What Your Sign Says About How You Love: Chani Nicholas
September 8, 2022
Glennon Doyle:
Well, hello world.
Abby Wambach:
World.
Glennon Doyle:
World.
Abby Wambach:
The whole world.
Glennon Doyle:
Welcome to We Can Do Hard Things.
Abby Wambach:
And the stars.
Glennon Doyle:
Today, my yoga instructor-
Amanda Doyle:
The planets. Planets.
Glennon Doyle:
… said this. We were in Savasana, which is this nap you take at the end of yoga, which is the best.
Abby Wambach:
Did you say Shavasanon?
Glennon Doyle:
Listen, I don’t care. All right. It’s just a long word and it’s a nap.
Abby Wambach:
I think she said Shavasanon.
Glennon Doyle:
And you take a nap. That’s what they should do the whole time. And everyone would go to yoga, but it’s just at the end. And my instructor said, “We can do hard things, but we don’t have to be hard while we do them.”
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, look at that.
Abby Wambach:
Oh, she one upped you.
Glennon Doyle:
I know. So anyway, today is super, super exciting. Here’s the deal. We at this podcast are astrologically curious.
Abby Wambach:
Yes, we are.
Glennon Doyle:
Right? We would call ourselves astrologically curious. We also are all… Well, maybe you’re not skeptical. You’re not a skeptic, Abby.
Abby Wambach:
About?
Glennon Doyle:
I would say sister and I… Everything.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah.
Abby Wambach:
I believe in most things.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. She believes in most things she just said. Okay. So there you have it.
Amanda Doyle:
If you believe in it-
Amanda Doyle:
Including ghosts.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, she does. All the things. I believe in everything a teeny bit and nothing all the way. That’s my rule after coming from some fundamentalist shit in my life. Also, when it comes to astrology I’ve always had this teeny, teeny bias that it’s woo woo and not gritty. It’s all about self discovery and not about the world. It’s all about self and not others. Then all of these people in my life started saying, “I hear that you must look into this woman, Chani Nicholas. She’s going to fix your problem with astrology.”
Glennon Doyle:
We have Chani today. I am so excited about this day. Chani Nicholas is a Los Angeles based New York Times best selling author of You Were Born For This Astrology For Radical Self Acceptance. She has been a counseling astrologer for more than 20 years guiding her community of over 1 million monthly readers to discover and live out their life’s purpose through understanding their birth chart. Chani runs her company with her wife and business partner, Sonya Pasi, who Abby and I got to have dinner with and absolutely adore. Together they launched the Chani app, which offers a personalized daily understanding of the birth chart.
Abby Wambach:
I get a notification every day on that app.
Glennon Doyle:
From Chani. Hi, Chani.
Abby Wambach:
I’m like, Hey Chani.
Glennon Doyle:
Hi, Chani.
Chani Nicholas:
Hi. Hi. I’m so excited to be here.
Glennon Doyle:
Welcome.
Chani Nicholas:
Thank you for having me.
Glennon Doyle:
We’re so thrilled. Ever since we got to have dinner with you all we’ve just been waiting for this day. Thanks for joining us. I have to tell you, when I picked up your book I loved how you wrote about your life so much. I was excited to get to the astrology stuff, but the way that you describe how you came to astrology I thought was so beautiful. Do you mind telling us a little bit about your childhood because that’s what leads you to the moment where astrology reaches into your life? So tell me about your childhood, which if you’re like everyone else, was super simple and easy peasy.
Chani Nicholas:
Yeah. Yeah. Totally uncomplicated and idyllic. I was born in a place in a time where people were experimenting with a lot of different ways of living and really untethered from any kind of cultural norm. I grew up in a place where folks were doing a lot of drugs and partying a lot. I am a typical gen X in that we just raised ourselves. Someone said this on Tik-Tok the other day. It was like, “We grew up around a lot of adults. They were there, but we grew up around some people.” They didn’t necessarily feel compelled to parent. It was a culture that I grew up in. In and of that, I grew up around a tremendous amount of addiction. The impacts of addiction on a child is that no one reflects you back to yourself and that your needs are always second, if not 2 millionth on the list of things when the first thing on the list is to get high or to get out of one’s feelings, to get out of the difficult thing by using a substance, or whatever behavior is happening.
Chani Nicholas:
I think a lot of us have that experience. This is my particular brand of that experience. One day when I was very young I was taken on a situation where I’m pretty sure the adults were doing a lot of illegal things, one of the women that was in this situation, I’ll never forget it, I didn’t know what she was doing at the time but she actually looked at me, which was a rare thing for the adults to take in the children. But she opened up this book and she asked the person I was with what my birthday was. And then she got my birthday and she dragged her finger down the page and landed on my birthday and looked up at me and said, “You’re really judgmental.”
Abby Wambach:
Oh my gosh.
Chani Nicholas:
And I thought, yes. Yes I am. None of these fuckers have any judgment whatsoever. I am the one who is like, this is not okay.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Chani Nicholas:
And nobody listens to me.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Chani Nicholas:
So that was my beginning intro, but that was pretty much all the person said to me. And I didn’t even really know what judgment was, but it felt hefty. It had enough balis to it that I was like, yeah, give me more of that. So then when I was 12 my father had moved into a third family iteration and his mother-in-law bought us all an astrology chart, reading the whole new family. We went to it and this woman started talking about how different we all were and why. It was so incredibly helpful. Because again, someone was seeing me and distinguishing all of us.
