Eclipse Season Self Care, Spicy September Book Reviews and the Hot Mom Era

[MUSIC] >> Hello, and welcome back to the Yoga Magic podcast. I'm your host, Ashley Sandegard. Thanks so much for being here, everybody. Another solo episode with all your favorites for talking a little astrology, book reviews from the month of September, as well as breaking down the hot mom era. If you are unfamiliar with this, we're going to talk about it. It is a good time, so excited. All things self-care, all things wellness. And if you're new to the show, this is a show that brings self-care, self-discovery tools to you. Hopefully you're somebody who does some of this work. And if you're just trying to add in some new practices, some new ideas, you've come to the right place. You'll hear from lots of experts. You'll hear from me a lot on just ways to make this life the most magical thing it can possibly be. Let's talk about some astrology, my friends. There is some stuff coming our way, as it does every year, a couple times a year, and that is Eclipse season. So if you've been listening to the show for a long time, you know that I always will break this down. As we come up to Eclipse season, just a little foresight. I don't want to say warning, because it's not bad. There's nothing to be afraid of in astrology, but rather unpredictable. So Eclipse season is a chunk of time that we see usually twice in the year, in which we want to be mindful of our spiritual practices, just because that energy is, like I said, unpredictable. And coming up this month, we've got two Eclipse's, and they are very different. Eclipse's are in different parts of the moon. And what they tell us is kind of exploration around polarities, around opposites. And North Note Eclipse is an amplifying of energy, and a South Note Eclipse is more of a release. Kind of similar to how, you know, like, moon cycles are in the month. Whereas this is just a lot bigger, a lot heavier. So starting October 14th is the first eclipse of this season. And we call it a season, because they usually come in two to three Eclipse's. And there's a lot of energy that kind of comes up at the beginning, a few days before it starts as well as after they're done. What you can do for this is just simply rest. Rest a little extra. Take a pause from your manifestation practice as things that you like to control or like to plan for, because this isn't a great time for planning. There's just a lot of things that are unpredictable. And when we allow ourselves to let things happen, really move into that feminine energy of receiving, that's when we can take advantage of this kind of powerful time. So first eclipse, October 14th. This is a South Note Eclipse in Libra. It's a time of release. And Libra is the sign of relationships, but also this dynamic of, like, people pleasing, of the we and the me. And we have been talking about the we and the me all year. Libra is the we, Ares is the me. And that's a dance, right? That's what the show is all about. A dance between, how do I take care of myself? And ultimately take care of other people. So this particular eclipse on October 14th is about releasing any final pieces of this journey that you've been on. Anything that is holding you back from being fully yourself, right? What are you giving away in order to please others? How can you release that conditioning that exists in this world that's detracting from who you are? That is why I wanted to do the episode today on what the hot mom era is. Because that's something I'm fully experiencing right now is finally coming back to myself, to my body. After years and years of literally growing humans in my body, nourishing them with my body. Now I have my body to myself, and it's so magical. So perhaps that's your journey right now, too. Maybe not. This is about how, again, can I release any final little pieces that are holding me back, holding you back from being fully in your sovereignty in yourself. In between the two eclipses is a nice little treat. Venus is training Jupiter on October 21st. So think of this as like a treat. That's really the best way to look at it. Our two benefits, Venus and Jupiter are in a harmonious aspect to one another. And that's gonna be, think of it as some extra gifts in the areas of money, of joy. How you spend your time in money, your pleasures. And it will ease the unpredictability, the chaos potentially of a clip season because it's right smack dab in the middle on October 21st. Then that final eclipse, the North Note eclipse, in Taurus, happens on October 28th. And this, like I said, with a North Note eclipse, we think of as an amplification, a North node on the moon, that imaginary point on the moon is what we think of as something is insatiable. You will be reaching and reaching for something, your personal North Note and your birth chart forever. And you'll never fully get there. And that's okay, it's about the journey, right? But with a North Note eclipse happening live time, we feel an amplification. We feel kind of a big push or reach toward something. And with this North Note in Taurus, we're feeling an application around potentially material possessions or money, that feeling of like needing something in order to feel secure. And so what you can do is ask yourself, like is it necessary? Do I need that thing to survive? Is this potentially coming from a state of fear? You know, is it important to me to have something or have even someone? Or is it something bigger than that? And I'll use an example for myself where I feel this come up and I'm gonna kind of check myself during this time, is that when I am, let's say I'm really busy with work and things are going well, I don't find myself gravitating towards like scrolling, absorbing content or even little retail therapy. I don't feel like I