If you are joining us today, you'll want to check out Episode 135 first. That's because I have invited Tarot Reader and Creativity Coach Cecily Sailer to join me 5 times this year on a series exploring the interplay between the Tarot and the IChing.
Episode 135 is the introduction to this series and it will give you context for our conversation today.
Today's episode is an exploration in the interwoven and interdependent relationships between Yin and Yang energetics. One of the things I love about learning from other forms of spirituality is that we are all essentially saying the same thing because we're all trying our best to explain what we're seeing in nature and what we're experiencing in our human lives with the imperfect language of words, archetypes, imagery and energy.
This episode is not just about theoretical knowledge; it's a practical toolkit for anyone looking to weave spiritual entrepreneurship with tangible healing. We share personal tales of introspection and emotional catharsis, illustrating how the symbolic language of Tarot and IChing can be a powerful ally in navigating life transitions.
We delve into the art of holding space, both for ourselves and in relationships, leveraging the ancient wisdom of both traditions to foster deeper connections and understanding. Whether you're a seasoned practitioner or simply curious about these spiritually rooted traditions, this episode promises a rich tapestry of guidance for personal and collective evolution.
Not so subtle shoutout: Go check out Cecily's year-long program The Creative Magic Collective which combines the medicine of journaling with the wisdom found in Tarot. I have signed up as a student myself and am already loving being held in community.
Resources:
Cecily Sailer is a Tarot reader, writer, and coach who supports and mentors folks in developing a more mystical and spiritual relationship with their creativity, themselves, and their lives. Cecily is the founder of Typewriter Tarot, a project that support Creative Spirits by offering spaces of magic, creativity, inspiration, and community.
Connect with Cecily:
Kat HoSoo Lee is a trauma-informed Spiritual Business Mentor and host of The Rooted Business Podcast. She uses the tools of somatic and emotional alchemy to guide soulful entrepreneurs to approach their business as a spiritual practice. This allows them to cultivate businesses that are rooted in conscious values, ethical marketing and purposeful service.
Connect with Kat:
This podcast is made possible with sound production by Andre Lagace.
If you are joining us today, you'll want to check out Episode 135 first. That's because I have invited Tarot Reader and Creativity Coach Cecily Sailer to join me 5 times this year on a series exploring the interplay between the Tarot and the IChing.
Episode 135 is the introduction to this series and it will give you context for our conversation today.
Today's episode is an exploration in the interwoven and interdependent relationships between Yin and Yang energetics. One of the things I love about learning from other forms of spirituality is that we are all essentially saying the same thing because we're all trying our best to explain what we're seeing in nature and what we're experiencing in our human lives with the imperfect language of words, archetypes, imagery and energy.
This episode is not just about theoretical knowledge; it's a practical toolkit for anyone looking to weave spiritual entrepreneurship with tangible healing. We share personal tales of introspection and emotional catharsis, illustrating how the symbolic language of Tarot and IChing can be a powerful ally in navigating life transitions.
We delve into the art of holding space, both for ourselves and in relationships, leveraging the ancient wisdom of both traditions to foster deeper connections and understanding. Whether you're a seasoned practitioner or simply curious about these spiritually rooted traditions, this episode promises a rich tapestry of guidance for personal and collective evolution.
Not so subtle shoutout: Go check out Cecily's year-long program The Creative Magic Collective which combines the medicine of journaling with the wisdom found in Tarot. I have signed up as a student myself and am already loving being held in community.
Resources:
Cecily Sailer is a Tarot reader, writer, and coach who supports and mentors folks in developing a more mystical and spiritual relationship with their creativity, themselves, and their lives. Cecily is the founder of Typewriter Tarot, a project that support Creative Spirits by offering spaces of magic, creativity, inspiration, and community.
Connect with Cecily:
Kat HoSoo Lee is a trauma-informed Spiritual Business Mentor and host of The Rooted Business Podcast. She uses the tools of somatic and emotional alchemy to guide soulful entrepreneurs to approach their business as a spiritual practice. This allows them to cultivate businesses that are rooted in conscious values, ethical marketing and purposeful service.
Connect with Kat:
This podcast is made possible with sound production by Andre Lagace.
Hello friends, welcome to this episode. This is a joint episode, so you might be listening to this on the Rooted Business Podcast or you might be listening to this on Cecily Saylor's your Creative and Magical Life Podcast. Either direction that you're coming from, welcome. We're really excited to have you here, and Cecily and I are doing a series based around both of our nerdy yummy you know just curiosities and passions around tarot and the I Ching. Cecily is who I go to for tarot readings and just wanting to jam about, I don't know the mysteries of the universe and the cosmos. Apparently, that's the role that you play in my life, yeah and so, yeah, we're really excited to have you here for the series.
Speaker 1:If this is your first time tuning into this episode, we did an introductory episode on my podcast. That's going to be episode 135. Sense of like what the overlay of our conversation for the year is going to be like. So go check that one out before you come and listen to this one. I think that they'll all be standalones, but if you're like needing context and a little bit more of the vocabulary, we go through a lot of that in episode 135. So, yeah, thanks for being here, cecily yeah, thanks for being here.
Speaker 2:Cecily fun and incredibly stimulating for my brain and my spirit and my divination nerdiness same, thank you same.
Speaker 1:Um, I I mean just even since the beginning of this little project together, you've asked questions in such a way that it's like broken my brain a little bit and so, like you know, I'm just like, ah, I need to talk to her because, because that broke my, my brain and my logical side was just like, oh my gosh, we need to bring some context to this. So, um, yeah, we're going to get into some of those questions that I've been, I've been percolating with and and really playing with. I'm excited, yeah, so, giving you a little bit of context for this episode. So in the last episode episode 135, you went through each of the energies of the tarot system, so pentacles, swords, wands and cups, and you did a really beautiful job of using just like words to explain what each of those. Is there a word that like sort of describes each of those indexes?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I would just say, you know, there's the symbol in the suit, and then there's the element it's connected to and then there's the parts of human existence that those elements represent right, that makes sense.
Speaker 1:So just as a brief overview, I took notes, as you were. You were talking last time. You were saying that the pentacles are associated with earth. It's all about creation, nature and cosmos. Swords associated with fire it's descriptions of okay, sorry, uh, sorry, say that again.
Speaker 2:So swords and air swords are air and like the mind, communication, logic, thoughts. Okay, take over, do the okay do the last two the wands are fire and that's like spark of life, like vitality, just yeah, like life force, energy, and also like creativity, passion, bodily, bodily activation, um, and then the cups are water and they represent emotions, the heart, like the feeling, part of being human awesome.
Speaker 1:So, based on just how she described it, I was like, oh, this is like there's four different pairings of trigrams.
