Does Selling and Marketing Give You the Ick?

When you think of sales and marketing, is your first reaction ick? Yuck? No thanks?

If you are at all spiritually oriented or aware and own your own business, then you know that you’re already caught in a conundrum. 

You have to sell your products or services so you can support yourself and your loved ones. But the means to do that feel exploitative because capitalism is inherently exploitative.

It may not even be about beliefs about money, which I will not get into here. It could just be that you don’t want to engage in such a destructive system.

But, ya gotta eat! Keep a roof over your head. Take care of yourself.

A Necessary Reframe

Marketing can feel manipulative. All of us are guilty of buying something we didn’t need because we felt cajoled or guilted or beguiled into the purchase.

So of course, you don’t want to treat your clients that way. And that’s a good impulse. 

But marketing really is just telling folks about what you have to offer and how you can help.

All the other stuff that feels slimy — you do not have to engage in!

Marketing Your Way

Especially if you’re extremely online like I am, you are inundated with people trying to sell your something or influence you.

And again, you may not want to engage with your own audience like that.

And then on top of that, there’s this pressure to sell sell sell now now now — not only because it can feel highly competitive (even if you have something new and unique to offer), but because you need to provide for yourself.

I do believe there’s a middle way, where you’re working with your spiritual team and also the timing of your business cycles, to more easily provide for yourself.

This reminds of a Bible verse, where Jesus says to be in the world but not of it.

In my opinion, selling stuff doesn’t inherently make you a capitalist.

You can be in a capitalist society, both as consumer and a seller, and not let a capitalist mindset consume you or make you feel bad for not wanting to fully engage in capitalism.

So how can sell things without selling out? It goes back to that reframe of what marketing is — just informing people about who you are and how you can help them.

The Un-Icky How of Marketing and Sales

Think about a time you bought a service or product from someone and you enjoyed the process. What most delighted you?

I’m going to safely assume that the process felt seamless. You felt like the seller understood you and your needs. You felt respected and seen. There was a transparent sales process with no hard sell. You felt empowered as a buyer. Your questions about the purchase are easily answered.

You felt like you were a human being vs. a bag of money.

Ultimately, the right client will be attracted to you because you provide those things, too. And you won’t have to pressure them into buying. You will provide excellent customer service. You and your biz aren’t full of hot air, fearmongering, or hype.

One way to accomplish this is to be vulnerable. 

Not oversharing. Vulnerable.

One tip I’ve heard as a copywriter and content strategist is when you write your sales copy, think about how you would share something with your BFF. Obviously, you can keep the inside jokes out, but that requires a bit of vulnerability and it is a lot more casual and relatable.

So here’s an exercise for you: how would you tell your BFF or your partner about your service or product? Maybe you can practice with them or pretend in your head and write it down.

Dealing with the Ick of Social Media

Being online these days is a strange experience. I’ve been on social media since at least 1996 and it went from hanging out and socializing to hardcore selling and metrics and systems and parasocial relationships created to separate people from their money.

Yuck.

And now, everyone just wants to be rich and famous, as it seems to be the easiest way to support yourself.

Meanwhile, we still need writers, crafters, astrologers, child care workers, healthcare workers, trash collectors, public servants, bus drivers…

We can’t escape the wage theft and stagnant wages and the price gouging dressed up as inflation and the rising cost of ineffective health care and this COVID pandemic that most of us pretend doesn’t exist.

WHEW.

So logging onto social media, you’re inundated with all that bs, and you certainly don’t want to add to it.

If you don’t want to be online but you know you have to be there to sell things, then one idea is to schedule your posts and time being on there.

Look into apps like Buffer, where you can create and schedule posts without actually having to be on the platform.

If you know that live video works for you, schedule your Facebook Lives or Instagram Lives. You can start off with once a week.

And be consistent.

Make Appointment Content

Remember Must See TV? Maybe if you’re not an 80s or 90s kid, you don’t remember that from NBC on Thursdays, with popular shows like Seinfeld and Friends.

You can do that with social media. Have one day and time a week you show you and talk about yourself and what you have to offer. Have a Q&A session about a product or service. 

Try scheduling time to pop in to see comments and respond to them. You can also schedule time to look at your metrics to see what you need to tweak.

If you don’t want to be extremely online to sell, you do not have to. See it as a job that you check in with once in a while.

And then, of course, there’s offline interactions. Meeting people in real life. Admittedly, because of the pandemic, this is harder for me. I have not been socializing much at all. So I have to work harder online to compensate. 

But look into Meetup groups. Even just talking about your business with your friends and family can be a big help. 

One other way to deal with social media and avoiding is…a newsletter! Email marketing still gets more sales than social media. and you can have that one-on-one interaction with someone’s inbox. 

I’m restarting my own monthly newsletter, called In The Loop — you should sign up!

Email marketing is better because you’re not dealing with someone’s algorithm. Unless someone marks you as spam, your email will faithfully arrive in someone’s inbox.

Get Back Out There and Tell Some Stories

This may be tough to hear but closed mouths don’t get fed.

So you gotta tell people what you’re up to and how they can work with you/buy from you.

In the course of your career, you probably have some interesting stories to tell, some wisdom you have to share, some information that can help someone.

Every time you write a post or email or do a live video, think about your bestie audience. What do they need to know? How can you help them?

You don’t have to dress it up or be the best storyteller on the planet. Your unique POV, experiences, and life story is ultimately why people buy from you.

What you’re trying to create is real relationships with people. 

And I use bestie tongue-in-cheek here. I’m not saying you should go the parasocial route and create a fanbase that you don’t really care about.