do that as much because my time is filled. I'm feeling, you know, satisfied with the day-to-day. But when things get a little slower and let's say we'll call it boredom, not really boredom, but just like maybe a little bit of stress because I don't know what's coming next all the time, I will gravitate towards some of that consuming, consumption of content, consumption of things and even, you know, getting into Amazon and spending money on things. I don't literally need, okay? So if you're somebody who is like that, perhaps you'll feel this, this time. Again, just asking yourself, like is this an intensity that doesn't need to be filled by material possessions? And where might that come into check throughout the rest of the year? This is the last North Node eclipse, the last eclipse of the entire year. And so it just gives us some messages, some learnings as we move into the next year. This is actually the last eclipse in Taurus for in almost 20 years. So we've got a little Taurus break, Taurus really works in those areas of possessions, of things, of money, of, I mean, even like food, you know, those things that we have. And so doing some exploration here will be a great self discovery practice. So happy Eclipse season, everyone. Again, do not be stressed about Eclipse's. They're not stressful, they're just unpredictable. And they're big. There's a lot happening in the cosmos. And it can be helpful just to be aware of that, to give yourself that extra time and rest to nourish yourself in the ways that you know are good for you, that really fill you up during important times. And next up, we have September book reviews. Friends, even given me your book reviews, the things that you're working on, the things that you're reading, the things you're loving. And I am here for it. I've added so many to my good reads. I've read a couple of them. And we're going to talk about them. So it was a wide variety of books this month for me. I finished, as you listened to last month's book reviews, finished "Throw-On-Of-Glass." It was like ending on this amazingly high note. And now I've moved into just like, people call them palette cleansers, just a little bit different things. First and foremost, I just started reading this last month when I was reporting on the podcast. And that is hooked by Emily McIntyre. So Emily McIntyre is a book taught girly. She got a lot of excitement around her series of books that are essentially Disney villains that get their happy end. It's not really happy ending, but they get their love interests. They like have this whole journey with another character within these stories. They're definitely villains, like they are not good people, but they're dark romances. And let's just say they are very entertaining. They're funny, but they're like the kind of low-key bad. Just very entertaining, something so different. This particular one, hooked was about Captain Hook and Wendy. They have this love affair. Peter Pan is involved. I mean, like all the characters, it is just fun to kind of like, oh, that's a creative way to put it together. It's very creative, if anything. Is it great? No, I give it two stars, mostly because it felt really silly. And like the storyline, there has to be like some believability to some of these romances that I love. If you are a smut fan, like you know, the slow burn is because these are real relationships. And this one just felt a little, I don't know, quick. Here's, but I wanted to talk about dark romances in general. And I want to hear from you, if you quiz or into like the dark romance era, because it is, it's wild. There's a set of books, I haven't read these yet, I don't know if I will honestly, that are huge on book talk that have a lot to do with, like stocking. I mean, there are some dark stuff out there, no shame whatsoever on your kink on things that you enjoy reading. I'm just like really interested in all the stuff out there and like what people like, what, you know, where their boundaries are as it comes to reading, I feel like as I've gotten more into reading, smut into reading romance, like it's gotten a little bit darker and I feel like I've maybe met my threshold now with these, these villain era books, but curious, do you like these? Are we reading any of those? I think the ones that I'm thinking of and if you've read these, please let me know what you like, your true honest opinion are the like hunting, add-align, haunting, add-align. This is like sort of the stock fetish, it sounds so dark and so I just haven't gotten there yet, again no shame if that's what you enjoy reading, but what do you guys think about dark romances? Are we there? Anyways, hooked by Emily McIntyre, two stars, silly, fun, pretty quick, but not, you know, going to change your life, that's for sure. The next set of books I read were The Crowns of Nyaxia series by Chris Abroadbant. So after Akatar and after the run of glass, like I've talked about on the show, I am a romance, a fantasy romance girl, like I am in it. And this was a really good one to do after some of the Sarah J. Mass series because it's only two books with a novella in between. And that's my only downside with some of these larger fantasy series is they are so long and they take months to work through and I just sometimes don't have that time. So this one was two books and there's a little novella in between. The first book was great there. It's like very trying to think of death, like not divergent. It was very like hunger games, meats, twilight, like their vampires. The main character is a human, she's really strong. She's trained her whole life for this big competition. She meets a couple other people in the process, two other vampires that she becomes close with. And there's a whole great world building that is like low key political, which