From Nurse Practitioner to Astrologer: How I Got Here

I never planned to become an astrologer.

If you had told me a few years ago that this is where I would land, I would have smiled politely and changed the subject. I was a nurse practitioner turned entrepreneur. I was practical. I was clinical. I dealt in evidence, in systems, in things I could measure and explain.

And then my accountant mentioned a Mercury retrograde, and everything changed.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The Business That Gave Me Everything

Before astrology, there was Sarah Michelle NP Reviews.

I built that business from the ground up, and I loved it with everything I had. It was centered around something I deeply believed in: that mental health is part of the exam-taking equation. That you cannot separate a person’s nervous system from their performance. That caring for the whole person matters, even when the goal is passing a test.

I found so much purpose in that work. So much identity. Entrepreneurship lit me up in a way that nothing else had. I loved building something, watching it grow, feeling the direct connection between what I put in and what came back.

And then the business was acquired.

Going from entrepreneur to employee overnight is a transition that people don’t talk about enough. You hand over something that has been an extension of yourself, and suddenly you’re operating inside someone else’s structure, someone else’s vision. The pace changes. The autonomy changes. The sense of ownership changes.

I found myself not wanting to be involved in the day to day anymore. And that was a new feeling: one I didn’t quite know what to do with.

The Identity Unraveling (And the Rebuilding)

What followed was one of the most significant periods of internal change I’ve ever gone through.

I was navigating a new sense of identity and direction. I was leaning more heavily into my advocacy work. I was asking big questions about who I was outside of the business I had built, outside of the title I had carried, outside of the version of myself I had spent years becoming.

And I was having a conversation about all of this with my accountant.

This is the part of the story where people’s eyebrows go up. Yes, my accountant. We were talking through where I was, what I was feeling, where I wanted to go. And she paused and asked me something I wasn’t expecting.

Had I ever had my astrology chart read?

She mentioned a retrograde. She said something was going on cosmically that might offer some context for what I was experiencing. And then she very kindly offered me a free session with her personal astrologer.

I had no idea, until that moment, that my accountant had been working with an astrologer for years behind the scenes. Using it to time decisions in her business. Using it as a lens through which to understand herself more clearly.

I said yes, mostly out of curiosity.

The Reading That Changed Everything

My first session with that astrologer changed my life. She is someone I still work with today, someone who now mentors and teaches me, and I don’t think that’s an accident.

In that very first meeting, she knew the day I had decided I wanted to leave my business entirely. She knew the day I had put in my notice. She was able to predict something coming up in my future that I was convinced could not possibly be true.

It came true.

And something changed in me. Not all at once, but unmistakably. There’s something to this. This could be real. What does this look like?

I started studying. I started learning. What began as curiosity became a serious, dedicated practice. And the more I learned, the more I realized that astrology offered something my clinical background never quite had: a framework for understanding the self that was dynamic, nuanced, and deeply human.

What My Chart Told Me About Myself

One of the most eye-opening early discoveries was looking at my own chart and seeing something I recognized immediately.

I have a lot of Virgo placements. Virgo sun, Virgo Mercury, Virgo Midheaven. Analytical, practical, detail-oriented, always looking for the evidence, always wanting to understand how things work. That is deeply me.

But I am also a Sagittarius rising.

Which means the version of me that the world sees first is my Sagittarius self: expansive, enthusiastic, philosophical, drawn to big ideas and bigger questions. And people often perceive me that way. But on the inside, I’m running on Virgo. I’m processing, organizing, synthesizing. I’m looking for the practical application of every big idea.

Seeing that in my chart was one of the first moments I thought: this is a real tool for self-understanding. Not a party trick. Not a personality quiz. A genuine framework for making sense of who you are and why you move through the world the way you do.

Why This Was Never Actually a Departure

When I look back at every chapter of my career, the through line is almost embarrassingly obvious.

I did oncology nursing. That is as much a mental health job as it is a medical one. I built a business centered on the idea that mental health is part of the exam-taking equation. My entrepreneurial journey, at its core, was always about mental health. And when I found myself in the middle of my own identity shift, unraveling and rebuilding at the same time, I started using astrology as a tool for my own mental health.

It was never a departure. It was always the same work, wearing a different costume.

And if my accountant hadn’t casually mentioned Mercury retrograde during a meeting about budgeting, I might never have realized it.

If you’re curious about what your own chart might reveal, I offer personalized birth chart readings. You can learn more and book a session here.