00:00:00 Preview

00:00:35 Opening

00:01:10 Introduction

00:02:37 Interview with Destiny Taylor Begins!

00:02:44 Ascension and Discovering Your Own Purpose

00:18:35 Cultivating Relationships

00:26:39 AD – Mystic Mondays Tarot Birth Card Calculator https://www.mysticmondays.com/tarot-birth-card-calculator/

00:27:06 Relationship with Self

00:30:28 Drama Prevention, People Pleasing, and Villain Era

00:39:29 Inspiration Behind the Golden Mantras Deck

00:50:16 The Publishing Process for the Golden Mantras Deck

00:54:40 Collective Reading Feat. Destiny and the Golden Mantras Deck

00:59:53 End of Episode – Remember to Leave a Podcast Review on Apple Podcasts!

01:00:27 End Card

Welcome to the GRACED Podcast! A space for everyday magic for your everyday life. We do this through rituals, aligning yourself to your soul’s purpose, and creating Alchemy to heal our mind, body, and spirits so that you can bring in more love and joy, manifest your desires, and believe in your dreams. Listen and watch over at grace.com/podcast and on YouTube, Apple Podcast, Spotify, Instagram, TikTok and all the places you can find me on social media. Now let’s dive into today’s episode.

💖 Introduction

Grace: Hello, hello, and welcome to The GRACED Podcast. A space for everyday magic for your everyday life. Today we’re talking to Destiny Taylor, who is the author behind the Golden Mantras deck, an affirmation and guidebook to express your inner G. Destiny and I also talk about finding ourselves and aligning ourselves to the truth of who we are, often by not belonging in society.

By being too awkward, too tall, too this or too that, and ultimately coming to peace with all of the things that you are and all the things that you’re not. Destiny and I also chat about this girl boss identity and letting go of that because maybe we don’t need to hustle that hard to actually live the lives that we want, entering our villain era and so much more.

Also, we are doing a giveaway of the Golden Mantras Oracle Deck on Instagram! So definitely follow both Destiny and I to see all the details on how you can win the Golden Mantras Deck and add this deck to your deck collection.

Now let’s dive in to this episode.

✨ Interview with Destiny Taylor Begins!

Grace: Hi, Destiny, welcome to the podcast.

Destiny: Hello. Hello. Thank you for having me. I’m so excited to be chatting with you today.

✨ Ascension and Discovering Your Own Purpose

Grace: Yeah, me too. And so I have your Golden Mantras deck here, and on the back it says, this is a magical deck of golden mantras that will assist you on your sacred journey of ascension. And so I was wondering what is your definition of ascension and how has this aided you on your own journey of spiritual awakening?

Destiny: Yeah, I think ascension is personal to everyone. And the deck is created to guide anyone who has the cards on their personal journey of ascension and what it means for them. But for me, ascension is just essentially me learning more of myself, uncovering more of the mysteries of myself, and just really amplifying that inner knowing and also continuing upward on my divine path, and really stepping into my purpose and what I’m meant to contribute in this world.

Grace: Yeah. So for anyone that’s looking to discover their purpose, what are some things that you’ve uncovered on your own path and some things they could try for themselves?

Destiny: Yeah, so I am definitely still on that journey and I’m actually in my first Saturn return era. So it’s a, it’s an interesting time and so much has been uncovered this year and last year during my pre Saturn return phase, and I’m also still in my twenties.

I’m 28. So much has been revealed to me throughout the years, every year. I remember two years ago or. I think I stopped seeing this last year ’cause I was like, oh, maybe this is just life. But I would say, oh my God, I just feel like every single year I’m a new person and there are new things that I wanna do and so many things I learn about the world. And again, I think purpose is just a very personal path. And for me, it’s still revealing itself, but I do know that a part of my purpose is to, again, just discover more, unlock more in my soul. I feel like there are definitely lessons, that I’m learning about myself, about other people.

And I used to think my purpose, I was definitely a girl boss a couple years ago just grinding, grinding, grinding, sleep at 3:00 AM going to my nine to five. Once I’m off hitting that pavement, doing what I gotta do. And I used to think my purpose was just physical things that I could provide to people to make money. But I’ve realized that part of my purpose is just to hold space for people and to listen. ’cause I think about where have I provided the most value. I spent a lot of time in work, of course. So I would say I’ve spent. A lot of value doing marketing and doing all these very physical things. But when I go beyond work, how I’ve provided the most value from what the people in my life have con, have communicated to me is that I just hold space and I listen, and I offer great advice.

And also to just being a person who has like an open heart and an optimistic view on the world has provided a lot of, again, value to people. So again, purpose is still unraveling. And for anyone who’s asking or wondering how can they uncover more of their purpose, I don’t think that I’m in this space to really give advice or wisdom on how they should personally do that.

But I can say one thing that has helped me is to go inward as much as possible and identify what makes you feel good. What makes you feel inspired, what makes you feel curious, and also what things make you feel and fiery. What things make you feel sad and what things make you feel offended.

Just really go inward and uncover and explore your internal reactions to things, and I found that doing that for myself again, I’ve been able to learn so, so much about myself and about the world and redefine success and how I bring value to people. And of course, purpose.

Grace: Yeah, beautifully said. I feel like a lot of the times when we think about purpose, we also think about our job and our vocation. And I think a lot of people just identify with their job as if it were their identity. But when you go beyond that, like you said, you know, one of your special gifts is just the ability to listen, which honestly I feel like is a rare trait nowadays for people to actually listen and hear you and have a conversation that doesn’t start with a response surrounded with their selves being the center of the conversation.

And I think it’s such a beautiful gift to be able to offer that to other people. And it’s simple, but it’s very effective in just being able to see people for who they are, which honestly is kind of like a dying art nowadays.

But I wanted to ask you about, this sense of purpose and how you may have felt misaligned with that path, and what were some of the signs that you saw that then led you to another path of purpose?

