then I can usually be like, if I asked my wife about what I'm feeling right now, what would she tell me? So if I can get to like, what would Sonia say in my head? That's like part of my, you know, ability to regulate.
Cause I don't want to like around, I want to be my best self around her. I don't want to, you know, she's part of like how I find my own regulation.
And she makes me want to be a better person. She's also that part of me in a sense.
That's like my true kind of North. And if I can get there, I can usually breathe or like find a moment and, and question the anger or the rage or the spiral.
And if I can question it, then again, I've got a little piece of hope, but that getting there is like all the work, that two second space between being like, I'm so justified.

Being so justified.

You're being so annoyed right now.

It's everything.

Cause then you're just perpetuating harm in that moment.

It's like really the difference between war and peace is often five seconds.

Yeah.

It's like a split second.

Yeah. It's like.
For a split second. Yeah.
Okay. So let's figure out.
Sun signs. All of these sweet signs.
And what helping themselves might look like. Or what dysregulation might look like.
Or whatever the hell you want to do hell. And then also the activism.
Yes. Yeah.
That's a lot. So do with it.
So good luck, Channy. How long do we have? All the time.
We'll start at the beginning. Okay.
Aries. Just found out.
Told you, Channy. Just found out I was an Aries a couple months ago.
Okay. Aries launches into space headfirst, does the thing, doesn't think twice about it, just goes.
So a way to regulate is to know that you are free to take action when you need to. And maybe you don't have to barrel into every single obstacle headfirst without thinking about it.
That's like one of those like red flags of that sign. So the heat and the anger of Aries is so wonderful because that moves us into action.
But when we don't understand the source of the anger and aren't able to contextualize it, then we get into trouble and we might burn things down because things need to be burned down, but maybe not that

thing.

Oops, sorry.

Ouch.

Fire kind of scorches.

Yeah.

And when we can channel it, we can really move people and inspire people to action.

And that's the activism part of it.

Aries is like, let's fucking go.

Like, let us not back down. We will be fierce.

We will go forward. Nothing will stop us.
And then that energy can also run out and then you collapse and then you've got to start again. Taurus is a slow, steady earth sign.
So part of what it does so well is it keeps us anchored in the action and it keeps us anchored in the work. And this is how the work works.
This is how nature grows. This is the rhythm of life.
So where Aries can like launch us into things and gets really impatient and just wants things to be done. And why isn't it figured out yet? Taurus is like, cause it's the rhythm.
We just chill and we wait and we figure it out. A way for Taurus to regulate is going to be to go in the nature.
The problem with being so fixed is that we can get stuck being consistent and dependable in a situation that's not good for us or in a situation that's like, take a tourist to a bad movie, they'll stay through the movie. I'm like, let's go.
You know what I mean? They know how to stay. So that is good and challenging.
So knowing why you're staying and when to leave. Gemini is the great communicator.
And so in terms of its activism, Gemini is the journalist, Gemini is the information gatherer, and Gemini knows diversity. So Gemini knows how to think about something from all aspects.
It's really good at taking in a ton of data and being like, huh, curious, interesting. Let's see.
Let's look at it from every single side. And so it's really helpful in getting the message out.
It's also a great propagandist, for better and worse. And it's really good at staying open to curiosity.

And we need that in our activism.

We need to know how to be curious instead of always being inflamed.

Why am I inflamed?

Let's look at the problem from a million different sides and gather the info.

A way for Gemini to take care of themselves is to know when they've been overwhelmed by options and opinions and data and where everything's getting like a little too dispersed and they're kind of going in a gajillion different directions and need to hone in and just pause and take care. Cancer is the sign that initiates us into care and into feeling.
So if you have a cancer rising, you might also be really good at gathering people and helping them feel like family. And that's what we need so deeply in our movements is to make people feel like they're being heard, like you're connecting with them on an emotional level.
Cancers are great at doing things that have meaning for them. It's a sign that can kind of work a little bit more personally.
And it's so good at helping people feel like they're an important member of the group and to gather folks and to make them feel warm and fuzzy and comforted.

Then there's Leo.

And all fire signs, so Aries, Leo, Sag, are really good at storytelling and being really enthusiastically or entertainingly captivating

and drawing attention to them.

So Leo is ruled by the sun.

It's the center of the solar system. It is a bright light in a mass of darkness.
And so Leo is like, I'm here to light things up and to captivate you and to pull attention and focus towards something. So as an activist, if you can make things entertaining to some degree, and also to remember the joy and to light people's spirit up.