Speaker 1:So each hexagram that you see within the I Ching is made up of two trigrams, meaning two sets of three lines, and the way that we describe that energy is, through this, like family system. So heaven and earth are like the mother and father system. So heaven and earth are like the mother and father. And to me, like when you were talking about the pentacles and earth, I was like, oh, that's heaven and earth energy. Um, when you were talking about the sword energy, it's the first daughter and the first son, which is fire and water. Um, when you're talking about wand energy, I thought immediately of like wind and thunder, that like life force, movement kind of an energy. So that's the second daughter and second son. And when you were sharing about the cups, it's like lake and mountain. So those are the, the trigram pairings, and that's the the youngest, um, daughter and son. And so today we're gonna focus on the pairings of heaven and earth and I've um pulled a couple of hexagrams that we can talk about. Um, when it comes to this, this dynamic, and then cecily is also going to bring in her wisdom, bringing in some of the, the card energy and how she might describe.
Speaker 1:I mean, ultimately, what it comes down to is there are a lot of traditional systems that are based around interacting with nature, observing nature, witnessing nature and being like how do I describe this kind of indescribable thing? And you know, a lot of the scholars back in East Asia looked to them and came up with this like hexagram system, and in a completely different part of the world, in several thousand years later, an entirely different system was created. But we're all sort of talking about the same thing and I think that that's the piece that I really want to like hammer in here is the more and more I learn about traditional wisdom and medicine, we're all saying the same thing, we're all walking up the same mountain, so there's no like dogma here. And also wanting to note that you know there's not going to be a perfect overlay between the I Ching and the Hexagram, the I Ching and tarot systems. You know, even just in this conversation we were like planning to to have this conversation.
Speaker 1:You know I was like okay, so there's four hexagrams that I want to talk about, and then Cecily came up with, I think, one, two, three, four, five tarot cards that came up for her as like as she was like doing a little bit of the research around the hexagrams, and so you know, I wish my like, my like young, logical brain wants to be like. This equals that, but that's not ever the case, and so if that's the part of your brain that is like itching warning there's not try to describe this beautiful world that we live in and how we interact with within that world. So, yeah, any thoughts before we jump in.
Speaker 2:I feel like these are nicely complementary in many ways.
Speaker 2:But in one sense I feel like the I Ching kind of turns to nature more completely as the like energetic, as an energetic guide for like looking at life.
Speaker 2:And I think tarot does have a more human focus. Like nature is definitely definitely there, but it because maybe that's because it's a little more modern and it was developed kind of when there was a bit more like humans, more human density, I guess, um, and so I think that's kind of cool that, like you know, if you're a tarot person and you open up to the I Ching, you get to kind of go into nature more deeply and maybe, if you're an I Ching person coming to tarot, you get to kind of take that really nature-based and of course, the I Ching like when you'reot you get to kind of take that really nature-based. And of course, the I Ching like when you're looking in the divination books, those natural energies are translated into like a message for the human to like guide through life. So the end result is kind of the same. But yeah, if you're an I Ching person coming to tarot, there's probably more like a human focus in that, one that you can overlay with I Ching understanding or something. Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, love it it does. And I'd say that, like even within the I Ching, we have them split into two different sections the upper canon and the lower canon. The upper canon is more of a description of nature, so, like, when you get through like the first part of of the number system, we're more in like description of nature, land, and then when you get to the lower canon, it's more of like the human experience within nature, and so, um, I'm trying to think of yeah, the hexagrams that I pulled are all within the upper canon, which you know sort of makes sense in terms of like this is more of of descriptions of of nature and the cosmos. Yeah, so yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And the upper canon is the first 30 hexagrams.
Speaker 1:I believe, so I have to yes First 30.
Speaker 2:That's correct. I took that you said that last time.
Speaker 1:So I learned from you. These are like the like details that my numbers dyslexic brain just really struggles with. Actually, that's one of the things that broke my brain the other um day when I was listening to your podcast is you had an entire podcast about the high priestess and in it you had this very like, almost like innocent and like off the cuff question of like why is the high priestess number two instead of number one? Um, and that was the. That was the question that like broke my brain for the last like two and a half weeks. Um, and like the I Ching. I was just showing you a picture of this and so if you're on YouTube, you can, you can see the picture as well. But, um, I have this book and like the I Ching originally was like a circular system without like a number one and a number two. It's only when king wen came into the picture where he put numbers um, just to help people access it a little bit easier.
Speaker 2:And and there's something about like the numbering system that like hurts my brain yeah, it creates that false linearity and when cat was holding up this image it looks like a mandala kind of like it has. It's a circle of different layers and almost like a dial you could use to like find your hexagram or something.
Speaker 2:But I think one thing tarot, uh, tarot kind of became like a gateway drug to like getting to this the sense of like the wheel of time, and that we move through time more in a spiral kind of way than a linear, just like day after day, year after year, and that was so refreshing to me. And once you kind of break that part, then you can also break apart these other concepts of like ladders and hierarchies and other places that linearity is falsely imposed.
Speaker 1:Even though numbers are helpful in life, like they're not, they're not bad but um, yeah, um, actually, before we get into the hexagrams, um, can you speak a little bit to that like why is the magician number one?
Speaker 1:Why is the priestess number two? And to me, I want to frame this in a lot of the language that we use around, I think, tarot, and also the I Ching there's feminine and masculine dynamics that show up, and I really want to, anytime we're talking about these energies, want to like, anytime we're talking about these energies, it's not in this like, highly gendered way. It's like this is why I think that, like, yin and yang are more accessible ways to talk about this yin being more of what we consider feminine in the western world, yang being more of what we consider masculine in the, in the modern world, and and so like. We all have these energies within us in different beautiful titration levels, and so I want us to sort of I don't know, this is something that I'm currently struggling with it's like how do we talk about this without becoming super rigid in gendered ways of thinking?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that's something we're kind of exploring in Typewriter Tarot in a larger sense, large in a larger sense, like we recently did a blog post from this wonderful non-binary writer named robin gow, and um, they're writing about, uh, like how we can kind of pass through or like destabilize or deconstruct gender representations in tarot and, you know, even if the cards are showing us like a, what appears to be a definitive like woman, um, and a definitive man and like gender is very binary in the tarot. It's kind of one or the not always. Actually, there are many human figures, even in older decks where it's like it could be you know, it's open to interpretation.
Speaker 2:but, um, as the viewer, we get to bring a deconstructed lens to it and even if we see a female figure, we can refer to them with non-binary pronouns or we can think of them just as yin energy versus like literal female.
Speaker 2:You know the the like, very, um, separate delineation of like male energy and female energy.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah, so there's like, as just the interpreter and the user, we can kind of play and explore and I think we can ask these questions that break our brains, like what would it mean if the magician is a woman or is, um, you know, a non, someone who's on the non-binary spectrum of gender expression?
Speaker 2:But to come to your question about the magician and the high priestess and why one might be first and the other is second, and in your Creative and Magical Life podcast there's a whole episode on the fool, who is like the zero in. That doesn't mean like a loser, that just means like he's the number zero and the fool represents, like the protagonist of the tarot, the one that's like starting this journey and going to go meet all these other archetypes and be shaped and learn and challenge through meeting the magician, meeting the high priestess. So the magician is one and high priestess is two, and there's also whole episodes on the magician and a whole episode on the high priestess, and in both episodes we kind of play with this question for a moment and the magician is the one who manifests or uses the elements. You'll see. See on the magician's table, a symbol from every element.
