If you are in the horrors with menstrual cycle issues or you want to learn how to harness your hormones, then you are in the right place. Welcome to the Period Power podcast. I’m your host, Maisie Hill menstrual health expert, acupuncturist, certified life coach, and author of Period Power. I’m on a mission to help you get your cycle working for you so that you can use it to get what you want out of life. You ready? Let’s go.

Maisie Hill: Hello everyone and welcome to the podcast. I’m so excited about today’s conversation and I know my guest is as well because we’ve literally been holding the tension of the excitement of doing this recording today for a month or so, I think. For when I first invited Robin onto the podcast and we were like, “Oh my gosh, how are we going to hold it together until we do it?”

So it’s been a while since I’ve had someone on for the kind of ongoing People of Influence series and Robin and I actually haven’t known each other for that long and it kind of only dawned on me as I was preparing to record today. It’s like, oh, we’ve only been in each other’s lives for a few months, like five months. So here’s the context of how we met and then I’ll introduce Robin.

So I have been, as I’ve been sharing in the recent episodes, going through this whole process this year of, I would say remembering who I am and kind of coming back to myself. And I went through a bunch of stuff in the spring that was quite emotionally intense for me. I did a lot of resting and taking care of myself and it was around that time that I just started playing around with working with different people and I did all sorts of calls with different consultants and coaches and it was just really fun to kind of remember who I am.

And as part of that I did four sessions with a business astrologer and that was really cool. I really enjoyed it. And then around that time my friend Simone mentioned Robin in her stories over on Instagram and I just know, because I know Simone pretty well, that anyone that she works with is likely to be a good fit for me. And so I immediately booked a one-off session with Robin who is a fate and free will coach.

And I would describe your work because you just do this incredible blend of coaching and astrology and you’re just an incredible woman. So we had our session, which was just so insightful and I just loved how you deliver astrological information and then the coaching you gave me around that and it just felt like we were a good fit for each other. And so we went on, I was like, “I want to do more.” So we now have a session every week together as my coach and I just love it. So I’m just really glad that you are here for all the reasons because you have in a short amount of time had a really significant impact on me and my life and my business. So of course I wanted you to come on the podcast to talk about all the things. So welcome.

Robin Langford: Thank you very much. I am delighted to be here.

Maisie: Okay, so first of all, if you could introduce yourself, let the people know where they need to find you because they do need to find you. And I know I already have, because I’ve mentioned you in my emails and things, people already signed up to your email and things. But I want to make sure that before we even get into the conversation that people know where to find you so that they can get all the good stuff too.

Robin: I am Wicked Veracity absolutely everywhere. So wickedveracity.com and on Instagram I am Wicked.Veracity. From both of those locations you can get my free retrograde calendar, which will put you on my email list where you’ll get a weekly email with my astrological forecast. Or you can listen to that at the Wicked Veracity podcast.

Maisie: Yes. And I really recommend that you do because even though I get to delight in having a session with you every week, I still always come back to your weekly forecast and kind of use that. And it’s just such an incredible free resource. So I really hope that people go and sign up or follow you on Instagram or listen to your podcast or all of the things.

Robin: It’s interesting, I have people who do actually do all of the things and they print out the email and they look forward to the Instagram post every day because it’s like a little reminder and they listen. And I’m like, “I love you, I love you all.” I do that. I also do that. I relisten to my podcast. I reread my email and I’m usually surprised when my Instagram’s auto post because I put them and I schedule them out. I’m like, “Oh right, why didn’t I plan for that.” All the time.

Maisie: So I’m going to jump straight in and talk about, because this is all about the ways that we have influenced each other. And so the first way is obviously with astrology and the influence that that has had on me. And there’s something I feel like I just need to get off my back before we get started that there’s nothing to do with you I but just for all the listeners.

Because I have a feeling that because we’re going to talk about astrology and there are lots of people who are interested in the lunar cycle and any crossover with the menstrual cycle and all of those things. And I have a feeling that you or I could end up getting questions that are along the lines of how do I bleed with the full moon and how do I sync my cycle? I know your face. If only people could have seen Robin’s face because Robin and I are on the same page with this. It’s what load of nonsense. Please do not do that.

Robin: Right.

Maisie: Because it’s just another way that we kind of have this ridiculous expectation of our bodies and please don’t do that. Please don’t think that you need to try and control your body in such a disrespectful way to, I don’t even know what the point of it would be. But I do get questions sometimes.

Robin: I actually have a way different way that I would like for people to look at that.

Maisie: Oh yeah, go on.

Robin: Which is that it’s a more powerful experience to make a note of when you’re bleeding in the different phases of the moon because it’ll be a totally different experience along with how your cycle syncs up to the different signs. Because ovulation will feel very different in, for example, Aries, then it will in Scorpio. And so if they’re paying attention to that, I think that’s more informative than trying to manipulate your body into doing something it’s not supposed to be doing.

Maisie: Agreed. So now that I’ve got that out of my head, we can move on. So Robin has really helped me because my cycle used to be a lot more regular than it… I still think of it as regular, it’s just sometimes it can be shorter. So it used to always be 28 days and that meant I could plan my life out for months in advance. I could predict it very easily. And then I’m about to turn 42 and I was just saying it, so, because I’m like am I 42? But yes, I am about to turn 42. So with that and age and kind of tiptoeing into perimenopause, it means my cycle’s sometimes shorter. So I’m kind of less able to plan my life by my cycle.

But you have given me an additional way to be able to predict more or less kind of how I’m going to be feeling and what’s going on. Which has been so helpful to me because I’m often, I guess, reluctant to plan things quite far in advance. Because I’m almost like, well I don’t know how I’m going to feel. And yes, I know I can use thought work to decide how I want to feel on things, but there’s also just a kind of where my body is at, where my brain is at, kind of what I’m up for, what I’m not up for. And that’s not a problem. So now I’m able to plan these things because I’m like, oh, now I totally understand that when the moon is in Aries, I cannot be around the humans.

Robin: It’s a good lesson.