You're going to get their attention and you're going to be able to pull it and help you to focus on things.

A way for Leo to take care of self is, well, there can be a thing with Leo where it feels if it feels like it hasn't done the performance well enough, or hasn't gotten the kind of applause that it thinks it can feel like it's pride as kind of hurt, or they can kind of be the wounded. Like a lion, a lion.
Yeah. Okay.
Yeah. And so you have to know how to talk to that part of yourself and be like, it doesn't have to like, you know, land every time.
You're allowed to experiment and do all the things. Virgo.
Virgo is so good at being with what is emergent. Virgo is a mutable sign.
And so Virgo is like, I want to be useful. I want to be practical.
I want to tend to the skills that I'm here to develop. And I want to make sure that other people can use those skills.
And then I'll feel like I'm of use. I'll feel like I've been of service.
I'll feel like I've done something here. and so Virgo is so good to tending to all the needs that are happening along the way and be like oh things have changed let's shift let's move let's do this thing and it's so good about being

resourceful to tending to all the needs that are happening along the way and be like, oh, things have changed.

Let's shift. Let's move.
Let's do this thing. And it's so good about being resourceful, practical, and making sure that all the little pieces are tended to.
And that emerging sense of like, things are changing. There's a shift in the wind.
Like, okay, now what do we do? It wants to be flexible. It knows how to be flexible.
To tend to the self, Virgo is also incredibly critical, which is such a gift because it can be like, no, that's not the problem. This thing is the problem.
We're focusing on this, but it's really this. Let's get specific and particular.
Of course, if you turn that in on yourself and you pick yourself apart,

then you're fucked and you won't get anywhere and you won't do anything because you're kind of immobilized by your own self-criticism. So I always say, just be critical of others,

not yourself, because I have a virgo rising. So I just make sure only outward.

Yes. That's good.
I'm sure that's best practice.

Yeah. Right.
Thank you.

And you're never critical about yourself. Not once.
Yes. That's good.
I'm sure that's best practice. Yeah.
Right. Thank you.
And you're never critical about yourself. Not once.
Never. So it's really tending to that part that doesn't know how to do anything but attack the self and pick it apart.
Like, okay, buffer, swaddle, Let's talk. Take a nap.
Libra is the sign of justice. So the scales of justice are always being weighed by this sign.
And if anything is out of balance, Libra's like, oh, it's out of balance. Got to fix it.
So we can always depend on Libras to point out what is out of balance, what is not equitable. The problem with that is that it's outward focused and it's focused on the collective.
And so Libra themselves get out of balance because they're so relationship focused. Their tendency is to go to the other person rather than stay with themselves.
So learning how to stay with yourself is really important for, especially for Libra Sun people. Scorpio is so good at getting to the truth.
It is a penetrating sign. It goes underneath the surface and the niceties of life and of exchanges.
And it's like, that's bullshit. This is the truth.
Let me get down to it. And it also knows how to take on systems of power and it understands power and power structures.

So incredibly important in our movements because we need to understand how to do that.

Aries and Scorpio are both ruled by Mars.

Aries attacks head on and like with flaming swords and just like fury and like, watch

me do this.

I'll like rush into the crowd and I'll do the thing.

Scorpio is like, no, no, no. You won't see me coming.
I will be stealth. I will be underground.
Like a fox. That's right.
It's the stinger, right, of the Scorpio. So it'll wait forever for the right moment to strike.
Wow. And that is so important, as we know, because there are other movements that will take 50 years to dismantle the right to bodily autonomy.
And they do not waver. So too must we be so focused and so determined and absolutely refuse to get off course and to figure out when and where it's important to make those strikes.
Yes. Calculated strikes.
Yes. And we need all of it,

right? So those, the Scorpio part of your chart knows how to do that. Let's go.