Speaker 2:So they're all there and the magician is working with the elements available in the universe and using a magic wand and creating an intention, and then about to move through some ritualized action to actualize their vision and bring it into the world. And then the high priestess that follows the magician is not doing anything, she's just seated and she's seated behind, or usually she's seated in front of two columns and between the columns is a like a curtain and behind the curtain is an ocean. So she's kind of seated at this portal and this. The idea is like she has access to everything behind the curtain and she can kind of share it with us.
Speaker 2:And then you know we get to. In each card that we get, we get to see, like how am I, what would it be like for me to be in this position, to be in the position of manifesting me, to be in this position, to be in the position of manifesting, or to be in the position of accessing ancient wisdom, which is what's represented by that ocean. That's like feeling and intuition and ancestral wisdom and the wisdom of the cosmos. She just sits there and, kind of like, can access it as she needs to.
Speaker 2:She's receptive and she's a receiver and the magician's like the wand and the maker, um, and so it's interesting. They're like the very beginning of the journey and if we think of, like human development, the magician kind of does this, like I describe it in that episode, like even when we are babies, and we start to realize, like when we cry, if we, you know, if we're hungry and we have a caring parent, then someone will bring us something to satisfy the hunger. And it's just that mechanism of like, when I act, there will be a response whether it's like to ignore or to like get your needs met.
Speaker 2:But that very that's like the most basic kind of version of the magician. So in a like human development way, it kind of comes. We can see how it comes first. But my question is like how do we know how to act? Like the high priestess gives us this sense of like what's here, what am I feeling called to do? Um, what kind of information is available to me to guide me? And so, in another way, like in life as a grown-up, I would like to live by being the high priestess first and feeling like where's my intuition taking me? And then step into the magician to work my spell or refine my vision and take the action and then see it develop. So it's interesting too that the two we could look at this as like why is the magician first, when maybe it's better to actually know before we act? But conversely, sometimes we don't know until we act. We take action and we're like that worked, that didn't work, that was really weird. And then we kind of add that to our wisdom, that refines our action. And then I'll say a couple other things and then try to cut myself off.
Speaker 2:But, um, I think too for humans in terms of thinking about yang and yin energy, and I'm curious what you think about this cat, but it's like, the more we know about the cosmos, it looks like a big void, like there's just a lot of open space where there appears to be nothing. And maybe that's a very Western view and maybe other cultures just totally never saw it that way. But when we're thinking about how did this all get here, that big question that every human is asking there had to be, we're like. Well, something had to initiate it, something had to go from nothing to something, and I think that is probably Yang energy and maybe why humans put the Yang first before the stillness and the sitting. And the only last thing I'll say is just, it's interesting. The next two cards are the Empress and the Emperor and in that dynamic Yin comes first and Yang comes next. So it's kind of interesting.
Speaker 1:Interesting. Yeah, no, I love it. And again, this is where, like you're using language that I would also use to describe yin and yang dynamics. You know, and I love that, the fool is first, because that's exactly what I was thinking is like from the void. Then comes this, like separation into two and young being, that initiatory life force, movement, that experience, and then like in the human form.
Speaker 1:I would also call that like the feelings land, where you know we're talking about how anger feels within the body before there's an action being made and in that action happening. That's like the expression of yang, like pushing forward and moving that through. And when we're talking about the human body, it's like the functionality of the organs rather than the form of the organ. What does the stomach do versus like, what does the stomach look like? And then on the flip side, you know that being the opposite, with yin energy, of yin being responsive, yin being form, yin being holding, um, holding containing, as you were saying. That like intuition, um, that like stillness versus action. You know all like we're all talking about the same things, right and interesting that even within the I Ching we also have the hexagrams one and two, one being full Yang lines, so heaven over heaven, if we're looking at them broken down into trigrams, and then hexagram two being full yin lines, full broken lines, and so that being earth over earth, and you know everything about this is like like I really don't think that we can get away from like this, like circular action. You know it's like if we're thinking about the Big Bang as being like young energy.
Speaker 1:You know, once we start contracting and I think quantum physicists talk about like the big crunch that's coming everything is always on this like like inhale exhale scale. Whether we're talking about our own breath and we're talking about the breath of the universe, you know, everything fits within and, and what I love about the I Ching is that like we're basically breaking down okay, so here's this like big breath in, big breath out right. And then how do we break down all those little slivers of experience in between the breath and finding the nuance in between the breath of like inhale and exhale? And that's really I think many people have spent their entire lives trying to understand all of that. I know that I'm going to spend the rest of my life trying to understand all that and never even get close to it.
Speaker 2:So yeah, the inhale and the exhale and from like, as we've started this exploration, you know my initial understanding I was like, oh, okay, itching was like how do you do it right? Like, okay, you take coins, then you count the, they get this many numbers and then you go to the line and you write the line. Then you find in the book and as we get deeper it it's like okay, no, each. Well, also I Ching or more importantly, is taking like every trigram is connected to a natural, like force or element or concept, and the hexagrams, and so what I'm noticing is, just for the tarot people coming to this, that what I Ching offers us is a like.
Speaker 2:It seems like its basis is like how do these energies, what energy do two energies create when they come together and they move in this particular direction? And how is that? Like life, and so there's, it's just like so energy focused, and I think that's so beautiful and exquisite and like endlessly fascinating and I just want to. That's kind of how I see the I Ching doing that thing you're describing like what are all the experiences inside the in-breath and the out-breath, the expansion?
Speaker 1:and the contraction.
Speaker 1:I want to shift the conversation a little bit, just because this is something that I've like been dying to just like chew on with you, and it's been something that I've been really noticing since our last conversation that we had to record, which is I always want to take this like esoteric practice and bringing it into practical land and how does this help our lives? Right, and so a lot of my people who are going to be coming to this are going to be spiritual entrepreneurs, meaning that a lot of them are space holders. But I think that this conversation would be relevant for anybody who's just like a human trying to human with other humans and like finding that sense of balance, of self-regulation and co-regulation. I've been in this place of just like noticing and witnessing what it feels like in my own body when I'm holding space for somebody who comes in with like a lot of energy, and what kind of dynamic do I need to hold, what kind of like on the like yin-yang pole? Which part of that do I need to bring up in order to meet that person's energy? Right? And so just noticing in myself like hey, when somebody comes in with like a lot of like myself. Like hey, when somebody comes in with like a lot of like, um, emotionality, and they're just like in this like, as you were sort of talking about that like developmental stage of like I, I have so many feelings and I don't know really what I want and I'm just like, in total feelings, land, right, there's a lot of like what we would consider to be like yang energy and that like expression of like right.
Speaker 1:And so then it is my job as the space holder to bring in, bring up more of my yin energy, to sort of like hold and be still and allow that person to like go through whatever tantrum their body or their spirit really needs to go through and help them feel safe in that moment enough to like move through and find completion within that, that, that cycle of that emotion. On the other side, if somebody's coming in and they're like feeling really stuck and frozen and like just kind of deflated and collapsed, then my work is about okay. So how can we help activate and bring a little bit of movement into this person's system? And so bringing up my yang energy and this is where I think that like nuance and skill and the art of holding space is so important, because with either of these. You don't want to be too still or too mobilizing, otherwise you're going to blow that person out of their feelings again.