We Already Have Relationships with People We Buy From

Think about the people in your life that do things for you: your astrologer, energy healer, doctor, dog walker, child care worker, housecleaning person, mailperson.

Eventually over time, even if it’s completely a transactional relationship, you start to build a relationship with them, with rapport. You may ask each other how’s it going, about each other’s families and loved ones. You get to know them.

People online through your marketing can start to get to know you in the same way.

You’ve probably heard of the marketing formula Know Like Trust. We all do it in all our interactions.

We find someone’s social media account or website because they or someone shared it. Or we meet someone offline face-to-face.

We get to know them. We get to like them because we know them better. And then, over time, we get to trust them because we really like them and we really know them. 

One Final Tip

 A lot of people, maybe even most people, are lurkers. They don’t like or comment or posts. When you ask for their opinions via email, they may never respond.

But they know you. They’re watching you. They’re learning from you.

And then, before you know it, they’re BUYING from you. It may take a few days or a few years — which is why being consistent and showing up matters. 

Most people when they meet you are not ready to buy from you.

So look at marketing as a way to build relationships and trust in those relationships. You can ignore all the dancing videos and the hype.

You cut through all that by consistently showing up as your unabashed awesome self. 

And if you’re spiritually minded, your spiritual team can support you and guide you. (I can help, too).

Keep showing up the best way you can and eventually, you’ll have a thriving business you’re proud of. 

Mercury entered Taurus today, and with plenty of planets in Taurus right now, I want to remind you that it WILL take time. There are no silver bullets to marketing except continually showing up and consistency.

What are you struggling with in your marketing efforts? I’d love to hear what’s going on with your and your business. Email me!

 

What Is Spatial Disorientation?

Lately on my spiritual journey, it’s been hard for me to figure out up from down, left from right, how fast or slow I’m going…which is what spatial disorientation, an aviation term, is.

June is notoriously a bad month for me. There’s usually a lot of disappointment. This time last year, I lost a client who was pretty vile to me. Two years before that, I had a couple of stalled job interview processes.

This year, it’s been pretty tough. I’m stuck in a lull that I can’t really speed my way through. And I’m trying to process my father’s death.

And with that processing, I thought about his love for aviation, which is admittedly a sore subject for me because his love for flying cut into and delayed my college journey significantly.

But that isn’t the point of this blog post, as much as I want to talk about that.

My dad was VFR (Visual Flight Rules) and IFR (Instrument Flight Rules) trained and rated as a private pilot and loved to fly in his Piper plane, many times by himself and many times with my brother. I flew with him a few times. 

As you probably surmise, VFR means you can fly by sight, and that’s when it’s clear skies. IFR is when you fly by your instruments, because the skies aren’t always sunny. 

Back to My Janky June…

Although today is a fairly sunny summer day with some cloudy days (yesterday was the Summer Solstice and the first day of summer and Cancer season), my June has felt more like the infamous Juneuary of the Pacific Northwest, the last gloomy death throes of late spring where you never see the sun and you shiver in highs of the 50s.

And in those times, when fog clings to the treetops and all that is in front of you is a wall of clouds, but you have to keep going…well, it’s scary. 

I remember flying with my dad once, sitting in the co-pilot seat — maybe he was taking me back to college, I can’t remember — and it was just a wall of big grey clouds. I had never felt so clouds in my life. It felt like a roller coaster ride because the visuals were scary, but my dad being IFR-rated, we were fine.

He could look at his instruments — the altimeter, the airspeed indicator, the compass, the attitude indictor (which shows you the direction of the sky and ground in relation to the plane).

He didn’t need to see. And I wasn’t afraid. I trusted in his training, his experience, and that the instruments were giving us the right information.

This June, though, I realized so much of the spiritual journey is not a VFR type trip. It can be very IFR.

Walls of clouds. Lightning. Thunder. Turbulence.

Darkness.

Flying Is Not “Blind” Faith

When you’re flying by the instruments that are measuring your orientation in space, your airspeed, your direction, you don’t need to believe or have faith that you’ll stay up in the air. 

And, even when you get into trouble, you can communicate to an air traffic control tower. They can guide you to the nearest runway…or sometimes road or field, depending on how far away and how deep in trouble you are.

Aviation has become a lot safer since the 1950s. Commercial flight is much safer than driving and continues to get safer. Of course, this is not to discount the idea of you do have to believe in the second law of thermodynamics to see flying as just another way to get around.

And I don’t want to dismiss those who have a fear of flying. It’s really weird to get in a metal tube that goes super fast and then suddenly leaves the ground, goes 30,000 feet up, and then comes back down and stops.

But the spiritual journey is a lot like flying. 

Spatial Disorientation Is About The Pilot

It’s really rare that aviation instruments fail. So if a pilot can’t determine where they are in space, they have to discount what their body is telling them. Our vestibular, auditory, and proprioceptive systems help us know where we are in space.

But, for a pilot could get some major turbulence that jostles the plane and it could also be cloudy or dark. So then if the pilot doesn’t see the horizon, then they may decide to do something to the plane (e.g., take the plane down when it should be taken up) that doesn’t reflect reality.

And this is why trusting your instruments are important. If you feel like you’re upside down, but your attitude indicator shows you’re right side up, that means your body is unfortunately betraying you and you should trust your instruments.

A lot of air crashes involves artists like Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, Patsy Cline, and John F. Kennedy Jr & Carolyn Bessette Kennedy — all those involves spatial disorientation and resulting pilot errors. 

