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Glennon Doyle
Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. So I don't think in a very long time have we been in the middle of an episode where we decided right in the middle of it that it was two episodes because it was so full of magic that we could not pack it into one. Today, Pod Squad, first of all, welcome to We Can Do Hard Things. Did I say that?
Abby Wambach
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle
Okay. And welcome again. Do you feel welcomed?
Abby Wambach
I feel very welcomed. Yeah.
Amanda
Okay.
Glennon Doyle
Please make sure. Actually, you don't have to, but you should probably listen to Tuesday's episode that we did with the incredible Sonya Renee Taylor. In that one, she explained to us why astrology is important to her, why she trusts it, what it means in this particular moment in the world. And then she read the charts of me and Abby, which woza.
Amanda
And it made Abby cry. In Abby's chart and in Gwendolyn's chart.
Glennon Doyle
Yes. So today, Pod Squad, we are going to take you into Amanda's chart, which I will say to me, blew me away even more than either of ours. It just felt so wild. We're going to take you now to Sonya reading Amanda's chart. And then as soon as Sonya left, we stayed to process our understanding of what just happened. So this episode will be a time with Sonya and Amanda and then a processing with the three of us about what just happened. And we hope that you enjoy it. One of the things that Sonya said that meant so much to me was that she said that every challenge that we're given, there is a path out right there.
Abby Wambach
Yep.
Glennon Doyle
There's a path of ease out of it.
Amanda
Also in your chart.
Glennon Doyle
Yes.
Amanda
Yeah. For every. For every struggle in your chart, there is a gift of ease that is also in your chart. And aligning those two is your path.
Sonya Renee Taylor
Woo.
Amanda
That one.
Glennon Doyle
That one.
Amanda
I was a non believer before this. Now I'm like, me too.
Glennon Doyle
I was a real me too. I might be believing a little bit. All right, let's see. Pod Squad, let's see if this turns you into a believer as well. Sadhya Renee Taylor.
Sonya Renee Taylor
All right, Amanda. All right, my dear. Oh, you, friend have a fantastic superpower chart full of fantastic things. But we will start with your son. And you are also a son in Aries, just like your sister. Why? Because you all are here to help each other out. If Glennon has a first day of preschool, son, you have a eighth grade, like beginning of eighth grade. Sun.
Glennon Doyle
Okay, maybe that's why you're a little bit bitchy.
Sonya Renee Taylor
You've mastered a little bit of that Aries energy. A bit more Right. A little bit more forcefulness, a little bit more aggression. It's here for it. And so once again, that Aries energy is beginner energy. It is starting from scratch energy. It is self initiation energy. It says, I'm here to do the thing, I'm here to make a thing happen. And it's energy, its vitality, it is life force, it's catalytic, it likes to start a lot of things a lot of times. And this is happening for you in the second house, which is the house of our resources. So I don't know how many jobs you've had in your life, but it would indicate that maybe you've had a lot or that maybe you've begun again a lot. Particularly around resources. It can also be like the place where you come up with the idea to begin the thing. This is how resource can happen. I can drive that. There is a lot of that energy. However, you have a whole lot of other energy we're going to talk about that counters that energy. That can very much sort of like be in a tug of war with that energy. And so, so we'll talk about it in a second. But that Aries sun, once again initiating, beginning something, beginning to understand resource, beginning to understand what you have and can make happen for your security.
Amanda
Is that what resource means?
Sonya Renee Taylor
Part of the question of your chart, part of the learning of your chart is what does resource mean? That is part of what you are here to ask yourself. What do I mean when I say resource? Because we're going to talk about your moon sign. You have a Taurus moon, and Taurus is again the first Earth sign. It is ruled by the planet Venus and it wants comfort, it wants beauty, it wants ease and pleasure. It wants safety and security. It wants a slowness. Now that's counter to that Aries sun, that wants a fastness. But the moon says inside, I need that process to be slow. So what can happen, I imagine, is that things may look like they happen quickly outside, but you've been stewing in it for a long, long, long, long time before it comes into being. Because Taurus energy is fixed energy, it doesn't change easy. It doesn't enjoy moving until it wants to move. It's a very comfortable ox, chilling wherever it is. Now you have some complications around. This is one happening in the third house, which is the house of communication. The other piece about Aries that's really important is Aries is also the energy of anger. It is here to channel our frustration and our anger. But if you have placements that Are not prone to feeling angry, not prone to letting yourself be fully self expressed, then it can be difficult to access what Aries is trying to get you to feel, which might be righteous rage, right? And so that Taurus moon can be afraid to disrupt its comfort. Now what's happening for you is you have Chiron sitting two degrees away from your moon. Chiron is our wounded healer. Chiron in mythology was born to a mortal mother and a father who was a God. Abandoned by both, sent to live with the centaurs who are the Sagittariuses. Wounded in a game with the Centaurs because Sagittariuses play too much and wounded in a way that would have been fatal if not for the fact that Chiron was half God so he couldn't die, but because he was half human, he could feel pain. And so he had to learn to live with this insufferable, this extreme, debilitating pain for the entirety of his existence. But what Chiron did was learn how to work with this wound in such a way that he became an incredible healer, A healer of the ages. Developed so many salves and tinctures and balms that went on to heal many other people through the efforts of learning to work with his own wound. And so Chiron represents where this tenderness exists in us. But when we learn to work with it, it becomes a profound gift for others. It becomes the way in which we offer help to others. And so Chiron represents where we feel insecurity and uncertainty and instability in our lives. And so this Chiron is sitting next to your moon that wants nothing but comfort, that wants nothing but soothing, that wants nothing but sweetness. And then the part of you that says, I don't believe it, I can't trust it, no, it's not safe, I don't believe it. It's actually the part of you that even slows down that process even more because it doesn't trust it. So when change does come, when something wants to start new, when something is coming up that is intense and deep and about you comes up, there is a part of you that says, I am not sure. I trust that. I don't trust my own inner safety and security. I don't trust that I can be fully self expressed. There's a story of disconnection. If I do that, then I will lose this.