Destiny: Yeah. You know, I was just, Thinking about this the other day, where there were moments in my life where particularly there have been three moments in my life that have rerouted my direction and how I view myself and what I had to contribute to the world and my purpose. The first was when I was young, when I lost my younger sister.

Up until that point, I was about, I believe I was 13. My purpose was just to be there for her and to nurture her. And I remember when I turned 13, I believe I was that age, I was wanting to step into a different part of me and I didn’t even know where to start. And it wasn’t until unfortunately she passed away, that I was able to venture off on to a path for myself ’cause I was raised by a single mom and my grandmother. And I had three sisters, so it was four of us. So it was a lot. And I spent a lot of time taking care of my younger sister and also just being a sister and being a listener for my mom. So there was that. And then from middle school to high school, I’ve always had a love for the arts and expression and I sort of broke out in my comfort zone and just started singing a lot more.

I’ve always been a singer. I’ve played the violin since I was younger, but got into show choir and musical theater and. Just theater in general and graduating high school, I would’ve told you for sure, oh, I am supposed to be a musical theater artist. I need to be on someone’s stage. I need to be in New York, and this is gonna be my life.

And then my freshman year of high school, I went to a school that had, a pretty good musical theater program. And I just could not get in. I just could not get in. And it was difficult because I had auditioned for all of these schools, auditioned for schools to get into musical theater before I went to college.

And the school that I went to was a school that I didn’t get into their program because that was the only one I could afford. So I went there and I had just planned to audition and get in, but I just couldn’t get in and there were other things that didn’t align within the program. I wasn’t too fond of the people in the environment. I didn’t really feel comfortable. The vibe wasn’t really right. So from there I told myself, okay, it’s time to pivot. This is not your purpose. And, from there, I went to like, I had started a blog right before I went into college doing makeup, because I did a lot of makeup in theater and musical theater.

And then, I had started my path in social media management and blogging and things. And last year was my pre Saturn return phase was a big wake up call that I was not in my purpose. Like, yes, I have a, there may be parts of this journey that I’ve been on in just the social media world, parts that are in alignment for me, skills that I need to carry with me.

But I had gotten my dream job. Working on a leading social for one of my younger celebrity idols. And I thought this was my dream job. And I was just so out of alignment. And the wake up call for me was really that I just, I could not be happy and no one could understand why I wasn’t happy. And it got to a point where I just stopped expressing it. I got a pretty nice salary, nicer than I ever gotten, and I got to move to the Bay Area and I was like, you know what? I’m gonna just do it. I’m gonna get myself this nice high-rise apartment. Why not? And I wake up in this high-rise apartment and just be sad. I would be crying. And it just got worse and worse and worse and worse. And when I say it got worse and worse and worse and worse, I mean that, I just started to just kind of go numb a bit. I wasn’t as excited about things. I began to view the world through this. I lifted off my rose-colored glasses, which I like to wear them a little bit ’cause it just keeps life’s whimsical. I took them off and I was just dull and not vibrant. People closest to me would just be like, you know, what’s going on? I know you to be just very vibrant and expressive. And I was also reactive and just slightly aggressive sometimes. So that was a major moment for me in realizing that it is time to make a pivot.

The thing for me is I had known for a while, but I just kept going down this path. And when I say, wow, I’ve known for three years that I was ready for a new transition, but things were going so well down this specific path for me so quickly that I just wrote it and was like, eh, maybe it’s just, I didn’t really listen to myself. I thought that maybe I was just being ungrateful. But last year I realized, oh, I should have listened to myself and just acknowledged it more. I don’t know what steps I would’ve taken, to be honest, but I wish I would’ve acknowledged a lot, acknowledged it more.

That was a very long answer to your question, so I hope I answered it.

Grace: Yeah, so I’m hearing many things. Saturn return for anyone that doesn’t know starts around the age of 28 or so and is when Saturn returns to the exact placement of where it was in your natal chart. So sometimes people might feel the effects of Saturn return even a little bit sooner. I think for me it’s the effects started a little bit sooner and I still feel like I am feeling the effects of my Saturn return which supposedly ended like a year or so ago. But what I’m hearing also is that for your journey, you know, you got your dream job and everything you thought externally was what you wanted. And then when you finally received that, you realized that it just wasn’t what it was all cut out to be. And sometimes, I think a lot of us, because we were conditioned to believe that these external things would make us happy, that once we finally get them, it’s not necessarily all that there is to be.

And something that I really believe in is that inner reflects outer. And so to continue on this path of the inner unfoldment, what have you found to have changed for you? And did anything from Saturn bring you to an end with this job? Because sometimes I feel like with Saturn returns, it can be quite dramatic because it’s the teacher planet and it can kind of feel like, you know, it comes out of nowhere. So I’m wondering how has that gone for you so far?

Destiny: Yeah. Oh, it was the dramatics. Were there, honey? I’m also a Scorpio Moon. I’m a Pisces Sun, and I believe my Mars is in Leo. So I’m just very, and my Jupiter is in Sagittarius, so I am dramatic when anything happens.

It’s big, it’s bold, I feel it. But some of the inner revealings that came to me is one, just how important relationships are to me. That’s something that I put to the wayside for many years was a loner all throughout college. Really started, I made it a point to make friends post, start to, to develop sisterhoods post college, but still I was very much a workaholic. Work came first before everything, before my friends, even before my family, which is sad to say. So one thing I realized is just how important my relationships are to me and how I feel more grounded when I make sure that I have these conversations with the people who I love and care about and who care, love, and care about me and to not just share what’s going on to me, but also to just be there for them, hear what’s lighting them up, and be able to be a resource to them. That means so much to me. And I didn’t have that. I had become so distant from my friends, my family, I moved to a new city, so I had no friends. Also, I didn’t really mesh well with career relationships as well.

They were very surface level and I kept them that way for a reason. So that was the one thing. And also I realized that I. I’m not really a girl boss, like I’m not a hustler. Like I am a person who works smart. I’m strategic and I like to be determined and I like to put effort into things, but I don’t really like to work all night, all day.