Chani Nicholas:
I was a kid that didn’t have any tools. I didn’t have a lot of adults that were interested in being introspective, so this language was like, oh wow, this is describing people’s not only personalities, but ways of being and why and all of it’s perfect and all of us are different. I think a thing about being a codependent child is that you don’t know how to distinguish yourself from other people and you don’t know that you’re different because you’re so enmeshed with everybody’s stuff and you’re just trying to survive, which means you’re just trying to take care of everybody, which means you don’t have needs or they come to 2 millionth on the list and you’re always going towards other people. This woman was able to give me an outline and I felt like I started to exist for the first time, or one of the first times in my life. And she had written a book so my dad bought me the book and I’ve been studying astrology ever since.
Glennon Doyle:
She gave you an outline, like a boundary between you and everything. Because you use the word distinguish over and over again.
Chani Nicholas:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
So basically you’re like, okay, I might be with these people, but I am not these people. I am my own thing to be seen. Wow.
Chani Nicholas:
Also, this is why my stepsister isn’t bothered by this thing is so much suffering for me. Or this is why my stepbrother, or this is why my stepmom, or this is why my dad, or this is why my mom. It is a really beautiful tool. Especially at that age, because 12 is the age where you start to really do that stuff.
Amanda Doyle:
That really made me think in a totally different way, because your child was quite dramatic. You say that by five years old you knew the taste of cocaine. You were living in an environment that was extreme in that way. I feel like we all understand this need for belonging, but it’s a very interesting look at it to say that we have a real need for distinction too, especially in a world of chaos, or when you’re surrounded by folks making really painful decisions. Understanding yourself as separate and distinct from that is a fascinating need that I had never really thought of before I read that part of your book.
Chani Nicholas:
Yeah. It was a life raft for me. Also being named the sensitive child because things were upsetting and it upset me. It was also really helpful-
Glennon Doyle:
Am I sensitive or are you just a bunch of assholes? Is what I’ve been asking my entire effing life.
Chani Nicholas:
We can look at that as in both our personal life, but also within the systems of harm and supremacy that we live within. We talk as a community a lot about that, but it’s really important to distinguish this thing is not well and it’s making me feel unwell.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Chani Nicholas:
And that distinguishing is really important as well.
Glennon Doyle:
Before we get into that, can you tell me how being judgemental saved you? I just really loved that part where you were excited about being called judgemental because I am very judgemental and if you could just frame it in a way that is positive…
Chani Nicholas:
That works for you.
Amanda Doyle:
So it allows her to continue to be judgmental and feel good about it.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. I would like to-
Amanda Doyle:
Chani. That’s what she was looking for. No codependency here, but if you could just do that, that would be great.
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t want to be judged for my judgmentalistism anymore.
Abby Wambach:
She needs affirmation. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
So if you could just go ahead and tell us what you mean by that.
Chani Nicholas:
Yeah. I mean, judgment in an astrological sense is about being able to parse out what is happening and why it’s happening. We absolutely obviously need judgment. And because I grew up in a place where people’s judgment was literally disconnected, getting high or drunk or being in the party you got to let a lot of judgment go so that you can have this experience of trying to get to oneness. But you can’t actually get to oneness unless you understand who you are and have great boundaries. Part of my judgment stuff is I have boundaries.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Chani Nicholas:
That is not okay. This is okay. This is where I stop and this is where I have room. Knowing that is everything. Because if I trust my own boundaries, then part of my hypervigilance can deescalate. It might still come up here and there, but also being a kid that grew up in chaos I’m hypervigilant all the time. If I don’t have discernment and judgment about my own boundaries I’m going to remain in that agitated hypervigilant state. And that’s no good for anybody.
Abby Wambach:
Was coming into learning about astrology at age 12 helpful to understand some of these adults in your life and the choices that they were making? Obviously, addiction is addiction and Glennon and I know, and Amanda know, a lot about that, but did it bring a source of empathy or healing in knowing maybe that they are different in the astrological charts than you are and the choices that they made?
Chani Nicholas:
I think when I am the most compassionate is when I’m reading somebody’s chart, because when I see your chart I’m inside the setup and I’m like, oh, of course, this is perfect. This is who you are. I get it. This is your circumstance. This makes so much sense. And when I’m outside of that-
Abby Wambach:
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Chani Nicholas:
… I’m like, no. I don’t know if you all feel the same, but I feel like writing about my childhood helps me almost the most in understanding that humans are human and people that raised me were very young mixed up humans in a lot of pain. It helps me to have some perspective on it and understand that none of it was personal. It just wasn’t about me. It impacted me in some really severe ways that that’s been my life’s work, but the things that happened to me weren’t ever about me. I think that writing that is really helpful. And then having their own astrological context has also been really healing for me.
Abby Wambach:
For sure. That’s great.
Glennon Doyle:
The things that happened to me were not about me. Dang.
Amanda Doyle:
What you just said about writing being healing, you’ve also said that actually its brings up so much pain for you too. Giving yourself form in writing your story amplifies the invisibility that you had growing up and how seeing that actually makes it more painful for you in a lot of ways as you get towards the healing part of it. I’m just thinking of all the people who have felt invisible at some point in their lives and there’s some irony in that, that taking this step of claiming your power and claiming your form, whether it’s in writing or art, or using your voice, can also have this shadow pain attached to it. What did you learn about that?
