Here’s a sneak peek at what you’ll be receiving on Mondays beginning July 6th. Consider it a practice round for observation.
This week will bring your attention to the places where you edit yourself for approval.
For example, softening the truth so no one feels uncomfortable. Pressing ahead with implementing something that will get applause, even though you know a better way. Saying yes before you’ve checked in with yourself. Hiding the part of the idea that feels too weird, too direct, too emotional, too ambitious, or too much.
As part of my experiment, I’ll be coming back alive on LinkedIn. If we’re not already connected, you can find me here. Your support in that space as I experiment with becoming more honest and more visible would mean the world to me.
WHAT’S HAPPENING
Venus in Leo Sextile Uranus in Gemini
Venus in Leo highlights love, visibility, desire, creativity, pleasure, self-expression, and the places where we want to be chosen.
Uranus in Gemini brings disruption, honesty, experimentation, and unexpected insight through our thoughts, words, ideas, and conversations.
Together they’ll ask you where you’re performing for approval instead of allowing people to see who you really are.
This week, your practice is not to become radically authentic overnight, but to notice where your performance has become automatic — and perhaps pause long enough to ask yourself what it would take to put down the mask.
How This Might Show Up in Your Lab
CAREER
You may notice where you’re performing based on what you know others expect instead of expressing authentic leadership. Where are you waiting to be seen as credible before sharing your perspective?
BUSINESS
You may notice where your messaging, offers, or content have become so polished that it doesn’t even sound like you anymore. What underlying story or radical truth do you keep editing out?
RELATIONSHIPS
You may notice where you’re performing to be easy, agreeable, desirable, or low-maintenance. What need are you withholding or boundary are you sacrificing in order to protect the peace?
HEALTH + WELLBEING
You may notice your body reacting before your mind recognizes you’re performing. Where do you feel tight, tired, resentful, shut down, or overactivated after abandoning yourself?
CREATIVITY
You may notice where imagined criticism is dulling your edge and shaping your work before it has a chance to be seen. What would you create if you weren’t pressuring it to be understood?
PERSONAL GROWTH + IDENTITY
You may notice an old identity trying to stay in charge: the agreeable one, the impressive one, the responsible one, the one who knows how to read the room. Where is that safe identity keeping you small?
Reflection Prompts
Where am I performing for approval, love, safety, or belonging?
What version of myself do I believe is most acceptable to others?
What part of me feels easier to hide, but wants to be seen?
Where am I confusing being liked with being genuinely known?
What would I say, share, ask for, create, or choose this week if I did not need it to be universally accepted?
What is one place where my body already knows I’m performing?
Your Experiment This Week
Choose one place where you have been performing, polishing, or editing yourself for approval, and for the next seven days, experiment with what happens if you’re a little more honest.
That might mean:
sharing the sentence you keep deleting
naming what you actually want
asking the question you keep pretending not to have
posting the idea in your real voice
admitting that something no longer fits
saying no without needing to justify it
letting your enthusiasm show
letting your uncertainty show
Do not turn this into a personality overhaul, just make one adjustment and notice what happens.
What changes in your energy?
What opens?
What gets uncomfortable?
Who responds?
How does it feel?
What information became available that you didn’t have before?
You are not looking for proof that everyone likes the real you, but for data about what becomes possible when you stop abandoning yourself for approval.
MANTRA FOR THE WEEK
“It is safe to be seen as who I really am.”
Use this when you meditate or in the moments you’re pushing up against fear.
Share What You’re Noticing
If you feel called to share what you’re noticing in your own experiment this week, you can do that here:
[Link will be available inside the experiment that begins July 6th]
You can write your Lab Notes or upload a short voice memo.
There is no right format. You might share an action you took, something you observed, a pattern you’re noticing, a question you’re sitting with, or a moment that felt connected to this week’s Field Guide.
These notes are optional, but they help you build a record of your own experiment — and they help me understand what is moving through the cohort as we practice paying attention together.
A Note on This Week’s Theme
This Field Guide focuses on one collective astrology theme for the week, but it is not the only thing happening.
There are always multiple transits unfolding at once, and those transits interact differently with each person’s natal chart. So if another pattern, lesson, question, or area of your life is asking for your attention, pay attention to that, too.
The goal of this field guide is to use it as a starting point for observing what your life is showing you, not to forcing your experience to match this theme.
— Marissa
If you’re interested in joining the Cosmic Experiment Summer Cohort while the 1:1 onboarding call bonus is still available, you can do so here.