Glennon Doyle
Right?
Sonya Renee Taylor
And so part of what you're here to do is to learn how to move to a higher octave of your own personal understanding. And that's coming through your rising sign, which is in Pisces. Pisces is one of those duality placements. Remember Gemini, the twins. Pisces is the two fish. It's the last water sign of the cycle. And it is where things return to the void. It is where we surrender back to collective consciousness. The way that I describe it is, it is the ocean and the drop of water, and the drop of water in the ocean. You can't extract them, right? They are one thing, but they are two forms. And this is what is so important about this duality placement of Pisces, these two fish. One fish is collective consciousness. It is the you that is connected to everything, which means it's the you that absorbs into everything. It's the you that is connected to every other person's emotional field, every other energetic field. And you have so much energy in this place in your chart. You've got five placements happening in this chart in Pisces, all just hanging out. And so your ability to merge with everything is a very strong ability. You can merge with all of life. And when I see a rising sign next to, in your case, a south node, right? And south node, remember, is that energy that is leaving. It's the energy we're over reliant on. It says one of these fish has done a lot and one of these fish is under moved. One of these fish needs to swim. All this energy to me says your collective consciousness fish is great. It has taken its journey. You know how to be with the other you. You know how to merge with the other. You know how to escape into the other. That is a key. Oh, I'm sorry, that is a key word. That's a key word for Pisces. And it's more human energies is escape into the other. Let me not be seen. Let me hide behind. Let me be. Let me dissolve in the background and. And put the other energy forward. However, the other fish is the individual. When both fish make their full journey, they land at Pisces opposite sign, Virgo. And remember what Virgo is. A whole human. A whole sovereign human. Both fish have to go. The fish that understands its role in the collective, it understands and feels everyone. It is merged with source. And the fish who understands that it came here to be an individual, to have its own separate, distinct journey from everyone else. It understands that we can be both individuals and belong to everything. And that the illusion is that those are two separate things. And so you are here to take that higher that that ascendant version of Pisces. That rising sign says the other fish is Time to swim. The fish that knows what it wants, that trusts that it can feel good in itself, that trust that. That it can be moved by its own comfort and desires and then move from that place, take action from its internal source of enoughness. Taurus is a great sign about enoughness. It's the bounty and abundance of life. But the bounty and abundance of life is both inside of our relationship with the collective and also inside of us. Both fish have to go, and your individual fish is needing to take its journey. And that's your sun and your moon and your rising.
Amanda
Wow.
Glennon Doyle
Why are you saying wow?
Amanda
That last bit feels like, I get it. When you were like, the collective and the power and you can feel things and your purpose is to fold in and be one amoeba body that go. I'm like, yes, that's correct.
Glennon Doyle
This is the way.
Amanda
I love it.
Sonya Renee Taylor
I love it.
Glennon Doyle
Nailing it.
Amanda
It's funny when you say, because I'm like. My immediate instinct is like, I can't wait to, like, sit and think about that for a long time and marinate on it. And that's my little ram. That's like, we'll just sit here for six years and think about that.
Sonya Renee Taylor
We'll just sit just as comfortable.
Abby Wambach
Ponder.
Sonya Renee Taylor
We're gonna ponder right here comfortably.
Amanda
But then what's so interesting is that when you're talking about the moon of the Taurus and ease and comfort and whatever, I'm like, I don't know what those things are, right?
Sonya Renee Taylor
Because your Chiron says that's not true. Chiron says, not possible. Your moon is like, I deeply desire it. And Chiron's I can't have it. And the work is to be like, whoa, what is the story I'm telling myself that makes me believe I can? That's the resource. Remember I said your chart is asking, what is the resource?
Abby Wambach
Right.
Sonya Renee Taylor
What do I mean when I say resource? Resource is the belief that comfort and ease is available to you, that actually you can have it, but you would have to decide that you were want it. And sometimes what you want will be different than what the amoeba body wants. And sometimes you gotta choose you, because you too are the resource. Your will, your desire is also the resource. It is also the essential aspect of the whole.