The scary thing about spatial disorientation is that if you get into an accident (which happens about 5 to 10 percent of the time), 90 percent of time, it’s a fatal crash.

And here is where we’ll depart from comparing the spiritual journey to flying. Believe it or not, the stakes are not as life or death.

The Ties Between Fate and Will

When I was an evangelical Christian teenager, I thought a lot about the idea of what is in our control and what wasn’t, what is predestined, and what is left to be unwritten. 

I think it’s both. There’s a lot that is out of our control — the economy, how foreign governments (and maybe even our own to some extent) act, how corporations move, whether it’ll be a sunny or rainy day tomorrow, what family we’re born into and what resources they have to give us as children, our genetics, etc. 

But depending on the person, there’s a lot that can still be done. It’s like reading a Choose Your Own Adventure book. You get to choose but you can’t create the choices or the consequences. The given circumstances shape how we choose.

So CYOA was how I resolved the fate vs. will conundrum.

How does that tie to spatial disorientation?

The Spiritual Journey Is Not About “Blind” Faith

The spiritual weather, a lot of times, is your given circumstance. What’s going on in the energy, in the stars, in the collective…it’s all things we can’t bend. We have to bend to or away from them. 

But a lot of times, you may have a destination in mind — like how I moved to Seattle over 2 years ago.

There was no flight plan, per se. There was just a destination and a timeframe for departure. The rest I had to figure out on my own.

With my cross-country move, all I knew was that I received strong guidance from my ancestors to go, and that was actually after I had decided that it would be a better place to kickstart my life and business.

And I was right. But that doesn’t mean it’s been easy. It’s still hard, even today.

But I’m not flying blind.

Trusting Our Spiritual Instrumentation

Spatial disorientation happens, and it’s not about preventing it from happening.

We can’t prevent every instance of turbulence in life. 

It’s how we respond to the disorientation that matters.

And this is why I believe it helps to develop your intuition, to have a spiritual team, to have a robust relationship with your healed and helpful ancestors, to have some form of divination that is trustworthy, to have trustworthy and reliable coaches, mentors, and advisors, to have friends and chosen family.

All of these resources and more help you not to panic and make the wrong choice. They’re a part of your spiritual instrumentation, when you have to fly through dark nights of the soul, through stormy spiritual weather, through unending, obscuring clouds and fog.

Rough Air, Can’t See…

I’ve flying through very turbulent spiritual weather and my body feels like we’re about to crash. It feels like a nosedive. I can’t tell whether I’m up or down, how fast I’m going. Maybe this is what riding on Space Mountain feels like (I’ve never been on it).

But my spiritual instruments are telling me that I’m right side up and that I’ll be landing soon. But I can’t really see a thing. And it’s freaks me out. 

And yet I’ve been here before, so many times. What’s interesting is that a lot of times, it did feel like, Jesus take the wheel! Very VFR type flying.

And now, I can’t even wait for the skies to clear. I’ll probably land this thing in the dark. So I’m trusting the instruments. And now I’m IFR.

The best way to learn how to deal with spatial disorientation is experience. And I am definitely learning.

Believing in the Unseen, Believing in Yourself

There’s some bittersweet irony for me that I live right by the seaplane pad in Seattle. I just heard a seaplane take off. They take off and land in the waters of Lake Union. And many times, as you know, it’s cloudy. 

I love just north of downtown, so when planes are coming in from the west, from the Puget Sound, they’re coming in pretty close to tall buildings and until recently, a big red construction crane that was right by the lake.

All those pilots are believing in the unseen, or probably better put, unperceived. They may not have sight of the horizon. They may have to fly through clouds. But they land, precisely where they are supposed to land.

If spatial disorientation is about the pilot, then it’s also about self-belief, too. Believing in your training, your experiences, your team.

Keep Going

This month in particular, and even right now, it’s taking a LOT of energy to believe in myself, that I’m not crashing this plane and doing wild, endangering shit.

And to keep extending this aviation metaphor…I’m trying to fly to somewhere new, a place where there’s less turbulence and darkness, a place of peace. 

I don’t really have any other choice but to keep going the way I’m going, to keep doing things the way I’m doing them.

But I’m so glad I’m not doing this alone. I have earthly and spiritual support, and…I have me. And everything and everyone is saying that I’m safe…except my body. But even my body is coming in line with reality, even if I can’t fully perceive it.

And yes, some of the ways my body can become more aligned is through meditation, chanting, and having crystals that ground me like polychrome jasper and black obsidian.

But this is an invitation to find whatever works for you. What are your spiritual instruments? Who is on your spiritual team?

Really think about this now before you end up on some wild flight. Know what works for you. Write it down on a post-it note so you remember. Start exploring if you need to switch out some of your team members or instruments, or need new ones altogether.

It’s OK to be scared. But you can be brave and be scared at the same time. That’s what bravery is, after all.

I hope this helps you have more successful flights in the stormy spiritual skies…you’ve got this!✈️

Having the Expansion Principle in my life as an energetic technology is why I have been able to get through tough times. If you’d like to learn more about it and have a distance EP session with me, here’s where you can learn more.

Energy Work Works — But How?

So last week, I described my journey with the Expansion Principle and partially how hard it is to describe. Mainly, when it comes anything, people want to know the impacts and benefits, not necessarily the mechanics. So the mysteries I’ll try to uncover here will be more from a big picture perspective, not how EP or Reiki or whatever energetic modality works on a granular level

Sign Up for One Thing…

For example, remember I said that when I started this EP certification process, from the first attunement to wrapping up my case studies I lost clients the next day. 

That was not what I signed up for!

