Lee: Well, hello Leslie, I am so excited to welcome you to the Coach with Clarity Podcast. 

Leslie: Oh, thank you, Lee for having me. I'm so happy to be here. 

Lee: We have been talking about doing this for ages. And everything works out in the timing it's supposed to. So I know that right when this episode airs is exactly when people need to hear your message. So before we get into all this good stuff, because we have a lot of good stuff planned today. Let's start off by introducing you. Tell us a little bit about who you are and the work you do for the world. 

Leslie: Oh, my goodness, yes. I believe in divine timing for sure. My name is Leslie Tagorda and I call myself a brand astrologer. But what that really means is that I am looking at astrology from a leadership, change making and strengths perspective for entrepreneurs and changemakers.

Lee: What I love most about your work too, is when you're talking about change, and change makers, you really mean it. I love how in every one of your podcast episodes, in your book, in all of the work you do, you are really taking a good long look at how we can use the data that astrology provides us to inspire and create and maintain change. Ideally, change that improves not just our own lives, but society as a whole. And I think you do a lovely job of balancing the personal with the macro so that we don't lose sight of how we impact the world around us as well. 

Leslie: Ooh, so many things to unpack there. Yes. Because I feel like when I'm working with entrepreneurs, like coaches, like your audience, the thing is that we go off working for ourselves because we can't work within the normal constructs of the systems and society that we are grown up and taught to be in, right? There's something that's not right, that we feel like we don't fit, or things that have to change. And so I love working with other people who are like, “Hey, there's something not right here. This is not an equal. This is not just.” And what I've always found with the clients that I work with, is that we are constantly reframing and validating the strengths that they knew inherently are buried deep within them that either society or culture or family has taught us was wrong, unsafe, not valuable. And so we spend a lot of our time, revaluing and revalidating all of those gifts and these shifts and these changes that we aim towards in astrology, they're never like 180. They're just these, like fine tuning, aiming and directional, purposeful things that it's just like, it blows people's mind, it blows my mind too!

Lee: No, and mine and mine! Which is why I was so excited to talk to you more about this today. But I'm curious, so have you always done this type of work? Has brand astrology always been your niche? 

Leslie: No, it hasn't. I started integrating astrology and really honestly like bringing it out of the closet, so to say, of my spiritual closet, about five years ago in 2018. When looking back at that moment in 2018, what was happening was that I was going through my, a midlife transit called the Uranus opposition. Which you, my friend, are currently going through. 

Lee: Yes I am! I am intimately familiar with that transit. Whew, girl.

Yes. And so the Uranus opposite Uranus, basically what this means for, you know to simplify it – is Uranus the planet Uranus return reaches the opposite point of your natal Uranus where you're Uranus was at the time of your birth. And so both of these forces Uranus is about change and awakening and freedom. They're opposing each other in your birth chart, giving us a sense of complete restlessness, like our body is like, on an electrical fire. But what's really happening is that our spiritual energy is rising to our crown chakra. If we believe in those kinds of spiritual tools. If you're not a believer in those spiritual tools, what is happening it's your consciousness is raising. And wherever that Uranus opposite, whatever things are highlighting in our charts, gets awakened and it has to change. I wish I had had those tools at the time to really understand what's going through me, but all I knew is that I wanted to burn my business down. Does that sound familiar, Lee? 

Lee: Little bit. Just a little bit.

Leslie: And I had to change. And that is really at that point where I was just about to. I had a web design and branding business for about 12 years prior to that. I am an old time entrepreneur. And I, with my clients doing web design and branding design, I felt like we were always guessing in colors, and what to say, what kind of personality, how to differentiate ourselves from the customers. Like I knew all of the pieces that we needed for our brands, but it was just this guessing game and throwing spaghetti on the wall. And so I wasn't having great results, my clients were having mediocre results. This is when I was like, I'm gonna throw in the towel. But I opened up my natal chart, and I hadn't looked at it in a few years. And I've been a lifelong astrology lover or just a self taught passionate astrologer. And I looked at my astrology chart, and I was like, “What is going on here?” And I was hearing like brand gurus talk about their brand archetype. And I was reading books about brand archetypes. And I was like, this just smells like astrology, it's to me. And then I looked at my natal chart, and knowing everything that I know about brands and brand values and brand purpose and brand vision and brand visibility, all these things, I was like, “Holy smokes, I can see that in a natal chart!” And it was fast and furious after that, within three months, I had a completely new framework, I had a new offer, it was so fast. And five years later, like my, I feel so confident and so impactful. Meeting just the most wonderful people along the same mission. It's, it's been amazing.