Chani Nicholas:
It was similar to having that first astrological reading. There’s one thing about writing something personal, and then there’s a whole other thing about putting it in a book and having it be in a literal form. And then that thing going out and you’ve got no control over it anymore. If I write in my journal no one ever has to see it, but when you put something out into the world, what it did is it shaped me again. I felt the parameters. And what happened for me after the book came out is every night for months I’d go to bed and I’d be like, did that really happen? Did I lie? Did I make that all up?
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. You were self gaslighting.
Chani Nicholas:
Am I crazy? Oh my God. And that is so excruciatingly painful. It was also just part of my process. But I really felt like, I don’t know if I should have done that. I second guessed the whole way for months and it took a lot of therapy. I barely wrote about myself at all. It’s a very small little piece of the book, but even putting out that much was wild for me. It helped me to just say at the end of the day that’s my story. I’m not putting it out in the world in a way that’s blaming anyone, but I’m putting it out in the world so that I can understand who I am, and so that other folks might be like, oh, this is a portal in, and this is how I got here. It’s so important. It’s in everything I do, but it’s been very hidden.
Chani Nicholas:
Now I’m in the process of a little bit with this book and writing other things that are much more explicit so that I can also dismantle the monster under the bed of my own life and be like, it’s okay. These scary things happen. They don’t have power over me, because also they weren’t personal. And now I can put it into a context of my life as it is now, because there’s been a bridge to somewhere else. So it’s, I think, really important to know where we are and what skills we have to fall back on, or coping mechanisms to work through.
Chani Nicholas:
The major backlash that is going to happen within when you do something that is against the grain of what you were taught… Because I grew up around a lot of drug dealers and the number one thing is you don’t talk about it. It is a secret. The cops will come and take everyone away that you love. So you are like, absolutely not. No one can know. So to say that publicly as an adult my little kid part is like, what are you doing? Any kind of secret that you’ve held as a child, once you put that out as an adult, you got to reparent that little kid part and do all that work to tend to all those parts that are like, you just broke all the rules. I don’t know what to say.
Glennon Doyle:
The cops are coming.
Chani Nicholas:
You’re on your own. Yeah. We’re fucked now.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. That’s so beautiful.
Abby Wambach:
There’s got to be a little part of that little child in you that’s going yes. Thank you. Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
I knew that was bullshit.
Abby Wambach:
You’re taking care of me now. Thank you.
Amanda Doyle:
But that’s a boundary issue again. The part about boundaries that’s so helpful is knowing in advance when you set this boundary there will be a backlash. Don’t be surprised. That doesn’t mean that’s a wrong boundary. It is inevitable with setting it. So when you just saying right now, when you liberate a secret that you’ve been holding, you should expect that yourself is going to attack yourself for doing that because it’s contrary to your self preservation when you were young.
Chani Nicholas:
Your survival, yeah.
Amanda Doyle:
That’s very helpful.
Glennon Doyle:
And then you just hold yourself’s hand during that time.
Chani Nicholas:
Yeah. You hold your own hand. Yeah. You befriend that part that is terrified and was too young to be handling the situation that you were in, and therefore created coping mechanisms and parts of self that would come in and do the protective stuff that no one else was going to do for you. You befriending all those parts is I think really key.
Glennon Doyle:
So one thing we have in common that is, I think, really fun is that you tried to avoid… Astrology just kept poking itself on your shoulder your whole life, but you were like, no. You say in the book, “I want to do something respectable.” Which I find hilarious. So you kept trying to be respectable. Didn’t we all for a while? And then one day you said you started writing. You just gave into this astrology thing. You started a blog. You said, “Not because I thought anyone would like my brand of astro political self-help, but because if I didn’t channel everything that was awakening me it would backfire on my system.” So I just want you, for all the pod squaders listening, tell us what that means, because I felt that in my soul. That’s why I started writing. I started a blog too. I didn’t think anyone would be interested, but I thought if I don’t do this thing I’m going to make myself crazy or sick because I feel like I have to, even though it won’t matter. What did you mean by backfire on my system?
Chani Nicholas:
It was like something was erupting in me. I had reengaged with the part of me that is really more radical. One of the great things that I got from my childhood is I grew up around and inside of hippie culture 101. I know how to live on the outskirts. It’s part of the reason why I wanted to try to living on the inside, but to live outside of societal norms is really comfortable for me it turns out, and it’s something great about my childhood. I was re-engaging with that part of myself, because it had gone dormant for a while. As all of the education that I was receiving from amazing teachers at California Institute of Internal Studies at my bachelor completion program, they reignited my own activism. I was seeing things in the world and looking at the astrology and being like, oh my God, this is so obvious to me. I couldn’t but write about it. I was like, I don’t know, Blog Spot? What do the kids do?
Chani Nicholas:
Because I think when you feel invisible, which again a lot of us do for various reasons, you don’t think anybody’s going to pay attention to anything you’re doing. So you’re like, well, I’ll just do this and no one will know. I don’t know what made me put it online. Well, I do, I can look at my chart and be like, there’s a part of me that just barrels forth head first, does the thing. And then the part of me afterwards is like, what did you do? I can’t believe you did that. So that part of me was actually getting very activated by transits, which was my Midheaven, the part that intersects with the world. It’s so fiery and so self starting that it was a moment that I didn’t really think about it. I just did it. And then I just kept doing it because it felt really good.