I just signed up to learn something that I may or may not share with people. A lot of EP practitioners use it on themselves and their own lives and don’t offer healing sessions. And that’s totally OK!

I basically signed up for Reiki in the same fashion. I had used it on friends a few times, but I didn’t feel like it was something I need to have as an offering. It’s another tool in my spiritual toolkit. 

…Get Something Else

So was losing two clients a bad thing? In the short-term, even now, it wasn’t great for my self-esteem or my bank account. 

Why don’t people value my labor, let alone me as a person?

There are a lot of practical answers to that question that typically can be answered by systemic racism and sexism. 

But it does seem pretty dramatic to have energy enter my life and clients let me go. I never thought EP was a villain here.

EP is more like a rescuer that I didn’t know I needed. As I had mentioned, those clients were not aligned. And EP is ushering a new era in my life that I’m not even sure I was ready for. But I’m getting ready either way.

What I thought I was getting was another tool for my toolkit. What I’m actually getting is massive life change.

Another Example

We all know the benefits of walking — any consistent body movement will make you feel better physically and emotionally. But there are even more benefits to walking, including reducing cravings for sweets, reduction of the risk of developing breast cancer, and boosting your immune system.

But let’s say you started walking to just be a little more fit. Cool. But you may end up finding new friends, discovering new parts of your neighborhood, or solving a long-standing problem because your mind is now clear to think differently.

You didn’t necessarily sign up for that life change, but you got it anyway!

Energy Work’s Diffuse Effects

So back to EP. I can hold intentions for, say, improved health, but EP can expand (it’s in the name) to other parts of my life that could support that. It could bring in people to help me with my health.

But it’s also like the walking example, where there are cascading effects of focusing on my health. It may look like I lose long-term friends that I adore but may not be lining up with my intention. It could look like moving to a more walkable neighborhood because my home is sold to another company.

It’s similar to me wanting to move to Seattle when I lived in Florida. The mechanics of how that happened were far quicker than I anticipated. It came from something really tough — a lease cancellation. But I had been doing energy work and other types of esoteric work for a while. 

People Are Involved

That brings me to something I believe people in the West have a hard time thinking about, how interconnected we are. If you’re doing any sort of manifestation, it’s not going to be a linear process. We are all affecting each other, for better and for worse. we’re all striving to achieve our goals and some of them are not aligned.

So back to the lease cancelation…I had a goal of leaving Florida and the new owners of my place had a goal of basically making money. Because I was a squeaky wheel in terms of having boundaries, I affected their plans more than they affected my long-term plan…until they canceled the lease in retaliation (they won’t admit that it was a retaliatory act, but it was).

But that cancelation gave me a short window to leave Florida altogether, which I have no regrets about, seeing how things have been going terribly (solidarity to all marginalized Florida residents!). 

This is all to say, energy work is a lot messier, especially in a Western context, that we may expect. Healing and manifestation is not just dialing up spiritual DoorDash and getting a delivery.

Faith, Patience, and Courage

Because our human existence is incredibly complex and complicated, even when we use these tools and modalities, you will most likely have some unexpected experiences, even good ones! 

We can’t see how everything is connected. We can only see our little part. To get a steady stream of stellar clients or to improve your health or to find the love of your life — all of those intentions, requests, desires involve other people and proper alignment. Energy work helps with that alignment. But it will also require a lot of faith, that things will work, and patience — actively waiting for those desires to be realized.

In the meantime, as we patiently wait, there’s a lot of stuff going on in the background of our lives, and in the lives of others, to align ourselves to what we want. And it can be quite scary. As I write this, I’m waiting for next steps and for desires to come to fruition. And I can’t see the whole map. It takes courage to take that next unknown step.

But that’s what’s cool about energy work. It helps with those next shaky steps. For me, EP is incredibly grounding and provides inner stability, no matter what is going on circumstantially. 

I didn’t sign up for that either. But it’s something I’ve been desperately wanting my whole life.

Energetic Intelligence

I love energy work because it’s smart. I may ask for one thing but it may open doors I didn’t know even existed. It also understand that I may need some other things to happen first before I can see my desired result. 

It’s intelligent and thorough. 

When you change one thing in your life, it rarely happens in a silo. It will affect other parts of your life. My losing clients was preparation not only for better clients, but a better way to support clients and have them support me. EP brought new alignment in my whole life. I feel like I’m unhooking from a matrix that did not ever support me. I was just doing the best I could with what I had. 

So don’t be afraid of things shifting when you start or further this journey. The unexpected shifts and consequences are an essential part of your journey.

You’re probably on the right track more than you know, especially when people, circumstances, and situations get zapped out of your life.

Be strong, be patient, be courageous, and have faith — the magic of energy is afoot.

 

Having the Expansion Principle in my life as an energetic technology is why I have been able to get through tough times. If you’d like to learn more about it and have a distance EP session with me, here’s where you can learn more.

Is the Expansion Principle Ineffable?

I’ve been sharing on Twitter about the Expansion Principle (EP), about what it is and what others have said about it. It’s still somewhat hard to explain since it’s new and it’s so different from anything else I’ve experienced. 

So I thought, why not write about it in a longer form? Hopefully you can get a better sense of what EP is about, how I’ve used it, and what I hope for the future.

The ineffability of EP is probably due to that it’s not from here; and this is where I, as an earthling, get a little annoyed when I talk about anything esoteric or anything planetary. Many people who deal with energy or Spirit or woo woo shit or the esoteric tend to sound like they’re aliens from another galaxy, hovering above in their spaceships, trying to talk in human language and failing. As a writer, I find it very perturbing.