And that’s a flow that I got into out of survival based off of where I come from. And the idea that working hard will get you to where you wanna go. So I had adopted that and I worked so hard and it served me for a while. But I realized, okay, you’re out of place, you know you’ve learned a lot, you’ve done a lot. Now it’s time to really pour into these other areas of your life. You’ve built a lot of momentum. Trust that God in the universe. They’re there with you. You know, they feel all this energy, they’re moving it around for you. Be strategic with how you move and work smart. You necessarily don’t need to work hard.

So that’s what I learned about myself, which is something that I’m, is difficult for me to sit with. I’ve spent so much of my time recording videos, editing videos, learning things, going to network, working, working, working. And now I just have so much time to myself of, okay, how are you gonna spend this time?

And how are you gonna be fulfilled with how you’re spending your time? And I’m still breaking down that thought of you don’t have to fill your time with work or doing things that will, that you feel will directly attract monetary value for you to feel like you have a life that’s worth living.

I said this the other day to one of my friends. I don’t want to chase a life that I’m living right now. Like, I wanna live this life. I wanna be present and I wanna be grateful and. Just enjoy everything around me. So those have been my larger inner learnings and I feel my best when I’m doing yoga. I feel my best when I’m in my community women’s circles and when I’m doing sound baths and, when I’m doing things that I feel is led by spirit and is really grounding.

Grace: That’s really beautiful and I feel like a lot of times, because I can so relate to being a workaholic and working all the time and really valuing that with the time that is like contractually given when you’re doing something.

✨ Cultivating Relationships

Grace: And so I love this idea of this inherent value and just being yourself and just being present with what is in front of you. For anyone that feels like a loner, because I feel like that’s a common thing when you don’t feel like you belong or you feel like you’re not from this planet or all of those things that can make us feel different. What are some ways that you found commonalities with other people, especially because it sounds like for a while you didn’t seem to value relationships so much, but what was that shift for you and how did you learn to cultivate those relationships?

Destiny: Yeah, so it’s a lot to unpack. I’ll try to be lite. I’m a speaker, I can talk all day we’ll be here all day all night. But, I first wanna say that I still very much feel, I don’t wanna say a loner, but I still very much feel in certain ways, sort of othered. I definitely identify with being a star seed. So much so, where even through my spiritual practices, and I just said this out loud for the first time earlier this month, I believe. ’cause I was nervous to say it to, to my people, but I was saying, like I just said, you know, I don’t really feel as close and rooted to my ancestors that are still attached to this earthly plane. Like I very much feel that my closest ancestors are, that’s all I could say. They’re somewhere. They’re somewhere else. But Oh, sorry.

Grace: Another planet.

Destiny: Yes. Yes. And the question was how have I been able to connect with people and find community?

Grace: Yeah, so I mentioned that because I too feel more connected as a star seed. And recently I activated my light language and I actually shared that for the first time in a more public setting with one of the last workshops I did. And that can be a scary thing because it’s not like, I think well known, or it’s definitely “out there” for anyone to understand that. But I feel like for me and my path with the ancestral lineage is making a pact to help clean up the bloodline. Meaning there’s a lot of karma that my bloodline has accumulated over the years and doing the spiritual work, doing the cleansing of oneself. Because ultimately when you work on yourself, you are healing your DNA, you’re healing your relationship to, let’s say, money, to scarcity, to survival, to a lot of these things that we couldn’t help as babies, right?

We were just born into the lineage and then, upon that, having I think, a gift that can sometimes feel like a curse of being really sensitive and open and really feeling these things on a level that maybe the normal person might not feel. And so I think naturally, I know for myself, it kind of created this protective barrier for people to really get to know me because sometimes when I’m so open and so vulnerable, it can hurt even more so.

And I think that’s why I asked that question for you going on this path of just opening yourself up to relationships and cultivating it in a way that feels fair and reciprocal and something that doesn’t necessarily have to do with your worthiness as what you can do for the other person, but rather than just being and being in terms of listening, like you said, being in terms of being a resource. And I think that can be something as simple as listening versus taking up the space. And likewise, sometimes you do need to take that space as well.

Destiny: Yeah, yeah. I totally agree with you. When I was going back to when I say it was layered, and also too with what you said about family’s bloodline and lineage and healing things.

My sisters and I, my cousins were definitely in a place where we can decide to or not, but it’s been very clear for me and especially my younger sister as well, that we are meant to heal, heal things, redirect things. That’s patterns that have been in generations, many generations, thus far. And the largest thing is connection. Relationships with self, relationships with family relationships, romantic relationships, friendships. They’re all chaotic. A lot of betrayal, a lot of distrust, a lot of deceiving. I’ve seen some crazy things, some think horrific things I shouldn’t have seen with my mom and her friends and just all of the heartbreak.

So I grew up actually not really knowing how to connect. Even with my own family, my closest friend was my younger sister. I didn’t really connect too well with my other sisters or my cousins. Oh, I connected really well with my grandfather and didn’t really connect well with my mother as well. So me being a loner sort of just was something I just stepped into.

I felt different in my family. I was always the tall, awkward one. The chocolate one I, I don’t know how, but I was somehow ended up being taller than my grandfather. At some point. I was just always tall, so I always felt othered and then I. I guess it was sort of just something that I got comfortable with.

So when I went into middle school, it was the same thing where I felt different. I wasn’t, I never was into sports or never was into the things that my peers were into. I was always into anime. I got a laptop really early, so I was into The Sims and gaming and I wanted to watch music videos all the time, and I never was the type to conform. I always wanted to do the things that I love to do.

So connection for me really started when I got into high school, when I just started to have to get into groups, you know, with people who had similar interests. So musical theater and choir, and then, When I got to college, I more so I didn’t really connect with people ’cause I was so focused on my studies and I wanted to intern.

That’s really where my hustler started to begin for me. But for me, when I graduated college, I was just intentional about, I would watch shows like Gilmore Girls and the Bold type and you know, it’d be so many archetypes of friendships and I would watch and be like, oh my god, I want that. I want to have wine with my girls and debrief and talk about the men in our lives and all of this.