Glennon Doyle:
Because it felt really good.
Chani Nicholas:
It felt really good. Actually for the first time in my life I felt like I was connected to something. I felt like I was in relationship with something. I had struggled so much in my career and trying to figure out who I was or what I wanted to do. It made me feel like I wasn’t alone. And it was that feeling. It felt like it a religious experience almost. Something’s talking to me and I’m talking to it and I didn’t want to lose that because it was the first time I felt it really clearly and consistently. I actually am good at showing up. I’ll just keep showing up to the thing that has energy.
Glennon Doyle:
Keep showing up to the thing that has energy. Chani, what the hell is astro political self-help?
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Got to get into this.
Glennon Doyle:
So fun.
Chani Nicholas:
Listen, I feel the same as you Glennon. I am deeply annoyed and incredibly critical at anything to do with healing the self that does not then connect to healing the world via dismantling systems of oppression and supremacy. Of course I’m not the only one who thinks this, but one cannot be without the other. We can’t only be trying to fight the stuff out in the world that we need to fight without doing inner work. But we cannot do the inner work without connecting it to some other thing.
Abby Wambach:
That’s right. Yes.
Chani Nicholas:
So that’s always where I’ve written from and done my work from. Okay, let’s understand how to hold our pain and sorrow and suffering, contextualize it, understand our life purpose through the blueprint of our chart. Then let’s let that move us into action. That gift is then supposed to go out into the world. And that is how we are meant to be of service, I believe. And I believe our astrology chart, if it resonates with you, there’s a lot of other things you can do besides astrology obviously, but it can give us the shortcut to that. Oh, this is where I can take action. This is where I can be of service. This is how I can da, da, da. Good. Go.
Glennon Doyle:
I love it.
Amanda Doyle:
You said you’re interested in healing, but you are really interested in systems change. I love that because some people might look at an astrologer and be like, what the hell does system change have to do with astrology? But anyone who is in a healing role, or a quote unquote self-helpy industry, anyone that could be looked at as the healing industrial complex, if you’re not looking to the systems change, if you’re focused on just the healing you’re perpetuating the demand for healing, which is driven by the system that wounds to begin with. So all of the people like you are so important because you’re connecting those dots. You’re saying, I’m dealing in your healing and I’m also going upstream and trying to deal with how you got wounded in the first place. Do you feel like enough people are doing that? What is your take on that industrial healing complex?
Chani Nicholas:
I think the philanthropic industrial complex and the healing industrial complex are invested in one thing, which is self acclaim. I think we want to feel good about ourselves, and what happens when we do good, quote unquote, inside of systems of oppression. It doesn’t mean we’re trying to dismantle the system itself. It means that we are trying to assuage our guilt and get good PR. A lot of the times that’s what’s happening. Show me people that are invested in eventually getting to the point where we are obsolete. Every piece of work, every work that we do, every activism that we engage with should be that so eventually this won’t be needed.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s right.
Abby Wambach:
That’s so good.
Chani Nicholas:
I don’t want to be a good person inside of a horrible system. I want the system to change so that we all have the ability to get educated, to have healthcare, to thrive, to have food, to just have the basics so that we can remember who we are and why we’re here, which I think is to love and help each other. But we can’t get there because there’s so many things that are constantly bringing us into chaos and crisis. I want to be invested in not needing to do this work eventually.
Abby Wambach:
So good.
Chani Nicholas:
I want to solve the problem. I want to talk about how we solve the problem.
Abby Wambach:
The self-help industry needs people who need help.
Chani Nicholas:
Right. Exactly.
Abby Wambach:
And it’s like, the work that we’re doing is hopefully putting ourselves out of work.
Glennon Doyle:
It is an and both, because God helped me we need people who are self aware and emotionally intelligent and are working on their own self healing who show up for world healing, too. You can’t have self healing without world healing. But I also feel like you need a little bit of self awareness before you get to the world healing also.
Chani Nicholas:
Yeah. I mean, we need a balance of both. But God help me if I’m talking to a bunch of people that have an incredible amount of privilege and I’m not at least a hot poker being like, okay, let’s use the privilege. What else is the point of life but to say, oh, I have this, let me help?
Glennon Doyle:
So let’s talk about this. Because I wanted to figure out how do we do this in a way where everyone who’s listening gets a little bit of, okay, I’m this… And we’re doing sun signs. I’m learning, Chani. I’m learning. We’re going to do our sun signs. We’re not going to do our rising signs or our moon signs or our houses. I’m learning.
Chani Nicholas:
I mean, I might allude to-
Glennon Doyle:
You can do whatever the hell you want. I’m just trying to prove that I know words.
Amanda Doyle:
She’s just showing off that she knows those words.
Abby Wambach:
Well, Glennon, what is the sun sign?
Glennon Doyle:
The sign that the sun was in when you were born.
Abby Wambach:
Well, what does it mean?
Glennon Doyle:
It’s your big sign. It’s your major sign. You know what? Let’s let Chani do this. How about that? And then I’m hoping, Chani, that for each sign that we have something that that sign can do to take care of their own healing and something that that sign might be excellent at contributing to the world healing.