And yet: EP is from some multidimensional being that is not from our galaxy.

BUT. 

The point of EP is to help earthlings get through this things called Life. It’s a shitshow down here. It is not about transporting to some ancient civilization or a distant star system.

It is not about spiritual, celestial escape, as much as it’d be great to find some new, more humane civilization than ours.

But this is the one we have and we need to heal it, right quick, right now.

EP is for us earth people. 

How I Heard About EP

I met Alexis, the person who co-created EP and a Doctor of Chinese Medicine, in a small biz 12-month mastermind we were both in. I always found her work intriguing and she’s a delightful, kind person. We both used to live in Florida and now we both live in the Pacific Northwest. She moved here first, and then I followed. 

Long story short, it always seemed like we would work together, but then the timing was off.

And then last year, she opened her Expansion Principle training and the timing was right.

EP Practitioner Training

EP Practitioner training is six months long and we started late September 2022.

As I said on my EP healing sessions page, when I received my first attunement, one of my content clients let me go the following day. It was aligned. I know they weren’t the right fit, but it was still a bit of a blow.

I really liked the founder, one of the first people I spoke to in Seattle. So, though that bond, I thought this would be a long-term engagement. But startup life is all about the type of chaos that my double Capricorn self can’t hold space for. So they were zapped out of my life. 

And the same thing happened when I finished my certification 6 months later. The next day, after I was done with my case studies, another content client let me go. And again, I knew they weren’t in alignment with my life. So another unceremonious zap!

Some Details…

I’m not going to go in massive details, but my training involved an extensive online curriculum, Zoom calls with Alexis and my fellow students for practice and attunements, and an online place to chat.

During my training period, I would practice EP transmissions on my friends, sending weekly transmissions for months. I love how it doesn’t really involve my brain. It feels like a very creative process. Sometimes I’d be overcome with emotion. Most of the time, I experience immersive imagery and scenes. It was like art school but for energy work. I enjoyed learning how to play with it. It’s like energetic silly putty to me. Or if you remember My Big Fat Greek Wedding, how the characters would use Windex on everything, I use EP on everything.

When I did my case studies is how my practice evolved. I went from intuiting what my friends needed to asking them what they wanted to focus on and had them fill a questionnaire every time. You will do the same as a client of mine. 

Like Reiki But Not as Spacey

Note: These are about my preferences and opinions about Reiki. I think it is an effective healing modality. But this section’s goal is to compare EP to something you may already know.

I’m a Reiki Level 2 Practitioner, and Reiki is wonderful. I’ve given but mostly received Reiki healing, especially last year when I was dealing with a lingering knee injury. But each session took at least 20 minutes. Last year’s distance sessions took an hour. I chose that time length and it was well worth it.

So what do I mean when I say “like Reiki, but not as spacey”? When I would receive Reiki in person, sometimes I felt like I was coming out of a daze and needed to ground and eat some food. One cool thing I did like about in-person was feeling someone’s hands on my feet long after they had gone. 

With EP, I’m not spending nearly as long on myself or with my clients. I believe because it’s not from Earth, it just operates differently.  Being a double Capricorn, I can be very patient, but I also believe that time is a precious resource.

Why I Prefer EP

I am so grateful for what Reiki has done for me. But I don’t have to lay down when I give myself EP transmission nor do my clients have to lie down to receive the energy via distance healing. They don’t have to set aside 20 to 60 minutes in their day to receive the transmission. They can go about their day. And, they most likely don’t know when I’m sending the energy. If I was in person or on a call, the scenario would be longer, but I believe there would be no spaciness or need to ground afterward.

After an EP session, they may feel things later, but usually, what I hear is that they feel refreshed and grounded, vs. feeling the “Reiki flu” — i.e., sometimes when you’re receiving Reiki energy, you may feel tired or run down the next day as your body flushes junk out. And this is why my Reiki master told me to always hydrate. I tell my clients the same, too.

What I’ve Used EP On In My Life

Here’s a short but candid list of things I’ve been using EP in my own life.

• Business communications
• Marketing materials
• Aches, pains, and physical ailments
• Future relationships
• Emotional wounds
• Whatever is bothering me

That last one…again, as a double Capricorn…I don’t really like asking for help. 🙈

So having EP in my life as an internal support system reminds me that there is always help available, to me. As someone who has been recovering from narcissistic abuse, this is huge for me. It’s also like being The Magician in Tarot.

I have everything I need. It’s not even about what I have on the table. It’s what’s inside.

So using EP on whatever is bothering me is a practice not only of self-care but also a practice of breaking out of learned helplessness and for asking for help. EP is a part of me but it’s also not from here.

Some multidimensional being believed we needed help and wanted us to help each other.

It’s intergalactic grace — grace that has to be shared.

EP is not a magic wand most of the time, because we are terrestrial beings with brains that have to get on board. But what I’ve found is that as it is meeting you were you are at, you go live your life, and then eventually, you’ll look back and see that the thing you were struggling with has healed, has vanished, has integrated. 

And, as the name connotes, your life will become expansive, in all the best ways.

One Part of the Solution

And, of course — this isn’t the only energetic modality out there, beyond Reiki and EP. There are 8 billion earthlings here and we need a lot of tools and techniques to really help in our healing and evolution as a species. 

That evolution is to get out of this late-stage capitalism hell that puts us in subservience to the greedy few.

The way we live right now is completely unsustainable. We’re being ravaged by climate emergencies, poverty, homelessness, COVID, other preventable diseases, and a deep lack of empathy.