Maisie: Because before I would always have, when I’m planning things for the flow collector for example, and we do things in this very seasonal way and often I’ve got this sense, a kind of vague, sometimes it’s a specific sense of where I want us to be and what I want us to be doing. But the closer we get to that time, the better able I am to be more detailed and specific about it. And so I’ve always had this kind of story going that I’m just not organized enough because I can’t plan things out a quarter in advance like some of my colleagues are able to do. But you’ve helped me to realize that actually it is just, I don’t know how you would describe it, but the closer I am to that-

Robin: Energy. The astrological. You’re crazy, crazy good at it. The closer we get to an exact aspect or an exact alignment of different planetary energies, the more precise you become on knowing exactly when something should happen. And I’ll look and I’m like, yep, no, that was it. I’m not sure why I’m here. I’ve done that so many times over the last four or five months, I’ve lost track. But it’s not that you aren’t organized or can’t plan, it’s that nobody can feel the energy that far in advance. And so the closer you get to it, the more you’re like, “Oh, right here, this is the perfect time.” And it always is.

Maisie: Yeah.

Robin: Astrology just lets you do it a little bit more in advance.

Maisie: Right. I actually can feel it.

Robin: I’m sorry.

Maisie: This is how our conversations go, Robin. We have tasked ourselves with the finishing at at a certain time today. Robin said to me yesterday, “I love how you think that this is going to go to plan.”

Robin: But you did a great job planning because there’s something that you actually have to go do afterwards, so there’s a chance. There’s a small chance that you’ll be on time.

Maisie: But it’s been so useful to me because now we can look further out and I can plan things and I can let my team know and I can let my clients know stuff. And that has just been so useful to me just from a practical point of view. But also because it’s another way that I’ve been able to unwind this story that I’ve had about me being disorganized. And the other thing about bringing in the astrology is I just love that I know nothing about it because I’m an expert. I’m an expert in the cycle. I understand all of these things. And to get to be a beginner in something is really fun. I really love that.

Robin: I love that too. That makes me so happy. Because I’m a teacher, they don’t know that I’m a teacher, right?

Maisie: No they don’t. Yeah. [Inaudible].

Robin: So you have to tell them.

Maisie: Yeah, you have to tell them about your previous career.

Robin: That’s such a long story. My first real job out of college was as a teacher and I taught American history and a bunch of other things. And the reason that I love teaching is the same reason that I love coaching. I like making people see things in a different way. And so it’s my most favorite thing in the whole wide world. And so for you to enjoy learning, it just makes my teacher heart happy.

Maisie: We’re just grinning and smiling at each other over here. Okay.

Robin: It does. It makes me so happy. Okay.

Maisie: So that’s my first way that you have influenced me. Over to you.

Robin: Okay. Well then I’m going to go to numbers because I’m going to combine some. The way that you are in astrology, the way that you love to learn about it, honestly. The way that you’re curious, the way that you’re open, the way that you instantly see the connections when I just kind of nudge you towards them has been fascinating. And the way that you… When I first suggested that you look at where the moon was and how you were feeling, you just did it. You were just like, “Okay.” And then you went full in and I immediately saw the results. And normally when I tell people to do it, they’re like, “Yeah, whatever.” And they don’t do it. And then I have to pay attention to it for them. And then I have to point it out to them for two or three months and then they’re like, “Oh.”

I’m like, “Yeah, that thing that I told you to do.” Anyway, it’s fine. So I’m more used to that. And from that, me watching you do it… And I mean I knew it worked for me and I knew that it worked for anybody who I would follow their cycle for them so that I would know when to not engage with people that I was close to because I used astrology to make the world make sense to me. I knew it worked, but I hadn’t had anybody else who would actually do the work. And so that I could use as a lab rat. I don’t…

Maisie: I love being a lab rat. I’m good with that.

Robin: And that inspired literally… I mean I had the things in my head, but knowing how it worked for you and what I needed to do to help you make it work inspired everything that I did with the crusade. All of it.

Maisie: Okay, so first of all, you have to tell them what the crusade is.

Robin: Oh, it’s my monthly membership for astrology and coaching. But the way that I designed it was for two people. One is the person that I call my muse and he is somebody that I just point it out to for, and he finds it interesting as long as I’m telling him about it. And then the other person, you have ideal customer avatars. It’s the two of you and you’re the person who would actually do the things. And so all the modules and the way that I set up the teaching process so that you could slowly integrate was because I knew if I had my person, my person, who I could teach well, that’s what they would need. To learn to do it for themselves, so they didn’t need me anymore.

Maisie: It’s fascinating to me that people aren’t like that. You know when something’s just so intrinsic to how you do things. It’s really puzzling to me that people aren’t.

Robin: Can we talk about your eighth house for a minute? Because we’ve had this conversation.

Maisie: So, yes, we can. Robin and I, by the way, we’re doing another episode as well around the time of my birthday where we’re going to talk about my charts and Robert’s going to reveal all to you.

Robin: I’ll just say that you are more inherently motivated to do the deep inner psychological work and to be comfortable with that and to be very curious about yourself in a way that not everybody is.

Maisie: And this has been fascinating to me. It’s just like people have different charts.

Robin: It’s like they have different brains and different manuals too.

Maisie: But I remember in one of our early conversations you made a throw away comment. So you were saying this to me, “I knew that working with you was going to be something…” I can’t remember what the word was, “because of when you showed up” or there was something that you had seen in your chart and the time in which I reached out or we started working together and I like, “Oh, interesting.”

Robin: Apparently I was right. It’s crazy. And we should also maybe mention, I try to do a little disclaimer. I have a non-existent long-term memory. It’s just not there. I’m very in the moment and if you put something in front of me or you ask me an astrological question, I’ll answer it and I’ll answer it correctly and then I’ll forget it and then you’ll put it in front of me again and I’ll have to re-answer it in my head before I can move on to the next thing. I have no long term memory. None. Isn’t that crazy? Y’all don’t know this, but she’s just laughing at me right now.

Maisie: I am. I am. I’m just taking it in. It makes sense to my experience of you and I think it’s such a gift. But I’m also thinking, “Oh, my long term memory is pretty on point.” Paul is like…

Robin: I did that six and a half years ago and it’s not important anymore.