Lee: I can attest to the power of the work that you do, and the connections that you or we are able to make, from our natal charts to how we communicate, how we connect with our audience, how we connect with ourselves. It's such a powerful experience. And I love how you've linked branding with astrology, because really, it is archetypal. 

Leslie: Yes.

Lee: And regardless of where you're at on the spectrum of whether you believe or not, I think when we view things through that archetypal lens, and we look at the stories that have been shared and passed down from millennia, there's so much in there that we can learn from and apply to our own lives here in the 21st century. 

Leslie: Oh, yes, the stories, the myths, they're universal in terms of adding meaning and adding why we do things. And so it can be applied to just adding depth and richness and meaning to the work that we're doing to call in our soul customers, call in our soul communities, but also do the deep healing journey in ourselves that ultimately make us way more impactful for the people that we serve.

Lee: I really want to dive into this topic, because what I have found, in my experience, certainly in my prior career as a therapist, but interestingly, almost even to a greater degree as a coach is the role of healing in the coaching journey. And that is both for the coach themselves, but also how they support their clients in their healing journey as well. And so I'd love to kind of dive into how Astrology can support that. And if there are some key indicators that we should be looking for with regard to that inner healing, and then supporting our clients through it.

Leslie: Yes, such a beautiful, deep dive into some work that I've been currently, has been really revealing itself to me and saying, “Hey, I want to come forward.” And I want to help others in this way. And there is an archetypal energy in our natal charts that is directly related to the healing arts and it is called Chiron. And in mythology, Chiron is the wounded healer. Right? And that mythology lives in every single one of us. Lee, do you know who coined the Drama Triangle?

Lee: Not offhand, but whew, am I familiar with it. Again, both from a therapy perspective, and maybe a personal perspective as well. But tell us more about the Drama Triangle. 

Leslie: So I'm not a licensed psychologist. I don't have any training in psychology and I read a lot of psychology and self help and therapy books and things like that, and I'm not great with details. So I don't have the source for who coined the Drama Triangle. But basically, you probably already know that the Drama Triangle is where we can get stuck in being the victim. And when we're the victim, our – a great tendency is to lash out at others, and then become the perpetrator in wounding others, or going the opposite way and then going into the martyrdom and being the savior. Right? So we have the victim, the perp and the savior, all in one archetype. And Chiron is an exemplar, an archetype that has all of these primal woundings. Now, Chiron is a centaur. So astronomically speaking. Chiron isn't a planet, it isn't a dwarf planet. It isn't an asteroid. It's in a new class of solar system objects called centaurs. And Chiron was a centaur. And it's so interesting that when these solar system objects get named, they get named by very logical astrophysicists and astronomers that some, some of them believe in astrology, most of them don't. And it’s super interesting that they start to name these objects, by these archetypal energies. And astrologers that do these kinds of research, they start to look at the themes that start to open up at the time of these discoveries of these different objects. And they start to wonder, “Well, how did this astronomer who knows nothing about archetypes of mythology decided that they were going to name this object, Chiron?” And so astrologers will often say, “Well, they are just feeding, they're grabbing or they're feeding, or they're connecting to the collective energy that wants to become conscious right now.” That might be a little bit woo. So excuse me, if that sounds really woo. 

Lee: No, we're here for it. We're here for it.