So I just, I knew what I wanted. I had that vision. I just opened myself up to being able to connect with people and to have those experiences. And I haven’t turned back. I wasn’t as strategic. Maybe it took me some time to open up about certain things, but I felt comfortable with myself to be open and sharing and receiving for the most part.

And I think that’s because I had been on social media and sharing for so long, so I just had this openness about me. You know, I have, there have been people who I’ve connected with where it didn’t work out. There’s been times where I wouldn’t say I’ve been burnt, but I’ve been hurt. But those situations didn’t make me close off or decide that I’m not gonna make new friends or meet new Lovers and things I just learned.

Just take those as lessons and you know, I just continue to be open and meet people and connect with people. So I just, again, just to wrap it up, I think just know, having the vision for the type of relationships that I want and then making a decision that I am going to attract those relationships and engage in those relationships and just be open to receiving those. It’s been fairly easy for me to connect since then.

Grace: That’s awesome.

✨ Relationship with Self

Grace: And I’m also hearing that this theme of connection with other people really stems from this connection to yourself because at an earlier stage of your life, when you are in that high rise and feeling disconnected from self, I imagine that then extended outward into feeling disconnected from other people. And so that’s kind of like the relationship with, it’s just starting with yourself and having that relationship with yourself first. And I’m wondering how you have allowed your relationship to self to flourish and what that looks like nowadays.

Destiny: Mm-hmm. My biggest relationship with self, what it’s looking like these days is just listening and defining things for myself, defining what I want, and setting boundaries.

So the situation in the high rise was really that I had no boundaries. I said yes to, yes, I will move. I want this job. Yes, I will move to this new city. You know, yes, I will work till whatever. I never really said no, the things, and that’s essentially why I was not happy. So now at this point, it’s just listening to myself and not feeling bad about it.

’cause I also, I can tend to be a people pleaser. I can tend to want to be pleasant and kind all the time. And also I, at a point in my life where I was breaking free and breaking into myself, someone really close to me who was like a parental figure, would call me selfish. At times I was like 23~24, and there’s no way I could be selfish at that time.

I’m stepping into myself, growing into myself, learning about boundaries. So hearing that. Made me feel that if I make a decision for myself that wouldn’t make other people feel good. It’s me being mean, or me being unkind, or again, me being selfish. So, again, the relationship with self is giving myself permission to just acknowledge what I want, acknowledge what I don’t want, and allow myself to, to acknowledge the space that I hold in this world. And a part of me holding space in this world is to have my own taste, my own flavors, my own wants and my own desires. And just as long as I’m not hurting anyone, it’s totally okay for me to make a decision for myself that may not necessarily serve what someone else wants from me. So I would say that’s a big thing for relationship with self.

A lot of, again, acceptance, a lot of. Just allowing myself to be free. Going with that, people pleasing. Also with the way that I grew up, I was rewarded whenever I would do something that was good, was phenomenal. So I’ve always felt like, oh, I need to be perfect. I need to be the best friend, the best colleague, the best employee, manager, et cetera.

All these different, the best neighbor and I suck at being the best in a lot of things. So that doesn’t really serve me at all. So really just breaking down that thought as well. Like, you, you don’t have to be perfect at anything. Just do your best. Show up 80%, show up 120%, whatever you can do, just know you did what you had to do and just know you, you did what you could do and you showed up how you could, and that is totally okay, destiny.

So that’s my relationship with self and how it’s evolved.

✨ Drama Prevention, People Pleasing, and Villain Era

Grace: Yeah. And I feel like throughout all of that, there is a sense of just coming home to yourself because I think a lot of times when, you know, I can identify with actually a lot of what you’re saying, I used to play the violin. I used to be the tall, awkward girl in fifth grade. I was either never enough, somehow. And I think that guides, at least for me, guides you back home to yourself of what is your truth. And I think a lot of times with people pleasing is that sometimes to get the attention or that approval from someone else. Sometimes it does involve this self betrayal of what your own boundaries are or of what you really want in a situation.

And I think for me and part of my Saturn return, the lessons were to really identify what my own needs are as a recovering people pleaser, it’s always like the intention is put outward for that other person’s best interest. And I think sometimes the hardest part is even identifying and learning what your own best interests are, especially if that voice hasn’t been cultivated.

And I feel like when you come from that place of having boundaries of knowing what you will and won’t put up with, so nowadays I have a very low tolerance for drama. I just like cannot, it’s like not on my frequency or my vibration. If I get a hint of that, I’m like, no, no, no, no. Like an affirmation I wrote out for myself is peace is my priority.

Destiny: Mm-hmm. I love that.

Grace: Thank you. And I feel like sometimes people are drawn to that chaos because it makes them feel alive…

Destiny: Stimulated. Yeah.

Grace: Yeah.

Destiny: Yes. I totally feel you. I cannot lie. I’ve always been a pretty peaceful person for my life. But whenever I get those moments of like, ooh, I’m angry, it feels good.

It’s like, ooh, this is sparky. It’s adrenaline rushing. But I suck at being in drama as well. I crash really quick. I crash really quick, so I’m definitely there with you. I’m predicting when drama will come down the line. So if it is in alignment, you know, I gotta fill it out sometimes. But the moment I know like it’s not aligned, you’re not okay with this. This is who you can become if you get angry, this is what will happen. I just don’t even engage. Drama prevention.

Grace: Yes, yes. You know, everyone needs a manual for that. Drama prevention.

Destiny: Yes. Drama prevention. And I do wanna say something too, when you were going back to people pleasing, so last year, a big thing that I learned that I was happy, I was able to learn was just how people pleasing has evolved for me.

