Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Haley Smith. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Haley, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Can you share an important lesson you learned in a prior job that’s helped you in your career afterwards?
Surrounding yourself with people who fully embody integrity is so important. Especially in spiritual and healing spaces, it can be really easy to get wrapped up in leaders who aren’t in integrity with their spiritual teachings, which can be really harmful. I’ve encountered a lot of people in positions of power who have a rhetoric of social justice and building a better world, but end up being toxic to their employees.
This is a lesson I’ve had to learn at several jobs, but the wisdom of it is finally starting to feel anchored.
Haley, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
I’ve been a practicing astrologer for almost 8 years, and I was initially drawn to astrology in high school. I was amazed at the insights garnered from my birth chart. It helped give language and meaning to the severe abuse I survived as a child.
After studying astrology for a few years, I started offering birth chart consultations. I feel like a lot of us live really mythic lives, and that we have so many stories to tell. Astrology gives shape and direction to our stories, especially for trauma survivors. Astrology has helped a lot of my clients have the sense of direction and breakthroughs they needed to begin their creative endeavors, healing journeys, and more.
Astrology has been one of my main pathways in my ongoing quest for liberation. To be able to extend that gift to others is something I’m deeply proud of and humbled by.
We’d love to hear a story of resilience from your journey.
I moved to LA almost a year ago, and in retrospect, I can see how everything that I’d brought with me that was out of alignment went up in very necessary flames. My relationship, the old beliefs I had about myself, ways that I was showing up in connections with people that didn’t have my best interest at heart.
I fell apart and admitted myself to a psychiatric hospital, which was the scariest decision I’d made in my life. As I’ve been recovering, I’ve been deeply held by the myth of Inanna, an ancient Sumerian goddess who goes to the underworld, and surrenders all of her regalia and finery as she descends. She dies there and is brought back to life, and that’s really how this experience has felt.
There were many ways in which I was running from myself without even being conscious of it. Like Inanna, I had a lot of regalia and finery keeping me “safe”. And this experience, though hellish and gut-wrenching, has completely set me free, and continues to. I spent several months in the underworld – writhing and sobbing in bed about things I’d avoided for a lifetime.
I have an even richer understanding of life and death. Life feels so much more expansive after facing many deaths within. To have survived what I’ve survived, and to feel the signs of new life as I slowly ascend out of this time, fills me with hope.
We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?
I’ve had to unlearn a lot of conditioning that I internalized that kept me small, most of which came from a lot of childhood trauma.
Contact Info:
- Website: http://haleysmith.co
- Instagram: haleyjessicasmith
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/haley.smith.9047/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/haley-smith-a55414b6/