A Map to Your Soul

Using the Astrology of Fire, Earth, Air, and Water to Live Deeply and Fully

About the Book

A national bestseller in Canada, this practical and accessible guide to your unique blend of fire, earth, air, and water will help you nurture yourself and live your potential—from goop’s resident psychological astrologer.

“Jennifer Freed is one of my favorite spiritual teachers.”—GLENNON DOYLE

“Dr. Jen provides a clear map to realizing your innate gifts and how to best share them with the world.”—MILA KUNIS

There are four elements—fire, earth, air, and water—that exist in nature and within us all. Knowing your personal map of these four elements offers a way to personalize your self-care rituals and design your best life: one that fully expresses your special gifts.

With a PhD in psychology in addition to her expertise as an astrologer, Dr. Jennifer Freed is here to show you to how to decode and tap into your gifts in this practical guide to life. She explains how your astrological birth chart can point you to the life you want and offers self-assessments to pinpoint your most effective strategies. A Map to Your Soul offers practical exercises for topics ranging from communication styles to creativity, home styles to psychic development, health habits to belief systems. Some of the advice is as simple as the color scheme that will make you feel most at peace in your bedroom. Other advice is as nuanced as how to better listen to your loved ones and how to fulfill your soul’s purpose.

To get a sense of how the four elements manifest for you, think of a time when you felt: 

Mentally clear: that's air
Grounded and centered: that's earth
Flowing and feeling: that's water
Creative and Dynamic: that's fire

Written with the beginner in mind but offering insight to the experienced student of astrology, A Map to Your Soul is a 12-part journey through the way the elements express themselves in your life. By balancing and supporting the elements within us, we can finally truly flourish.
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Praise for A Map to Your Soul

“Jennifer Freed is one of my favorite spiritual teachers and her fresh wisdom in A Map to Your Soul is a North Star.”—Glennon Doyle, author of the #1 New York Times bestseller Untamed, founder of Together Rising

“Here’s a book for all of us who seek a life that is aligned with our values and purpose. It will help you to both deepen your relationship to yourself and to others.”—Jay Shetty, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Think Like a Monk, host of On Purpose, former monk and purpose coach

“While journeying through the pages of A Map to Your Soul, it is wholly evident that Jennifer Freed truly cares about the lives of her readers. She wants your life to feel good and be meaningful. Whether you are interested in astrology or not, this book is filled with wise and practical offerings that I have no doubt will either help you find the path you’ve been looking for, or continue on your current path more confidently.”—Cleo Wade, New York Times bestselling author of Heart Talk

“Jennifer Freed is a profoundly gifted, wise, and generous guide. To understand how we work elementally is one of the most clarifying tools we have to work with in astrology. This book is accessible and deep and will help anyone who reads it.”—Chani Nicholas, New York Times bestselling author of You Were Born for This

“I’ve learned so much from Jennifer Freed over the years. And this book is made up of her most insightful lessons. It’s a guide to rediscovering yourself, to finding beauty and resonance everywhere, and to living a truly vibrant life.”—Gwyneth Paltrow, founder and CEO of goop

“Dr. Jen is an incredibly intuitive guide who help folks recognize their strengths and potential. She provides a clear map to realizing your innate gifts and how to best share them with the world.”—Mila Kunis

“Dr. Jennifer Freed is a true voice and vision for a fully expressed life of love, creativity, and the celebration of our differences with dignity.”—Van Jones, author of Beyond the Messy Truth

“Dr. Jen speaks to the soul. She is a trustworthy guide on the most important subjects in our lives. Her book is a must-read!”—Emily Morse, PhD, host of Sex With Emily

“Jennifer’s work is thoughtful, illuminating, and powerful. She is a true master in her field.”—Stephanie Allynne & Tig Notaro

“Readers will enjoy this bountiful offering.”—Publishers Weekly
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Excerpt

A Map to Your Soul

CHAPTER ONE

The First Domain: The First Impression


Think about the first time you met a significant person in your life. They could be significant because you like or love them, or because they harmed or hurt you in some way.