Maisie: Yeah, basically.

Robin: Yeah. It’s not actually a gift because really horrible things will happen and I’ll forget. And so I have to learn those lessons again. I mean it has to do stuff. And I know what it is. I know it’s a combination of PTSD and traumatic brain injury because I had a severe concussion at one point and I know why it is. And it’s still always surprising to me that other people remember things like that. And I’m just like, huh, okay.

Maisie: Good for you. Remembering things.

Robin: Yes. That’s nice. I don’t even remember pictures I’ve taken or full systems that I’ve built in Kajabi. I have no idea. And it happens all the time.

Maisie: Wow. I’m just amazed.

Robin: That I fake it so well?

Maisie: Not that you fake just that you achieve so much, that you do so much.

Robin: Oh, I have lots of notes.

Maisie: Well clearly that’s the thing. You might forget the systems that you’ve built, but the systems still work for you because stuff still happens.

Robin: Yes, yes, for sure. I mean I don’t completely forget, it’s just like, I don’t know, my memory’s very Swiss cheesy.

Maisie: Well this is interesting because I kind of feel like this is maybe related to my next point. Let’s see. Okay, so the next way that you have influenced me is that you are very direct.

Robin: That’s such a nice way of putting it. So much nicer than the way people usually put it.

Maisie: But I really love it. I was talking to my friend Mars earlier about this because I was like, “Oh, I’ve got Robin coming on the podcast, dah, dah, day. So I was kind of giving her a little preview of things and I was saying how I really love your directness because there’s no ambiguity and that means that I always know where I am with you. I’m not in a conversation with you and my mind just kind of trying to play guessing games about what’s going on.

And that’s just been really fascinating to me because of course you are one in however many billion people and there’s not lots of you out there. But I was thinking, I don’t know if I have lots of experience in my life of people who are very direct or maybe very direct in a way that I can get on with.

And that’s been just a really beautiful experience for me to have. And I think especially just hearing the way that you say things or when we are talking about certain situations and you will share something that you’ve said to someone and I’m like, oh. And it’s just shows me this other way of communicating that even if you want to communicate a certain way, sometimes we need those tangible examples to actually be like, oh, that’s what we mean when we’re saying this.

And so I feel like it’s not the main result of us working together, but it’s a byproduct of this kind of subtle thing that’s going on all the time that I’m being exposed to your directness either in our relationship with each other or from helpful things that you might share. Or when I’m working through something in my mind you might be like, “Well, why don’t you just say this?” I’m like, “Oh, I can just say that.”

Robin: It’s so much fun. Have a thought, say the words is great. And that’s with me with a filter. Do you know that? That’s still me filtering.

Maisie: And also it’s just really fun for me when sometimes I’ll say something about the plan that I have in my mind. And you just go, “Well, okay, you can think that, but that’s not what your chart’s saying.”

Robin: Hey don’t blame the messenger. I’m just doing math.

Maisie: It’s just been really, really fun. And it’d just be like, oh. And so it is you all say to me, you and I have a very different experience of the world. And why’d you say it like that? Tell them.

Robin: Oh, well one, I’m curious about what you’re referring to, but my reference is just that you’re much more of a people person. In my head you’re more of a people person. And I know you’re probably like, “What? Are you sure about that?”

Maisie: Well that’s the thing, it’s all relative, isn’t it? So it depends on if we’re comparing me to Paul or Nelson, I’m not a people person, but if we’re comparing me to you, then I am a people person.

Robin: You’re basically Oprah or I don’t know, the Queen of England.

Maisie: So yes, I’m very thankful to have directness being modeled to me. So thank you for that.

Robin: Oh you’re welcome. And so you say that to me and my experience of me is not that I’m direct and you’ve said it to me so many times and everybody does. So apparently it’s a universal truth that everybody finds that I’m very direct. And it’s so interesting to me because I have never ever been myself, completely myself, or not filtering and not scripting and not attempting to say the right thing.

Universally true for my entire life. I didn’t even know that people could have conversations without doing those things until a few years ago. And so you talk a lot about your autism and I am very neurodivergent, sensory processing disorders, learning disabilities, and I am also autistic. And I mask, apparently, far more effectively than I think I do. And I guess I didn’t even know it was optional not to or optional that it could matter that I was having to. Does that make sense?

Maisie: Oh, yeah.
Robin: And the reason that’s really messed up is that both of my kids are autistic and I refuse to let anybody put them in a box or penalize them or make them try to pretend to be neurotypical. I just won’t allow it. And it never occurred to me, legitimately never occurred to me that I constantly force myself to fit into a neurotypical world until I started reading your posts where you talk about it.

Maisie: Wow. That’s just sinking in for a moment. Because people who are autistic often very good for standing up for other people and injustices and things like that.

Robin: And I am fantastic at it. I have on more than one occasion been called a force of nature when put in those positions. But your posts specifically, and that’s changed my entire worldview. And I’m not going to talk about all the things that have changed, but there have been significant changes with this little series of eclipses. Because I am a Scorpio sun and that’s a lot of direct personality kind of changes that I would attribute almost entirely to the way you model being comfortable with the ways in which you are not neurotypical. Even that sunscreen post, do you remember that sunscreen post?

Maisie: I do, yeah.

Robin: I was like, I was, “Oh.”

Maisie: So I put a post up about being autistic on holiday, basically, and sunscreen, the texture of it. Robin’s like vomiting on the other side of the screen right now.

Robin: God, I hate it.

Maisie: It is awful, awful, awful. But I found some brands and I got some amazing recommendations. Did your nose itch then? I just got that in my nose as well thinking about the sensation. Yeah.

Robin: Yeah.

Maisie: Yeah. We’re mirroring each other. We’re both doing the same things through the screen. Anyway. Yes, I remember you messaging me and being like, oh, I never put that together, that sunscreen is a trigger.