Speaker 1:And so I love being able to bring in the energy of the initiator of hexagram one, you know, of the responder in hexagram two. And again, if we're going to use tarot language, it's like the initiator being like the magician energy. You know, hey, like you've got all these elements sitting right in front of you. Which one do you want to pick up?
Speaker 1:You know, with the, with the high priestess, it's like you have so much infinite wisdom within you. How do you want to access that? Like? Can we slow down enough to access that, instead of just like running all the time and forgetting to like look around and see the ocean, you know? And so that's been something that I've really been been playing with in terms of how do we take this thing that I love interacting with on the page and with the coins and now with the cards, and actually bring that into our everyday lives in such a way that it helps us relate to each other, that it helps us relate to each other, and so that's like a big unanswered and continuing to evolve question for myself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so subtle, for one thing, sometimes, like, sometimes it is big energy or really frozen energy, and sometimes it's a mixture, or you know you're going to get both in a session and you kind of contribute as the space holder to kind of helping create that wave, or you're trying to read like what energy is there and how it needs to move and how you can kind of create the pool that the wave can crash into, or like build up from um, and I think, like taking that that gives me like an extra layer of perspective on looking at the cards. And it's kind of like, if you are new to tarot, let's say, and you're just pulling a card, I think you can just start with this question of like, is this more yang energy or is it more yin?
Speaker 2:And if you have two cards together, I feel like those can function like trigrams in the I Ching, where it's like, okay, what's the yin-yang ratio maybe of the card you're looking at for the two cards and how does that interact together and how does like one help the other, or how does how do the two complicate each other, perhaps, and that can kind of help you see, like what the issue might be that you're struggling with, or it can maybe present a way forward, like, oh, I'm definitely in this energy and this other card is maybe showing me a way to shift it or to turn it into the wisdom. Turn it into, like find the, the juicy nectar in there. That has some guidance.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah and something that I really just like love is, I feel like anytime. So I tend to be a little bit more of a young personality. I am definitely a lot of movement, a lot of energy, anybody who follows human design. I'm a manifesting generator and I'm like that definition, like to a T manifesting generator and I'm like that definition, like to a T.
Speaker 1:And so anytime I pull from the I Ching, I feel like I get lots of invitations to be in by stillness, like to be in by yin, and for me the I Ching has been a largely self-regulatory tool of like hey, like you have yin within yourself. It's like almost a reminder of like hey, you have yin within yourself. Can you bring a little bit more of that forward in this moment, because you're kind of lacking that and it's so funny because I, you know, I think last time I was like I should stop being surprised by the, by the coins that I, you know, throw, because I swear there are hexagrams in here that are young oriented and I like almost never get them. I'm just like that, like never happens, um, and so like there are points of frustration sometimes where I'm like there's gotta be a better answer than just like sit still and be with this in my frustration.
Speaker 1:But what I love about the series that we're doing also what I love about, you know, the creative magic collective that you've created is that it takes, because I think that for a lot of us've taken this self-regulatory tool and made it into a co-regulatory tool and brought it into community, which is something that the medicine of that is not appreciated enough. So I'm curious if you could speak a little bit to your reasons why Sorry, my voice is being froggy um, I'm curious if you could speak to your reasons why you brought that in and um how, in the context of a group, we can sort of like play with these yin-yang energies in a different and new dynamic than maybe what you do on your own in your own sort of like private practice.
Speaker 2:Yeah, thank you for that question. I so the the creative magic collective is centered around a book I created called tarot for creative spirits, and it has a journaling prompt for every card in the tarot deck, and I designed the book to draw on all the things I've learned so far about tarot and reading tarot for other people, and also all the things I've learned so far in coaching people around their creativity or their spirituality, or living authentically with their creativity and spirituality and developing magic in their lives, and so the prompts kind of bring all of that together, or that was the attempt, and I, for one thing, I think it's like it's a big book, like right now it's like a hundred. There's a hundred sheets of paper in it and some of those are tarot spreads. But, um, you know, when you get a whole book of journaling props, it's like what are the odds that on your own, with life being how it is, that you're going to do them all or even half of them? So part of it, like the group, is for the sense of like motivation. Or, you know, I'm interested in what's happening for other people and I'm interested to see what happens for me and how these journeys kind of coincide or overlap at different times. And also having a container. Yeah, you know, just having a container or a reason to kind of keep going. And then, additionally, I think you know the questions in the book are not designed to like help you unpack all of your trauma. You know they're not meant to like excavate deeply all of your wounds or you know anything like that, and they're not super light either, and they vary.
Speaker 2:There's some creative prompts, anything like that, and they're not super light either, and they vary. There's some creative prompts and some that are. They're really meant, you know, self-dialogue is the goal, sorry, the goal here and to help you know yourself. You know different parts of yourself on a deeper level, and I think that's hard to do on our own. It's like how do I engage with self-investigation, like what should I do? So the prompts are meant to just like take you there from a lot of different angles.
Speaker 2:But in the self-investigation and I think you know you made this point that, like inside the self, is this whole galaxy of stuff from. You know, if you're 30 or 40, you've got a lot of stuff in this galaxy and it's all connected. So even if you're 30 or 40, you've got a lot of stuff in this galaxy and it's all connected. So even if you're tugging at one piece, these other things may surface, and so I think having to hold that just on your own can be a lot, and it's been my experience in my own journey, from living in a way that felt very miserable, where I suffered tremendously, to feeling a lot more agency and like magic and creativity coming back into my life.
Speaker 2:Being in groups was a really uncomfortable at the beginning, but also a huge part of my growth and allowing me to kind of come out and feel okay, just saying what I needed to say and having people feel how they felt about it. I still struggle with that, definitely, but yeah, so the group is meant to kind of hold folks through the process and also give them the space to be witnessed in what they're finding about themselves and to have a space to like speak it and not just write it down and to also process. Like you know, just having a dialogue with yourself is good, but then there's that question that you also came back to. It's like so what do I do with that like?
Speaker 1:how do I?
Speaker 2:what do I do? This is at odds with the way my life is like. This means changing something. Change is scary. And then there's other people in the group who are wrestling with the same kinds of questions in their own ways, and you create this constellation through the group of people who can relate to each other on different fronts at different moments. And I apologize, that was a long answer, but it was such a good question, but those are some of the reasons yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and to me, like, I think that this is where, like, we need both, you know, yeah, I think that you know, like nervous system regulation, like people who are like nervous system nerds there's a lot of emphasis that I see on self-regulation, like how do you hold yourself, how do you be with yourself with these big feelings, how do you, you know, come to your problems in the most regulated way possible? And to me, it's I've always needed the dance of both is like, again, if we're talking about the energy of the universe, like I need the exhale and I also need the inhale from my peers, you know, and I also need the inhale from my peers, you know. And when we don't, when we find ourselves like in a place where we're like, oh, I'm super self-aware, I've done all this work and yet I don't want to share with anybody else, and I don't want to be vulnerable and I don't want to be like share all these like scary bits with anybody else, it's like, oh, you've just hit an edge in your healing path. That, like is asking to be tended to. And I think that that's where these group things are so, so important. It's also a reason all the things that you were saying about.