Placements in Scorpio. Yeah.
We love you. We need you.
Yes. There'll be the one in the boardroom that doesn't say anything to the very end and then says the thing.
You're like, oh my gosh, that's exactly it. Sagittarius lights everything up.
Another fire sign. It is all about faith and how we might move with a greater philosophy.
Sag wants to move. It's the galloping centaur, right? So it's got to feel free.
You cannot hem a Saj in. So part of the self-regulation is to, again, let yourself be like, it's okay, I'm free.
I can move. I'm not stuck here.
And because Saj is always aiming for the truth. What is the truth? They keep us oriented towards that spiritual, if you will, or philosophical truth that if we keep on this direction, if we keep oriented towards that thing, we'll get somewhere that has meaning for us and we will feel like our life energy was well spent.
And that is essential for our movements because those are the people that keep that flame alive within us and keep us wanting to show up because they galvanize us on that kind of spiritual or soulful kind of level. Capricorn.
Capricorn's got a plan and another strategy. And if you've ever seen a mountain goat, they do the literal impossible thing before breakfast.
They're these giant beasts that scale the side of a mountain. How do they do that? I don't know.
How? It's unbelievable. They're like, they're like, I think they have magnets on their phones.
Little suction cups. Yeah, exactly.
So the Capricorn placements in your chart do that. And if there's something that we need in this world, it's to be like, I can climb that mountain.
I can figure that out. Martin Luther King was a Capricorn sun.
And you might say that what he set out to do was impossible. There's a relentlessness to the sign.
There's like, I'll get to the top. It might take everything I've got, but that's where I'm going.
I'm going to the goal. Let's go.
And it's a cardinal sign. So it initiates that kind of journey with us all.
And so Capricorn's like, it's tough. I'm not going to say it's not hard, but we're going.
Let's go. We can do hard things.
That's right. Capricorn energy.
That's right. Aquarius is the great visionary of the Zodiac.
Angela Davis, Toni Morrison, Audre Lorde, I call them the Aquarian Trinity, Holy Trinity. They give us the intellectual understanding about where we are, how we're situated systemically.
They're known as the humanitarian sign. So their work is always going to be about the group.
How are we being organized by the systems we live within?

Why are we being organized in that way? And what is the impact on the collective? This is a sign of the whole. So obviously the downside of that is that oftentimes they don't even feature themselves at all.
It's like, I don't want the attention. So oftentimes there can be like a feeling of not neglect, but something in their own kind of sense of self might go without.
So there's a need to feed and acknowledge the self in ways that maybe you're like overworking for the collective. And because it's such a brilliant sign, we can get locked in the head.
So a way to regulate is to go down into the body. And then we end with Pisces.
Pisces, the part of your chart that has Pisces in it, is the part of us that knows oneness. It's the part of us that remembers existing before we got here.
It's the part that knows that's suffering. That person is in pain.
That person needs tending to. There's no boundary between me and them.
We are all one. They're the we belong to each other ones.
Yeah, it's the great connector. It's the one that says all of these systems try to keep us separated.
But at the end

of the day, we leave all of this behind and we go back into that big ocean. We are not separate

droplets. We are all part of this big thing.
And so we feel connected. We feel included.
We feel

called in. And it's a sign that can, again, tap into the emotional aspect of something, which is

Thank you. We feel called in.
And it's a sign that can, again, tap into the emotional aspect of something, which is how we get each other's attention. So part of the ways in which Pisces needs to help itself and self-regulate is that it's so easy for Pisces to get lost in everybody else and feeling all the pain and sorrow of the world.
And so part of its lesson is to not self-sacrifice. Is it common for a lot of people that you speak with and read charts for, is it common for them to feel jealous about all the other signs? Because I feel like when you talk, I'm like, I feel like I want to be a different sign.
What sign do you want to be? I don't know. All of the other ones sound better than mine.
Then Gemini or then Capricorn or then cancer because you're cancer rising. Yeah.
All of you know how to, you know how to herd the family. Okay.
I just sure do. And that is a full-time ass job for you, Abby.
But also when you were a captain, were you not the one that was tending to the group in a way that was really nourishing and nurturing? You're right. It's just like grass is always greener.
Just everybody else sounds... Such a Capricorn moon thing to say.
Wah, wah. Your Capricorn moon is so important because you're Cancer Rising.
So the moon is the serious person of your ship. And that moon is in the seventh house of relationships.
So I don't know if you've ever had a relationship in your life that's been like life altering and you feel like as part of your life's purpose, but your chart clearly says that one of the most important things for you to do is to find partners, romantic, platonic, business, et cetera, that help you to feel like you're fulfilling your life's purpose. And when that is off track, everything will feel off kilter.
Holy fuck. You just described my life in two sentences.
Yes. Do me.
Okay. Said the Aries.
So listen, you've got Virgo rising and that means that Mercury is the steers person of your chart. And guess where Mercury is in your chart? Where? In retrograde? It's in the same place as Abby's.
It's in the seventh house of marriage and partnership and commitments. So I don't know if any of your work has ever centered around the people that you're in partnership with, but that is and it's Mercury.
So it's about writing and speaking and communicating and telling a story. And it's in Pisces.
So it's about understanding the pain and suffering that, you know, we all go through and intimacy and all that kind of stuff. But if you haven't yet written, I don't know, a book or blogs or whatever about marriage, partnership, love, connection, pain, it would be a good thing for you to do.
Put it on your vision board, Doyle. Put it up there.
It's a great idea, Jenny. Also, you've got your son in the eighth house of suffering and loss and grief and mental health stuff.