I strongly believe that if you’re spiritual and not on a path of equity and justice, your spiritual journey needs a big course correction.

If you’re not making the world a better place, then why are you here?

Ultimately, I want to help a lot of people, because a lot of people need help. I have some plans to make the benefits of EP even more accessible. So stay tuned!

Clear as Mud? I Hope Not!

It’s really hard to talk about some invisible not too new but not that old energetic technology. I just know it works and that I’m a different person. I’m less anxious about the future. I’m more resolved and healed about the past. And, I’m more alive in the present.

But it doesn’t feel like rainbows and butterflies because rainbows and butterflies are not sustainable feelings. 

Living on a mountaintop spiritually is hard. It’s isolating. The air is thinner. And, it’s not how we live our everyday lives.

It’s not us stuck in traffic or in the nth argument with your spouse or getting chewed out by your boss or wondering how you’re going to pay your bills this month.

Your spiritual journey should help you with that stuff, more than anything else. The everyday earthling stuff.

It’s not just about your character, either. Having a good character is essential of course. But how many of us feel like if we grow any more in character, we’ll grow right out of our homes?🙋🏾‍♀️🙋🏾‍♂️🙋🏾

You should feel all sorts of support: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. And you should be doing that with as much grace and ease as possible, even when, and especially when, the powers that be try to strip you of your humanity.

So that’s my EP journey. And I look forward to helping you to start yours.

I can honestly say that having the Expansion Principle in my life as an energetic technology is why I have been able to get through tough times. If you’d like to learn more about it and have a distance EP session with me, here’s where you can learn more.

Holy Jupiter, I’m Back (Hopefully for Good?)

I am writing this blog post on Jupiter’s day. And it has been a minute since I blogged.

Micro-blogging on Twitter has been fun but my tweets are getting much traction anymore. But as I’ve told my own content clients, you own your website and blog, so it’s better to put your best content there.

So here I am, and hopefully, I’ll be more consistent. 

Interestingly, this post is about astrology, mainly mine. But I’ve been pivoting to focusing more on energy healing. But sometimes, there are transits that are very poignant and I wanted to share one of mine. 

Ted Lasso: An Imperfect Show That I Love

I didn’t expect S310, “International Break” to be so poignant for me. I have had issues with Ted Lasso, the show and the titular character, being preternaturally positive.

Everything can be a little too simplified like we’re watching an afterschool special (although even those can be grittier than this show). This show deserves to be a 22-episode show because it shoehorns a lot of character growth into too few episodes.

If you haven’t watched this episode, spoilers are ahead, but they’re important to this Jupiterian story.

“International Break”

This episode is not well liked by critics, but who cares about them? This is about my journey!

What really spoke to me was one scene that Nate, a former soccer coach, had with his dad while moping at his parents’ place. Nate roots around in his parents’ attic and finds his violin and starts playing it, with his music becoming the soundtrack for another well-placed speech by another character (it’s very cool that the actor playing Nate, Nick Mohammed, really can play the violin!). 

Nate is startled by his dad who hears him play. His parents were off on an errand, but his dad came back for some alone time. He looks on admiringly at Nate while Nate apologizes for possibly bothering him. His father replies that he has always liked Nate’s playing. Nate is shocked because he thought his dad hated his playing, that he lacked discipline, etc.

Nate’s Story of Giftedness

Nate is most likely a gifted person, because his nickname on his former soccer team was Wonder Kid (which he kept insisting on the German word, wunderkind).

He knows soccer. He knows a lot of stuff.

Nate left the team that Ted Lasso coached for a rival team and became a coach. His team did well, but he was a sore winner, taking digs at his former team. But his boss is a creep. Long story short, Nate resigns I believe because of that creep behavior but he lets go of his dream job.

Back to Nate and his dad. Nate’s dad responds, apologizing that he didn’t know how to parent a genius. He thought he needed to be hard on him. He hadn’t had the same opportunities as Nate did. Nate replied that he just liked playing. 

The scene is relatively short but powerful. I had this to say on Twitter.

Nate’s dad just gave me an explanation and apology I was never going to get. Wow. #TedLasso pic.twitter.com/8y177aPBwk

— deb, venusian edition 🪷 (@sunoppositemoon) May 17, 2023

Jupiter in Taurus & Me

Jupiter entered Taurus on May 16, 2023 at 10:20am PDT, before “International Break” aired later that evening. 

Let’s look back at how Jupiter behaved in Aries, though. In my opinion, it was a bit disappointing. It was ruled by an erratic Mars in Gemini which was retrograde for months, and then by Mars in its fall, Mars in Cancer. It wasn’t that boisterous with hope or abundance.

So a lot of people have been hoping that Jupiter in Taurus is better. And I am one of those people.

Granted, Jupiter is not at home in Taurus, like it is in Sagittarius or Pisces. Taurus plods along, is methodical, but it is ruled by Venus, which is also benefic. And Venus is currently in Cancer. These two planets are helping each other out (mutual reception is the technical term) as Jupiter is exalted in Cancer and Venus finds its home in Taurus. It’s a much better rulership conversation.

So how did this ingress affect me?

Straight out the gate for me, in my natal chart, I have plenty of planets in the early degrees, including:

• Saturn (in Virgo, at 0 degrees)
• Jupiter (in Cancer, at 0 degrees)
• Chiron (in Taurus, at 1 degree)

In that order is how Jupiter in Taurus will be trine, sextile, and in conjunction.

The Jupiter/Chiron conjunction in my chart perfected on Saturday, May 21, 2023, but Jupiter still wasted no time in bringing healing to me.