Speaker 1:You know, your beautiful collective, which you know a little biased because I'm part of that collective, like they're all the same reasons that I created my programs that are also group oriented is because there's only a certain amount of work that we can do in these, like solo, siloed, hermit shell, like crab existence where, like when we start finding these safe places and I think it's important that we, like, are finding places that we belong and we find places that really seek to create as much safety as possible, knowing that, like, safety is also a co-creative process between participant and the space holder there comes a new layer of healing.
Speaker 1:As you have your story shared and as you have that mirrored back, and you know, I think that this is where we can start to see this like dismantling of the hyper-independent self, or the hyper like codependent self as well, is when we start to see this like flexible breath between being able to self-regulate and co-regulate and knowing what your needs are within that context. And to me again, this goes back to the same energy that we've been talking about this whole time of magician, high priestess, initiating and responding. It's the same vocabulary. It's just like we're trying to give you a little bit of a sense of how can we take the energy of the cosmos and bring it into your everyday life, and to me it's that like inhale exhale between self-regulation and co-regulation. That's like an important part of, I think, everyone's journey and we don't give as much value to the co-regulation when that's really something that we need as social animals.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it's like everything you said was so beautiful, and also it's like why are we healing ourselves?
Speaker 2:to just like stay alone and like feel self righteous because we got really healed. Like we have to live in the world and we have to interact with stuff and including lots of humans, and usually our motivation for healing is because our human relationships are repeatedly not working the way that we want to, and that's not entirely on us, but yeah, so like having a group container where it's really established like here's what we're exploring, here's what we're exploring, here's what we're exploring together, here's how we want to hold each other in. This experience gives everyone a safe place, or a mostly safe place, to um, start practicing that before we even take it into, like the relationships in our lives that feel the most vulnerable or tricky or sensitive or have a lot of baggage in them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I would say that, you know again, I sort of like speak to my people as being space holders, but you know, this is anybody who is in a romantic relationship, is a parent, is a friend, anybody who's just relating with any other human the more you're able to find that flexibility between inhale and exhale and between initiation and responsiveness I think that's the muscle that we're flexing when we are holding space for another human and it's one of the things that I say repeatedly, over and over and over again is, you know, the best thing that you can do for your clients if you're a space holder, is to do the self-work on yourself, so that when somebody comes in with really big angry energy that feels really big and like expansive, or they come in with energy that they've internalized and have shoved down into their body, you can then track that and mirror that and be like, okay, I see that and I understand it, because I've felt and understood that myself. And so the counterpoint to your collapsed anger that you have, you know, directed inward towards your own body and towards your own spirit, let me just like give, bring it, breathe in a little bit of yang energy, so that there's a counterpoint to it. You know, so that there's something that like that the yin energy wants to like maybe just peek out and be like hey, I maybe want to talk about this a little bit. And again, I think it's where that nuance of if somebody is super collapsed, I don't want to come in with this raw, raw cheerleader energy. It it's about like, can I bring in, just like one line of yang to counterbalance all of your yin lines where it's feeling really stuck and heavy?
Speaker 1:Or if somebody is coming in with this like big, like, fuck the world, like that kind of energy, it's like okay, so like, let me bring in one line of yin energy so that we can counterbalance and bring a little bit of stillness without making people feel misunderstood in that wounded little kid part selves, and how we're able to hold all those parts for ourselves which I think you know, tarot and itching are beautiful ways to like, like, allow those parts to come out and play and and being able to offer that in service to our communities and to our families and to the people that we love. And, if you're a space holder, to our clients and to the people that we love and if you're a spaceholder to our clients. It's such a beautiful gift and really I think of it as like the alchemy of the universe playing out in the human experience.
Speaker 2:So good, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a perfect summation and I love that analogy of like you've got six yen and I'm going to bring one yang, or vice versa. It's like the hexagram one and two and magician and high priestess.
Speaker 1:Another way that we can arrange these yin and yang lines just in the most simple way possible is um, found in hexagrams 11 and 12. Um, and you brought in a couple of tarot cards that you wanted to talk about with those. But, um, if I can just sort of like very simply explain hexagram 11 is earth over heaven. So yin lines over yang lines, so three yin lines over three yang lines. Um, it is actually the tattoo that's on my wrist here. It's my favorite hexagram. It's a very, very important reminder for me. And then the counterpoint of that hexagram, the opposite of that hexagram, is when heaven is over earth. And so that's the three yang lines over three yin lines. And I'll talk about hexagram 11. First. It's Tai, which is a translation, for that is advanced. All the English translations that I'm using are coming from the Huang Huang text that I referenced in episode 135. And I'll put that in the show notes here as well. But the reason why Tai is another translation for it is peace.
Speaker 1:The sort of image that comes to mind when I think about this is like when there's a really beautiful stream, that's like running with like no blocks in the way. There's like flow, there's ease, and the reason for that is because earth, which is yin energy, has a downward sort of trajectory. Heaven, which is yang energy, has an upward sort of trajectory, and so when you have earth moving down and heaven moving up, there's like this beautiful place where they meet, and like that's where magic happens. I think about this is where conception would also happen is when these two energies are able to sort of meet. While hexagram 12 is like it seems kind of counterintuitive, and it took me a while to figure this out, but we look outside and heaven is over earth, right, and so it seems like that's what nature is showing us. But when you look at it in terms of yin and yang energies, heaven moves upwards, earth moves downward, and so when we play with that, it's like they're moving away from each other, and so there's a separation, and that's why they call it hindrance is the translation for hexagram 12. And so now we're seeing what happens when the magician and the high priestess come together and what happens when they're in disagreement, and to me that's like okay, so it can be just the flip of a coin. You know, like they're so close to each other in terms of like being able to work together and being able to not work together.
Speaker 1:And so this is where we as humans have to come in and say you know, how can I insert myself into whatever situation that you're in, whatever difficulty you're having, and maybe you're receiving this hexagram for a reason. What can we do to sort of influence the like meeting back of yin and yang again, and also it's a natural part of the cycle as well, so like being able to like accept that this is a part of of our seasons. So, um, hexagram 11 and 12 are also title hexagrams and what what that means is like they're representative of particular times of the year. And so hexagram 11 is February, right around February, and so it's like that potential energy coming to life, like, if you think about all the things that are happening, if you live in a world, or if you live in a part of the world where you have seasons, like that's when, like all the springtime energy is like starting to percolate to the surface and you can really see that like earth meeting heaven, that like yin and yang coming into marriage, sort of energy.