Amanda
I was just in therapy last week. We were doing a bunch of parts work. We were trying to figure out, like, this connection between this thing that keeps happening. Like what, like little kid me and like what the messages and the message of the story was we, meaning me little and me Big. We don't get that. We don't get to have that. Which was this idea of comfort and security and surrender. And that was the line. We don't get that. Yeah, that's not for us.
Sonya Renee Taylor
So what's interesting, in your chart, you have what is called a stellium. And a stellium is when we have three or more placements or planets in the same sign or house. And so like I said, you have five happening here, and this is happening in the first house. It's your sense of self, your sense of identity.
Abby Wambach
Right.
Sonya Renee Taylor
Very overcompensated in this area of the other. The other side of this, right, is Virgo. This your whole journey. So your north node, where your soul is going. Inside of this is this story of your whole sovereign self. Right? That's where you're going is sovereignty. 7th House in relationship, sovereign in relationship. That's where your soul is going. That feels difficult because you have this Saturn. Remember, Saturn is our restrictions. Restrictions, constrictions, boundaries. I don't get to have that until you figure out the work it's asking you to do. And Saturn says retrograde. If you see there's a little R there, that means that when Saturn was in this placement, when you were born, it was in retrograde. Retrograde, meaning that there is something that you are being asked to look back at, something you are being asked to review, reflect, reorient, to reinterpret all of those rewords. Reinterpret your work. Saturn is work. Virgo is sovereignty. Reinterpret your work through a different lens. And the third house, where this Chiron and your moon are, is governed by Gemini. You know what Gemini is? The storyteller. Gemini comes up with all the ideas, with all the stories you get to reinterpret. You need to tell a different story. Reinterpret the story of what you get to have. Reinterpret the story of your work such that it includes your pleasure, your peace, your ease, your joy. Now, why is this difficult for you? Because you have the same thing Abby has, which is a little 1 degree Venus in the first house. Hello, preschool class. You are the cutest. I love that you are such a preschool class that you started a whole podcast for your class so that y' all can do this together. It's the cutest thing in the world. It's adorbs where each of you get to practice learning how to do these new things that you are very here and very new to do. Brand new blessings that you all get to support each Other in. And now that all three of you have very clear language about what it is you're supporting each other in, first of all, you've been doing it already because we're living our charts. Whether we consciously are living them or not. The energy is always moving us toward our evolution. And so this is why you've been moving in the ways you've been moving. This is why you said we can do hard things. Because you're like, this is very hard. These are very hard new lessons. We're all doing these hard things, but we can do them, you know, And. And each of you has these beautiful placements of togetherness, right? You each have these Pisces placements, and you have this work of the collective that is inside of you. And you each have these individual new lessons that you are here to initiate and live into. And you're here to be each other's teammates, right? To really support one another in the journey. Wow.
Glennon Doyle
Everything that you've said is exactly what each of us is spinning around. Amanda, can you talk a little bit about how you're feeling right now and what you got from that or what's happening inside of you?
Amanda
It's wild how, like on the nose, it's wild. The idea of resource, the idea of, do you exist separate from the collective? Should you even exist separate from the collective? Like, is that a beautiful thing or is that an escape route? The idea of thinking that I don't get to have certain things, like, just certain things aren't for me, like, I can see that they're great and I can appreciate them and I can even, like, in my wildest little thoughts, imagine them. But just knowing, like looking inside a window of a store, that you just can't go in there and get it, all of that stuff feels really right. It feels like impossible to get. But at the same time, knowing that, it's like a self imposed prison at the same time.
Abby Wambach
Yeah.
Amanda
But not knowing how to do that and the sovereignty and in relationship really resonates with me so much. I'm trying to think in my head, is that about marriage? Is that about you and me, Glennon? Because I don't know how to exist without feeling like, well, what is it about, Glennon? Or is it my kids? Or is it all of it?
Sonya Renee Taylor
You know, the key thing that I want to sort of hone in on is that part of that, those placements in duality is that they keep in our minds returning us to the story of either or. That it's this or it's that right? So we keep going back to like, is it this? Is it that? And what all of it is asking us to do is say that it is the whole, right? The idea that your individual journey is somehow separate from the journey of the collective is the story that your soul is asking you to rewrite. There is no separation. This thing that you want for the world, you cannot say, I want food and nourishment and peace and comfort for the people of Gaza, and then say, but I don't get it, because you are them and they are you. There is no separation. And so if it is unavailable to you, you become part of the constricted energy that makes it unavailable to them. And so part of this work that we are doing in transforming the world is saying, can I be the energetic embodiment of that which I desire to see come into being for all beings? If it comes into being for all beings but me, then it didn't come into being. And so you, each thing that you want for the other, you must want for you. It is an essential part of the work. And I know that all y' all got these good Virgo placement work things, so see it as part of the divine work is that you are the energetic imprint. You are the one of the many cells that must come into its full light for a thing to be born, right? And if you have decided that your cell can't have the thing, then you have one less possibility in life for that thing to be birthed. The other thing I wanted to say, right, I know it felt big and intense and I just gave you three planets in your charts, and you saw how many planets are in your charts. So there's a full story there. There is no energy of challenge in our charts where there is not a pathway towards its ease. We are not here to suffer. We are here to come in alignment. And so in a full reading, which usually my readings are like 90 minutes, you get all of that.