Amanda Doyle:
Can I just say, one thing that you said, Chani, stopped me in my tracks and for me it’s the ultimate reclaiming of this idea of self-help? You said that what your goal is is to really slow down enough to know when you’re dysregulated so that you can help yourself in that moment so that you don’t do what comes axiomatically to you and then feel like shit after it. But you can really stop in the moment and help yourself. I don’t know if any of that dysregulation is typical to different sun signs, or how we can really slow down and help ourselves. Because we’re not really looking for help outside of ourselves. We’re looking for ways to notice and to be able to show up as partners to ourselves to help ourselves in those moments.
Glennon Doyle:
So what does that mean? What does it mean to be dysregulated? Chani, how do you appear when you’re dysregulated?
Chani Nicholas:
I appear to blame everyone for everything.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh yeah. Me too.
Amanda Doyle:
Oh, that hurts.
Chani Nicholas:
Everyone is against me. Everyone’s trying to ruin my life and it’s everybody else’s fault. That’s a good signal.
Amanda Doyle:
Is that wrong? Is that incorrect?
Chani Nicholas:
No.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s pretty solid.
Chani Nicholas:
I’m not going to get anywhere that I like.
Glennon Doyle:
That’s for damn sure.
Chani Nicholas:
I can be right or I could be at ease a little bit.
Glennon Doyle:
So that’s how you you’re dysregulated. And then what do you do to regulate? What do you do to get regulated again from that?
Chani Nicholas:
I mean, my God isn’t that the crux of every therapy healing good talk session? The way to get there is to recognize the disturbance internally, and to then work on this until the day I die and probably when I’m just a ghost. How do I pause and be like wait a minute? I could get high on my own supply and my own anger and just spiral out and have a whole good time just raging in my head, or maybe I could ask myself what’s going on? And if I can get to the hold on what’s going on, then I’ve got a window. Then I’ve got a little tiny avenue of space. And then I can usually be like, if I asked my wife about what I’m feeling right now what would she tell me?
Chani Nicholas:
If I can get to what would Sonya say in my head, that’s part of my ability to regulate. I want to be my best self around her. She’s part of how I find my own regulation, and she makes me want to be a better person. She’s also that part of me in a sense that’s my true north. And then if I can get there I can usually breathe or find a moment and question the anger or the rage or the spiral. And if I can question it then again I’ve got a little piece of hope. But getting there is all the work, that two second space between being I’m so justified, I’m being so annoyed right now.
Glennon Doyle:
It’s everything. Because then you’re just perpetuating harm in that moment. It’s really the difference between war and peace is often five seconds.
Chani Nicholas:
Yeah. Or a split second.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. Okay. So let’s figure out all these sweet signs and what helping themselves might look like, or what dysregulation might look like, or whatever the hell you need to-
Chani Nicholas:
And then also the activism.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Of course.
Abby Wambach:
That’s a lot. So do with it what you-
Glennon Doyle:
Good luck, Chani.
Chani Nicholas:
How long do we have?
Glennon Doyle:
All the time.
Chani Nicholas:
We’ll start at the beginning.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay.
Chani Nicholas:
Aries…
Glennon Doyle:
Just found out. Told you, Chani. I just found out I was an Aries a couple months ago.
Chani Nicholas:
Okay. Aries launches into space head first, does the thing, doesn’t think twice about it, just goes. A way to regulate is to know that you are free to take action when you need to and maybe you don’t have to barrel into every single obstacle head first without thinking about it. That’s one of those red flags of that sign. The heat and the anger of Aries is so wonderful because that moves us into action. But when we don’t understand the source of the anger and aren’t able to contextualize it, then we get into trouble and we might burn things down because things need to be burned down. But maybe not that thing. Oops, sorry. Ouch. Fire scorches. When we can channel it, we can really move people and inspire people to action. And that’s the activism part of it. Aries is like, let’s fucking go. Let us not back down. We will be fierce. We will go forward. Nothing will stop us. And then that energy can also run out. And then you collapse. And then you got to start again.
Chani Nicholas:
Taurus is a slow steady earth sign. Part of what it does so well is it keeps us anchored in the action. It keeps us anchored in the work. This is how the work works. This is how nature grows. This is the rhythm of life. Where Aries can launch us into things and gets really impatient and just wants things to be done and why isn’t it figured out yet, Taurus is like, because it’s the rhythm. We just chill and we wait and we figure it out. A way for Taurus to regulate is going to be to go into nature. The problem with being so fixed is that we can get stuck being consistent and dependable in a situation that’s not good for us, or in a situation… You take a Taurus to a bad movie, they’ll stay through the movie. I’m like, let’s go.
Glennon Doyle:
Same.
Chani Nicholas:
You know what I mean? They know how to stay. So that is good and challenging. So knowing why you’re staying and when to leave.
Chani Nicholas:
Gemini-
Abby Wambach:
That’s me.