feels really cool. The world building is key, but it doesn't. I don't feel like it like overtakes the first part of the book. You see the relationships come in right away, which I appreciate. So the first one, I gave five stars. There was this novella in between that is different characters and the main characters in the first and second book, but they're important to the second book. And that's literally just a love story and kind of a cool, short love story in between. It wasn't amazing, but I did like it. I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it because it was quick and I enjoyed it because it made sense in the second book, the actual second book. And then the second book is a lot more like politics, the dynamics of the two, the multiple vampire groups. And it was fun. It didn't, again, change my life. I like the first one the most. But overall, I want to give the series a 4.5 stars because it was great. The writing was good. It's short enough that you can consume it. The characters are really likable. There's some smite, some good smite. And I love it. I love a romance, fantasy romance situation. Last. I'm almost done with this book. And that is the last book in the Knock Me Out series by Lucy Score. So Lucy Score, I've read her that first book in this series, things we left behind. I think it's called. And she's great. She's so likable. Her characters are really likable. They're funny. There's always a subplot that's kind of mystery or intrigue in some way. And her smite is very, there's enough, let's just say, there's a good amount in it. And she's got a lot of popularity in the last year. So with that first book in this series, the second book in that particular series was definitely the weakest. And this third one is pretty good. I'm enjoying it. The characters, it's like, they call this main character like a suit daddy. So if you saw the stupid thing out loud, if you know what that means, like, he's just like wealthy business owner and he's in love with the librarian and the small town. They grew up together and there's lots of backstory. But they are, the backstory is intriguing and then there's a subplot as well. That's like kind of adventurous. Here's the thing. Here's my only issue with Lucy's score. Like I do, I really enjoy these books. I like her. I think she's just, I have like subscribed to her and it was letter and everything. But they are like silly. There's some of the things that the characters say. I'm like that. No one would say that. No one would say that in real life. Like that's not real. So take it with a grain of salt, very entertaining, something to do in between. Like if you're a historical fiction girl, maybe you throw one of these in between, cleanse the palette. They're nice. I have, I can't give my official rating because I haven't read it. But so far, I'm feeling like it's a four star. Things we left behind. That's the one that I'm currently reading. It's the third one. It's the purple one in the series. Lucy's score. Check her out. I've read some other things by her too that like, these are kind of her most popular ones, but she's, she's fun and something to grad to add to your good reads. Really a great vacation read. What are we reading friends? Tell me what you're reading. I'm so curious. I always love hearing from you and that you like hearing these book reviews once a month. So they'll keep coming your way. I'm learning so much. I am here. I'm saying it out loud. I am branching out into some more not romance like them starting. I've got a lot of my lists and I'm going to tackle those next. So stay tuned. If you're getting bored of romance reviews because we're going to expand our palette a little bit. Alright friends, the topic at hand, something that I've been thinking about for a long time and how to convey this time, convey this feeling. It's been on my mind because I'm fully in it and that is the hot mom era. If you're like, what are you talking about, how does this relate to the show? Here it is. So on this show, we talk about self-care. We talk about why it's important. We talk about how it's important to truly listen to the needs of yourself and give into those needs and satisfy those needs in order to take care of other people. It's the most selfless thing that you can do is to listen to yourself about what you need. And the reality of the situation is that when you are building humans in your body, when you are trying to get pregnant, when you're postpartum, when you're breastfeeding, there is this undercurrent of constraint as a part of this. You can't do certain things when you're pregnant. We know this. There's a lot of debate on what you can't do, but at the end of the day, there are restrictions. And for someone like me with an area is rising, this was very difficult. And I've been in this particular dynamic for seven plus years. And so it was a large swath of time to feel like I didn't have full autonomy over my body. Is that something that other people experience differently? Heck yes. Some people love feeling pregnant or being pregnant. Some people love all that goes in it. For me, it felt very challenging to not have that autonomy over my body, over my life. Yes, I can still do lots of things, postpartum, in between babies, while pregnant. Yeah, you can do a ton of things, but there are just things that I couldn't do, like taking certain supplements, like socializing and alcohol is one piece. I don't even really care much about alcohol, but even just someone saying, no, you can't have alcohol. It bugged me. I didn't like that someone could tell me, no, you can't do certain things. Certain workouts, certain, oh man, even like thinking laser hair removal, that's funny. You can't do that during a certain period of time, but it was really tough for me. And finally