How maybe it starts as something that, for me at least, it start always starts as something that’s kindhearted and lighthearted. Like, oh, I wanna be pleasant. I want to provide value. But then for me, people pleasing can come from a sense of self in it selfishness, like, I need to please this person so I can feel seen, need to feel this person so I can feel validated, which when I say that, I do wanna say, I think everyone needs validation from anything that they’re pouring into that whole, you don’t need validation, you get it only from yourself is a lie. That’s one thing that I will say out loud. ’cause if you’re in a space and you don’t feel appreciated, loved all of this, you’re not gonna feel good. But anyways, I digress. But yeah, then it goes into to that, and then I just get really antsy and get away from myself. And then it gets to a point of where it’s selfishness because at this point, I’m not really tapped in. I’m not even really grounded to understand what will bring this person pleasure. So I’m just guessing what could bring them pleasure versus being grounded and being present and really seeing what they need from me. And then I’m just trying to provide all these different things that they absolutely don’t need.

And then from there, it just continues to unravel and unravel and unravel and unravel. So I just wanted to put that out there. I’ve just learned so much about people pleasing that I’m so looking forward to unraveling more or uncovering more when I can afford therapy because good therapy is expensive.

Grace: Yeah, I hear you on that. I think that’s a great point to bring up actually, because people pleasing on one hand is yes, you are being in service to another, but in a lot of ways it can be a form of manipulation because you are people pleasing in order to get what you want from the other person, whether it is validation or wanting them to like you or getting that attention, and this was something that I was thinking about today about just different expectations.

That have come up in different relationships of this giving and receiving and what is expected because those actions were taken and sometimes these actions, or I would say like sole contracts or whatnot between people, sometimes it’s like not what you agreed to. So maybe if that person like gave you something and they’re kind of expecting something out of it, it’s still within your rights to turn it down.

Because I think in the ether or whatnot, it was meant to be a gift. And if it’s not meant to be a gift, then there’s some coercion going on that perhaps wasn’t in like the highest Alignment for everyone involved.

Destiny: Yeah, yeah, definitely one of those things where too much of it, it can go, it can get sour, the taste can get sour.

Too much of. People pleasing or wanting to be pleasant, wanting to be kind. It can get, become a sour act, put a sour taste in your mouth, put a sour taste in someone else’s.

Grace: Yeah, and I was talking about this to someone and I had just met at this training, but I said something like, oh, I’m in my villain era because I’m not saying yes to everything. I’m placing boundaries. I’m speaking my truth. Even if it’s not the other person wants to hear and blah blah blah. And she says something to me like, well, why are you speaking your truth, your villain era? Why can’t this be you speaking your truth? And I was just like, that is so true. It doesn’t have to be my villain era but sometimes like, you mentioned getting angry and like yeah, sometimes it can feel really good getting angry and kind of feeling the sassiness or the villainess.

Destiny: So what, one of my things, one thing I learned last year as well is I don’t have to be so kind all the time.

It’s always gonna come from a good part of my heart, but sometimes I don’t have to be kind. If you step on my toe and keep walking, I can say, excuse me, you just stepped on my toe, just so I can make sure you acknowledge it.

Grace: And even that’s like a nice way of saying that.

Destiny: Yes, there’s been things that happened to me and okay, people are probably gonna be like, oh, this girl is a villain but hey, come for me.

Maybe later it’ll change for me. But this is my truth also too, like I would be the type that I would just, if I would feel a feeling of betrayal, I just instantly, I’d be like, I wish that person the best and I’ll pray for them, which is so nice. But something that I’ve invited for myself that’s helped me not keep these feelings so long and has made them pass, is I just say, Karma’s energy, what you get out, you will receive back.

So if they did something that wasn’t, to me, that was not aligned with the universe, the universe is gonna bring it right! They gonna teach ’em that lesson! I know that may really seem villainish, but…

Grace: Karma is a busy, they say.

Destiny: Yep, yep. I don’t even. Yeah.

Grace: Well, it’s nice to feel like there’s a guiding force that is helping you if someone steps on your toe and keeps walking, you know?

Destiny: Yeah. ’cause I was like, why do people keep stepping on my toes, like, and keep walking and not apologizing and will come back, pass me again, act like it didn’t happen and do it again. Why? I still don’t know why, but one of my theories is that, again, I was too kind. I didn’t set boundaries. I didn’t acknowledge what they did. You know, I let it go. Didn’t say anything to ’em, so they thought it was okay.

Grace: Yeah. Yeah. And I suppose that’s part of the lesson, right? So that it doesn’t keep happening over and over, that when you speak up and set those boundaries, you’re also telling the universe you’re not okay with this.

Destiny: Mm-hmm. And I can tell you my toes have not been stepped on as much.

✨ Inspiration Behind the Golden Mantras Deck

Grace: Yeah. Yeah. So I’d love to talk to you about your Golden Mantras deck and the inspiration behind it.

Destiny: Yeah. So first off, I do wanna say Mystic. Mondays was one of the inspirations, my very first Tarot deck. I remember I got this deck because my heart was broken.

That’s really what sparked my thing because I feel like so many women specifically, or just lovers, so many lovers, when they get their heartbroken, they’ll like start googling things about heartbreak and end up on these Tarot reading videos about heartbreak. And I was like, I’m gonna do my own readings.

And then I found your beautiful deck. I don’t even know how I think I was, I looked up, oh, creative, beautiful Tarot decks, and yours came up and, oh, it’s so beautiful. I still have it. It’s. I only have two Tarot decks, I think, but this is the only one that I used. But yes, so much inspiration. So I became a student of just, or maybe a novice, just, yeah, just a novice, someone who’s interested and curious about Tarot, spiritual, anything esoteric in 2019.

And that’s really what the spark was for me. I was really drawn to Oracle and Tarocle cards… I said Tarocle. Oracle and Tarot cards, and I had a really difficult time, one, just really feeling like the messages are speaking, my experience as a black woman from Indiana who has lived in the projects before and seen things.

So I just felt like the messages weren’t as, I don’t wanna say grimy, but weren’t as, grounded for me, I would say that. So that was one, you know, it would be a lot of beautiful elevated language that I can resonate with now, now that I, you know, I travel solo and I build my altars. I do all these very whimsical things, but Destiny, six years ago didn’t, and I didn’t experience that growing up at all.