Abby Wambach
I need a 90 minute session.
Amanda
I'm just saying, how do people do that? I mean, asking for a friend. But if someone's listening and they want to go to your Instagram page, go to your website.
Sonya Renee Taylor
I would say that people can email me sonyarenae, any renetaylor and say I'm interested in a reading and then I will get back to them with the link where they can book directly.
Glennon Doyle
Can you say one more time? The thing you said about the suffering being the difference between what was that? Do you remember?
Sonya Renee Taylor
So here is our souls and here is our personalities and the Space in between is called suffering. And the goal of our evolutionary journey on this planet, both inside of ourselves and in the collective, is to reduce suffering. And the way we do that is by becoming in alignment with our souls.
Glennon Doyle
So if one is trying to reduce suffering, if one is constantly believing that their soul's mission is to reduce suffering, and so one is going out every day and trying to reduce suffering before they make sure that they're not in alignment, it's perhaps a little.
Sonya Renee Taylor
You're probably not. Well, here's we know you're not reducing suffering because you haven't reduced yours. Think this is the place where I love how astrology takes me back to the work of radical self love. That we cannot build externally that which we have not built internally, that that which we desire to see in the world. We must first be the template of we must be. And we are not building separately. We are building, you know, concurrently. We are building alongside each other. But every tool I develop in maze and becomes the master tool for what I use out in the world.
Glennon Doyle
Okay, well, I'm gonna go take a nap because it's nap time and then I'm gonna finger paint.
Sonya Renee Taylor
Yes, these are the exact activities for the remainder of the day. Perfect.
Glennon Doyle
Sonya, Renee, Taylor, I freaking love you.
Sonya Renee Taylor
I love you all so much.
Glennon Doyle
Magic. Thank you so much for this time and this offering.
Sonya Renee Taylor
It's always a joy to get to be with you all. It's always a joy to get to be with your community. And yeah, thank you for having. Thank you for like being my my debut super public astrology activity.
Glennon Doyle
And now it's time to thank the companies who allow you to listen to we can do hard things for free.
Amanda
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Glennon Doyle
All right, we just had that experience with Sonya and I just really wanted the three of us to get back together with our sweet pod squad and I would like to just talk about what is coming up as specifically as possible in relation to what's going on in our lives. Let's ground it in real life and everyone just Share what they heard Sonia saying to them about their real lives.
Abby Wambach
One of the things that I was really taken aback by, well, many. There was just so many things she was saying that I'm like currently dealing with in my, my life right this second. I've worked really hard in my life and have been driven towards. We've been talking a lot about like relevance and how in my deepest need for self worthiness, I thought that getting outside relevance and also outside praise, whether it's from the world or like the people closest to me is the thing that would stabilize me in my life, is the thing that would bring me meaning or path, purpose, love at the end of it. And I've been so wired to believe that if I'm doing something on a grand scale that can be measured by metrics of goals or downloads and social media followers, you name it, any kind of metric that is suited part of my personality for a long time and I think I am coming to the end of it suiting me at the root of it all. It's the question and trying to answer the definition of like, what is enough? We were talking with our son last night and I just was like in my last breath, I want the people in my life to know that I love them. And it's shocking to me that it was more about what other people thought, the way that I felt about them in this conversation. It's like, what were other people's experiences of me more than what was my experience of them? I don't know what that really means. I think I'm having like some sort of paradigm shift around what enough is around the way that I organize my life, what I value, like the value that I've put on this externalized self and how I measure that and what is important to me. Like what is really important to me and why. Maybe part of my soul or self needed to have the strength and the ability to always be like, no, no, like you. You have done good. You don't need to keep doing so much.
Glennon Doyle
You're thinking about reevaluating the metrics through which you make decisions and find your worthiness. And maybe it's not a bunch of outer accolades or numbers or metrics. Maybe it's something else.
Abby Wambach
You said something to me yesterday that I can't stop thinking about and I'm curious more about it right now. Like what is my resistance to what you say around can this be enough? Like without thinking about needing to acquire anything else, can we live in the fullness and the enoughness of the now and the. What we have. And there's something in my body that is like, what I know it's so upsetting to you because I've oriented my whole life around dreaming bigger things, of thinking that there's something bigger, better out there that I can be participating in or try. And it is a really good avoidance tactic to not love myself if I'm always searching out there for something else. It's this really great avoidance thing. So, yeah, all of this was really meaningful. All of this was really, really important for this particular moment in my life.