Robin: Oh, yeah. And there were so many of them. It was just like, I’ve always been called difficult or a picky eater or I have high standards and all of these other things. And I’m like, okay, well I just do that. Whatever label you want to give me, that’s fine. I don’t care. That’s why there’s a thing on the internet called trolling and I’m not sure if you’re familiar with it, but it also happens in real life. And I am troll proof.

It doesn’t matter what anybody says to me. I have heard it before. I do not care. It’s not going to change the fact that there are certain foods that I will die. I will legitimately starve to death before you will ever get me to eat anything that has touched certain foods. It will not happen. I do not care. No. And I actually have proof of this, but I didn’t realize it until much later, but my living situation when I was a child was unstable. I was in an environment at one point where… I’m from the South, I’m just going to let anybody who knows what that means, just go with it. And there’s a be seen and not heard thing and there’s a eat what you have put in front of you or don’t eat.

Maisie: Yeah. They have that in Scotland too, where my family are from. Yeah.

Robin: Did you know that a lot of my ancestry is Scottish?

Maisie: I mean that hair, there’s a bit of a giveaway.

Robin: That’s fair. That’s fair.

Maisie: She’s the most stunning redhead.

Robin: I lost so much weight that you can look at my school pictures and you can see it looks like I should have been in a hospital and nobody ever noticed. They noticed but because then this is prioritized, everybody thought it was preferable. But when you look at me, I look like a skeleton. And it was because they would put food in front of me that I wouldn’t eat. And I know now that that’s a symptom of, or an expression of, autism. But I didn’t know it then. It’s just interesting the labels that people have put on me as being too much, which I’m sure they would still have. But the way that it’s framed in my brain, I’m like, okay, well I don’t think you’re too much because you’re over there doing neurotypical things.

Maisie: Breathing.

Robin: Right loudly.

Maisie: Busy breathing noises.

Robin: Oh my God. Oh my gosh, yes. I also have misophonia. So, yes. But I didn’t realize any of that. I didn’t realize that… I knew some of it. I knew the misophonia piece. But even the dysregulation stuff that you talk about pretty openly, I can look back on my life and I can see how often that used to happen as when I was a teacher.

I would just, during my planning period, I would close my door and go underneath the desks so that I could get away from things and just lay there in complete silence to try to not want to maim people. And it still happens. And I don’t know, it’s just given me more of a perspective and compassion and a different lens that has been truly life changing. And I don’t know that I’m expressing it very well.

Maisie: You are. Well I think you are.

Robin: Okay. Hopefully everybody playing at home can follow along. That was the very first thing that I actually have on my list because every time I find myself doing it now, masking, and I do it a lot, I’m like, oh, I’m doing that thing again. I’m doing it again. And so then I think, okay, do I want to do it? Because we’re both LCS and so I want to love my choices. I don’t want to be doing it unconsciously. And sometimes I’m like, yeah, it’s advantageous. It’s advantageous for me to mask and for me to play the game because the thing I don’t think… I think of it as a superpower. Is that we can do that. And other people can’t. I can walk into any room and people think whatever I want them to think. I might not move for three days later, right?

Maisie: Yes. Yeah. There’s cost to it after. Yeah. But it’s so interesting because for me, so much of our work is like yes, the astrology, yes, the coaching as well and the beautiful blend of that. But it’s also your background as a teacher and in coming up with, what were those things that you specialized in?

Robin: [Inaudible] instruction. Oh, IEPs. Individualized education plans, so that’s writing education plans for students who have learning differences, whether that’s autism or learning disability or whatnot, so that they are being taught the way that they need to be taught in order to learn the information and not just taught the way that textbooks say for them.

Maisie: Yeah. So this is what, when we first started working together, and ever since, I’ve always just like, oh, Robin’s just the best coach for me because we do coaching, we do astrology, and she gets neurodivergency, she gets autism and she used to be a teacher and come up with the IEPs for people. So basically she can do everything.

Robin: Except math.

Maisie: But it’s been so helpful to me when I’m like, oh, is this something to coach on? Or what you’ve trained my brain to think this way is, do I need an accommodation? So how would you explain accommodations to everyone listening who may not know what they are?

Robin: So an accommodation is just what you do to modify curriculum or modify an environment so that it is something that the person with the learning disability or the neurodivergency can do on their own and really generally do very well. And so for instance, one accommodation for somebody who would be blind would be braille. And nobody would think twice about, well of course somebody who’s blind should have braille, obviously. Right? Nobody would even think that’s a problem because it’s been so normalized in our society. Or if a deaf person needed an ASL interpreter, nobody would think that was a problem.
But people still have issues with people needing a fidget or needing something that’s weighted to interact with other people in neurotypical society. In the world that I live in, nobody looks at my children oddly when I give them their weighted whatever so that they can regulate their nervous system. But in general, or headphones, right, wearing headphones when you’re in a public space so that you can filter out some of the noise that’s way over stimulating. Those are all accommodations.

Maisie: My big accommodation is eating separately from my family and having a puzzle at the dining table. Sometimes it’s not just the misophonia, which I spoke about a couple of episodes back, I think. But kind of sensitivity to commonplace noises like a huge trigger, eating, breathing, all of the noises,

Robin: Water going down a drain.

Maisie: All of those. And so sometimes meal times for me is about the noises. Sometimes it’s the smell, the sight. And other times it’s the sitting opposite someone can feel quite confrontational. And so what eye contact can, the expectation of eye contact. So for me, having a puzzle at the table means I can be at the table, but it gives me something to focus on with one part of my brain, which then means it frees me up to talk with the other part of my brain. I don’t know what these parts of my brain are, but do you know what I mean?

Robin: I think it’s probably because it’s engaging two parts of your brain because you’re having to use your mind, your eyes and your brain to differentiate the pieces, but you’re also having the kinetic movement of having to move it. So I was wondering, can you read and still block things out? Or do you need the two pieces?

Maisie: Can I read and block things out? What do you mean?

Robin: If you were sitting at the table reading a book, would that be effective?

Maisie: No.

Robin: Yeah, I think you have to have the two pieces.

Maisie: Yeah. No, it’s not. Because I can still hear the… It’s too, yeah.