Leslie: Chiron was discovered in 1977. So right around the time of most of our births, and at that time, there was great changes going through psychotherapy and psychology and healing because prior to that time, there was a separation between mind and body. Where doctors would operate on bodies or they would, you know, take care of like, the mind through like electrocution, and terrible things like that. And there were only a few pioneers who were integrating the cymatics between the mind/body integration. After Chiron's discovery, many more people started integrating both mind, body, and spirit connecting the left and the right brain. 

And so Chiron, his archetypal story. His first wound was he was abandoned by his mother. The wound that we are most, most of us know him in mythology was that he was gashed in his left foot by a painful poisoned dart or poisoned sword. Poisoned with the blood of Hydra, which is Scorpio. And because he’s a Centaur – half, half human, half um, who was his father? I should know this. I think Saturn was his father, Saturn. Of course, through sexual assault had had a Chiron and he was immortal. So he couldn't, Chiron couldn't die from this gash in his foot, even though he was supposed to. Like it was a lethal gash. So there's symbolism in the pain. There's symbolism in the pain that he cannot heal in his own foot. But he had already had lived a life of being a botanist and herbalist and astronomer and astrologer, he was well versed in the healing arts. And so he went to travel through the universe, learning all these different modalities of healing art so that he could heal that painful gash in his foot. Right? And along the way, you know, he did some of his own hurts, you know, wounding as well, because that's what we do. 

Lee: Hurt people hurt people. Exactly.

Leslie: People hurt people, no judging there.

Leslie: And then he could never heal his foot. Instead, he opened a healing temple where people would come to him and he could heal them. And so what Chiron represents in our lives, it's not just the wounds, our archetypal wounds. It's not just how we hurt others unintentionally, but it's how we alchemize our greatest pains and wounds into the wisdom that we offer back to others. So if Chiron never got hurt, if he never went on that journey to learn all that healing, to try to heal himself, he would never have been able to heal all those people that came to seek his healing.

Lee: I so appreciate knowing all of that, because I think it points to what often happens in coaching as well. I have worked with hundreds of coaches, and the vast majority of them, easily 85 to 90% want to serve people who have had similar life experiences as they have. They have worked through some sort of difficult experience, they've learned from it, and they want to support the people who are coming behind them. And I think that really speaks to what you just shared about this Chiron archetype of we are wounded, and we are seeking a way to heal ourselves, and in that process, we gain knowledge and wisdom and experience that we can translate into serving others. Now, of course, there needs to be parameters around that. Because if we're not careful, we can be acting out our own wounding on other people. And so there's a process there right? Of awareness and doing our own work, so that we have the capacity to serve others. And I feel like that's maybe something that we can learn from this Chiron archetype. 

Leslie: Oh, my goodness, yes, all of those things, because what you were saying in terms of in our offers, and with your coaches, and of course, your coaches want to help others that have experienced the same pains. And their value and their wisdom and their unique approach comes from their own healing journey. It's not, I mean, yes, you need your accreditations, yes, you need the strategies. Yes, you need all those ABCs behind your names. But what makes you more magical and unique and more amplified and valuable? Is all of the other things that you've interwoven in your own personal healing journey and experiences. That is the gift. 

So Chiron, not only does he become a healer, but he also becomes a compassionate leader. Right? The worst leaders in our world today are those that take and they are not compassionate, they're not empathetic. They think that everybody deserves a silver spoon in their mouth. And if you don't have that silver spoon, then we'll to heck with you. Right? Those are obviously people that have not gone on their healing journey. 

Lee: Mmhmm.

Leslie: What would the world be like? If we all sat with our, in our healing journey? The thing about Chiron is pain, right? It doesn't go away. It is there. It is painful. 

Lee: Right.

Leslie: And it nevertheless doesn't make a Chiron any less valuable, whole or complete. In fact, it makes him more valuable. 

Lee: Yes, yes, that that is so true. And thinking back to the Drama triangle, which by the way, I looked it up.

Leslie: Oh good!

Lee: So it was developed by a psychologist named Stephen Karpman in the 60s. So K-a-r-p-m-a-n, for all of my psychological minded people out there. But what I'm really sensing is that just as Chiron had all three within him, so do we. 