Chani Nicholas:
… is the great communicator. In terms of it’s activism, Gemini is the journalist. Gemini is the information gather. Gemini knows diversity. Gemini knows how to think about something from all aspects. It’s really good at taking in a ton of data and being like, huh, curious, interesting. Let’s see. Let’s look at it from every single side. It’s really helpful in getting the message out. It’s also a great propagandist, for better and worse. It’s really good at staying open to curiosity. We need that interactivism. We need to know how to be curious instead of always being inflamed. Why am I inflamed? Let’s look at the problem from a million different sides and gather the information. A way for Gemini to take care of themselves is to know when they’ve been overwhelmed by options and opinions and data and where everything’s getting a little too dispersed and they’re going in a gajillion different directions and need to hone in and just pause and take care.
Chani Nicholas:
Cancer is the sign that initiates us into care and into feeling. If you have a Cancer rising you might also be really good at gathering people and helping them feel like family. That’s what we need so deeply in our movements is to make people feel like they’re being heard, like you’re connecting with them on an emotional level. Cancers are great at doing things that have meaning for them. It’s a sign that can work a little bit more personally. It’s so good at helping people feel like they’re an important member of the group and to gather folks and to make them feel warm and fuzzy and comforted.
Chani Nicholas:
Then there’s Leo. And all fire signs, so Aries, Leo, Sag, are really good at storytelling and being really enthusiastically or entertainingly captivating and drawing attention to them. Leo is ruled by the sun. It’s the center of the solar system. It is a bright light in a mass of darkness. Leo is like, I’m here to light things up and to captivate you and to pull attention and focus towards something. So as an activist, if you can make things entertaining to some degree, and also to remember the joy and to light people’s spirit up, you’re going to get their attention and you’re going to be able to pull it and help you to focus on things. A way for Leo to take care of self is… Well, there can be a thing with Leo where if it feels like it hasn’t done the performance well enough, or hasn’t gotten the kind of applause that it thinks, it can feel like its pride is hurt, or they can be the wounded lion in a cave.
Glennon Doyle:
Like a lion. A lion. Aw.
Chani Nicholas:
Yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Okay. Okay.
Chani Nicholas:
Yeah. So you have to know how to talk to that part of yourself and be like, it doesn’t have to land every time. We’re allowed to experiment and do all the things.
Chani Nicholas:
Virgo. Virgo is so good at being with what is emergent. Virgo is a mutable sign. Virgo is like, I want to be useful. I want to be practical. I want to tend to the skills that I’m here to develop. I want to make sure that other people can use those skills. And then I’ll feel like I’m of use. I’ll feel like I’ve been of service. I’ll feel like I’ve done something here. Virgo is so good to tending to all the needs that are happening along the way and being like, oh, things have changed, let’s shift, let’s move, let’s do this thing. And it’s so good about being resourceful, practical, and making sure that all the little pieces are attended to. And that emerging sense of things are changing. There’s a shift in the wind. Okay. Now what do we do? It wants to be flexible. It knows how to be flexible.
Chani Nicholas:
To tend to the self, Virgo is also incredibly critical, which is such a gift because it can be like, no, that’s not the problem, this thing is the problem. We’re focusing on this, but it’s really this. Let’s get specific and particular. Of course, if you turn that in on yourself and you pick yourself apart then you’re fucked. You won’t get anywhere and you won’t do anything because you’re immobilized by your own self criticism.
Glennon Doyle:
So I always say, just be critical of others, not self. Because I have a Virgo rising so I just make sure only outward. That’s good.
Amanda Doyle:
I’m sure that’s best practice. Right.
Chani Nicholas:
And you’re never critical about yourself.
Glennon Doyle:
Not once. Never.
Chani Nicholas:
So it’s really tending to that part that doesn’t know how to do anything but attack self and pick it apart. Okay. Buffer. Swaddle. Let’s talk. Take a nap.
Chani Nicholas:
Libra is the sign of justice. The scales of justice are always being weighed by this sign. And if anything is out of balance Libra’s like, oh, it’s out of balance, got to fix it. We can always depend on Libras to point out what is out of balance, what is not equitable. The problem with that is that it’s outward focused and it’s focused on the collective. Libra themselves get out of balance because they’re so relationship focused. Their tendency is to go to the other person rather than stay with themselves.
Abby Wambach:
Interesting.
Chani Nicholas:
So learning how to stay with yourself is really important, especially for Libra sun people.
Chani Nicholas:
Scorpio is so good at getting to the truth. It is a penetrating sign. It goes underneath the surface and the niceties of life and of exchanges and is like, that’s bullshit. This is the truth. Let me get down to it. It also knows how to take on systems of power. It understands power and power structures. So incredibly important in our movements because we need to understand how to do that. Aries and Scorpio are both ruled by Mars. Aries attacks head on with flaming swords and just fury. Watch me do this. I’ll rush into the crowd and I’ll do the thing. Scorpio’s like, no, no, no, you won’t see me coming. I will be stealth. I will be underground.
Amanda Doyle:
Like a fox.
Chani Nicholas:
That’s right. It’s the stinger of the scorpion. It’ll wait forever for the right moment to strike. And that is so important, as we know, because there are other movements that will take 50 years to dismantle the right to bodily autonomy. And they do not waiver. So too must we be so focused and so determined and absolutely refuse to get off course, and to figure out when and where it’s important to make those strikes.
Amanda Doyle:
Yes. Calculated strikes.
Chani Nicholas:
Yes. And we need all of it. The Scorpio part of your chart knows how to do that stuff. If you’ve placements in Scorpio we love you. We need you. They’ll be the one in the boardroom that doesn’t say anything until the very end and then says the thing and you’re like, oh my God, that’s exactly it.