now, coming out of this time, coming out of a time where the priority was on building life. I'm creating life and I'm so grateful I got that time, but now I'm here and that that freedom is back. Oh my gosh, does this feel good? I want to say this to people because I feel like we don't probably talk about this enough and it probably sounds privileged and selfish, but that's what the show is about. That's what we talk about on the show. That feeling of freedom, of having sovereignty, of having autonomy over your body is amazing. And it's there. A friend of mine when I was pregnant with Stella said, you know, Ashley, like you're so close, you're almost there, you're going, things are going to change when you're done. And I knew that Stella was my last baby. When you have her, when you're done breastfeeding, like things are going to feel different. And she was right. It feels so exciting and so different. And I want to talk about what that means, you know, for all of us. If you are in this era, awesome, this is a really exciting time. If you're not there yet, please know all of your hard work and your dedication to building life, to creating life, to your children to breastfeeding them, to taking care of them, all of those things. It is not in vain, it only makes this time period the hot mom era even better because you've done all the heavy lifting and now you deserve to take some of that freedom back, take your body back. The best example of I can use of this is like to give you just like a parallel. You know when you're in the car and your kids are not in the car with you and you get to listen to whatever music you're in. you want to listen to when you get to turn it up super loud. Like, you're loud-ass music in the car. And no one is judging you or telling you you need to turn on kids' pop. Like, that's what this feels like. And it's real, it's palpable. So now that we've established what the hot mom era is, I wanted to just talk about some of the things that you have permission to do. You always have permission to do these things, but saying it out loud, saying, hey, mama, you've worked so hard, you work so hard for your family, you've done so much, you've literally grown humans in your body for your family. It's important to take the power back. Bring it back to yourself. What does that look like? There's lots of ways. For me personally, and I'll speak to my experience 'cause that's all I know, it's a lot of physical work. It's a lot of movement. It's a lot of getting fit and strong again, repairing my core, being able to balance my hormones after multiple babies. It's getting my skin back to being not so inflamed. You know, these are physical things. Yeah, they're kind of superficial, but they're real and they're important to me. And that's not something that I was able to really dive into. You can't really balance your hormones while you're pregnant because they're all over the place, right? And it takes a while for this to get back to normal. The physical piece is something where I notice a direct correlation to what I attract in this world. And not like, hey, I look good, so I'm attracting men. Yeah, right, not that. More so in that, when I feel proud of myself, I feel proud of my body. Even just getting in some physical movement, getting my heart rate up and knowing like, yeah, I'm prioritizing my own physical self right now. Opportunities come my way, things come my way, things come out of the blue. Like this is the true magnetic energy of health and wellness. Can you do this while you're pregnant, breastfeeding, you know, postpartum? Yeah, you can too, where I think this is different is that now there's like true, true freedom to experiment a little bit. Like what works, what doesn't? Intermittent fasting, can we try that on? Like amplifying your protein, amping up your protein, doing different strength workouts. There's a lot more freedom to experiment on what feels good. So for me, it's about thinking about how I show up in the world. You know, what do I do to get ready in the morning, taking time to do my hair to find, oh, if it's that make me feel confident, like showing up in a way where I feel like, yeah, I'm going to tackle this world. I'm going to tackle this opportunity, this project. That has been so exciting. And I've had the energy in the momentum to do that right now. Now, I want to say this is different for everybody. And for me, it feels really physical, but for others, it might feel different in that you're bringing yourself into a spiritual journey. You're discovering who you are as an individual versus just a mother. I don't want to say just a mother, but who are you? You are someone who takes care of other people, but you also take care of yourself. It might be a rekindling of your relationship with your partner, or maybe even a discovery about something that's been holding you back from your partner, right? This is a time that starts now, and it doesn't really end. There is so much in front of you as you're reaching for whatever opportunities you're working for. What I really think, a lot of this boils down in this aha moment, and why I wanted to bring it up on this show, is that our lives, especially as women, as mothers, is non-linear, okay? Some of you might be in your hot mom era now and you don't even have kids yet, or maybe you're not going to have kids. You are thriving. You have autonomy over your body. You're jamming out in your work. You're getting all the opportunities. You're doing all the things. And some of you might experience that later. And that's okay. For me, it has been such an up and down of like, I'm going to be a career girly, and then no, I'm going to have kids. And now I'm leaning back into my career finding new opportunities, right? It ebbs and flows. And listening to that and knowing