Leslie: Yes.

Lee: We all have the capacity for each one of those three roles of being the persecutor, the rescuer and the victim. And part of the healing work is accepting the fact that we all have the capacity to be each of those three at any given time. Not that we necessarily want to, not that we necessarily like it, but that capacity is there. And only once we acknowledge that, can we really do the work of understanding, “How is this showing up in my life? How is this showing up in my relationships? What do I need to be aware of? And how can this awareness contribute to my healing?”

Leslie: That is, that's pure gold right there, Lee, because I think that's one of the things that people miss about pain, right? Or pain or challenge or wounding is that we don't like the discomfort. Who likes the discomfort of pain? I mean, you know, I'm suffering from some back things. You're still recovering from COVID. It is not comfortable. But in this healing journey, instead of trying to bypass and like find the magic pill or, you know, do everything to avoid feeling pain, the true healing journey is sitting with the discomfort, getting curious with what it wants us to learn, and then deciding to move through it, not around it. 

Lee: Yes, yes. That is at the heart of the work that actually, I think we are all called to do in our own ways, you through the work that you do, me through the work that I do. And it's really an invitation. 

Leslie: Yeah, I know that when I look back at just kind of my own Chiron and you know, for those of you who are astro-curious and who know how to look at their natal chart, you can look at Chiron by the sign in the zodiac, you can look at Chiron by the house placement where it lives in your chart, you can look at it by the aspect, that it has to different planets. And you might notice that Chiron is really like, has a really leading role in your chart. Like Lee, I'm looking at your chart right now. You have Chiron conjunct Venus and Mars in the second house. 

Lee: I do.

Leslie: Your north node. 

Lee: There's a lot going on there. Thanks, Chiron. 

Leslie: But you know, like it's really supporting your healing of your clients and supporting their work. And when I look at my own Chiron in Aries and the 11th house, I was always looking to heal that I, my own identity. And so my own, I grew up, as I grew up in Hawaii as half Filipino, half Jewish, my mom is Jewish, my dad is Filipino. And Hawaii is a melting pot. But you know, within the family systems there's different dynamics. And my Filipino family, even though they love me so much, they would other me by calling me the whitey. And if you can see me on screen, my skin is not white. Yet, I was called the whitey and outed and my Jewish family, my grandfather wouldn't even meet me, because he didn't want a child of color. And so from a very young age, I'm trying to answer this question, “Is it okay? Is it safe to be me? And who is, what is my identity when I don't fit any of the identities around me?” And so it makes sense that I had a web and brand design business where we're literally designing identities before business for 12 years, before I started moving into this astrology based branding, where now we can get, we can start to identify not only through our wounds, but identify through our lens of our astrology.

Lee: That is, I have no words, Leslie, really, I'm just kind of sitting with your story. First off, and how you have managed to come to terms with your own history and allow it to inspire the work that you're doing now, I think is incredibly powerful. So to use yourself as that example. Thank you for that. And I think it also shows us what's possible, when we are willing to wrestle with those demons, when we are willing to take stock of the relationships that we've had or have and how we show up and how we've been affected by them. And then really look at “How can this inspire change? How might this be a catalyst for my next step and the world's next step, really?”

Leslie: Yes, the catalysts, sometimes we are searching and it will, this is my own personal story – I was trying to force the change, like find the purpose, you know, push, push, push, push, push. And really the purpose found me when I decided to reflect on what is really going on in my head and my heart and my soul here. And so one of the things like if you're feeling that this purpose is kind of out of your reach, or you don't know how you can make that big impact and that big change and that big catalyzing for others transformational healing, take a look in, get still, sit with the discomfort. Don't be afraid with the discomfort, the discomfort is actually your friend. 

