Monday bummed me out. Here's what I did.

Did you feel this week's astrology?

Yesterday brought a double dose of transits that I felt right in my body:

Jupiter met the Sun in Leo in what's called a cazimi; this is the luckiest, most heart-lit moment of Leo season, amplifying themes of expansion, visibility, and desire.

A few hours later, the full moon rose in Aquarius, illuminating exactly where we're ready to step more fully into who we're becoming.

The invitation written across the sky: What is the bigger life asking you to say yes to?

Which doesn't mean everything is always hunky dory. In fact, my Monday sent me into a bit of a tailspin of disappointment.

Here's what happened.

Two potential opportunities that felt super promising fizzled for different reasons. They might come back around in the future, but I’d gotten so excited about them, so when they didn’t work out (back to back!), it left me fighting back tears on the pool deck and working really hard to keep it together while I helped my nine-year-old run her lines to be Rafiki in this week's Lion King production.

And because I live the work I do, I didn't push the feeling down or paste a reframe on top of it or immediately pivot to strategy. Starting Tuesday morning, once the kids were off to camp, I took myself through the exact process I take my clients through when the muck shows up.

Here's the process.

Step 1: Own the muck.

Don't skip this. Don't bypass it, don't immediately look for the lesson, don't reframe before you've actually felt it.

The disappointment, the frustration, the grief, the rage — it's all part of the human experience, which means we have to actually let ourselves experience it.

Own it out loud, in your journal, to a trusted person. Let it be what it is.

Step 2: Feel the feelings and let them move through your body.

This is where I turn to two practices that never fail me, even though I still have resistance when it's time to actually do them. Who wants to set a timer to focus on feeling icky feelings?! Your future self, that's who.

The first is JournalSpeak, a technique developed by Nicole Sachs. For 20 minutes, you write about and feel whatever's activating you. This is not looking for answers, or the silver lining, or, frankly, anything positive. This is letting all the horrible, ugly thoughts come to the surface and move out. Then burn the pages or delete the document. Or, my personal fave, shred the paper and add it to your compost for some next-level alchemy.

Proof the moves don't have to be pretty!

The second is what Mama Gena calls Swamping. You put on a song (I recommend something with a strong bassline) and you move your body in whatever way the feeling needs. Don't try to be pretty or do any TikTok choreography. Just move, and make sure your hips get in on the action.

Come back to these practices as needed. It might take a few days. Beautiful.

Step 3: Get curious.

I'm a firm believer that things happen for us, not to us. Which can be hard to trust when things go sideways!

Here's the good news: you don't have to believe it for this step to work. Once you've swamped and journaled, there's space to get really curious.

Ask yourself: IF this were actually happening in service of my greatest good, what would that look like?

What's the invitation underneath the disappointment? What does this moment want me to look at, let go of, or lean into? We're going for curiosity, not interrogation.

Step 4: Identify your action steps and reach out for support.

For me this week, that looked like: journaling on what this moment was asking of me. Reaching out to people I trust and asking for help. Making a plan from a place of clarity.

So I pulled out my phone, texted a friend I haven't talked to in 6 years, and asked if he could give me a crash course on sales. I've taken courses, read books, listened to podcasts, but if I want to level up my business, I need to level up the actions I'm taking. So reaching out to the buddy who got offered a deal on Shark Tank felt like a next move. He messaged me back immediately to set up a time.

Remember: People love helping you. It's up to you to be ready to receive it.

Step 5: Repeat.

This isn't linear. You act, and then something uncomfortable comes up, and you go back to JournalSpeak or Swamping or some other method that works for you. You block time for the practices. You block time to connect with people and write the asks. You block time to meditate and envision.

And then you keep going.

I'm sharing this because the Jupiter cazimi is asking us — you — to say yes to something bigger. And in my experience, the path to the bigger yes almost always runs directly through the muck first.

The women who move fastest aren't the ones who avoid discomfort; they're the ones who know how to move through it.

The good news about all this is that because those two opportunities didn’t pan out, I now have two spots available for 1x1 coaching this summer. If you believe in timing the way I do, that's not a coincidence.

I'm closed until September after this, and my rates are increasing this fall for the first time in nearly three years.

If this process resonated — if you've been in your own version of the muck and you're ready to move through it with real support — reply to this email or jump on my calendar here. Let's talk.