Let’s meet these two key planets first.

Who Are Jupiter and Chiron?

Chiron is the planetoid known as the wounded healer. This is where we have wounding that ends up being our place of expertise and we share our hard-fought wisdom. That really kicks off during a Chiron return (which happens around age 50. I’m currently about 5 years away from this transit).

Jupiter is expansive and involves healing, growth, and prosperity. I also think Jupiter can overpromise and underdeliver, because there can be a lot of enthusiasm and zeal, but not a lot of follow-through.

Jupiter in Taurus isn’t going to be that bombastic. It may be a time for really enjoying the sensual world (maybe too much, so be careful!) but slowly yet steadily, you could build up some fortune.

Where these two planets are hanging out is important. My Taurus house is the 5th house, the house of children, creativity, fun, and sex. Venus likes hanging out here, so to have a Venus-ruled Jupiter here is quite nice.

Having my Chiron and IC (3 degrees Taurus) is not as nice. Although the IC represents ancestry, and I inherited my creative gifts, the conjunction between my Chiron and IC connotes that there is ancestral pain around childhood and creativity. 

So let’s dig into my Chiron’s story.

My Chiron Story

Even though I’ve cosplayed a STEM person for a long time, I’ve been a creative at heart. But that journey has come with fits and starts, probably because I do have this grand earth trine between my sun in Capricorn (3 degrees Capricorn), my Saturn retrograde in Virgo, and Chiron in Taurus.

It was not going to be a straight shot finding my career and calling.

For example, I’ve always been a writer. One thing my mom made me do when I was little was practice writing. I wrote things she picked out of the newspaper. I also initiated reading at an early age (age 4 I’m told).

But it took my first Saturn return to give up on the idea of becoming a doctor (like my dad, who of course because of Saturn and my sun in this story, had a lot to do with this trajectory) and focused on writing, starting age 30. Then it took a certificate program and getting an MFA in Creative Writing to finally realize a dream I had since I was little: professional writer.

Some Support, But Not Enough

Ironically, my parents, both medical professionals, saw the writing on the wall here in the US and didn’t want me to go into medicine. My mom advised me to go into research, which I did later. But she didn’t really know how precarious research funding is in the US.

Yet it’s clear that I should have been in the creative arts. I just didn’t get much guidance from them. I had to do some heavy self-advocacy in this area. Although, most of the time, if I expressed interest in something, I’d get some support — like playing the clarinet in junior high and high school. My dad played the clarinet, too. He got an old one from a pawn shop (I know I could have gotten a new one, but that’s a story for another time and possibly another place). 

One of My First Loves: The Piano

Before the clarinet, I wanted to play piano. I had inherited my dad’s good ear for music. I’d say I have relative pitch (it’s probably flat by a half step, meaning when I hear B I think it sounds like C). He had keyboards and organs, including one he built himself, in our home. I learned recently he had played organ in his high school. From age 8, I started wanting to play. But it took 4 years of begging and cajoling to start playing at age 12, which is a late start.

I took weekly lessons and went to Saturday classes learning history, keyboarding, and performance at a local university, headed up by a famous duo who had played piano all over the world. I also started to compete in paying competitions. Piano became my haven in darkening storms as my dad’s mental illness worsened and went untreated.

One spring day, I came back from winning my first paying competition. I won $50! 

With my winnings in my hand, my dad then told me he’d stop paying for lessons.

Chiron strikes!

A Calm Refuge in a Stormy Home

At this point, my home had become dysfunctional and very unpredictable, partially due to my dad’s untreated mental illness, enabled by my mother and Christian fundamentalism, which had my dad as head of the house no matter how absent or inept. As I was struggling just to survive emotionally through parental emotional neglect, I didn’t really have the druthers to think of solutions, such as getting my driver’s license, getting a job, and funding my lessons myself.

The reason my dad gave me for cutting my lessons was because he wanted me to practice as much as the famous professional pianist, Vladimir Horowitz.

I stood in front of him in our den with a check in my hand and yet winning wasn’t enough for him.

My Personal Pleasure

In the 1990s, being a well-rounded student was important. It’s probably the same now (not really in the high school scene these days), but in my day, the more extracurriculars, the better. I had been busting my ass taking two math classes the year before so I could take AP Calculus my senior year. I had been in many clubs and societies and active in my church. 

Playing piano was just something I liked to do. It was never going to support me professionally, especially because I started late. I knew that. Maybe if I had started at age 5, like a lot of my fellow piano classmates, I could have gone to a conservatory. The logic behind his desires was flimsy and whimsical at best.

He was the sun (he had his sun in Leo) and I was an unwitting Icarus.

But piano was my personal pleasure. Hearing myself play beautiful pieces, having that time to myself in front of my glossy black Weber studio piano, it was my pleasure that I also shared with anyone who heard it.

Yet my dad did not want any part of it. He never came to any of my recitals (or any other celebrations for that matter), the ones that happened at my teacher’s piano shop and the ones that happened at the university every semester. He did try to share some pieces he liked. But it was always about him not me.

The Pleasure Police

This wasn’t the first time my dad would come to stop me from having fun. He denied me class trips abroad, and an important mission trip with my beloved youth pastor.

And it was never because of affordability. 

Looking back, it felt spiteful to deny a good kid near the top of her class anything good. 

It was narcissism. If anyone got more attention or support, then they would be punished with his absence or withholding access to resources.

And mind you, this is also about what was available to me as a doctor’s kid and what my dad did for himself. He had a lot of hobbies including photography, cars, and aviation. He never spared expense on himself. This was a generational pattern, though, which is another story for another time and place.