Chani Nicholas:
Sagittarius lights everything up, another fire sign. It is all about faith and how we might move with a greater philosophy. Sag wants to move. It’s the galloping centaur, so it’s got to feel free. You cannot hem a Sag in. Part of the self-regulation is to, again, let yourself be like, it’s okay, I’m free. I can move. I’m not stuck here. And because Sag is always aiming for the truth, what is the truth? They keep us oriented towards that spiritual, if you will, or philosophical truth that if we keep on this direction, if we keep oriented towards that thing, we’ll get somewhere that has meaning for us and we will feel like our life energy was well spent. And that is essential for our movements, because those are the people that keep that flame alive within us and keep us wanting to show up because they galvanize us on that spiritual or soulful level.
Chani Nicholas:
Capricorn. Capricorn’s got a plan and another strategy. If you’ve ever seen a mountain goat they do the literal impossible thing before breakfast. They are these giant beasts that scale the side of a mountain.
Abby Wambach:
How do they do that?
Glennon Doyle:
I don’t know.
Chani Nicholas:
How?
Abby Wambach:
It’s unbelievable.
Chani Nicholas:
They’re leaning.
Glennon Doyle:
They have magnets on their hooves.
Amanda Doyle:
Little suction cups?
Chani Nicholas:
Yeah, exactly. The Capricorn placements in your chart do that. If there’s something that we need in this world it’s to be like, I can climb that mountain. I can figure that out. Martin Luther King was a Capricorn sun. You might say that what he set out to do was impossible. There’s a relentlessness to the sign. It is like, I’ll get to the top. It might take everything I’ve got, but that’s where I’m going. I’m going to the goal. Let’s go. And it’s a Cardinal sign so it initiates that kind of journey with us all. Capricorn’s like, it’s tough. I’m not going to say it’s not hard, but we’re going. Let’s go.
Amanda Doyle:
We can do hard things.
Chani Nicholas:
That’s right.
Amanda Doyle:
It’s Capricorn energy.
Chani Nicholas:
That’s right.
Chani Nicholas:
Aquarius is the great visionary of the Zodiac. Angela Davis, Tony Morrison, Audre Lorde. I call them the Aquarian Trinity, Holy Trinity. They give us the intellectual understanding about where we are, how we’re situated systemically. They’re known as the humanitarian sign. Their work is always going to be about the group. How are we being organized by the systems we live within? Why are we being organized in that way? And what is the impact on the collective? This is a sign of the whole. Obviously, the downside of that is that oftentimes they don’t even feature themselves at all. It’s like, I don’t want the attention. Oftentimes there can be a feeling of, not neglect, but something in their own sense of self might go without. There’s a need to feed and acknowledge the self in ways that maybe you’re overworking for the collective. And because it’s such a brilliant sign we can get locked in the head. So a way to regulate is to go down into the body.
Chani Nicholas:
And then we end with Pisces. The part of your chart that has Pisces in it is the part of us that knows oneness. It’s the part of us that remembers existing before we got here. It’s the part that knows that’s suffering. That person is in pain. That person needs tending to. There’s no boundary between me and them. We are all one.
Amanda Doyle:
They’re the we belong to each other ones.
Chani Nicholas:
Yeah. It’s the great connector. It’s the one that says all of these systems try to keep us separated, but at the end of the day we leave all of this behind and we go back into that big ocean. We are not separate droplets. We are all part of this big thing so we feel connected. We feel included. We feel called in. It’s a sign that can, again, tap into the emotional aspect of something, which is how we get each other’s attention. Part of the ways in which Pisces needs to help itself and self regulate is that it’s so easy for Pisces to get lost in everybody else and feeling all the pain and sorrow of the world. Part of its lesson is to not self sacrifice.
Abby Wambach:
A lot of people that you speak with and read charts for, is it common for them to feel jealous about all the other signs? Because I feel like when you talk I’m like, I feel like I want to be a different sign.
Chani Nicholas:
What sign do you want to be?
Abby Wambach:
I don’t know. All of the other ones sound better than mine.
Chani Nicholas:
Than Gemini? Or than Capricorn? Or than Cancer? Because you’re Cancer rising.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. All of it.
Amanda Doyle:
You know how to herd the family.
Abby Wambach:
Okay. I sure do.
Amanda Doyle:
And that is a full-time ass job for you, Abby.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Chani Nicholas:
But also when you were a captain were you not the one that was tending to the group in a way that was really nourishing and nurturing?
Glennon Doyle:
She was.
Abby Wambach:
You’re right. It’s just like grass is always greener. Everybody else sounds-
Chani Nicholas:
Such a Capricorn moon thing to say. Wawa. Your Capricorn moon is so important because you’re Cancer rising so the moon is the steers person of your ship. And that moon is in the seventh house of relationships. I don’t know if you’ve ever had a relationship in your life that’s been life altering and you feel like is part of your life’s purpose, but your chart clearly says that one of the most important things for you to do is to find partners, romantic, platonic, business, et cetera, that help you to feel like you’re fulfilling your life’s purpose. And when that is off track everything will feel off kilter.
Abby Wambach:
Holy fuck. You just described my life in two sentences.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes. Do me.