Speaker 1:And August is the month that is described by Hexagram 12. And it's almost like hey, like we have completed the harvest cycle we're at the end and I think that you were sharing one of the tarot cards has this idea of like oh, this is a really heavy burden and I need to put it down, and so that hindrance is not always about there's something bad or negative happening. It's like this is a part of the cycle where you might need to put something down in order for the cycle to continue. So, yeah, I'll pause there, because I just said a lot of things.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's been. So. Yeah, like I said, fun for my brain to kind of think about these two hexagrams and what cards might pair up with them. And it's so interesting, you know that they have like a timing and it's like a seasonal timing and this like elemental direction. So I'll start with hexagram 11. And I went back and watched your Taoist lunar calls which others can go, um, access, um, and you had a whole, a whole class, a whole workshop on hexagram 11 and because of the kind of springtime association, the sort of ease and like tranquility quality of the hexagram I'm just looking at my notes really quick this kind of like an equilibrium there, this like the elements interacting in a resonant kind of way.
Speaker 2:I think one thing maybe Chris said this in the daoist lunar call, I don't remember, but it was like yang coming out of slumber, like coming out of shavasana or something, and so then you're you're like reset and you can go create, and so the the card that I most see for this hexagram 11 of ease and peace and advance is the ace of pentacles.
Speaker 2:The card I'm holding says these are coins if you're watching on youtube, um, so this is the earth energy and this one always reminds me of a seed. So, like, everything that is needed to create the form is contained in this like small thing, and it needs the heaven, it needs the earth, like it needs a good place to rest and it needs, um, that activating energy of this hexagram to start to unfurl and become. And so this kind of feels like, um, like the magician enters here to sort of do the activation and create the magic that will take. Whatever the seed represents Like, let's say, it's your book project or something you're adding to your business, and the magician has, like, visualized it and created some intentions around it and then will create, like you know, needs to create good conditions for its manifesting and then needs to sort of like put it down and also tend to it so it comes out and the high priestess sort of exists inside the seed. It's like all of the information, the genetic, the DNA information, all the ancient legacy. Let's say this was an acorn that would make an oak tree. That one acorn has all this high priestess energy of knowing what it needs to be in response to its environment as those conditions unfold, and kind of a secondary card. I felt with that same hexagram was the Ace of Swords, which is like card. I felt with that same hexagram was the ace of swords, which is like the. You know, both aces are always like an opening, a beginning, an initiation moment, and in the cards we see this hand kind of reaching out from the heavens to offer either the seed in the ace of coins, or the sword in the ace of swords, and the sword kind of represents like a new idea or a moment of clarity or like a realization, an aha moment. So this could be like the idea or the vision that can start to be activated. But we'll need more action and development and thinking to like come into being. And then for hexagram 12, where heaven and earth are separating and creating, when you say that, it kind of makes me think of this like void, where like maybe nothing is happening. And as I watched the daoist lunar calls, uh, a word, the word stagnation, came up and so, and also that idea of like being in late August, like all the harvesting is starting to happen. There's like a lot of work, it's really hot, especially where I live at that time of year and increasingly in the Northern Hemisphere.
Speaker 2:And 10s in the tarot are like culminating moments or moments of completion where that series that starts with the ace kind of goes through its steps and ends up at the 10. And there are court cards that come after the 10s, but they're kind of like developing mastery of the element. So the two 10s, the main one that I coupled with the ace of pentacles was the ten of swords, where we usually see a figure laid out on the ground. In this one the figure is hunched over and there's ten swords in their back. It's pretty gnarly, the swords being the realm of the mind or the realm of thought. This is where, like, our thoughts have become too young, they've just like overtaken us and we're crippled by them. Like this figure cannot really move, um, certainly can't move toward their visions and dreams, like very paralyzed um, and this signifies or I see it as like a signifier of a breaking point where, like, you've hit this wall and it's not like the end and it's not like uh, game over, but um, also in this card. Often, you will see, it's not shown here, but usually this person's kind of like laying on a beach and there's, there is a black sky, but there's this little band down here of like yellow light, like the day is coming, and so it's that breaking point where we say, like this doesn't work, um, or I've done too much, or um, something about this dynamic is not suitable for me, like I can't thrive in this. And when you were talking about the, the magician and the high priestess, like not working together and not, um, not resonating like.
Speaker 2:One example that came to mind would be like, let's say, you're in a new living situation and you find it difficult to like do your rituals or do your magic because you have this other, you know shared space. Let's say, and so it kind to like do your rituals or do your magic because you have this other, you know shared space. Let's say, and so it kind of like falls away quietly. And then you know you find yourself like freaking out or like you're just having big reactions, and maybe it's like well, you can't, you got to go back to like your magic went away and you need to go find it Like. So there's a breaking point where it's like I have to figure out a way to do my ritual work, do my spiritual practices, in this environment, or figure out a way for it to happen elsewhere while I still live here, or something like that.
Speaker 2:And then the other one was the 10 of wands, which is fire, and here we have someone carrying all 10 wands over their shoulder You'll also see this card often where the person is carrying the wands in front of them and they're hunched over and the wands create this visual barrier. So even if a friend came toward them, they wouldn't be able to even notice or recognize the person because they're carrying so much. And this made me think of like the harvesting and like pulling all the fruits in, pulling all the vegetables in and having to store them and just doing it in the heat, and like it's essential to the community survival. But it's also kind of backbreaking and the question there is like are there enough people pitching in?
Speaker 2:to kind of do this work, because all the weight will just hold you down and you can't. You don't have the inhale exhale exchange like you need. So those are the cards I pulled in for those two.
Speaker 1:Yeah, as you were speaking about the Ten of Swords, I think I'm having like quite a bit of emotion coming up, because I feel like what you've described is like kind of the moment that I'm in right now. I think that with both of these, there's this concept of a breaking point that I'm picking up as you're speaking of, like hexagram 11 being the breaking point, of like that moment where the seed like bursts through that little seed membrane and it's like first little taproot is just like like breaching um the surface or like you know, that very first moment when, um, a cellular creature splits from one thing to two things, to four things. Like it's that, like that, that it's like a moment that I think is just so beautiful that you've you've highlighted so like wonderfully. And then this hexagram 12 is like the moment where, like, that fruit has been hanging on the tree, like waiting to be picked for so long and now it can't hang on anymore and then drops to the ground. And there's this like initiation, a breaking point where, like, the grief happens and I think that that's where, like the, the like energy, around august and that time of year, the like late summer, everything is is happening and like holy shit, like we've got to. We've got to have enough hands to be able to do this together.
Speaker 1:I think that the reason why this felt so emotional to me is because those of you who follow me on in my world I'm pretty open about, like, what my life is like and what's happening in the world, and my husband and I have been living with people for about a year and a half so that we could save up money to buy our dream property and um, and we've been pet sitting for the last four months, um, so that we could save up, and we just bought a condo and we're about to close on our condo, like literally like a week from now, and I'm at this point of like breakage where I I'm like, I'm so ready. I'm like please get us in our own space Immediately. The dogs that we are pet sitting are incredibly difficult. They're elderly and so they have a lot of special care needs, which is important to them, but also it's just a lot. So, like this is just a reminder.