I’m still a great upbringing. And then also the other thing for me is I had a difficult time seeing myself, just seeing black women depict it. And everyone who I was reading for were my friends in my family who are primarily, they’re primarily BIPOC. So there were either a lot of illustrations that are just figures like yours, which is really beautiful. And also one of the reasons why I was drawn to your deck, ’cause I felt like it was so universal. So it would either be that or it would be a white woman or a white man. So I had, at that point, I told myself that I would love to create a deck one day that has language that would speak to me and speak to the people that I love, but also would celebrate myself and the people who I love in the illustrations. I definitely was not ready to create a Tarot deck, so I just put that in my back pocket.

And then, a big practice that is still rooted in my spiritual journey is journaling and affirmation work. Affirmations have been so powerful for me with reprogramming my mind, relearning certain habits, revisualizing myself in the world and what is possible for me.

Definitely one of those people who would have all those different sticky notes all around my home, in my bathroom. My friends could take them if they wanted, you know, I definitely was that. And then I would also journal. I would journal a lot. In 2019, it was the start of the pandemic. I had decided that, you know, I wanted to, we were, the world was crazy, the internet was crazy.

We were all separated and I’ve been a creator creating things and providing them to the community since 2013. And that’s, that was very much in my nature and still is. But I wanted to, for the first time, create something physical that. You know, my community could invite into their homes and they could make their own.

And that was really important to me, especially with this being a spiritual work, because this was during the time when it’s not as popular now, but we would just see different text slides telling us what we need to do and what spirituality is and how we need to feel. So I, I wanted to, again, create something that’s universal, that people can make their own outside of the internet.

So, I decided that I was gonna do an affirmation deck, and yeah, everything just made sense. It was the start of Black Lives Matter movement, being very stimulated with the unjust murders. I was like, you know, this is just really the time for it, really, really just time for me to provide something for my community.

So, yeah, I got my journal. I pulled out my favorite affirmations, and I connected with Cat Willett, who is the beautiful illustrator of Golden Mantras, who just really did her thing. Um, reached out to her, or I was on the Girl Boss forum. It when it just started, going back to my Girl Boss era. Sophia just launched the Girl Boss Forum, and I just put out a text and a call out looking for illustrators who would like to work with me in creating a card deck.

And Cat, she had a background in Tarot and she reached out. She’s an amazing illustrator I had, she had no business working with me with the budget that I had, but spiritually we were aligned. And now, and now we were able to publish this, republish this deck together. So, yeah, that’s how it started it.

This was the first, I know we’re on audio, but for video, this was the first version that we did. It’s just a little square pocket of affirmations and now we expanded it into something that’s more of a traditional Oracle deck.

Grace: Beautiful. Yeah. I actually pulled a card for myself this morning, which says I attract success and new opportunities effortlessly. So, yeah, I was like, that resonates. Yeah.

Destiny: Yeah. So yeah, it’s 52 mantras and, well, they’re affirmations, but I call them mantras because I sing them, I chant them a big part of the women’s circles that I’m in, we speak out affirmations and then we’ll pull an affirmation and then we’ll sing it all together. So it very much becomes a mantra. It very much becomes something that is more in movement.

So yeah, 52 mantras, and then there’s a guidebook, and each card has a dedicated page where it gives more insight on the affirmation. So in light of a traditional Oracle deck, and then there’s a journaling prompt to further explore the theme for yourself and how it relates to your life.

Grace: Amazing. I definitely wanna try chanting this mantra over and over again.

Destiny: Yes. It’s so fun. You know, pat your hands. I like to, sometimes I would turn on lo-fi beats. I would just even sing it like an R&B singer. It’s real nice. It just gets it. It implants it for me. It, it really plants it in my brain. And, it just feels like a full body thing at that point versus just words.

Grace: Yeah, absolutely, I feel like reading it and taking it in is a form of, you know, integrating that information. But there’s something about using your body also as a divine vessel and tool to really like, feel it toing, like you said, or to dance with it, or, you know, a lot of it’s just like reprogramming your mind for more positive thoughts to come through versus like the patterns of whatever else can be spiraling in there.

Destiny: Yeah. And that they work, they’re so powerful. I know I meet people all the time who just feel like affirmations are words or oh yeah. I mean, I say them. I don’t really understand why you’re making them such a big deal. But I come from being a person who was an introvert. I had social anxiety. I remember my mother dropped me off.

At my college orientation alone. And I went in the bathroom and I cried. I was like, why would you leave me alone? And I was just so shy and just did not really believe in myself much. And now people are surprised to hear that. ’cause I’m not afraid to, I’ll go places alone. I’ll go travel solo, I’ll make friends anywhere.

I’ll spark a conversation anywhere, very much believe that I can do the most wildest things in the world. And it’s really because I changed my beliefs and I changed my beliefs by just asserting, just deciding what it’s gonna be with different affirmations and just continuing to repeat them. And by adding life to them, whether it be singing, chanting, and then going out in the world and actually living them.

You know, I would go into places and repeat the affirmations. Or if I’m at work and things are spiraling from me, I’m like, I’m at this present point in time, but I have no mistakes. God in the universe is always on time. Just keep going.

Grace: Yeah. Yeah. And also I feel like that’s the choice of thought, right? Because we can, like if you picture a fork in the road, you can choose to go down that maybe familiar path of repeating whatever thoughts are coming through, but it’s by choosing, let’s say, the higher road that, you know, by repeating these affirmations over and over, you’re just integrating a new belief system into your body. And it’s always going to be a choice, right? Like a choice of your new self. Like I know earlier you mentioned how like, like even a year ago you weren’t, you’re, you are a different person now, and I can really relate to that. I’m like, even like the start of the year I feel like I was a different person. And I feel like because this is the work, a lot of it is integrating new belief systems and choosing that we have a choice in these matters.