Amanda
Abby, when you're talking about inability to even comprehend the idea that you would just be able to be satisfied with whatever is, how does that relate to what Sonya was saying about your work being mothering yourself? Like, what is that relationship about the mothering piece with the not even being able to comprehend this is good enough.
Abby Wambach
I think that the need to mother myself has always been there and I have externalized all of the need to soothe myself, whether it be Glennon or booze or sports or whatever.
Glennon Doyle
The next plan, the next dream.
Abby Wambach
Yeah, the next dopamine hit. I think that that is all tied up with the enoughness component of what I'm, like, really thinking a lot about right now in my personal life and that maybe the enoughness is in me and maybe I just need to focus on myself and the mothering of me, my own spirit, and to learn, like, once and for all. It feels like this might and could be like the final frontier or something for me that if I just really did buy into this idea of love, being myself through the mothering of myself, because I love my people so much in a lot of ways because of the mothering that. Like that taking care of instinct.
Glennon Doyle
One of the direct correlations, and I'll reference the conversation we were having yesterday was Abby was talking about something she might like to do in her life with her time that was not directly tied to building or money or success or something, she was circling around this idea, like, could I do that thing? Even if it doesn't have the quote unquote value? We usually make decisions around work. And so that led to me saying, I think so. I think we could change all the metrics that we use to decide how we spend our energy and time in love. Could we. If we're going to change that metric, could we circle around the idea that we don't need to want anything more, though maybe in order to say enough to hustle to building to all that mentality that might be tied to looking at what we have right now and looking at our life and looking at each other and saying, can this be enough? Do we have to make up another. Yet another goalpost to move? I feel suspicious. And this is something that we spin around a lot of the word dream. I don't understand what that means. Like, we have a kind of a push and pull where Abby's a dreamer and that sometimes means something else. It means something other than what is going on right now. To me, that's just how I experience it.
Amanda
Like, I will be happy when.
Glennon Doyle
Yes, like there's another dream, there's another. Whatever the way that I see things is. I am suspicious of that because I have around me every single thing that I have ever even considered dreaming of in terms of, like, relationship and life. And so the idea that maybe this isn't even enough and there has to be something else scares me. Then do we just make up shit? We continue to trade life energy and time and whatever for these horizon things. Then we're gonna get there, and wherever you go, there you are. So then is it gonna be another thing?
Amanda
You can't get enough of what you never really need. So if you never needed it to begin with, is it just. It's gonna be one dream and then another dream and then another dream. Is it a dream or is it a distraction?
Glennon Doyle
And I love that part of Abby too, though. So it's like there's not a right or wrong or good and bad.
Abby Wambach
When I have my dreams of life. I think that what I'm really saying is I want more peace because I have. I have a certain dream for our future. And what I'm saying is, like, it's not about the thing or the place or whatever. It's about the feeling.
Glennon Doyle
Exactly.
Abby Wambach
And so that really hit me yesterday that, like. Oh, yeah. If I can't actually feel the feeling now, then I have to reorient my life in order to feel the feeling before I do any kind of acquiring of material thing. The material thing is not going to give me the feeling.
Glennon Doyle
Exactly. It's like how we cut out the middleman. Whatever the thing is, what does it represent that we could give ourselves now that is not tied to trading more bullshit. It's like cutting out the path that we're telling ourselves we have to do to get that thing. When actually, what does it symbolize? It symbolizes. Can we just find a way to do it now? But that requires enoughness. And somehow this is all tied to everything going on in the world.
Abby Wambach
It's just. It's like capitalism. The lie of what I've been told about what retirement is. And like, what does that mean? Especially because I went through it 10 years ago after soccer. Like, it's just everything is like, very confusing. And I guess this is what I'm trying, trying to say is I don't know how to have peace without having had a goal to achieve it. Right. Like, I've always set myself up with these metrics or these goals, and I'm very stubborn and I will go for years in order to get the thing.
Amanda
Yeah, that was your tool for that. So, of course, if that's the tool that has always brought you the thing, you always go back to the tool that worked. And so this is different. You know, I'm thinking as you guys are talking, I'm thinking of the Audre Lorde quote. Look closely at the present you are constructing. It should look a lot like the future you are dreaming. That makes sense, right? Because there's never a future that arrives unless it is a present that you are constructing to arrive there.
Glennon Doyle
That's right.
Amanda
I've been trying to think about that lately with little micro decisions. Even last night, it was very contrary to my muscle memory. When you wrote last night and there was someone we were trying to get a meeting with and it was like 7:30 our time, you were like, she said she could jump on now. You know, I was in the middle of doing math with Bobby. A hundred other times out of a hundred times, I would have been like, okay, we gotta regroup. I'm leaving this. I'm gonna go jump on that call. And I had to physically restrain myself to write to you because of that quote, Because I was like, I don't want to live forever jumping off of things that I am doing to have meetings that I have constructed to believe there are emergencies, because they're not. So I had to be like, can't do it now. Let's see if she can do it tomorrow. That was because of that quote. Because I'm like, if I don't start now, it never arrives.