Speaker 1:Like this is why I love talking about this, because I feel like the energy of nature is just reminding me like hey, this is one part of the cycle. Like once we move past this like breakage point which is happening, and I think that part of the reason my husband and I were just noting to each other like hey, like we've been really good about actually one of us falls apart at one time and, like this week, we've both been sort of like on edge and just like like a little bit, just spikier than usual, visual um, and and I think it's because of this like energy that you're describing around the ten of swords of like like we're done, like it's right there and and like there's like a little bit of like a running out of patience that happens around you know hexagram 12 and ten of swords, I'm hearing, and even ten of ones of like like too much form has happened and like this fruit needs to drop now, um is kind of the energy.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I think that you described that really really beautifully yeah, and I think, like it's so hard to be in those moments when you like can't take it another day or another minute sometimes, but they also show us so much about what we need and how, like exquisitely and profoundly we need it. And, yeah, you get to feel that cycle of like. And then the, the release of like. I have keys and the only me and my husband can get in this door and no one else can get in right now, and inside, on the other side of that door, we can do whatever we want. It's all ours.
Speaker 2:So you also like. Life gives us that contrast of like oh, this doesn't work for me for much longer, and then that relief of like okay, yeah, this is what me meeting my needs feels like.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. And just to sort of bring this into context, I wasn't sure I didn't know I was going to talk about this today, but that energy ofation is like exactly what I'm feeling right now. And a couple of days ago I hit like this like breaking point. I feel like I got like if I were to draw tarot cards that day, I might have drawn the Ten of Swords and the Ten of Wands that day, just like, oh, I'm done.
Speaker 1:And the dogs were being a lot and it was just like like when they're a lot, it's like super chaotic in this house. And then it started raining like kind of hard, and like the thing that I do to like self-regulate is like go for a walk and go outside and go do something with my body. And I had this like little kid tantrum moment where I was like like I don't know what to do. And so I sat down like we, we have our own space downstairs here and I just sat down and I was like, okay, like we can't walk outside I know you want to walk outside Like what can we do? And so I'm like I love that these archetypes are sort of coming in. And the high priestess came in. I kind of call her like my wise self and she was like well, you can't walk outside, we have to just sort of accept that. So, like, what can we do?
Speaker 1:And so I drove to the mall, like literally paste the mall, like I didn't go in any of the stores. Actually, I went into the bookstore but I like paste the mall and just like did laps up and down, like I don't think anybody noticed that that's what I was doing, but it was just like what my body needed was to just like move. And so again there's that concept of like okay, I felt like supremely stuck, like I was in this place, of like can't move, full like yin collapse, like freaking out, but like not having anywhere to put that energy. And so then it's like okay, so if that's where you're at, let's bring in some yang Like, how can you bring in yang? And for me, bringing in yang was going to the mall and walking.
Speaker 2:So yeah, good solution. There was a time. I can't do it now, my knees are not healthy, but I was running and like training for a half marathon and it was getting close to the race and I had to. It was like time for me to run like a 10 mile and it was raining. It wasn't raining super heavy, but it was raining and I was. I was on the phone with my friend and I was like I should do this run, but it's like raining and I don't really feel like it. And she was like, uh, running in the rain can be fun, Like it's just fun, Like, and I was like, oh huh, and then I went for a run in the rain and it was amazing. So I'm glad you found the mall, but if it happens again, again, I mean obviously if it's torrential and if you're in a hilly place and all of that. But I was just thinking like sometimes there's an at least there's like some noise outside and you can just scream at the sky. I don't know. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, I think that I I generally am not like pissed off at the rain. Um, I think it was just like another layer of discomfort would have just like solved another problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, solve for another frustration. Yeah, yeah you're like universe, why yeah?
Speaker 1:exactly, um, which I mean. I think that I I partially I want to share this story just because I think it's like a good illustration of like how can you bring in young energy? Or how can you bring in the energy when you know you're feeling this way? But also it's something that actually one of my clients asked me, and she was like Can I ask you if you ever get dysregulated Like, dysregulated like and you know, I think that we have to be real as space holders, that like we are, we are human as well. Guys. Like, like I'm not sitting here on top of like a completely healed mountain, being like oh yeah, I'm in a zen state all the time. Like no, I had a five-year-old temper tantrum this week because it rained and I didn't want to be inside. So, like, I'm curious how you would answer that question of like hey, cecily, like you seem so calm and collected all the time. Is that true?
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, it's not, and part of the reason I was able to draw on that analogy is kind of a similar like situation. I've been um, living more full-time with my boyfriend the last couple months and our homes are very close together but I've like someone else is living in my home now and also part of like the extended family of our community and so, but I'm an only child and I've lived by myself a lot and I had my own house and I have a yard and I had all these birds and this house is great too and my boyfriend's amazing and I love him very much and he also has a 13 year old daughter and usually they go, you know, one week here she's one week with her mom and for a while she was like for the first couple months of this year, she was staying with us full time because her mom needed to take care of some family stuff, and so I just had less of that like solitary space and.
Speaker 2:I don't have children and like I don't, like she's an amazing kid, but I just like I had not lived full time with a teenager for two months before.
Speaker 2:And so I was just like really struggling and also like I don't. It's a different role. It's like dad's girlfriend, but like not step parent, and like mature adult but like and also roommate but like. So it's just like how do I place myself? And like this is all this stuff like I haven't had to think about or, you know, do before, and it's. It was really like I was having very difficult internal struggles trying to figure out like what do I need and how do I ask for that and how do I show up in a good way for him and for his daughter and also give them space and like. It's just like a lot of internal negotiation and also like plenty of space to be like.
Speaker 1:I suck at this and so there's that other layer of just like giving myself a really hard time.
Speaker 2:So I'm not always dysregulated and sorry. Well, I'm not always dysregulated and I'm not always regulated. But it's also one of those things where it's like I think I invite. You know, I definitely invited this into my life and this is a place of growth for me and on some level I'm ready for it, even while I have no like training or like true preparation.
Speaker 1:Um, and so, yeah, it's like how can I hold on to myself and like hold for them too in a way that honors me and honors them, and it's true, lots of feels, yeah, and I think that, like for me, when I am like looking for I want to say practitioners, but like I think, as I'm saying that out loud, it goes beyond that. For me, it's like, if I'm looking for co-collaborators, if I'm looking for friends, if I'm looking for anybody who I want to actually have some sort of emotional intimacy with, I don't want to be in relationship with somebody who denies the fact that they get dysregulated. I don't want to be in relationship with somebody who, like pretends that, like things are all fantastic 100% of the time. You know, you're not a robot, yeah.
Speaker 2:I don't want to be Exactly yeah.
Speaker 1:And so it's like hey, we do this work First for ourselves, I believe, because we deserve to have the most rich, full human experience that you have while you're on this planet. So do this work of flexibly moving between inhale and exhale for yourself. And we also do this work because it allows you to be somebody who is able to be like really real with your life experience. You know, without any sort of like mirrors or like smoke and illusion around, who you are and what you're about. And I think thirdly and this is something that we've touched on earlier in the conversation is like this actually makes you a safer person for the people who choose to be an intimate relationship with you.