Robin: Yeah, you’re having to… So it’s the cross movement or the multiple parts of your brain that you’re engaging with for the puzzle. And so that might be something you can use in other situations is knowing that you need to be using two different senses to overwhelm the one that’s being overwhelmed.

Maisie: Interesting. Love it. I love working with you. But yeah, it makes it so much easier because then I can be at the table, but I don’t pressure myself that I have to be at the table. If I’m out, I’m out basically. I’m not going to force myself to be there. But having the puzzle there just means that there’s somewhere else for my eyes to go, that means I can talk and it just works really well. So for me, that’s a really great accommodation.

Robin: I use a sound machine. There’s a noise machine app on my phone and it will be on if I have to sit with anybody else to eat, which I don’t have to do very often. But if I do, it is always on. And if I’m in a public place and somebody’s chewing gum and I don’t want to go to jail, I can put the noise machine noise in my headphones at a very low level so that it’s enough of a distraction, but I can still hear people talking. Yeah, that’s one of my accommodations.

I would say the prioritizing my own needs kind of goes with not having to mask, but it’s also kind of very, very different. And academically, me knowing something academically and being able to identify it in other people is a very different thing for me even kind of recognizing it in myself. And so I am very good at recognizing other people’s emotional states by reading micro expressions and then managing my everything to engage with them in a way that’ll make them feel comfortable and to the detriment of my own needs all the time.

And you’ll say things in coaching very offhandedly, it’s very normal for you to do things that just because it helps you regulate yourself. And I’m like, huh, that’s an option. Is that allowed. Nobody told me that was allowed. Which is like, well there was one. This is where my memory becomes problematic. But there was something very specific where you knew you were going to have a full on couple of days and you had planned to not be around people.

Maisie: Oh, I mean I do that a lot. Yeah.

Robin: Yes. Yes you do. And it’s fascinating to watch. I never do it. I don’t ever take time for myself. There’s not a period of space ever that isn’t traditionally been devoted to somebody else. And part of the changes that I made was saying no to other people’s things that they wanted so that I could just do fun things for me like cook dinner and eat something that wasn’t cereal. Little things like that. Although cereal is one of my safe foods, but it’s also nice to have actual food.

But I would just be so depleted that I couldn’t do anything else. So it would be a shutdown moment. That was another thing you talked about shutdowns. And I can identify them in my children really easily. And I know that when it happens that we’re done with whatever it’s doing and we’re not going to talk about it anymore. We’re going to wait for them to reboot, is what I call it.

Maisie: That’s how I think of it as well. It’s just going on energy conservation mode. It’s the battery is down to its final 2% on the phone. What are we going to use that 2% for? Do we need to use it? Does a text need to be sent or an app checked or are we just turning the phone off and waiting till we can plug it back in again?

Robin: But I never did that for me. And so I’ve started doing it more. I’m not really great at it yet. But it’s something I’m at least aware of and that I’m thinking, okay, how do I plan my life around being able to do that in six months or a year kind of. And that’s just been very, again, life changing in ways that I don’t think other people can possibly understand unless they’ve gone from being… What percentage of your audience would you say is autistic?

Maisie: I don’t know, but quite a lot. Either people that know they are or people that are and they just haven’t figured that out yet. But maybe a bit suspicious.

Robin: So when I explain any of it to my neurotypical friends and I don’t have a lot, and even when I say neurotypical, I just mean non-autistic. Because most of my friends are neurodivergent. They’re either ADD or something else. They just don’t understand. They don’t understand how very different, apparently, the world is for me as compared to them and how much contorting and not being direct.

That’s the thing that blows my mind when people say, “You’re so direct. I’m like, “Have you ever heard me say anything that I’m like, I don’t think you have.” That I’m actually thinking, I don’t think so. But I’ve actually gotten better at it. So you have. You, Maisie, you have. But most people haven’t who have said that I’m too direct or I should try to be more diplomatic. And I’m usually, that was full me being diplomatic. That was all the diplomacy that I have in me. Would you like to see the other version? Because there’s another version.

Maisie: But that’s what I mean. See, exactly what you just said then is the example that is so useful to me. So when you chat, I’m like, oh, it’s interesting for me because on the receiving end of it, I hear that as a very freeing way of communicating. When you are, I know this is going to get so meta, as I’m saying it, I’m losing track of what the things are. When you would say, just then, that’s me with all my diplomacy.

Would you like the other version? I love hearing you say that shit. I will eat it up because it’s just so useful. I’m like, oh, that’s a really fun way of saying. And it’s just fun to try that on from my point of view as a way of communicating. And I don’t mean try on in the kind of autistic way of scripting and pretending to be a certain way. It’s just like, oh, that to me feels like a very freeing way of saying things.

Robin: It is.

Maisie: And quite fun and lighthearted and playful.

Robin: Yeah. Well, and I’ve also discovered the funnier I am, the more easily people tolerate me. And my son says all the time, he’s like, “You’re being funny again. How mad are you?” I’m like, “Well, you know what the correlation is. The funnier I am the closer you are to being in pain.” No, not really. Not real pain. And I do become… So it’s weird for me that I keep trying to reframe it as is it that I become more autistic or is it that I become more myself? Or is it that I become more direct?

When I get mad I don’t filter and I don’t say things I regret, but I will say everything that I know to be true. And that is far more devastating for people on the receiving end of it because pretty much everybody knows that I don’t lie, right? And so I’m like, “All right, this is what I think since you asked.” And it can feel a little bit like a character assassination apparently. But I’m like, those thoughts are always in my head. I mean, it’s not that I don’t recognize people for who they are. It’s that I like them anyway, but they don’t get to pretend that that’s not who they are. I don’t have a problem with people being selfish. I don’t care. Be selfish. That’s fine. Just don’t lie about it. And those are the types of things.

So yes, I’m always, always, always filtering and trying to say things in a way that people will be able to understand based on the way that they’re going to perceive the words that I’m using. And definitions are very important to me.

Maisie: Me too. I love a definition.