Glennon Doyle
That's right.
Abby Wambach
Good job.
Glennon Doyle
I recognize that in the moment, I felt like it was what it was, a mini version of the Ben Affleck thing where he's like in Good Will Hunting where he's like, I hope one day I'm going to come here and you're not going to be in this house. That's how I felt in that moment. I was like, ah, interesting. Different step in the dance.
Amanda
Yeah, yeah.
Glennon Doyle
Speaking of, what are you personally in your own life. Taking from what Sonia just said, first.
Amanda
Of all, just wild. Whether you believe astrology or not, that was a really wild fucking experience to have someone who doesn't know what has been going on very closely, intimately, in conversations, to call out word for word, what you need to work on. And it also feels, I think, very liberatory in a way, because it's like, we think we're all these, like, enigmas and who could ever figure us out? And I'm just like, this complicated mess. She's like, not really at all. I can tell you right now by looking at a piece of paper. And that feels actually very cozy and nice. There were several things that she said, but there feels a sadness and a relief about what she was saying about the moon, about what is supposed to be my moon. What is my moon is joy and comfort and beauty and ease. And then this chiron that keeps me believing that I could never have access to it. So that rings true really closely in my life. It's kind of like. Feels as tormenting as it sounds to be looking in the window and never be able to go in because you don't think you get to. What's so weird. And this might make no sense at all, but how obsessed I am with thrifting things. And I was thinking about a coat that I wore to Liz Gilbert's event that happened on Sunday. And I was just thinking about that coat. I got it at a thrift store. It was this, like, silk gold coat. And I was thinking, when did I get that? Okay, that's when I was traveling by myself, trying to. And I calculated it. It was 26 years ago that I got that coat. And then I was like, huh, Is that the first time I've worn that coat? And I was like, yeah.
Sonya Renee Taylor
That'S the.
Amanda
First time I've worn that coat.
Glennon Doyle
Okay.
Amanda
And here's the thing. It was just an observation. It wasn't like. But I think that coat is so beautiful that I just wanted to have never occurred to me that it was weird that for 26 years and seven moves, I have moved that coat from place to place, having never worn it because just because it's beautiful and I love it. And I was thinking, that's really funny about me. And then here to hear this today, maybe I just love beautiful things. And maybe he's essential, something that I could have if just. I re. I told a different story if just. I changed my idea of Resource. Because when she said, your son is in the house of Resource, I thought, oh, Resource is Money. I thought, that's weird that my son is in the house of money. Then when she was saying, no, your job is to figure out what resource is. And it was like, oh, wait, that's really interesting.
Glennon Doyle
What does that mean? Your job is to figure out what resource means? Or what did that mean to you? Like, your job is to figure out from where your energy comes or from where. What does that mean to you?
Amanda
To me, when I think about what resources, of course, my instinct was money, but when you think about what actually resources. We have four sets of resources in our lives that I can think about right now. We have money and material resources. We have health, we have time, and we have relationship. This goes to Abby conversation. Like, if you think resources, money, then you're going to spend your time, your health, and your relationships making it. If you think your resource is health, you're going to spend your time, your money, and your relationships building your health. So deciding what resources seems to be a super fucking important thing, because then you decide what is the most important resources. And maybe that changes over time. Maybe sometime in certain periods of your life, it's like, I actually am gonna spend my health and my time building my material resources. If you decide that one resource is one resource for your whole life, what could be the definition of stupidity? More than that?
Glennon Doyle
That's right.
Amanda
There is a certain point where you have to balance your resources and say, what do I actually value more? And what resources do I have that I can use to build the one that I value more? I think that's what she's asking me to do, which is to say, what are your resources, what do you value? And what do you have a story of scarcity around that is not allowing you to, to make a more wise.
Abby Wambach
Decision or just be in connection with the other things that you do value. Because sometimes we prioritize, let's say it's the resource of money and material things. A lot of us, myself included, prioritize this a lot of our life. And so what it does is it deprioritizes all of these other things.
Glennon Doyle
Yeah.
Amanda
And not only deprioritizes, you spend, you use them. You deplete those resources. By definition, it's not just devaluing. You deplete your health, you exhaust your time and you tax your relationships to build your wealth. Maybe you don't. Maybe there's a perfect plane in which you don't have to do that, but you're gonna have to get honest with yourself about the costs of some resources to build others. And then there's a certain point in your life where that resource rebalancing probably needs to be constantly happening.
Abby Wambach
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle
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Abby Wambach
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Amanda
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Glennon Doyle
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Amanda
It's also the Audre Lorde thing, you know, Take a close look at the life you are constructing. It should look a lot like the life you are dreaming. Like, take a close look at the world that you are constructing. It should look a lot like the world you're dreaming for everyone. Like that makes sense. I don't know if she said anything as directly as she said, you need to reevaluate your work.