Still, despite the different intentions my dad and Nate’s dad had, that conversation Nate and his dad had on Ted Lasso made some sense, even through the self-centered lens.

A Failure to Nurture

I do think he was used to seeing how many opportunities I had vs. what he had with his mother (possibly his Cancer north node was informing a lot here, along with Venus and Saturn in Cancer i.e., he wasn’t yet comfortable being the nurturer).

Even though I am sure my dad was gifted, too, he didn’t know how to raise a gifted kid. 

Instead of being like Nate’s dad, humbling himself to bridge the gap of misunderstanding, he created a wedge of spite and cruelty.

Watching Nate and his dad mend their fences, and also take a huge chip off Nate’s shoulder (through the magic of television), I could see the power of (yes, it’s cliché but) love. How this love was able to heal decades of distance, resentment, and self-hatred. The next scene has Nate having a laugh while playing cards with his parents.

Healing Transits Before Jupiter in Taurus

Right up until I saw that Ted Lasso episode, I felt mortally wounded around music, especially classical music. Yet I can say there were other transits that prepared me for this moment of healing.

My Uranus opposition and my Saturn oppositions have been helpful in gaining clarity about the wounds I’ve received around creativity and education, respectively.

Even this recent Mercury retrograde in Taurus has been clarifying, reminding of music that I love.

My life has been on a long delay. But this Jupiter/Chiron conjunction came right on time.

Death Brings Clarity and Closure

One week after “International Break” aired, my dad dies.

He had been sick for a while and was then hospitalized in February, nearly collapsing with shortness of breath. On top of that he contracted COVID. They found a spot on his liver and they found cancer had metastasized from his colon, liver, and lungs.

His three-month odyssey into his next life gave me time to reflect on a lot about our relationship, how we went from the forgotten “Daddy’s Little Girl” to not speaking. That journey could be a whole book of wisdom, but I am so grateful at how a short scene on a TV show gave me healing that I never thought I would never have.

And that’s the beauty of art.

Art Returns and Heals

Art can clarify and heal. And I’ve been lucky to have so many ways of artistic support.

This song from Spanish rock star Juanes addressed to his eldest daughter (which is an apology) has supported me. So speaking of music that I’ve loved, I’ve loved this guy’s music since his third album, La Vida…Es En Ratico (Life…Is A Moment).

His album Vida Cotidiana (Everyday Life), was released on Friday, May 19th and I’ve been listening to it every day. He thinks that Everyday Life is his best album, and I wholeheartedly agree with him. 

The next Ted Lasso episode “Mom City” has also supported me. That could be a whole other post, which I may or may not write, but the magic I experienced around energy work really blew my mind.

Ancestral Roots, New Seeds

My dad gave me the seeds of art and creativity, sharing his love of Mozart, reggae, and Mahalia Jackson. I listened to so many of his tapes, albums, and CDs of contemporary Christian worship and gospel music, of folk music, of Ghanaian music. I appreciate his wide musical palate.

But he didn’t try to cultivate them in me except to learn what he liked. He was never interested in what I liked.

I feel very lucky and fortunate that I did have some time to grow my love of art and creativity outside of the home at school, and then living in Chicago, moving to Orlando to focus on writing, and now Seattle — a city I saw myself living in when I was a grunge-loving 90s teen.

It’s surreal that I am here in the Emerald City, after 2 years. And it is surreal that the physical remnants of my dad are now cremains.

Still, even as I look back and forward, I’m not sure how I feel about my dad no longer in form here on Earth — even though most of adult life involved investigating and excavating my life with my parents. 

This story will continue to evolve as I continue to heal.

Being Well Acquainted with Grief

Grief is a spooky specter, so who knows what will come up for me today, tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year.

But I do feel like a salty old dog when it comes to loss. And when you have someone who is not fully present in your life for so long, and is also the source of most of your losses — grief starts long before they die.

What I’ve been grieving mostly has been the person I could have been without having parents thwarting my path because I didn’t get to be who they wanted me to be. 

Yet there are parents who are humble enough to apologize, to make things right. I’m not filled with envy or jealousy, like I had been before (and who could blame me?).

Knowing these parents exist, and that hopefully I can be such a parent: I am filled with hope.

There’s no hope that I will have a healing conversation with my mom (been there, done that, got the tear-soaked t-shirt).

There is hope that I can fully heal.

With Tina Turner’s death the following day after my dad’s, reflecting on her life and legacy has given me renewed hope.

Her life of perseverance, resilience, and, ultimately, joy. Her history may define her from people who don’t know her. But she is self-defined. She’s a hero and inspiration to millions of people, including me.

Jupiter in Taurus: A Tangible Hope?

I usually think of Jupiter as a thug, mainly because my last Jupiter return was full of betrayal and heartache. But at least in Taurus so far, Jupiter isn’t overpromising and underdelivering.

Hope is not something ephemeral. As activist Mariame Kaba says, hope is a discipline. And it’s one I plan to work at, daily.

I’m not sure what else I’ll do creatively in Seattle. But there’s fertile soil here for music and writing, that’s for sure. New seeds to plant, cultivate, and grow.

Even before my dad’s illness, I had a goal of getting a weighted key piano, because I am still determined to cultivate my own joy.

But just like Nate, I just want to play for me. And I literally can’t wait.

I hope this Jupiter in Taurus transit gives you a more tangible hope! I can honestly say that having the Expansion Principle in my life has an energetic technology is why I have been able to get through such a tough year. If you’d like to learn more about it and have a distance EP session with me, here’s where you can learn more.