Robin: And neurotypical people do not like that. They do not. And I forget sometimes. That’s the other thing. So there’s another thing that you’ve taught me is that I really prefer communicating with neurodiverse people. And I find it far more challenging now than I used to communicating with neurotypical people. Because they’re always doing that thing you were talking about at the very beginning where they’re not saying what they mean.

And you kind of have to guess what it is that based off of their facial expressions or all the other things. Because they’re not just going to tell you. Right? They’re just not going to say the thing. And the more that I work with you, the less tolerance I have for that. And I’m like, yeah, I just don’t think I want to talk to you anymore. I just don’t. The more awesome, neurodivergent people that I meet, I get to interact with, the more I’m like, yeah, I don’t feel like doing those hoops over there in your typical land.

Maisie: Well, the thing is, yeah, the hoops, that’s a good way of putting it.

Robin: Yeah. All of these, I think, come down to you make it easier for me to be myself. Because all of them have something along those lines because you make it easier for me to put myself out there. This is something that I wouldn’t have done a year ago, is the podcast. I’ve been doing more and more of them, but this is the one that I said might make me cry. But there’s only six minutes left, so maybe I won’t. I have never, how do I say this? You know how some people need validation? That they need pets and they need to be told they’ve done a good job and they want to be told they’re pretty or whatever. I don’t need that. And the reason I don’t need it is because I’ve never had it. And so I think it’s those people who got that, maybe, as a child, I don’t even know if that’s true.

I just know there are people out there who constantly need it. And it’s actually very surprising to me in an uncomfortable, something’s gone wrong in the world kind of way. You know how we say that nothing’s gone wrong, but it feels like there has. That’s how uncomfortable it is for me when people are nice to me. Even just saying nice things to me, it takes my brain… I know they don’t know, because it’ll probably get it edited out, but I’ll just stop talking because it makes my brain stop functioning. And I’m like, “What?”

And you do that all the time to me. You make me feel very loved and seen and valued in a way that is unusual and apparently uncomfortable for me and makes me realize it’s possible. And that most of my personal or interpersonal interactions were insufficient and I just didn’t know it. And so my tolerance for that is also going away, which has been very uncomfortable for the people who really like the fact that I’m low maintenance and I don’t require anything. Y’all don’t know what she did to figure out how to send me flowers for my birthday. And I don’t think you have time to tell the whole story right now, but oh my God, it was impressive. It was like CIA ninja stuff happened.

Maisie: First of all, I would say it’s not my thing to A, remember people’s birthdays. I tend to not really celebrate people’s birthdays. I don’t celebrate my own. I’m like, whatever, who cares? And so for me to remember, plan in advance. And I was like am I going to send you flowers? Are you someone who likes flowers or not? I don’t know. So then I went and I started looking through your stories and your highlights. I was like, oh, she literally said, her love language is flowers. I’m going to send flowers. And I was like looking, because I know the town that you are in. And I was like, now there’s no decent florists there.

Robin: I’m not sending anything.

Maisie: I’m not sending flowers. But then I went onto your Instagram profile and I looked at who you were following, and I typed in flowers or something, and I found this company that you follow. And then I was like, well, I need your full address. How do I get that? I found a way to get your address. I won’t share it with the world.

Robin: It was very impressive. That’s all I’m going to say.

Maisie: And then I couldn’t pay for it because U.S. companies often require a U.S. based card. So I had to message my friend Becca Pike, shout out to Becca Pike.

Robin: Thank you, Becca.

Maisie: Who rallied. Paid for the flowers on her card, and then they arrived on the day. But you said to me, “No man ever has an excuse for not being able to do this.”

Robin: Ever. I can’t even get a card from guys I’m dating, right? And I’m just like, oh, huh, all right. I think I don’t have to put up with that anymore. And that was just a radical mind shift. And so it didn’t even occur to me that people would ever care, right? It just didn’t occur to me.

Maisie: So interesting, because for me it just felt so important for me to do. I didn’t really know why.

Robin: Yeah, that was the universe telling you to do stuff again, probably That was also life changing for me. I think it maybe, yeah, there were too many thoughts.

Maisie: So my final way is, I think this happened in our first session, that one off session that we did. Which I highly recommend everyone should do, but also, Robin, I forgot, is going to come into the membership and do a call probably in the new year. We haven’t figured out the details yet, but I’m very excited that you’re coming in. So thank you for doing that. I bet we have the same ideas.

Robin: I can’t wait to find out. Okay, go on.

Maisie: So in, I think our first session, I think I’m remembering this right? You looked at my chart, and one of the things you said was, I bet you feel very obligated.

Robin: Oh, yeah.

Maisie: And we can-

Robin: I know where you get that.

Maisie: Okay. And we can maybe get onto that when we do my chart episode. But that was just… I don’t know if I’d ever truly recognized that in myself in that way, because I think… Now my brain just wants to get into what is obligated and defining that and all the nuances. But I’ll just put that in a nice pretty box for one moment. That’s one of my techniques, by the way. When something wants to leap out, I’m like, oh, we got a nice little box that it can go in.

And I think I’d always been able to look at that through this kind of pretty lens of how helpful I am, how this, how that. Lots of things are very true about me, but also, I don’t know, I’m not quite sure how to describe it here. But we spoke about my experience of obligation. I think it was really helpful with that kind of the big identity shift that I was going through and thinking about my purpose in life, my vision for my life, how I show up and do things, all of that kind of stuff.

We kind of unpacked the crappy version of obligation and how that shows up. And then you kind of invited me into thinking about, well, what’s the highest expression of obligation? In what way is that a really important, I don’t know. I can’t remember how you put it. But then I was like, oh yeah, when I think about my work in the world, whether that’s my books, the membership, hosts, walking down the road, whatever. Now I think about like, oh yeah, I know I feel obligated.

