Hi there, and welcome to Channeling the Heart Podcast, formerly known as The Rising Hearts Podcast. I am your host Kristin Madding.
I know it’s early days but I have decided to change the name of this podcast and my astrological business—hello, Venus retrograde? I do recognize I have a tendency to make sweeping changes (I blame my uranus, conjunct mars the ruler of my MC, trine my ascendant degree), but regardless, the idea simply would not leave my mind. So…I am heeding the message, and changing the name before I’ve gone too far down another road. In making this change, I thought I would take the opportunity to explain why and describe my process and what has led me here.
First, about Rising Hearts—I have liked the name. It was meant to reflect awakened spiritual, heart-based perspectives, and I enjoyed the dual meaning of “Rising”—playing into astrological concepts like your rising sign, rising moon, rising sun, etc. Yet, I feel Channeling the Heart is more accessible for those who don’t connect with awakening, and more importantly, it speaks directly to what I do: utilize heart-based intuition to gain wisdom, read energy, interpret horoscopes, and go deeper with natal charts.
You might be wondering…what exactly does “Channeling the Heart” mean? I would love to describe this practice and provide my background on developing this ability.
First, let’s define “heart” in the way I intend for my practice and podcast: when talking about the heart, I am referencing the wisdom that emerges in meditation or intuitive practice from heart energy, the heart center, or heart chakra—whichever you might prefer to call it. Common parlance seems to associate the heart space purely with emotions or emotional reactivity. While I think emotions are a communication device for our heart-centered wisdom, it takes practice and careful listening to truly understand what our emotions—and thus, our heart—are trying to tell us. Emotional reactivity—or acting hastily from a place of fight or flight—often stems from the lizard mind, the ego, past conditioning, and faulty beliefs—not heart-centered wisdom.
I believe heart-centered wisdom comes from our higher self. I think of the higher self as a multi-dimensional part of us that has access to higher perspectives, our purest desires, and an innate sense of which path will bring us the greatest contentment, gratitude, and joy. I believe other entities, such as spirit guides, angels, religious figures, god, the universe, etc., can also access our consciousness and communicate through the heart energy center. Listening and aligning our actions with the wisdom of the heart is an alternative to following the demands of our ego. (That said, at times, the heart and ego may want similar outcomes, but they are usually driven by different motives.) Aligning with the frequency of the heart is a connecting, intuitive, and profound experience—one that I endeavor to live by, if for no other reason than because it simply feels good.
How did I learn to connect with the heart space? Well, if I trace it all the way back, I suppose it began in my teens and early twenties, when I became highly anxious and depressed. Those feelings were confusing and made me feel broken—I had an objectively good life, so why didn’t I feel like it? That dissonance sent me on a lifelong search for answers, for healing, and for my truest self.
I spent the next few decades seeking help from nearly any healing modality I could get my hands on: psychology, traditional therapy and medication, self-help and spiritual books, all the personality sorting systems, meditation, yoga, classes, and seminars. I turned to plant medicine, energy healing, palm reading, and tarot—anything to gain insight into who I am, what I am doing here, and how I could fix myself. While I received many epiphanies along the way and received relief to varying degrees over time, I was never able to fully transcend my inner longing with those outside tools alone.
In 2019, after the birth of my second and last child, I had a profound spiritual awakening. For me, this was a period of sudden and rapid expansion of consciousness. I was suddenly living within a new paradigm—one focused on my sovereignty, and thus, exposing where I have repeatedly abandoned myself. This abandonment was deep seated, hard to see in many cases, and stemmed from multiple drivers, though ultimately, I see it as my own unconscious doing. The first couple years after that initial awakening were spent recognizing and undoing societal expectations and conditioning; more recently, I’ve had to address patterns of over-prioritizing others’ feelings, opinions and preferences (perceived or real) to keep the peace or make them happy. When you do most things to appease others, even if well intended, you eventually lose access to your own inner voice, the one that tells you where true alignment lies.
Since that awakening, I have gradually seen the extent of my self-erosion, and now, I make a conscious effort to live according to my own desires with the help of my therapist and my own personal spiritual practice. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I stumble, but I am fully committed to the journey. Self-abandonment, at the end of the day, serves no one if you’re left operating out of resentment and anger, even if it means inconveniencing others or hurting their feelings. Healing that kind of deep conditioning takes time, but it also asks for tools—things that mirror back our patterns and guide us home to ourselves. Luckily, I had already found one of my favorite tools: astrology.
I have always been fascinated by astrology. I can remember sitting on the floor of a bookstore in middle school, reading a book about birthdays and signs. I found the concepts fun to explore—it was a source of entertainment, really—but I didn’t give astrology much credence until my education went beyond sun signs 2018. Once I learned how academic and complex astrology can be, I became obsessed and had to learn more. I eventually narrowed my focus to traditional Hellenistic astrology, incorporating the outer planets and select modern techniques, and I absorbed everything I could get my hands on.
The intuitive skills, aka the ability to channel my heart wisdom, however, brings us back to that awakening in 2019. (To be transparent, I have always had a deep intuition, but it was more passive prior to the awakening.) At that time, I started a practice of self-hypnosis to find answers to my many questions. Essentially, the hypnosis process involved setting an intention, listening to an induction script that created heart-mind coherence, and then, asking questions of my higher self or spirit guide team for insight. If you’ve ever received profound clarity after working with plant medicine, you’ll have a sense for the hypnosis practice and what kind of insight you can glean.
In addition to this practice, I developed an ability to physically feel alignment within my body's energy systems. If something—a book, a food, a drink, a movie, a person, anything really—was aligned with my higher self, I would feel an expansion sensation within my body. If misaligned, I would feel a contraction sensation. This sense, perhaps a form of interoception, became so finely tuned that, eventually, I was able to determine aligned word choice—”yes, this word fits to describe this energy…no it’s not that word, it feels more like this word.” Now, it is one of my strongest clairsentient abilities and a significant tool in generating intuitive messages and horoscopes.
Today, I have combined my love for astrology and heart-based intuitive work into a single practice. They work hand-in-hand: the intuitive voice uses the astrological knowledge and library I’ve built, giving voice to a chart or astrological transit—whether that comes through as a phrase, feeling, song, or image, depending on whichever clair-ability is most helpful in the moment.
And this brings us full circle to the name Channeling the Heart.
When we talk about channeling, it can sometimes sound mystical or distant—like you have to tap into something completely outside yourself. But this kind of channeling isn’t about bypassing who you are; it’s about getting quiet enough to align to heart frequency and let your own inner wisdom speak without the static of fear, ego, or old conditioning. I believe it’s something anyone can practice and learn.
Your birth chart is an incredible map of identity, and the heart is the compass. When we bring intuitive channeling together with traditional astrology, we aren't trying to predict a set doom or fix your so-called flaws. We are using the symbolic language of the cosmos to help you remember your own highest truth.
Thank you so much for being here, for evolving with me, and for exploring what it means to lead from the heart. I am so excited for the journey ahead. If you feel called, I’d love if you would follow or subscribe to this podcast, and tell a friend who might be interested in this content. You can also find my website online at channelingtheheartastrology.com or on Instagram at @channeling.the.heart. Thanks and have a great day!