Lee: Yes, that I think is one of the most significant learning moments I've had in my entire career, which is that discomfort is there for a reason. It's actually there to serve us. It points an arrow, it shines a light on something that needs our attention. And so often we try to avoid it, we try to diminish it, like literally we’ll take an ibuprofen if we have a headache or a sore muscle. We try to numb out. But when we're talking about emotions, and the discomfort that comes from that emotional experience, we can only numb out for so long. And in fact, just as with physical ailments, if we do try to dull the pain, we're not really addressing the underlying problem of what's causing that pain. And so when we can view the discomfort as a sign that maybe we need to go a little deeper. Maybe we need to explore the root cause and address that. It does become an invitation. It's difficult work. It's hard work. It's deep work, and it's meaningful work. And that is also an opportunity that coaches have to support their clients in doing that type of work. And Leslie, I know that you are supporting your clients in doing that work too, just from a different perspective. 

Leslie: For sure, I love that visual that you offer it about like that, that arrow pointing straight to that tender, powerful spot that needs illumination.

Lee: And I think too, that is the birthplace of opportunity. I mean, as you alluded to, so my Chiron is in the second house, Taurus, smack between Mars and Venus, like there's a lot going on there. But it really points to what I feel like I've struggled with my whole life, which is, “Am I am I enough? Do I have enough? Do I have enough to offer? Who am I to do this?” And then also that a lot around money and resources and money, mindset, all of that. And I think what was so powerful for me was just the validation that came from seeing this in my natal chart and going, “Oh, oh, that makes so much sense.” And all of a sudden, it didn't feel like there was something wrong or something that I needed to be ashamed of. It was no, this is just a part of my makeup. This is who I am. Now that I know this, what do I want to do with it? And I think that is the power that comes from systems like this. Whether we're talking personality assessments, whether we're talking astrology, there is such power in naming and claiming something, and then allowing that information to support your decisions moving forward.

Leslie: I love that so much, that Chiron in Taurus and for for a lot of the listeners, I bet that they do have that Chiron in Taurus and just the Chiron in Taurus, what you were seeing that question of Chiron in Taurus that it's trying to heal is “Am I worthy?”

Lee: Yeah. Yes. Which for me, has always felt like the fundamental question in my life. And it really took until my 40s. You know, I don't think there's an accident there. But it really took until my 40s before I started, even opening up to the possibility that, “Yes, I have always been enough, I will always be enough.” And there's opportunity, of course, to grow and expand, but that doesn't mean I wasn't enough before. It just means I'm continuing to blossom. 

Leslie: Continuing to blossom and right in the middle of your midlife awakening. Of course, your power is at the surface now Lee.

Lee: Ooh, I like that.

Leslie: Ready to be tapped.

Lee: I love that. So Leslie, if someone is interested in learning more about how their own astrology, their natal chart influences, how they show up in their business, how they show up in their lives, and also specifically how it can influence their healing journey. What, what suggestions would you have for them?

Leslie: So, so many. Where do we begin? 

Lee: Sorry, that was a big question.

Leslie: I think that just you know, getting curious with your natal chart, looking at Chiron in the core wounds that it wants to heal, looking at your natal Moon, which is your emotional, intuitive self and some of like the ancestral stories that have come in to your life, like those are two really good places for healing to look at your natal chart. And then of course in the work that I do, I have both workshops as well as like do for you or like one on one guidance with astrology where we can really unravel and reveal the energies, the archetypal energies that desire expression in not just your work, but your leadership and just the way that you confidently shine brightly in your life.

Lee: Leslie, you know, I am one of your biggest cheerleaders. And so I just want to let people know that if this conversation has sparked something in you, if you're curious about this, you will absolutely want to check out Leslie and her work. Definitely check out her podcast. It is a must listen to. Where can people find out more about you and your work? 

Leslie: Yes. May I actually share about my Chiron offers that are coming up right now?

Lee: Please. Please do, yes. 