that it's not linear, is really freeing to know that you don't have to do things step-by-step-by-step, and listening to your body, listening to what you need, listening to what you want, is only going to help you move further into this process. So I wanted to leave you with just some ideas for things you can do during your hot mom era, whether it's now for you or it's something that's in your future. This is, it's a joy. It's a joy moment. And you deserve truly, truly the best because you do so much for so many other people. First, starting your fitness journey or restarting your fitness journey, prioritizing your strength, trying maybe some lifting or doing new workouts that you've never tried before, getting out of your comfort zone and bringing that power back to the physical body. Two, like I mentioned, balancing hormones. This is something that I've taken a lot of time to figure out. I hear from a lot of my clients, a lot of people in the clinic that I work at that like this is a journey. Getting those hormones back in check, whether you do that with a medical provider or you've learned some things by reading books, like there's ways to do this that can really make you feel so much better after the hormones have been kind of all over the place after babies. Establishing a personal style or just how you want to show up in the world. I love clothing rental. That's a great way to do it without investing too much, kind of like experimenting, seeing what works out for you. And then showing up in a really big and bold way, like bringing out that inner Leo within you. Learning about things that, how you fuel your body, so things like macros or intermittent fasting or like what foods feel best in your body and which ones do not? You can experiment with this a little bit. How does certain foods show up for these new workouts or for just those day-to-day things that you're doing? What makes you feel fueled and ready for your day? Experimenting with sleep. You know, what's the adequate amount of sleep? How much time do you need? How does things like alcohol or workouts or stress? How do those affect your sleep? A lot of it, you can study, or rings are really helpful, but you can just study how you feel in the morning. Are you waking up rested? Is something holding you back from having really great sleep? What little tweaks can you make? And this is assuming that no one is waking you up in the middle of the night, that might be a reality. It still is for me every once in a while. So just experimenting with what you can control as it relates to your sleep, your sleep environment, your sleep hygiene, you've done lots of episodes on that. Try new supplements and things that maybe you haven't been able to try before. Obviously we don't want to just blanket, take supplements without knowing what's in them, like consult with your doctor. But if you've been like, yeah, I want to try Ashwaganda, I've never done that before. I've heard that it's calming. Okay, now might be a great time to do it. Talk to the people that you trust as it relates to supplements and try on some new things. I am going to do an episode coming up, friends, on supplements because it's kind of a slippery slope and there's a lot of interesting perspective on like, whether it should be regulated because it is the Wild West. So my disclaimer about supplements is like, always talk to your doctor if you can. Learn as much as you can about supplements, but they can be so helpful, so, so helpful. Take a solo trip or maybe like a girl's trip, go somewhere and just enjoy yourself. Could be a solo vacation, one night get a hotel by yourself and just like read your books and drink some wine, maybe go to the spa, whatever you want to do, take a little time for yourself on that same note. Get indulgent, think about something that you've wanted to do for a really long time. Maybe you've been saving up for it. I use example of like invisalign. That's something I really want to do in the future because head brace is growing up but for whatever reason, my teeth have shifted completely. So I want to save my monies and I want to do this. I'm going to prioritize that for myself and maybe do it in the future. You talked about like laser hair removal or hair extensions, like I know these sounds so superficial but there is something really magical and just saying out loud, like I want to do this and I'm going to save up some money in order to do that for myself. And finally, just know friends that you deserve this. You deserve to take care of yourself in whatever way shape or form you can. Whatever era you are in, if you're in your hot malmara, if you're in the midst of all of the amazingness of pregnancy and postpartum, if you have not even close to that yet, you deserve to take care of yourself. These things eb and flow and saying it out loud and just having someone in your ear hopefully gives you that freedom to say you're right. This is important, my wellbeing, how I feel about myself, how I show up on this world is really, really important, it's contagious. So a little bit of a soap box today, friends. I appreciate you so much. You know, if you wanna dive into this a little bit more and you wanna figure out specific things that you can do, let's work together in my health coaching capacity. I get to talk about this all the time. What are the things that are important to you? What is your vision and how can we make that actually happen? So if you're interested, send me a note, send me a DM and we can talk. I really love to connect with you in that way. As always, thanks for showing up to the Yoga Magic podcast for tuning in each week. More awesome content coming your way on all things, health, wellness, self-care, yoga spirituality. Thanks again for being here. I'll see you next week. (upbeat music)