Glennon Doyle
Wow, that was something.
Amanda
That was, that was like when Santa's like, I'm Gonna give you a yellow and black polka dotted trade. You can't fuck around with that. Like, you better get a yellow polka dotted trade. Like that wasn't like something you love. I was like, what does that mean.
Glennon Doyle
To you in this moment? What are you thinking?
Amanda
You know, when she said that about rethinking work, what came was just a flood of recognition of what I have always believed about the moonshine. Like, I don't get to do something and do it as work that doesn't feel hard, that doesn't exhaust me, that doesn't require doing what is good for everyone. That binary that she was talking about, if it's work, it's gotta look like this. And just being like, is there a world in which work has ease? Have I been part of creating a ethos of work that requires suffering? Because it's what I thought I required. That stuff was crazy, what she was saying about the fish going and about that fish of individuality needs to go.
Glennon Doyle
You've always said that you have a hard time determining what you want. That has been a theme. You have a hard time. Your default is what is needed. What can I perceive that is needed from the collective? And I'll do that. But being still, however people find what they want, what they whatever, that is not something that you are either trained in or familiar with. Is that fair?
Amanda
When she was talking about that, that rang totally true. When a situation comes up, it is very hard for me to ident what do I want? Or I prefer here. Like, I see it as like an ecosystem whole of what is on balance best and what is required. It's not like, oh, I really want the pancakes, but everyone wants waffles. I'm like, the answer is X. That's what this situation is calling for, is X. And I don't really know my way through that. And so I think that is a lot of what she was saying. And it makes total sense now. It's not like a failure. It's like my other little fish, which is a very good fish, it's very helpful and very valuable. Has just been doing all the swimming.
Glennon Doyle
Because to me, resource is that other fish. To me, resource is not money, time, energy, health. Resource is that thing inside of you that for me is connected to divine, to God, to whatever that is. Constantly saying, this, this, this, not this, this, not this, this. And fine, go around and fuck with the not this, I see you. And then you'll break down soon, then we'll come back to this. Resource is like a connection to something that is Always guiding or pushing or insisting. And then those other things are how you disperse the resource. I just wonder about that because I don't actually believe that you don't have that. That you don't have the internal thing that will pop up and say this or not this. It just doesn't make any sense. And I think that's what Sonya was saying too.
Amanda
I don't agree with that. I don't think that she was saying that. I think she was saying it is my work to find that just because it's super strong in you doesn't mean that it isn't true that it is super quiet in others. I think she's saying that, like a lot of people have that strong as a natural thing. And a lot of people's journey is to find it, and it is mine and it's real. That is my journey to the integrated essential where, like both fishes come up on top and you're one person. I think that's my journey. I don't think that I'm denying it. And just to advocate for those of us who don't.
Glennon Doyle
No, I wasn't saying that. What I was saying was I don't think it's true that you don't have it. I think everybody has both. Everybody has an easier time with one than the other. We're all completely divine and we're all completely human. And maybe some of us just our comfort zones are in different spots.
Amanda
Yeah, I think maybe it's like a capacity and a practice. I think it could be that those things aren't currently active for some of us because we haven't exercised them. But I agree with you that, like, that is that practice and the work on it. What she's saying with the work is what would probably reveal and make it accessible.
Glennon Doyle
Yeah. I just wondered if there was something there. Sometimes for me, when I need to hear more loudly from something, I have to take other things away. It's easier for me to turn towards. If being surrounded by collective needs might make it harder for you to practice hearing from the individual resource, Sometimes if you want to hear something, you have to really harshly quiet other things. The whole coat thing is so fascinating to me because that to me is just the most beautiful metaphor. You can identify the coat, you know, where the thrift store is. You can see the most beautiful coat. You can buy the most beautiful coat. You can have the most beautiful coat and you can put it in your closet and think you never deserve to put it on. There is no occasion with which to put it. On is what I was kind of hearing Sonya say, both of you back and forth, which is like, I'm looking in the window. I just can't have that stuff. I see the rest and the ease and the pleasure in my closet. I just don't put it on.
Amanda
Yeah, it's so interesting. I totally see it that way. And then I also see it a completely other way. I was like, huh, that's just delightful about me that, like, I. I have had no shame about not wearing the coat. I have no, like, oh, my God, I can't believe you've been hauling that around for 25 years. I'm like, every time put it in my closet, I'm like, God, I love that coat. Gives me joy. Just, I want the coat just because I love the coat.
Glennon Doyle
Oh, that's amazing. Okay.
Amanda
You know how, like, some people go on vacation and it feels like they went on vacation in order to post pictures of their vacation? Like, if you told them they couldn't post pictures of the vacation, they would have just been like, the vacation. I don't even to go there. Like, it feels like the opposite with me in the coat.
Glennon Doyle
Oh, my God, that's so funny.
Amanda
I just value this. It was. We're talking about, like, I probably spent $16 on it. Like, but the. It just has inherent value of beauty.