Leslie: So we're talking about Chiron today just because Chiron has been so loud and clear in wanting expression through my work, and just how I see Chiron showing up in my clients charts, and transits. And when I say transits, the cosmic the celestial cycles that we all go through in timing. I have two Chiron offers that are coming through right now. One is for people who are experiencing their midlife not crises, but awakening. And so this is for people with somewhere between 35 and 52. There are a number of astrological transits that happen during the midlife and we talked about earlier the Uranus opposite Uranus, which is like the, the height of, of the midlife transits. These are not supposed to be crisis points, they're meant to be awakening points. And so I'm leading a four week workshop called Chiron and Midlife Awakening with another Hypno healer, who's going, we're going to be doing astrology, as well as group healing. I'm super excited about that four week offer. 

And then for the business people and the changemakers and the entrepreneurs, who are looking to really dial in and specify the value and the impact and the meaning of their work through their own healing journey. I have another course that's running in parallel, called Chiron and The Wounded Leader. And that's really specific about interpreting our own natal Chiron and how it informs our work so that you can call in your customers with more ease and add value to your work.

Lee: Those sound like extraordinary opportunities. So if people want to learn more if they want to register, what's the next step? 

Leslie: Oh, yes, that's a good question.

Lee: I got the most important part. You can head on over to my website, and my website is called newmooncreative.co/Chiron. Chiron is spelled C-h-i-r-o-n. So again, newmooncreative.co/Chiron. 

Lee: Excellent. We will have links to that in the show notes. And Leslie, I just cannot thank you enough for coming on the show today. I've loved this conversation. And I'll share, and I shared this with you before we started. Typically, when I have an interview, I prepare questions in advance, knowing that we may not get to all of them, or even any of them. But today, I didn't do that, because I knew that as soon as we started talking, the conversation was going to go where it needed to. I really feel like that has happened today. So thank you for taking this journey with me, for going on this ride. It has been such a pleasure to speak with you today. 

Leslie: Oh, my goodness. Thank you, Lee for having me and wanting and desiring to chat about Chiron because I can talk about Chiron until the cows come home.

Lee: Well, and as we discover today, it is such a relevant archetype for healers of all kinds, but especially coaches. And so I'm really grateful that you shared your wisdom and your knowledge with us today. So definitely go check out Leslie's work at newmooncreative.co and add that forward slash Chiron to learn more about her Chiron specific offerings. Leslie, I'm sure we will have you back on the show in the future. And I know that you will be the guest expert trainer for the Coach with Clarity Collective later on this year. So if you want more Leslie you can also check out the Collective, coachwithclarity.com/collective and learn even more from this sage woman. Leslie, thank you so much for being on the show today. 

Leslie: Oh, thank you, Lee. Big hugs to you.

Lee: I am so grateful to Leslie for coming on the show and sharing her wisdom with us. Leslie honestly is someone that I hold in such high regard and I am so grateful for her support and her vast knowledge in how she has supported me personally, but also what she is sharing with the Coach with Clarity community. Again, if you would like to learn more about Leslie, you can head to newmooncreative.co, so many resources there. I also encourage you to check out her books and her podcast. They are fantastic resources. And if you're interested in her Chiron offerings, I've made a really easy link for you just go to coachwithclarity.com/chiron and you can learn more. 

That is it for me this week, my friend. But as always, I will be right back in your podcast feed next week with a brand new episode. So please, if you haven't already subscribed to the show, take a minute now to do that. It's super easy. Wherever you are listening to the show, there should be an option to follow or subscribe. Maybe it's a little plus sign next to the name of the show. Just click that button and then the Coach with Clarity Podcast will automatically show up in your feed next week. And we can continue our conversation then. 

I am currently putting together my slate of episodes for 2023. Yes, I am already planning for next year. And while I have some really exciting topics in store, I would love to hear from you. If there is a particular topic or question you would like addressed on the Coach with Clarity Podcast, do me a favor, let me know. You can find me on Instagram and on TikTok @CoachWithClarity and send me a DM or you're welcome to email me it's info@coachwithclarity.com and I would love to know more about what you'd like to hear on the show. And thanks in advance for all of your great ideas. All right, my friend until next week, my name is Lee Chaix McDonough, reminding you to get out there and show the world what it means to be a Coach with Clarity.