Adulting - Adulting 2.0: Caggie Dunlop

Episode Date: March 26, 2023

Hey Podulters! Welcome to Adulting 2.0: The Timelines.Caggie Dunlop is a podcaster, content creator and author. In this episode we talk about Saturn returns, the subject matter of her successful podcast and new book of the same name, feeling like your timeline is falling behind, an uneasy relationship with fame, her love affair with music, the courage to create, sobriety and so much more. Caggie's book 'Saturn Returns' is out now.I hope you enjoy, and as always please do rate, review and subscribe. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Gambling problem? Call 1-866-531-2600. Or visit connectsontario.ca. Select games only. Guarantee void if platform or game outages occur. Guarantee requires play by at least one customer until jackpot is awarded. Or 11 p.m. Eastern. Restrictions apply. See full terms at canada.casino.fandu.com. Please play responsibly. Hello poddlers, I hope you're well. In this week's episode, I speak to podcaster, content creator and author, Kagi Dunlop. We discuss Saturn Returns, which is the name and subject of our podcast and new book, as

well as creativity, sobriety and so much more. I hope you enjoy the episode and as always, please do rate, review and subscribe. Bye! Hi Kagi. Hi! How are you i'm all right okay so can we talk about the last time i saw you i came on your podcast and i and it's been maybe a couple of years i think you came on i think it was in the pandemic yes yeah oh my god so maybe a few years and i feel like and i was just saying to you before it's so funny because in that time so much has changed and I haven't had my Saturn return so it's not that it's just life but can you tell me because your podcast obviously and

the book is all about your Saturn return which is a really specific time well you can tell us what your Saturn return is actually well your Saturn return is something that happens in your late 20s as Saturn returns to the same place in the sky it was when you were born and so within the realms of astrology this is a moment where you kind of have an initiation into adulthood and it's your cosmic coming of age as I like to say in the book where you have a lot of tough life lessons and ultimately it's about uncovering whether you've been living authentically so for certain people it can mean just up leveling perhaps they'll get the job promotion or they will the the relationship will solidify to the next level and they might get engaged or have a kid but for others it's more turbulent and sort of strips a lot of things away but it's doing this so that we can establish

a healthier foundation that is more authentic and more truthful to the things that are aligned for us during people saturn maternal often have a big career shift or pivot or a relationship might suddenly end friendships changing is a big one as well so it's it's a big moment it's a big moment so it's been interesting kind of creating this whole body of work around this particular area i think it's so interesting i am quite concerned about what mine's going to be because i'm like if i have another breakup i think i'm just gonna have to be celibate for the rest of my life because i've had enough for a lifetime i mean i did so you go through your progressed lunar return, which is less known than your Saturn

return. And that's just before your Saturn return. And that can be equally turbulent on a kind of emotional level where everything kind of gets stirred around. When I was 27, I moved to LA, went through a breakup. And that's really perhaps when I felt yeah that's where everything started to kind of unravel and then that's when I started to learn more about astrology and Saturn return and then started writing about it actually so could you tell me so this podcast is about your whole time of your whole life and kind of focusing on it all stemmed from when I had a breakup at 28 and kind of everyone was asking me how does it feel to be single at 28 because we have these preordained ideas especially as women that kind of we need to be in a relationship settled before we're 30 so that we're following along this trail of like you know baby by 32

whatever it is this this kind of idea that we have in our heads not just with relationships and and like romance or whatever else how is your personal timeline kind of deviated from what you would have imagined I don't know as a young girl what things maybe have gone wrong or differently and what things have actually turned out perfectly but you wouldn't have sort of organized it that way if you'd had the choice well I don't wouldn't say anything's turned up perfectly but you know the beauty and especially you know my biggest shift was during my Saturn return and when I reflect back before that time I wanted things to go perfectly and I had certain expectations and certain

criteria and like you say for women especially you have to have ticked all these boxes by a certain age and stage of life. And I really felt like I was falling behind. And I think there's a lot of shame and isolation that people experience. But then when I was on the other side of my 30s, you know, coming out of my Saturn return, I realized that that was all, it's all sort of internalized societal pressure and these narratives that aren't actually based in reality. Whilst the biological clock is a very real pressure and we can get into that, I think the other stuff we have to kind of consciously