Speaker 1:I think about all the people that I asked to hold me and I know that I can lean on that because they've held themselves. To the extent that they've held themselves I don't really want to take my stuff that feels really heavy and, you know, asked to be held by somebody who, like, doesn't have the experience of holding themselves in that capacity, somebody who, like, doesn't have the experience of holding themselves in that capacity, because then it'll turn into this like really sticky and meshed relationship, um, and so, yeah, I I felt like in this conversation of like really fleshing out, like yin and yang, and you know practitioner and client and you know space holder and space receiver, like I think that we as humans are going to sort of flex between all those different roles, and and how do you move between those spaces is an important question to ask.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and this is kind of making me think of like this is no zero shade on therapists, like I have had and we'll have therapists again in my life but just the way it's like therapists go through this formal training and of course they have like a lot of practice training like you know they, you do a lot of hours to become fully trained. But, um, you know, I don't, and I do think the training does ask therapists to look at themselves, like that's part of it too, but it's like the formal training about like what therapy is and the different theories of therapy.
Speaker 2:That's not enough to necessarily like be a good provider for someone, but that inner work and that's kind of why, you know, I created the workbook too. It's like how do we do that and how do we talk to ourselves?
Speaker 2:And and like yeah, like seeing that, like when you have those those feelings, of course you're really in it and it feels very like like you're in this closet just with like all this stuff. But when you can pull back you can also see like I'm learning something here. I'm growing in some way here. My work in this moment is to try to do x or Z with myself and with the others around me and you have like a kind of by like a two part existence where it's like the you that's experiencing and the maybe a little you that's on your shoulder, that's like watching and trying to help and like remind you.
Speaker 2:And then when we go through that, as life hands us that over and over again, it's like we can offer some of what we gleaned from those really difficult those 10 of swords, 10 of one moments um to know with our, with our clients, like here's what I feel like might be happening and here's how I can position myself or create that container and um, maybe that was a little bit of a word salad, sorry, no like.
Speaker 1:I I mean again, no shade on therapy. I've also been through a lot of therapy and, um, I don't know that that's actually the realm. That would be helpful for me in the future. Um, to me there's a really important delineation between what coaches do and what therapists do, and I think therapy is important for when a diagnosis is needed, and I've seen that be such a healing experience for many of my clients where they have received diagnosis and it explains and helps them feel like validated in a lot of the experiences that they've had throughout their life.
Speaker 1:That kind of hasn't made sense for them. For myself, if I went to traditional therapy, I probably would be diagnosed with ADHD. If I went to you know, traditional therapy, I probably would be diagnosed with ADHD and, like I personally don't feel the need to like have that diagnosis to explain what my, what my life is like, and so I don't see that as being a part of my future. But I do know that, having coached several therapists who have turned into coaches, there's this like you were saying this, like formal training, and almost this idea of like you aren't allowed to show up as yourself.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So that the other person can take up more space.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And so I think that in like the context of diagnosis, like that, feels really important to have those boundaries delineated. The reason why I have a lot of therapists who move into coaching I think at this point I have five who have moved into that realm, clients who have done that is because they come to this point in their careers where they're like I want to tell my story. I actually think it would be helpful for people to hear parts of my story so they can see that there's a human on the other side of this. And for a lot of my clients, like, sharing that humanness actually helps them feel less alone in the world, and I think that that's where coaching gets to be.
Speaker 1:Again, I never want to encroach on the therapy world because that's not what my calling is, that's not at all what I feel called to do, and I think that people get really confused about where are the lines between coaching and therapy sometimes.
Speaker 1:And to me, like this is where, like coaching, you are allowed to share parts of your life and I think it actually is helpful and therapeutic and you have to be really impeccable with your boundaries, because in that sharing, how can you then bring that other person, their story alive as well, that other person their story alive as well and hold them like as important and um, and help and have your stories be like a part of like how they see themselves and so um, like again there's that like really beautiful nuance. I see therapy as being a lot more of a young practice, because we need standards, we need structure, we need like identification, and I see coaching as a little bit more of a young practice and like hey, like the lines can get a little bit mushy and we still need to hold really, really important boundaries to create safe spaces.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I just think story is so crucial to healing. And yeah, if you're only delivering a story as like an abstract thing or a story about like Joe or whatever, like it's like an analogy, there's something kind of lost there. But if it's like a story that feels like real life and obviously you know, as coaches, we're not like here to just tell our life stories to our clients like we pull from the right story at the right moment and yeah, then our like people really can.
Speaker 2:It's an example. It's like oh, here's how someone got through this thing. Here's how someone got through this thing. And here's someone else who struggled the same way. I'm struggling right in this moment and here's what the other side of this can look like. Yeah, if I'm willing to, like you know, be with what's here in the moment. So yeah, yeah bringing stories in are just so powerful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think that that concept of like hey, I've been here too, I've been exactly where you've been and I'm here to like walk beside you, is such a powerful tool for healing that we don't really um like. I think it's why the coaching world is growing so much bigger is because we're starting to see the importance of that concept of like, hey, I can walk beside you because I've done this before and you know, just match your steps to my steps, so it's going to be okay. Yeah, Well, my dear, anything else you want to like bring in to the space around all these beautiful concepts that we've all used?
Speaker 2:I guess you know, as this episode is coming out in springtime, I guess that's an invitation for folks to kind of notice. You know, look around at heaven and earth energies around you and imagine how they might be interacting. And you know, hold the magician and the high priestess in mind, like where are they for you? Hold those aces, the swords and the pentacles, like where's your seed, where's your idea? But also where do things feel blocked or stagnant? And just you know. I hope this can be a framework for curiosity as people move through this season.
Speaker 1:If you're finding yourself in hexagram 12, energy, like I am asking yourself, hey, like, do you need a little bit more yin right now, or do you need a little bit more yang to help just change the energy and change the dynamics a little bit? I think would be another sort of curious question to hold.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I can almost see too, like feeling into the body toward whatever feels stagnant or stuck. Does it feel like mud or clay, does it feel like a big boulder? Does it feel, you know, yeah, like what kind of energy feels like it's in there and what energy in nature might help it soften or dissolve or shift a little bit, whether it's like maybe if I sat by a creek, or maybe if I talk to the trees, or you know, let it be sometimes simple, yeah awesome.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much for hanging out with me. I've learned so much. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've learned so much as well, and it's just such a joy to, yeah, investigate and share stories with you same z's um, let's drop.
Speaker 1:just drop in with our uh ways that people can find us, so why don't you go first?
Speaker 2:Cecily, yeah, you can find me at typewritertarotcom and on Instagram at typewritertarot. And if you're listening on Kat's podcast, you can find more about tarot and living a creative and magical life on my podcast, your Creative and Magical Life Love it.
Speaker 1:And if you're listening via Cecily's podcast. My name is Kat Lee and my Instagram handle is kathosulee website kathosuleecom, and I also have a podcast called the Rooted Business Podcast and I hope we get to connect. I love hanging out with people in DMs and I really do read messages, or every single message that I get back, so I'm pretty friendly out there. So come, hang out Very friendly, alrighty. See you next time, cecily. Yes, very friendly, alrighty. See you next time, cecily.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:Look forward to it.