I feel obligated to show up with what I’ve got and to create an impact in the world. And that just really radically shifted how I show up, particularly in my business, right? Because you are a female entrepreneur, just like me. We both, I’m sure, unless you are the one person out of all my female online entrepreneurial friends who hasn’t had negative online experiences of people having a problem with sending emails and selling and all of these things. It’s just all so amusing to me that on one hand people are like, oh yeah, support small businesses, do all these things, support women in business, whilst also tearing them down on some level.
So for me, this is… And I’ve done a lot of work on this already, and got to a really great place with it, but this was the kind of extra, the cherry on top way of looking at it. Where you were just like, well, what about obligation in this highest expression of it? And I’m like, “Oh yeah, I feel obligated to sell the hell out of my books, my membership, my business coaching offer, everything I do, because I know it makes a difference to people’s lives.” That doesn’t mean it’s for everyone, but I’m for sure going to show up for the people who need this and want it. And I am obligated to those people, not the other people. Well, it’s not even a… And I think that’s the shift. It’s not about being obligated to people, being obligated to the work and what it requires of me.

Robin: It’s so interesting. In my brain, while you were talking, I was like, that’s that part of your chart. That’s that part of your chart. I can’t remember the conversation, but what you were saying. And I was like, oh, I know where that’s at. Because you have such a beautiful sixth house in Midheaven that are just like, oh, so good. So it’s interesting. I can’t remember the conversation at all, but when you talk about it, I can see it in you and I can see it in your chart 100%.
Maisie: Yeah. It was really big for me because I’ve gone through all sorts of shifts in terms of how I go about my business, how I run my business, all of those things. But there’s always additional ways that we can work on this stuff. And it’s rarely a one and done scenario.

Robin: Never.

Maisie: Yeah.

Robin: It’s not fair. I sound like a client, right? It’s not fair. I’m done butterflying. I don’t want to do it anymore. Done. That brings me to my very last one. That works out well. You are so coachable. The way that you want to butterfly, which is my word for transformation, and always trying to be a better version of yourself, and the way that you’re like, “Oh, that really horrible sounding transit will be great, because then I can do this.”

And I’m like, “All right, yes. Yes, you can.” But the way that you think about everything. And we just had this conversation in our last coaching session where you were basically looking for a way to make yourself really uncomfortable and you put yourself in emotional harm’s way for a growth opportunity. And you’re like, “Hmm, which way can I make me really unhappy for a little while so that I get to the next version of myself?”

And I was like, “Oh my God, that’s so good.” But you do that every single time that we do a coaching session. If I say something and it’s uncomfortable, I can see it on your face, and you’re like, “Hmm.” You just get this very peaceful look, and you go very eighth house ninja, and you sink into all the uncomfortableness in a way that most people run away from, in a way that I run away from. I do not like it. There are parts of my past that I am very, very pleased, very delighted that I have zero memory of. It makes me very happy. And it also messes up a lot of my life because I won’t do it, right? And you’re just such a good example of how to gracefully interact with coaching. And in the magical world, I’d call it shadow work. I don’t know if you use that term or not.

And you never do it in a… There can be with coaches and astrologers or magical practitioners, there can be this dynamic of guru and I don’t know, sycophant or something that’s very distasteful, and you have this I hate that look. Yes, I also hate that. But people can get into that. And so I don’t mean it in that kind of way. I mean it in the actual thoughtful consideration, taking in the data, evaluating the data, and then deciding what you want to keep and what you don’t want to keep and what isn’t useful for you. But I can see you doing it in your head, and I can see you do it in the ways that you implement things. That made me realize how, I don’t know what…

You have a teacher and a student, and you have a coach and a client. It feels like that’s not the right word.

Maisie: No, I think that’s… Yeah.

Robin: Yeah. All right. Well, I suck as a client. I mean, I am horrible for whoever’s trying to coach me. You could reach out to any of my CCP people, I’m sure Lauren Cash would validate that. She was my teacher. She’d be like, “Robin, stop coaching yourself.” I’m like, “Okay.” I’m horrible at it. And watching you do it so well, I’ve been like, oh, that’s how it’s supposed to be done, huh. I haven’t figured out how to do it yet, but I’m working on it.

Maisie: I love getting coached and I love coaching. So I just feel very at home, whichever chair I’m in. And my brain works pretty quickly unless I don’t understand something. But usually it works pretty quickly and I can kind of just very rapidly moving through different realizations, learnings, awareness. It’s like dominoes going down. Once I figure out, or it’s offered to me, what’s going to push that first domino down, then all the others go down. And then I get to this place of resolution and acceptance, and I can be with that.

I’m also very comfortable falling apart. I’m very comfortable falling apart on my own. I’m comfortable falling apart, maybe not actually in some ways, but I suppose with the coaches I work with. But the other thing is I invest a lot in getting coached. You are one of my coaches. I’ve got two other coaches I’m working with at the moment, and I’ve done a lot of coaching on all sorts of stuff in the last few years. And that’s also the other thing. It’s like I just have a lot of… I mean, we’ll talk more about my eighth house and things, but I just feel very at home with this kind of exploration. It excites me more than it terrifies me.

Robin: Yeah, no, I have that on my own. On my own if I’m… Everything you just said about the dominoes and the connections is exactly how my brain works. And a lot of times when other people have tried to coach me, I feel like I was having to baby step them to even get them up to where the dominoes were.

Maisie: Yes.

Robin: And that’s very frustrating for me. And then I’m just done. I’m just done. I’m like, if I have to explain steps A through F to you to get you to whatever the letter is that’s after F, then I’m probably not interested. And so do you feel that way sometimes, or no?

Maisie: Well, I will work with excellent coaches. So when I’m a client, no, I don’t.

Robin: Okay. Well, I don’t-

Maisie: And even when Bev was coaching me recently, and she was talking me through something and she was asking me something and I was like, “Oh, I can’t really access the answer to that question.” I just said to her, “I think it’s because it’s now resolved in my brain and in my body.” So I just like, next. We’re done here, let’s just move on to the next thing. She just asked me such an insightful question. I had this realization, and then it was like boom, boom, boom. The dominoes are down. And she was still asking me things, but I was like, oh, I can’t go back to where we can now move on to the next thing. And she was like, “Okay, cool.” And off we went.

Robin: I think what you just told me was I need to invest more in coaching. I think is what you just told me. I’m not sure. I think you just told me to spend more money. Okay, got it. But it is, it’s fascinating to watch and the way that you just implement and integrate things, and I’m very much a Scorpio, but you have so much Scorpio. That’s also why we get along so well okay.