Glennon Doyle
Well, that was incredible and obviously hit us really hard. I do feel like we just have a lot of processing and thinking through what just happened to us.
Abby Wambach
Agreed.
Glennon Doyle
Pod Squad. Thank you for hanging in there with us and let us know what you think. I have a feeling that the Pod Squad is going to be able to see what just happened to us much more clearly than we are able to see. So tell us what you think. We love you, Pod Squad. Let us all reduce to our greatest extent possible suffering others and our own. Love you. Bye. We Can Do Hard Things is an independent production podcast brought to you by Treat Media. Treat Media makes art for humans who want to stay human. And you can follow us. We can do hard Things on Instagram and we can do hard things show on TikTok.
In this powerful and deeply personal episode, Glennon, Abby, and Amanda—joined by writer, activist, and astrologer Sonya Renee Taylor—explore astrology as a framework for self-discovery, healing, and collective transformation. The episode centers on Sonya reading Amanda Doyle’s astrological chart, sparking profound reflections on resource, worthiness, individuality, and the tension between collective belonging and personal sovereignty. The conversation moves fluidly from chart interpretation to honest group processing about what it means to feel "enough" and the ongoing work of aligning one’s life to reduce suffering—both personal and global.
Notable quote (Glennon, 01:57):
“I was a non believer before this. Now I'm like, me too.”
Sonya, 02:41:
“You have a fantastic superpower chart full of fantastic things. [...] That Aries energy is beginner energy. It is self initiation energy.”
Moon in Taurus (Third House):
Chiron (Wounded Healer) Conjunct Moon:
Sonya, 08:28:
“Chiron is sitting next to your moon that wants nothing but comfort, […] and then the part of you that says, I don't believe it, I can't trust it, no, it's not safe, I don't believe it.”
Sonya, 08:50:
“This is what is so important about this duality placement of Pisces, these two fish. One fish is collective consciousness. […] The other fish is the individual.”
Overcompensations:
Saturn Retrograde in the Seventh House:
Venus in the First House (at 1 degree):
Amanda’s Immediate Reaction:
Amanda, 19:33:
“It feels like impossible to get. But at the same time, knowing that, it's like a self imposed prison at the same time.”
Sonya’s Core Teaching:
The recurring theme of dualistic thinking (either/or); Amanda’s soul work is to recognize that her individual journey is not separate from the collective.
“There is no energy of challenge in our charts where there is not a pathway towards its ease. We are not here to suffer. We are here to come in alignment.” (Sonya, 22:53)
Sonya explains suffering as the gap between soul and personality—the work is to align the two.
Sonya, 23:56:
“So here is our souls and here is our personalities and the space in between is called suffering. And the goal of our evolutionary journey on this planet, both inside of ourselves and in the collective, is to reduce suffering. And the way we do that is by becoming in alignment with our souls.”
Abby, 34:10:
“Yeah, the next dopamine hit. I think that that is all tied up with the enoughness component… maybe the enoughness is in me and maybe I just need to focus on myself and the mothering of me, my own spirit.”
Glennon, 37:53:
“Whatever the thing is, what does it represent that we could give ourselves now that is not tied to trading more bullshit.”
Amanda, 44:09:
“We have four sets of resources in our lives... Money and material resources, health, time, and relationship. This goes to Abby conversation. Like, if you think resources, money, then you're going to spend your time, your health, and your relationships making it. [...] So deciding what resources seems to be a super fucking important thing, because then you decide what is the most important resource.”
Amanda, 42:49:
“That’s the first time I've worn that coat. [...] Maybe I just love beautiful things. And maybe [ease is] something that I could have if just. I re. I told a different story if just. I changed my idea of Resource.”
“For every struggle in your chart, there is a gift of ease that is also in your chart. And aligning those two is your path.”
— Amanda, summarizing Sonya, (01:40)
“Chiron represents where we feel insecurity and uncertainty and instability in our lives. [...] But when we learn to work with it, it becomes a profound gift for others.”
— Sonya Renee Taylor (07:30)
“We cannot build externally that which we have not built internally, that which we desire to see in the world. We must first be the template of.”
— Sonya Renee Taylor (24:44)
“There’s a full story there. There is no energy of challenge in our charts where there is not a pathway towards its ease. We are not here to suffer. We are here to come in alignment.”
— Sonya Renee Taylor (22:53)
“Look closely at the present you are constructing. It should look a lot like the future you are dreaming.”
— Audre Lorde, quoted by Amanda (39:25)
“How do I reorder everything in my life? So I am not recreating that bullshit. So I am living in a different way than what I'm seeing and criticizing. It's like man in the mirror shit.”
— Glennon (51:41)
Even for skeptics, the intimate exploration of astrology in this episode serves as a springboard for contemplating how we define resource, sufficiency, and our relationship to self and community. It encourages us to look at our own patterns—astrological or otherwise—and ask not only what wounds we carry, but what paths of ease and sovereignty are waiting for us to claim, both for ourselves and for the world we hope to create.