dismantle and that's been a big part of my own personal journey and process because I recognized that a lot of the things that I thought I needed to be to achieve were just weren't even really true for me and one of those was you know growing up essentially on tv and for those that don't know I did reality tv in my early 20s that kind of put me on an interesting path where I thought that fit you know I associated a lot of worth and validation through fame and I think today we live in a world where everyone's doing that in their own sort of capacity whether that's just the network of friends they have at school, liking them on social media

or to the scale of what you've experienced growing up with living in a very digital way. And for me, it was living through entertainment and reality TV. And so when I started to, I guess, derive my worth from that validation, I then think that I was seeking things or making career decisions based off that and so a lot of what I wanted to do and then also like it's so

hard to discern between what you want your own voice and not just echoing the voices of those around you and I'm finding that again at the moment so many people are you should do this you should go there you should do this and like you shouldn't do that and it's so hard just to quieten down that noise and just really get truthful with yourself and go inward so I mean I've probably gone off on a million tangents here from what you asked so many things I want to ask so you said that when you were in your 20s or like just so you're going through your settlement town or about to you felt like you were falling behind what in what areas were you feeling like you were kind of behind this mainly so 27 I

was in a relationship or I just left a relationship we'd been together for about a year or we'd broken up and then got back together and I think he wanted to settle down and have a family and was probably at that stage and had his career going and everything whereas I felt like that wasn't my path I just knew he was a lovely lovely person it just wasn't right for me and so I made the decision to leave that relationship and move to LA without really any plan aside from I had the sort of romanticized idea that I was going to go and do acting and music which is what I was pursuing at the time but in many ways I think I was escaping reality and also escaping myself which is something that I have always less now but

that was something I did in my 20s a lot like escapism through various means and so actually when I moved to LA and was pursuing these things I was actually looking back and finding like some music that I'd written out there and stuff but I LA was so vast and overwhelming that picking you know the decisions I made there I was so scared of getting them wrong and I think almost the fear of getting them wrong meant that I did get them wrong and also something that I speak about a lot on the podcast is how we subcontract our own authority so we might have an idea of what we want to do or how we want our life to unfold but then we seek the approval or someone to come along and tell us exactly how to do it and I was very much in that headspace then

but I think for a lot of women and especially in the entertainment industry that's quite common you know we have this like hierarchy of you have the talent and then people that are like your managers or agents or whatever and they are often the gatekeepers to a lot of opportunity so I yeah I was kind of very overwhelmed during my time in LA and pushing towards the end pushing so much and wanting something to happen for perhaps the wrong reasons and became like perfectionistic about things creativity is an interesting one because I think it's something that brings us a lot of joy but it also creates a lot of turmoil because I don't know about you because I know you're very creative

with your painting and everything but when it comes to actually putting it out you get faced with all these blocks and all these demons and that I found particularly hard it's so funny what you say about kind of like wanting approval and also not sure when you kind of like know what you want to be doing next but you let other people guide you in the wrong direction I've had that so many times and every time when I've made a really hard decision that everyone was like you shouldn't be doing that and whether that's like turning a really good opportunity in verticals down or like choosing it's always been the right choice and every time I've done something where I felt slightly resistant to it but been like they know what they're talking about so I should do it it's always gone wrong and it's taken me ages to learn that now I kind of I'm really learning to be like actually

I know this sounds amazing but I know that if I do that that it's going to take away room for other things that might come up later that is actually a way better suited option and it's also we don't really cultivate or encourage listening to that inner knowing or spending the time carving out you know exactly what we want for ourselves and I think for me as well it's something that I'm it's a sort of lesson that's coming back around now where it's like there are multiple avenues and opportunities it's like which one are you going to choose and based on what reasoning and I can find that I can find that quite an overwhelming place to be what did you before you did reality tv what were you imagining your career would look like have you always wanted to do your music and are you still