Destiny: Yeah. And we all need our toolkit. We need a toolkit because honestly, most of the people I’ve met, so I can assume it’s most people in the world have had past, especially in our generation, you know, the millennial generation just had so many experiences in our past that have led us to develop views of the world and ourselves that don’t really serve us and that are quite limiting.

So it’s really just we have to add things to our toolkit just as we go on, that will help us repair these thoughts and expand these thoughts and affirmations is a strong resource, a strong practice in my toolkit that has gone a long way. Affirmations and journaling for sure.

✨ The Publishing Process for the Golden Mantra Deck

Grace: Yeah, so I’d love to talk to you about the publishing process because I actually didn’t know you self-published before going to a publisher. Like did the publisher approach you and did you approach the publisher and what was the self-publishing process like?

Destiny: Yeah, so I’ve always very much been a person, even now with. My agent, Joan, where I’m like, Hey, can we do this? Because when you publish something for those who don’t know, you know, there’s a contract and you can’t really create things that would compete with a product that you put out just because that wouldn’t really serve you.

So I’m like, Hey, can, can we put this out? And if it’s like, oh, we don’t have time, is there even possibility that I can put it out myself or create it myself, even just if it’s a prototype? Because I just love, I’m one of those people, if I have an idea, I will not sleep at night. And so this thing is created.

So, the deck was much like that. The prototype, again I just, I Googled. How do you make a Tarot deck or a card deck? And I read maybe three articles. I don’t read too much. And then I think I probably watched one YouTube video and I realized that I needed an illustrator, and I also realized I needed a printer. I didn’t even think about publishing, wasn’t even in my vocabulary at that point. So I then went on to search, you know, where can I get a deck of cards printed? And that led me to different sources that are overseas that can bulk print or print card decks and make them beautiful. And the printer that I used was Print Ninja, and I got a really big good deal because it was, it was cheap.

I think I got, and I say it was, it’s cheap. But it definitely was an investment. But I paid, I believe, maybe $2,500 to $3,000 for 800 to 1000 decks. I don’t remember. But that’s, low cost. That’s low cost. And when they printed them, I think they realized how beautiful they were and how much attention to detail were put into them. Especially with the gold foiling ’cause I have gold, this is my favorite card as well. Because you have gold foiling on the front and on the back that they told me if I wanted to reprint them, it would be more, they would have to requote me. So I got a good deal, but the process was seamless. I researched printers.

I came upon Print Ninja. Originally I had only wanted to create 50 decks, but I realized that it’s most cost efficient to produce them in bulk. So I decided, okay, I’ll go all in and I’ll actually make this a product that I’ll sell. ’cause I wanted to make 50 and give them away initially. So yeah, that was the process.

Getting the cards formatted took quite a bit of time. There was a lot of back and forth one with Cat. We had been working on the, this illustration for I believe a year. ’cause I was just so detail oriented. I wanted it to be perfect. We went through two completely different designs and at one point she was like, okay Destiny, I think this is the one. You gotta trust it. We could change it forever, but we gotta trust it.

So Cat did the main illustration, which is the woman with the ban two knots. And she sent me all of the layers. So there’s a layer of the skin, the face details, the hair, the stars. She sent me that. And then I went in into Photoshop, which I don’t, I had to learn new skills. I went in, into Photoshop and, I then began to just move things around, not on her main illustration, but for the cards inside. ’cause I had to, well I had to create the card back and the sides and this part here. So I just went in, played with the layers to get the card box design, chose a font for the affirmations.

And then Print Ninja had sent me different templates and they had let me know that, okay, you have to send layers of everything. So I had to see, send a single file for every single layer that cat illustrated, a single file for every little detail. I had to send a separate file of the affirmation and then a separate file for what I wanted to be gold foiled.

So it was a, it took a while. I think it took me about four months to get everything right because again, I’m not an illustrator or a person who does graphic design and there’s technical things like bleeds and lead lines and all of these things I didn’t know about. So that took quite some time.

And, but once I got it, it was nice. It took me about, maybe three months to get my first order of decks. And I remember when I got them, I just couldn’t believe it. I was like, wow, I created this. They were so beautiful. They were so perfect. And how I was able to publish through Running Press. My publisher is actually through Cat.

I’m just so blessed and I tell her every time, she’s always like, oh, it’s you girl. It’s not me. But I’m like, I’m just so grateful that I met you. And it was really destined that we worked on this project together because I received the publishing deal with Running Press because of her. My agent Joan, was introduced to me through Cat. She was Cat’s agent. Cat is also an author. She wrote a book called Queen of Wands, which delves into the history of the woman who made the traditional Tarot deck. I highly recommend everyone check it out. Cat wrote it and illustrated it. It’s very informational and beautiful and fun read. But she sent Joan just projects she had been working on and I sent Cat some decks once they were published and she sent one to Joan and Joan just thought they were so beautiful and really believed in them. And she was, she told me she was just an awe by how simple the deck was, but powerful. And then she actually pitched the decks, the deck to different publishers before she even reached out to me. And then when she chatted with Running Press, my editor there, she instantly loved it. And then they reached out to me and it happened outta nowhere. I was like, oh my god, I can’t believe this is happening, mom! So yeah, that’s the journey.

And people ask me all the time, how did you make it happen? It really was fate, it was destiny. And if anyone wants to publish anything first, I also tell them to understand that it’s very different when you create something yourself and when you do something with a publishing company, because a lot of it isn’t yours anymore. Which you have to be okay with that, which I was, because I don’t plan to become a millionaire off of Golden Mantras. You know, I created it so it could reach people and I knew that if I published the deck through a publisher, I would be able to reach a broader audience. So I went ahead and do that, but I went from owning 100% of something to now owning a fraction, less than 10% of it, just to be honest. And that’s just how the publishing world works.

But if anyone wants to publish something or get something moving on a grander scale, my biggest advice is to just create the thing you want to create and you will attract the avenues and opportunities that are, are meant for you. And I’m sure you’ve experienced that Grace as well.

