know the real reason Meghan Markle is so obsessed with astrology. I was the same… it nearly ruined my life: NICOLE BRENNY

While the recent claims that Meghan Markle‘s life has been ‘ruined’ by her reliance on astrology may sound hyperbolic, it’s a reality that Nicole Brenny knows well.

Brenny, a 37-year-old life coach and spiritual mentor based in the Midwest, was once an internationally recognized astrologer who made a fortune doing readings for the horoscope-obsessed looking for answers in the universe.

She told the Daily Mail: ‘I was making six figures. I was on the up and up. My closest colleagues were some of the most famous astrologers in the world. I used to read for celebrities and super-rich people, super-famous people.’

Legions of fans, as many as tens of thousands at one point, hung on to her every word as she dissected the impact of mercury retrograde or the importance of transits.

And even though interpreting the planets’ every move and their ‘true’ meaning helped her live a life of luxury – taking exotic trips, living and surfing in Costa Rica and having money to splurge on anything were the norm for Brenny – her passion swiftly became a compulsion.

‘I realized that I was getting in this obsessive cycle,’ she said. ‘There was a point where I wouldn’t even place an order on Amazon without doing a tarot card reading about it, like “Should I buy this?” It was getting to be a codependent relationship. I was using it so much.’

Approximately 30 percent of US adults say they consult astrology at least once a year for fun, but for many, like Brenny or Markle, it’s become more than a pastime. Sources recently claimed to Naughty But Nice that Markle’s dependence on astrology is allegedly ‘no longer casual,’ as she ‘seriously’ consults ‘signs and energy’ for everything, reportedly even before accepting a meeting.

But for Brenny, when she realized that astrology had taken a toll on her soul almost four years ago, she made a drastic decision to walk away from the practice that had dominated her professional and personal life for over a decade.

She said: ‘My business was only growing. I sacrificed all of it and it was hard. I lost everything – my career, my community, my income.

‘I was living this beautiful lifestyle, surfing in Costa Rica and traveling. I had enough money to do whatever I wanted to, but it was still worth it for me to let it all go. I had to let it all burn down.’

Initially, Brenny’s journey to becoming a sought-after astrologer seemed destined in the stars. As a kid, she was deeply intuitive and in tune with her spirituality. As soon as she could read, she would study horoscopes in the newspaper and in magazines, amazed by how accurate they were.

‘Ever since I was a tiny child, I was having prophetic dreams,’ she said. ‘I was able to speak with ghosts and people who passed, I always had that spiritual gift, which is required for the intuitive reading aspect [of astrology].’

By the time Brenny was 12, she had moved on to astrology books; later in her teenage years, she began practicing tarot, learning archetypes and symbolism and doing intuitive readings.

In her early 20s, fed up with her corporate job at a start-up, Brenny turned to astrology to seek guidance for a new career path. During this time, she started a YouTube channel for fun, where she would share content about her experiences with lucid dreaming and astral travel, which is intentional out-of-body travel or when your soul leaves your body, as well as musings on tarot.

She ended up quitting that job to become a dog walker and pet sitter, but also began booking tarot readings for her online following.

Her online presence also caught the eye of noted astrologer Ernst Wilhelm, who mentored Brenny and introduced her to his predictive system, the Cards of Truth and helped to introduce her to a community of astrologers.

That’s when Brenny realized that astrology might be the new career she had been seeking.

‘All of a sudden, I realized I was making a full-time income from tarot,’ she said. ‘My career took off once I decided to have a website and offer it professionally. I put it out there and literally within one month, I was making a full-time income. That stayed consistent for almost ten years.’

During her time as an astrologer, Brenny was candid and personable, often sharing instances of how astrology applied to her own life. It was a brand of astrology that has since become par for the course online in the influencer age, but was basically unheard of when she started doing it.

She amassed a large and loyal following on YouTube, where her 20,000 followers often sent her gifts and fan mail.