doing that now so the music was a really interesting thing for me it's sort of love affair that's like love hate I was never brought up in a musical capacity it wasn't in my and I think with a lot of artists they are brought up you know immersed in that world whereas for me my family was not musical no one knew that I liked singing it was like this secret that I kept and I still haven't really unpacked why but it was something that I would like if my mom's like I'm gonna go to the shops I can't remember what age I was but pretty young but old enough to be left alone she would say I would say how long are you gonna be and then she would say like 10 minutes you know what a weird question and I would be wanting to know so I knew how long I had to sing oh I know and then she would come back and

the keys would go in the door and I would be like mortified that she might have heard me so again it kind of it ties in I think to this this theme I've struggled with that I think a lot of us do is like a perfectionism of not being scared to be seen in a certain way if it's not going to be met with the right reaction or if it might be criticized so if you aren't bought up with that's nurturing those things that's naturally pulled those abilities from you and that's encouraging you to kind of try it out but it's something that's quite innate in you it just felt like this almost like shameful secret but something I had a desire to do but was painfully shy about it and then I went to drama school in New York when I was 19 and 1920 and I did a semester there of singing and I remember when I picked it my

parents were like why are you singing you don't sing I was like well I'm just trying it and I honestly I couldn't get up in the class like I even thinking about it makes me anxious so go around and everyone would just be you know singing the musicals and I I was just so like shaking so much I was like I can't I can't go and so it was always this thing that I desired but I wouldn't let myself do because I was afraid of being judged and then what happened was my parents I got a I had a laptop like my first laptop and it has apple laptop and it had garage band so what i do is the little step up because i used to record myself on my mom's like tape recorder yeah obviously she never heard it and then i had this laptop so i would record it on garage band and actually it was a much better

quality i could hear it back and then one christmas my dad opened up my computer because he wanted to like see something and it started playing because it was already in that yeah that's what the thing was when he opened it and then I came downstairs and my dad was like is this you like what's going on and I was so embarrassed but that's how the music started that's so sweet I wonder if it's because it's something so precious to you it is yeah that's why you're so that's so sweet I wonder if it's because it's something so precious to you it is yeah that's why you're so scared because I feel like I so I started doing stand-up and everyone's like oh my god are you not really nervous and I'm like no because I know that I'm not going to be like good at it when I start so it doesn't I'm not that stressed because I don't

feel like something I own or there's something that I like I came to it late kind of thing and I was like I'll just try it and if I'm shit it doesn't matter whereas if you've built this thing around it where you've always kept it inside you've always been scared it's like you've basically turned it into this massive thing in your mind because you've like held it so close and so it's like you've you've like probably somewhere in your brain you've it's it's so special it's so secret so you couldn't possibly let it go because then it's like you love it so much that if someone maybe there's a fear that it could get taken away from you you'd lose the pleasure in it if someone wasn't like yeah if someone could eat it well that's i think it bought me a lot of joy

just doing it on my own so then the idea of sharing sharing it and and then it not being met with the same uh acceptance or encouragement and then then I think, you know, then I did, when I did Made in Chelsea, they got me on the show by basically saying, I don't know if many people even know this, but they were asking me when they were interviewing me, I was like, I don't know whether this is for me. And they said, well, what do you like to do?

What are your hobbies? And I was like, well, I'm actually, and it was just at the same time when my dad had found this singing. And I was like, i'm actually and it was just at the same time when my dad had found this singing and i was like i'm trying to get into singing it's something that i really want to do more of and next thing i know is they'd written the first episode and they were like so you're doing a performance at the troubadour did you do that i can't remember now i did so he literally went from like couldn't get up in drama class to having five cameras and it going out on TV

and my whole family were like, what's going on? So that was quite a baptism of fire for me. That was my first ever performance. But then of course that catapulted me into fame, but then people presumed that I was a musician or doing music whereas i really wasn't

i was totally green and it was kind of terrifying because i didn't have much i didn't have any confidence in it so even though a lot of people were really nice if i read one nasty thing i was like oh my god i'm terrible i'm never doing it again because it can find if you've got that insecurity you can have a thousand people, I got this, a thousand people say a nice thing, one person says one bad thing, and it just ruins your day. So you're like, oh, well, they're right, obviously.