Chani Nicholas:
Okay. Said the Aries. Listen, you’ve got Virgo rising, and that means that Mercury is the steers person of your chart. And guess where Mercury is in your chart?
Amanda Doyle:
Where? In retrograde?
Chani Nicholas:
It’s in the same place as Abby’s.
Abby Wambach:
Yes.
Glennon Doyle:
Oh.
Chani Nicholas:
It’s in the seventh house of marriage and partnership and commitments. I don’t know if any of your work has ever centered around the people that you’re in partnership with. And it’s Mercury, so it’s about writing and speaking and communicating and telling a story. And it’s in Pisces, so it’s about understanding the pain and suffering that we all go through and intimacy and all that kind of stuff. But if you haven’t yet written, I don’t know, a book or blogs or whatever about marriage, partnership, love, connection, pain it would be a good thing for you to do.
Amanda Doyle:
Put it on your vision board, Doyle. Put it up there. It’s a great idea, Chani.
Chani Nicholas:
Also, you’ve got your son in the eighth house of suffering and loss and grief and mental health stuff. You have an exalted sun, which means it is very courageous and brave and well situated. So you are that person that’s like, I will go bravely into this pain cave and I will light it up. I will find some way to creatively express this kind of hardship and this challenge. I will be able to light my path through this and maybe want to illuminate that in the world. What causes our suffering? What causes our pain? What causes mental health?
Abby Wambach:
Spot on.
Glennon Doyle:
She’s good at her job.
Abby Wambach:
Yeah. Can you do Amanda?
Chani Nicholas:
Amanda?
Amanda Doyle:
You don’t need to. It’s cool.
Glennon Doyle:
Come on sissy.
Chani Nicholas:
Amanda, I have to say, when I look at charts like yours I’m like, oh my God, this is a gorgeous chart. I’m not saying you haven’t suffered. I’m not saying you don’t have all your stuff, but you have Pisces rising and the ruler of your ascendant is Jupiter, and Jupiter is so well placed. It’s in Cancer, which is a sign of its exaltation, so it means that faith and abundance and opening up opportunities is part of your jam. But it’s in Cancer, so it’s nurturing and nourishing. It’s in the fifth house of creative self expression, but also children. For you, children and tending to making sure children’s lives are better, all of that activism is so essential and important for you. Jupiter’s also the teacher, the one who wants to bring through the wisdom.
Chani Nicholas:
But you also have Venus and Pisces in your first house, which is another exalted planet. So people love you, no? You’re so easy to be with. You’re so kind. You’re such an incredible connector. I could put you anywhere and you would make friends with everyone. You know their life story. You’d know too much about them. They’d overshare with you. Venus is the goddess. It’s the one who’s extraordinarily awe inspiring. Wow, I want to be with that. I want to be with that person. I’m magnetized to that. The problem is that people can pedestalize you, or that you don’t even know how valuable these things are and you can just give them all away. So again, part of your thing is you’re an Aries sun, so you’re a fighter and you’re feisty and fierce and courageous and all of that, but you lead with this major compassion and ability to connect with people. It’s so beautiful.
Amanda Doyle:
Wow.
Abby Wambach:
Damn.
Glennon Doyle:
Chani, you’re doing good things in a good way in the world. For real. I mean, I just think about that little girl you were who somebody reached out and saw you, and now you are reaching out and seeing everyone, millions of people and they’re feeling seen. And they’re not just feeling seen, they’re activating in the world once they figure out their own worth and their own gifts. It’s just a freaking wonderful reaction in the world that you’re creating. It’s really cool to witness.
Amanda Doyle:
And also, I’d just like to say, Chani, you saw yourself, which is so huge. You were that little tiny girl and you saw yourself and you knew what you were and where you needed to be. That’s just so beautiful. You partnered with yourself so early and you still are. You’re helping people see themselves and partner with themselves. I just think that’s so beautiful.
Chani Nicholas:
Thank you. I mean, I almost died a lot, but you know…
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah, well…
Chani Nicholas:
I certainly wasn’t careful with myself for a very long time, but yeah.
Glennon Doyle:
Can you just actually tell people how to get your app? Because I think it’s really cool. You go to your app store-
Amanda Doyle:
It’s free, y’all. You can just go there and get all your shit.
Abby Wambach:
Go to your app store.
Chani Nicholas:
Yeah. You can download it. App store. Chani, C-H-A-N-I.
Glennon Doyle:
So cool.
Chani Nicholas:
Yeah. Chaninicholas.com.
Amanda Doyle:
For the skeptics, the way that you talk about astrology, Chani, you say that astrology tells us that we live in an intelligent universe that is in conversation with us. By the way, so does science and so does religion and so does any other number of things that we choose to consult in our lives. It’s just an interesting way to think about an intelligent universe that we are in conversation with. So check out Chani.
Chani Nicholas:
Yeah. It’s mirroring us.
Glennon Doyle:
Yes.
Chani Nicholas:
It’s like talking.
Glennon Doyle:
Yeah. All right. Well, for the rest of you, go check out your birth charts, figure out something you can do to heal yourself, something you can do to heal the world. And we will catch you back here next time on We Can Do Hard Things. See you soon. Bye.
Glennon Doyle:
We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence13 Studios. Be sure to rate, review and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts. Especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. If you didn’t, don’t worry about it. It’s fine.