See if you can take yourself back to the moment you met them or first saw them. How did you see them? How did they feel to you? What did you pick up on in that first encounter? And once you got to know them, how much did your first impression capture that person’s most essential qualities?

The question of who we are when we first meet someone—how we appear to them when we’ve just walked into the room, before we even say hello—is the focus of the first domain of experience: the persona or the mask.

Every person wears a mask; every person has a persona that comes forward as a first impression. Each of us has a front that we show to the world. This is not at all disingenuous or fake; it’s neither bad nor good. The mask is just a way that we filter the world and the world filters us in those first encounters. It is a social strategy that is developed by all human beings at quite an early age, and it is a true source of our strengths and gifts.


Your Assigned Role

In our family of origin, we are each assigned certain roles. Some of us are assigned to be the funny one. Others are designated to be highly responsible; others, to be the superstar performers; others, to be the truth-tellers, willing to name the unnameable; and still others to be seen and not heard. Every one of us can recall the assignment we received in our early years, and we can feel how it became an important part of our identity, sense of belonging, and ways of relating. We carry this role with us throughout our lives, and it translates to the persona or mask we show to the world. With this first domain of experience, which aligns with the first house in astrology, we’re working with the statement “I am.”

So: How do you come across when you first meet others? Are you the bull in the china shop? Do you come in loudly and demand attention? Do you enter reservedly and meekly and test the waters? Are you always looking for ways to be helpful to others? Or are you trying to impress people? So many of us have been raised to believe that looking good is enough, but is it really? Are you one of those very put-together people? Or do you come in with your freak flag flying? Each of these first impressions relates to the balance of elements in your fundamental makeup.

The first impression we make is enormously significant. Research shows that within the first minute or so of meeting someone in a job interview, at a gathering, or on a date, our brains are firing millions of bits of information to put that person in some kind of category of likes and dislikes, and to instruct us to move away or move toward.

A client once said to me that one of her worst fears was being judged when she walked into a room. I said, “Well, that’s an accurate fear, because everyone is judging everyone the minute they show up.” It is not a bad thing! In order for our species to survive, each of us had to develop antennae to see who’s with us, who could be dangerous, who we know to approach with gentleness or caution. Everybody’s judging everyone all the time, and as long as we recognize that this is what we’re doing, it’s okay.

But guess who we’re most preoccupied with judging? That’s right, ourselves. I would say it’s an 80/20 proposition: 80 percent of most people’s attention is on how they’re coming across, and their own self-reflection, while 20 percent goes to how other people are occurring to them. Once we relax with the idea that judging is just an instinctual sorting system, we do not have to try to remove it or shame the judge in our mind. Real maturity comes in when we realize that our prejudgments of people are inherently flawed and unfair, and that we should proceed with actual curiosity and the willingness to learn something entirely different about someone than what we first assume. An awareness of personas and masks gives us many opportunities to question our prejudices and to better understand and forgive the prejudices of others.

The inventories that follow are designed to support you in assessing the balance of elemental energies that creates your default self-presentation and persona. They will give you a clearer picture of the energy you bring when you enter a room, and will reveal to you some of your predispositions and patterns—possibly showing you things you’ve never thought about before, and thus helping expand your repertoire. They will assist you in evaluating the impact of those energies on how you naturally occur to others, and build on the weaker energies in a way that utilizes all your strengths while promoting some of your less developed sides.

Goop Press Series

Intuitive Fasting
The Hormone Shift
Gut Feelings
Eating from Our Roots
A Map to Your Soul
Us

About the Author

Jennifer Freed, PhD
Jennifer Freed, PhD, is a renowned psychological astrologer and social and emotional education trainer. She has spent over thirty-five years consulting clients and businesses worldwide on psychological, spiritual, and educational topics. A regular contributor to goop and Maria Shriver's newsletter The Sunday Paper, Jennifer has penned ten books relating to personal growth, and she has been interviewed for her expertise by the New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, USA Today, People Magazine, and Vogue. More by Jennifer Freed, PhD
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