And you have an exalted son, which means it is very courageous and brave and well-situated. So you are that person that's like, I will go bravely into this pain cave and I will light it up and I will find some way to creatively express this kind of hardship and this challenge.
And I will be able to light my path through this and maybe want to illuminate that in the world. What causes our suffering? What causes our pain? What causes, you know, spot on mental health.
She's good at her job. Yeah.
Can you do Amanda? Amanda? You don't need to. It's cool.
Come on, Stacey. Well, the thing about, I mean, Amanda, I have to say like, when I look at charts like yours, I'm like, oh my God, this is a gorgeous chart.
I'm not saying you haven't suffered. I'm not saying you don't have all your stuff, but like you have Pisces rising and the ruler of your ascendant is Jupiter and Jupiter is so well-placed.
It's in cancer, which is a sign of its exaltation. So it means that faith and abundance and opening up opportunities is part of your jam, but it's in cancer.
So it's nurturing and nourishing and it's exaltation. So it means that faith and abundance and opening up opportunities is part of your jam, but it's in cancer.
So it's nurturing and nourishing. And it's in the fifth house of creative self-expression, but also children.
So for you, like children and tending to making sure children's lives are better, like all of that kind of activism is so essential and important for you. Jupiter is also the teacher, the one who wants to bring through the wisdom.
But you also have Venus and Pisces in your first house, which is another exalted planet. So it's like people love you.
They do. Like you're so easy to be with and you're so kind and you're such an incredible connector.
Like I could put you anywhere and you would make friends with everyone. Yes.
And you know their life story. Yep.
You'd know too much about them. They'd overshare with you.
You have this, you know, Venus is the goddess. It's the one who's extraordinarily like awe inspiring.
Like, wow, I want to be with that. I want to be with that person.
I'm magnetized to that.

The problem is that people can pedestalize you or that you don't even know how valuable these things are. And you can just give them all away.
So again, part of your thing is you're an Aries son. So you're a fighter and you're feisty and fierce and courageous and all of that, but you lead with this major compassion and ability to connect with people.
And it's so beautiful. Wow.
Chani, you're doing good things in a good way in the world. For real.
I mean, I just think about that little girl you were who somebody reached out and saw you. And now you are reaching out and seeing everyone, like millions of people.
And they're feeling seen. And they're not just feeling seen.
They're activating in the world once they figure out their own worth and their own gifts. And it's just a freaking wonderful reaction in the world that you're creating.
It's really cool to witness. And also, I'd just like to say, Chani, you saw yourself, which is so huge.
It's like you were that little tiny girl and you saw yourself and you knew what you were and where you needed to be. And that's just so beautiful.
You partnered with yourself so early and you still are, and you're helping people see themselves and partner with themselves. And I just think that's so beautiful.
Thank you. I mean, I almost died a lot, but you know.
Yeah. Well, I certainly wasn't careful with myself for a very long time or like, but yeah.
Chani, tell everybody, can you just actually tell people how to get your app? Because I think it's really cool. You go to your app.
So cool. And it's free, y'all.
You can just go there and get all your shit. Go to your app store.
Yeah. You can download it.
App store. Chani, C-H-A-N-I.
So cool. Yeah, chaninicholas.com.
For the skeptics, I mean, the way that you talk about astrology, Chani, you say that astrology tells us that we live in an intelligent universe that is in conversation with us. And by the way, so does science.
And so does religion. And so does any other number of things that we choose to consult in our lives.
So it's just an interesting way to think about an intelligent universe that we are in conversation with. That's cool.
Yeah, it's mirroring us. It's like, yeah, talking.
Yeah. All right.
Well, for the rest of you, go check out your birth charts.

Figure out something you can do to heal yourself, something you can do to heal the world. And we will catch you back here next time on We Can Do Hard Things.
See you soon. Bye.
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We appreciate you very much. We Can Do Hard Things is created and hosted by Glennon Doyle,

Abby Wambach, and Amanda Doyle in partnership with Odyssey. Our executive producer is Jenna Wise Berman, and the show is produced by Lauren LaGrasso, Alison Schott, Dina Kleiner, and Bill