Brenny’s immense success as an astrologer, however, soon made it difficult for her to strike a good work/life balance, especially when so much of her draw as an astrologer was her sharing how her personal life could be interpreted through the stars.

‘People knew so much about my life and my relationships,’ she said. ‘But it was extremely hard because I was feeding the machine of my business by sharing my personal life and analyzing it through the stars, so it felt like I couldn’t stop that.’

Soon, she found herself feeling trapped within a cage of her own making; what had once helped her make sense of her life cosmically now felt like an unhealthy obsession, a ‘heaviness’ she couldn’t shake.

Brenny said top astrologers in her field would tell her opposing theories – or worse, they would tell her she’d ‘never be successful.’

‘I was getting in this obsessive cycle of trying to predict things in my own life and trying to prevent bad things from happening, when sometimes the prevention ended up creating the bad scenario,’ she said.

‘I was so hyper-aware of it – I always knew where Saturn was, where the moon was, what interactions were happening online because I had to. I was constantly showing up online talking about it, so there was no way for me to not know and not apply that to my chart.’

She found that she was indeed ‘good at predictions,’ but found astrology to be inescapable.

‘Imagine being like that in your own life. You sacrifice the joy of life and you start to get into a crazy mode of control. I had so much anxiety and control issues. It just snuck up on me. It was bad.’

In 2022, after starting to have these revelations, Brenny began to scale back her offerings on her website, removing first her astrology offerings, then tarot readings. Although she loved helping people, she felt an inner resistance in helping them do astrological predictions.

By the summer of that year, she had just one client remaining for her life coaching business, who asked her for help with meditation. It helped Brenny get back into her own meditation practice as a result, which led to her having, in her words, a divine experience where she ‘felt the presence of God.’

‘I fell to my knees,’ she said. ‘It was this breakthrough moment for me where I realized I had to change a lot of things about myself in my life. I’m this astrologer, this person that people had placed on a pedestal, that they thought knew everything, but it was like I was seeing things clearly for the first time.’

‘I talked about how I was trying to control everything, but I was programmed wrong. I needed to heal that part of myself that thought controlling everything was the strategy for life.’

Knowing astrology was unhealthy and ultimately detrimental to herself, she gave it up completely.

‘It took me a long time to realize it, but like most people, I was programmed to avoid bad and go towards the good, so the way I navigated life was to try and control, control, control that,’ she said.

‘I realized that that attitude, while it worked really well to be a good astrologer, was not working well to have peace in my life. I realized I had to accept that good and bad stuff happens all the time, you cannot stop it. It was like, “I don’t want to play God anymore, I just want to enjoy life.”‘

So, for three and a half years, Brenny let go and opted to ‘live like a monk or a nun.’ She meditated for up to 20 hours a day, often chanting mantras for hours, calling it a ‘state of healing.’

‘It’s taught me to live in alignment with myself, with nature, with others, and with my purpose,’ she said. ‘It’s been the hardest, craziest thing. When you’re in that state of peace, there’s no need to predict or to control.

‘There are times when I’ve stepped out of that peace, but rather than try to predict my future and worry about stuff, my goal was to bring my body and mind back into alignment so I could return to that peace.’

Now, as she polishes the manuscript for a book she’s working on, Brenny thinks she’s ready to dip her toe back into the astrology pool, taking on clients for readings again. But this time, her engagement with it will be purely professional.

‘I don’t use astrology for myself anymore, but astrology is real and it works. I’m just not at that stage anymore. I’m really grateful for my astrology journey and it probably even led me to this deeper path of peace.’

She does understand, however, why Markle might be relying on astrology to get her through her days – like many of her former rich and famous clients did, too. It’s also the same reason why she, too, once could only make a decision if she consulted the stars.

‘People want control because the world sucks and life can be hard,’ she said. ‘People want to make it easier for themselves. Meghan Markle is human. She’s facing life and wants to make it easier.’

‘Astrology can be a really useful tool, but I don’t want people to think it’s the end all to be all. If you can surrender and trust and enjoy the ride, this journey will allow you to come into your full authentic self.’