Grace: Yeah. Yeah, it kind of felt like it came out of nowhere in a way where I only reached out to one publisher for the Mystic Mondays Tarot. And that felt really kismet too, because they published it the same year, which is unusual in the publishing industry. And I kind of felt like, I was like, wow, this deck really wants to be out there in the world, so let it be out there and let it do its thing.

And it kind of just unfolded into a lot of beautiful, you know, avenues and different ways of being. So I find that, like you mentioned, like you found Mystic Monday’s Tarot, and I think a lot of people find that it’s their very first deck because it’s, I think it’s very friendly and that was an intention that I had for it to be really vibrant and approachable because I think the world of Tarot can get like really intimidating real fast.

Destiny: And also the cards read differently. Okay. So the cards that I have, they have a little bit of sass, like my card, my Mystic Monday Tarot deck. It’ll let me, when I need to hear something, it’ll pop out. But it’s never like, and if it tells me something that’s difficult or difficult to digest, it always does it in a way that’s palatable versus other decks that I’ve read. It’s that, I don’t know how to explain it, but it has to do with the imagery and just even the personality of the decks. Like I’ve had decks where I’m like, Ooh, I can’t pick this one up because it is fiery. I even have this Oracle deck that it’s about African goddesses, and this deck is so intense. I’m like, I cannot pick this up often because I will just get slapped in the face every time in a beautiful way, but still.

But sorry to interrupt you. I just wanted to put that out and also add to why I just love your deck.

Grace: Thanks. Yeah. It is funny how different decks have different personalities and I feel like from what I played with the Golden Mantras, I’m a woman of color, not black, but I still resonate with, I think, overcoming ancestral trauma. And I think being in a world that wasn’t necessarily made for me having parents that were immigrants and refugees and kind of like, not feeling like they belonged here either. And I resonate with, you know, using mantras as a way to transform oneself. And also I think cultivating an inner belonging I think is like what is coming through for me.

✨ Collective Reading Feat. Destiny and the Golden Mantras Deck

Grace: So would you mind giving us a collective reading from your deck?

Destiny: I would love to. I would love to, so I always like to start saying a prayer. Today we’re just gonna pray to divine creation energy, so whatever that means to you. While you’re listening, dear divine creation energy, we come before you today with our hearts, our minds, our bodies, our souls fully open to be vulnerable and to be transparent, and to receive your grace, your wisdom, your guidance. We ask that through this process of us being open that only sources of light and love can see us, can hear us, can touch us, and only sources that will serve our greater good and the greater good of others in the world. We ask that you provide a message through Golden Mantras that will resonate to the full collective who is reading or who is listening today, a message that will deeply resonate that we can take with us.

We got a few and we’re gonna say ’em all because they popped out. Okay, so the first is:
“I do not welcome things into my life that dull my magnificence and stunt my ascension.”

So I do not welcome things into my life that dull my magnificence and stunt my ascension. If you are into numerology, which I’m not. But for your purposes, if you would like to dig deeper, the number we have is two and our journaling prompt to further explore what this could mean for us is:

• Are there certain situations or people I keep attracting?
• What unserving patterns do I find myself repeating?

Again, the journal prompt for the affirmation “I do not welcome things into my life that dull my magnificence and stunt my ascension” is: Are there certain situations or people I keep attracting? What unserving patterns do I find myself repeating?

And then the second. Affirmation that pops out, which is one of my favorites:
“God in the universe, hear my prayers.”

God in the universe, hear my prayers. And again, if you’re in numerology, the number for that is 33. I’m not into numerology as deep, but I know that’s a magical number. And then the affirmation or the journaling prompt for that affirmation is:

• Write or speak a prayer.
• Let it flow from the heart.

So the affirmation, “God in the universe, hear my prayers” and the writing prompt: Write or speak a prayer. Let it flow from the heart.

Grace: Beautiful. Yeah, definitely. Great to pause and write down the journaling prompts and what it can mean for you in your life.

So I just wanna thank you, Destiny, for your time and your wisdom today and for being so open with us, and I’m sure it’ll help a lot of people who are also maybe experiencing their Saturn return, maybe looking forward to it or reflecting on it.

I think there’s so much to unfold on the journey and I think something that I had learned, because I remember at a time, I was just like, when is this over? Meaning when is this spiritual journey over? Like, am I done yet? And years later it was just like, it’s never over. It’s always just another unfolding or another layer being revealed. And I think it’s just about being okay with that. I think now I’m okay with it, but in the beginning when I was starting my journey, I was like impatient.

Destiny: Yeah. I’m hoping that this time I’ve accepted that and I’m hoping that what this time brings for me the most is just the tools to make it easier of me facing those challenges and interpreting them and being able to move forward as graceful as possible. So I’m hoping that’s what this brings. Will I get that?

Grace: I love that. I’m gonna take that and also ask for more ease in these transitions. So yeah, thank you so much for being on the podcast and your time. And yeah, talk soon.

Destiny: Yeah, talk soon. This was so fun. I enjoy chatting with you and I just wanna say again, it’s so special that you have the deck and that I got to speak to you personally.

Again. You were the first person, the first creator of a deck that I had and that inspired me to create Golden Mantras. So this is a magical full circle moment. And I jumped when you invited me to speak with you.

Grace: I love that. I’m glad that we could make it work because I think initially there was like a storm that was happening on the day we were supposed to speak, so the universe granted us a clear day.

Destiny: Yes. Thank you.

Grace & Destiny: Thank you, universe.

Grace: Okay, bye now.

Destiny: Bye-bye~

✨ End of episode – remember to leave a podcast review on Apple Podcasts!

Grace Duong: Thanks so much for tuning in to today’s episode with Destiny. Let me know in the comments what were some of your biggest takeaways from this episode, what affirmation are you currently working with? I want to know!

Don’t forget we are doing a giveaway of the Golden Mantras deck on Instagram, so remember to follow us there and check out all the details.

As always, sending you so much grace today and every day.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode. Remember to subscribe and check out more GRACED Podcast episodes for how to apply everyday magic to your everyday life.

See you next time!

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