Maisie: I’ve been always wondering why we get on so well. What is the chart related stuff?

Robin: I had that question in my head last night and I was like, oh, we need to look at that. But probably not today or not on here, maybe next week. Yeah, I, it’s very, very difficult for me. The thing you just said about that you could fall apart and it doesn’t bother you. That is not a true statement for me. I was socialized, programmed, whatever you want to call it, to not express emotion because I was too emotional. And so there were very harsh consequences if I was emotional and that carried over into my adult life, it was not okay. And so anytime difficult, subjectively difficult, emotions come up, I just stop. I’m like, “Nope, not going to feel that.” But you don’t do that. And it’s just been, again, life changing. I feel like I use that word too much, but when it’s an accurate word.

Maisie: But here’s, and I will say, because I think this is pretty common and I know a lot of people in my audience will probably really resonate with what you just shared. I think that’s the thing is that appreciation, that that was a very clever strategy for you to do growing up because it kept you safe.

Robin: Okay. Right.

Maisie: Right. Very smart and wise for someone existing in the environment that you were existing in where it wasn’t safe to be emotional to package that away. That was a very smart thing that you did for yourself.

Robin: Right? Oh, other people don’t know that. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s just a self-defense mechanism. It’s classic. I mean it’s like standard psych 101 stuff. If you were in an abusive household, it’s a very common side effect. Yeah. I don’t have any judgment towards it at all.

Maisie: No. But I think, I can’t remember what I was going to say. My brain is starting to expire. What were we talking about?

Robin: Uh-

Maisie: Oh, this is so funny. So the ironic-ness of me forgetting what we were talking about. And this is really important for people to know, is that I have learnt this. I mean, yes, I’m always kind of got down with my emotions, whatever ones they were. But I worked with the psychotherapist for over two years and I didn’t know how to name any emotions. I didn’t know how to have them.

I would disassociate. I mean, Paul and I when we first got together and we would have… I mean, we’ve had very few disagreements anyway, but the slightest disagreement and 15 seconds later I’d be saying to him, what are we falling out about? Because I knew that we were falling out, but I couldn’t remember what it was. So I say all this is like, yes, you may not have been taught these skills of being emotionally proficient and able to fall apart and feel safe doing it, but we can learn it.

Robin: I would like to sign up for that class. Are you teaching that? What module is that?

Maisie: It’s upcoming. You know what the plans are. You see.

Robin: I feel need to take that class. Yes. But yes, you’re an amazing human. I adore you.

Maisie: Likewise. I just love these conversations are just like love fests. Just love it. I feel like it’s so useful. Maggie Reyes was on the podcast recently and we were loving on each other too. And I don’t know if I had that model, really great female friendships that weren’t a kind of Disney version of what female friends are.

Robin: I should have friends who… I had books. I’m not real sure.

Maisie: I can relate to that.

Robin: Yeah. Well like I’m saying, you’ve really opened my eyes to a lot of possibilities that I didn’t know were things that I could have. And I do have friends now, which is saying something, because I really didn’t before. But it’s still very different to having… You know there’s a LCS worldview and there’s a non LCS worldview. There’s a neurodivergent worldview, which is… I mean, admittedly, everybody who’s neurodivergent is divergent, so that’s not exactly the same, but it’s more the same than it is for a neurotypical person. I mean, I am older, I’m 45. And I’m older, but I feel like you’re the grown up version of an emotional state that I’m working towards. Does that make sense?

Maisie: It does make sense.

Robin: Yeah.

Maisie: So then for me, it’s like you are the fierier version that I’m learning from.

Robin: I love it. Let’s light things up. That’ll be fun.

Maisie: Well, thank you so much for coming on and for this chat.

Robin: Thank you for having me.

Maisie: I just love getting to talk to other autistic people and I kind of feel like we just kind of go into our own little bubble for a while and it’s fun.

Robin: It’s very lovely.

Maisie: And you’re coming back on to talk about my charts, which is fun. Paul was like, “Are you sure you want to do this? Is it not going to be too revealing?” I’m like, “But I’m pretty open, I don’t think it’s telling anyone anything that they don’t already know.”

Robin: Yeah. I mean, I think everybody’s like, “Oh yeah, that’s her. Oh, that’s for sure her. Yes. That’s why she’s so good at that. Yes. She’s supposed to be.” I think it’ll be really interesting for people to also realize that you really are exceptional in a lot of areas and it’s okay that other people aren’t because their charts are different, right? I don’t feel bad about myself because I can’t eighth house.

My eighth house is nothing like yours. And I don’t feel bad about it. I find it fascinating. I’m like, oh, that’s a thing that I can learn from, but I don’t have to feel bad about it. And I feel that if people take it that way, when they hear how amazing parts of your chart are, and they will, if they remember, they have amazing parts of their charts that you don’t have access to that are much harder.

Maisie: And they’re like, impossible. And I need to spend all my time coaching myself to even attempt the things that they can do. Yeah.

Robin: And that’s just the beauty of astrology and life coaching in general is accepting whoever you are as you are.

Maisie: Yeah. Ugh, what a killer ending. Boom. Thank you so much, Robin. Okay. Robin’s podcasts and website is Wicked Veracity. So go follow her. Listen to the podcast, get the emails, because they’re just going to make your life so much easier. And it’s the same way for me. I know many of you listening came to the podcast or my books and getting to know menstrual cycle awareness and having that way of understanding yourself and your experience of life. And that’s like so revolutionary, especially when you first come across it. Like it was for me as it is for all of you.

But now I’m having that experience with astrology where I’m like, oh wow, this is why this and dah, dah, dah, dah. And so much of it doesn’t make any sense to me yet, but I love it. So I’m just bringing you all along on that journey. Okay, thanks, Robin.

Robin: Thank you.

Maisie: And everyone listening, we’ll see you next week.

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of the Period Power podcast. If you enjoyed learning how to make your cycle work for you, head over to maisiehill.com for more.