Stefanie Iris Weiss is illuminating the mysterious ways that our bodies, the natural world, and the cosmos intersect and comingle. With her book Sex and Your Stars: A Sexologist’s Guide to the Erotic Energy of the Zodiac, she brings readers an approach “to truly know ourselves, to shed our shame, and to explore our erotic energy with others.” In this podcast, Sounds True founder Tami Simon speaks with Stefanie about the inspiration and intention for the book, and her unique perspective on the astrology renaissance of the last 20 years.
Tami and Stefanie discuss the Saturn return; the prerequisites for becoming a professional astrologer; what the charts tell us about the chaos of our times; the American Pluto return; embodiment in a tech-obsessed world; sex as a liberating force; Erotic Energy Mapping; natal charts and transits; empowerment through the Black Moon Lilith; the benefits of working with your sun sign; coming back to our sensuality; pleasure activism; tikkun olam: healing and repairing the world; and more.
Thank you so much to all of you who have written in (and otherwise sent) your thoughts, prayers, and love to us here at Sounds True, and to all our friends throughout Colorado during this very difficult time. It has been a very trying week for all of us and many here have lost their homes, businesses, towns, and even lives. Like any tragedy, though, it has brought individuals and the community together in new ways, and shown us what is truly important at the end of the day.
Fortunately, the sun was out all day yesterday, and today is also looking sunny and dry. We are praying that the worst is behind. While some of the roads near Sounds True have been damaged quite extensively, we were able to re-open yesterday, and were grateful that most of our employees are doing okay. We are for the most part safe, but many of us are in touch with others who are not faring so well – friends who have lost their homes, have been air vac’d out by the National Guard, cannot find loved ones, and are experiencing great fear and despair. Many dozens are still unaccounted for in Boulder.
Here are some photos to give you a visual sense of how the flood is impacting local communities.
And here is some video footage of Longmont, a town just next to Boulder where a number of our employees live.
Finally, a rather shocking amateur video of the flood as it moves through Boulder Canyon.
If you’re interested in helping via making a donation, information may be found here.
Thank you again for thinking of us and we join you in sending our thoughts, love, and prayers to our brothers and sisters throughout the state as we move through this very challenging time.
Emotions are Vital Aspects of Thinking, Acting, and Working
People once believed that emotions were the opposite of rationality, or that they were lower than or inferior to our allegedly logical processes. But decades of research on emotions and the brain have overturned those outdated beliefs, and we understand now that emotions are indispensable parts of rationality, logic, and consciousness itself. In fact, emotions contain their own internal logic, and they help us orient ourselves successfully within our social environments. Emotions help us attach meaning to data, they help us understand ourselves and others, and they help us identify problems and opportunities. Emotions don’t get in the way of rationality; they lead the way, because they’re vital to everything we think and everything we do. Emotions aren’t the problem; they’re pointing to the problem, and they’re trying to bring us the precise intelligence and energy we need to deal with the problem.
In this book, we’ll learn how to listen to emotions as uniquely intelligent carriers of information, and how to build healthy and effective social and emotional environments at work – not by ignoring or silencing emotions (you can’t), but by listening to them closely, learning their language, and creating a communal set of emotional skills that everyone can rely on. This work is not difficult at all, but it can be unusual in an environment that wrongly treats emotions as soft, irrational, or unprofessional.
The serious problems we’ve baked into the workplace don’t come from any specific management style or ideology, so I won’t focus on managers or leaders as if they’re uniquely powerful or uniquely to blame. These problems also aren’t limited to specific occupations or income brackets (though low-wage work is regularly dehumanizing and hazardous); these are long-term, widespread problems based on a failed workplace model – and on an outdated social and emotional approach that does not support (or in many cases, even comprehend) human relationships and human needs.
This book is the result of decades of exploration and study into how the workplace got to be so unworkable, plus decades of experience in how to access the existing genius in people’s emotional responses (in surprisingly simple ways once you understand how emotions and empathy work). With the help of the genius in our emotions, we can create emotionally well-regulated and worthwhile places for all of us to earn our living and spend our lives.
Luckily, we don’t have to do anything special to welcome emotions into the workplace, or even to make room for them, because emotions are and always have been in the workplace. They’re in the responses people have to workplace abuses; they’re in disengaged workers; they’re in workers seeking other jobs while on the job; they’re in workers who rightly avoid communicating upward about serious problems; they’re in low-wage workers who learn how to survive in hellscapes like call centers, fast-food restaurants, gig work, and robot-like warehouse jobs; they’re in living-wage workers who tolerate unhealthy workplaces because they can’t afford to leave their health insurance behind; and they’re in high-wage workers who may have to bow down to their superiors and compete with their colleagues to be seen as “winners” – and whose experiences of workplace abuse may not be taken seriously because they make so much money and therefore have no right to complain.
We can also see the emotions in our responses to workplace successes; in our healthy working relationships; in the ways we gather together to solve problems; in the ways empathic workers and leaders empower everyone around them; in the ways our colleagues support us when we’re struggling; in the ways businesses step up in times of loss; in the ways we create open communication and humane workflows; in the ways we teach each other; in the benefits, support, flexibility, and living wages we provide for our workers; in the honest sharing of business difficulties or financial losses; and in the laughter we share on great days and rotten days.
Emotions are everywhere in the workplace because emotions are a central feature of human nature. They aren’t removable, and in fact, trying to remove them is a huge part of what created the failed workplace model we have today. Emotions are crucial to everything we do and to every aspect of our work; therefore, we’ll learn how to listen to emotions, work with them, and respect their intelligence. And in so doing, we’ll build a better workplace – and a better world – from the ground up.
Karla McLaren, M.Ed.
Karla McLaren, M.Ed., is an award-winning author, social science researcher, and empathy innovator. Explore her books and audios on the power of emotion and creativity here.
This is part of a Conscious Business series brought to you by The Inner MBA®. You can learn more about the program at Innermbaprogram.com
Acceptance and surrender are key spiritual principles that focus on embracing reality as it is and using it to let go of inner resistance and turmoil. Seen in this light, life’s challenges are not problems; they are opportunities for growth and spiritual evolution. For example, karma is not a punishment but a learning tool encouraging you to evolve consciously. By practicing acceptance and surrender, individuals can achieve clarity and respond to situations thoughtfully, which fosters great spiritual growth.
If our consciousness dwells inside, why do external circumstances have such a strong effect on our inner well-being? It is attachment to past experiences that creates a mental filter that distorts reality as it comes in. By releasing stored emotions and judgments, we can access a natural state of joy and peace, regardless of external events. The path to self-realization involves continuous self-awareness and letting go of attachments, ultimately leading to a life of authenticity, freedom, and bliss.
Your life here on Earth is limited to the time between your birth and death. What do you want to do with that time? Do you want to live a life based on mental fears and emotional insecurities? People spend tremendous energy trying to protect themselves from psychological discomfort and rejection. You do not have to live that life—you can live a life of acceptance, where external circumstances no longer have the power to control your mental or emotional state.