And that's what I have about music. So it's still quite a tortured thing. And when I left the show, I was pursuing music and I was doing a lot of gigs and stuff like that. And I've written and recorded so much music, some that may never see the light of day and that's kind of a bit sad but I just found it hard to negotiate with that sort of inner turmoil that I experience with that anxiety around performing or putting myself out

there but I think I think a lot of people have that in something but you might not even know that that's something that they want to do or that brings them joy I mean you said that for you stand up is quite a natural space but is there something that you have that kind of fear around I do I really have it with writing because I really really want to be a writer and I love reading so for me writing putting writing out there makes me feel sick because I'm like if someone like exactly what you said if someone says this is bad it's dreams killed yeah it's the end of it's the end of that then yeah so that is kind of like where I got really really really scared and because I read so much I know how good I am and like how bad I am because there's a really

good quote I feel like I've said this probably a thousand times but I read a book recently called tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow and it's like there comes a point good quote. I feel like I've said this probably a thousand times. But I read a book recently called Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow. And it's like there comes a point in every creative's life when your taste exceeds your abilities. So basically, and the only way to get through that is by creating anyway. But that's how I feel is like the things I love, I'm not as capable as the things that I love. But I'll never get as good as them if I don't do it anyway. But that's really scary. Yeah, I'm actually reading this

it's called the courage to create I think it's courage to create Africa oh yeah she's always putting out stuff about it so I was like okay I'm gonna read this and it's quite it's sort of talking about how creativity is our way that we can actually leave a sort of permanent mark of you know ourselves and our our life's work and but this kind of battle we have with expressing it and why it's such a challenging process but I think that's part of what makes it magical do you know what I mean I don't I think if people were really honest about the creative process most people have a lot of demons that they battle with along the way and it's it's the sort of area that I find myself coming back into strangely even though it doesn't necessarily seem obviously tied in with Saturn Returns but it seems to be in my

vocabulary and in my conversations about the importance of creative expression, whether that's because people want it to change their career or just as an expression of self and like who you are. And I think that it's important to bring these things, you know, to showcase your abilities. And I think I've realized that there are a couple of things in my life that I want to put out that are, I think it's a book called big magic i think it's yeah amazing i listened to that not that long ago unbelievable well it's got the idea that you know

your ideas or your creative concepts choose yeah i love that which i really love and i think that's so true because often and this is tied into Saturn Returns because that's often the moment when people start bringing their ideas or their concepts into the material world. So you'll suddenly see people do a career shift and they'll start up a business or a company and you'll be like, where did that come from? And you think it's just this random thing

that they randomly decided to do, but actually it's probably something that they've had as an idea for years. And then, you know, within astrology, they say that it's using Saturn's energy to kind of bring that to life. But I also just love that concept because I think we all have creative ideas or things that just keep coming to us, you know. And I think it's always a very good indication if a lot of time has passed and that idea is still there and it's still strong you've got to do something about it because otherwise it will move on and find someone else to bring it to life because it's chosen you because it wants you to do it but if you're not going to get up and do it it will move along and it's so when I so I was listening to that because I've got a big project

that I've been working on and I've had that where i've had so many ideas that i i basically had a three-month window where if i hadn't acted on them they then go and then you see someone else doing it and you're like and then also you're not in a position to do it anymore it doesn't make sense anymore and i have had so many points in my life when i could have taken so many different avenues and i can kind of look back as if it's like a game and I went actually do that and then you go okay and then everything follows the trail of like what decision you made last but there was points like a few years ago when I would be in a complete you're talking about completely different things doing completely different stuff it's weird like looking back how you kind of latch on to certain things or don't with others and that's what's so interesting

as well about timelines and how they can sort of like go in a different direction based off these decisions I think a huge component is trust you know putting out putting out creative projects and having faith in your ideas is not easy and you're gonna meet a lot of people that are gonna tell you it's stupid or they don't get it and I think it's also important to keep your ideas sacred until you feel really secure about them because something that I would always go and do is like profess my ideas and say oh I'm going to do this I'm going to create this I remember my mum once saying stop with all these pie in the sky ideas me and one of my best friends who's the director we always joke that we just have so

many pie in the sky ideas but you know sometimes those ideas are really valuable and if you go sharing it too soon it can kind of pop yeah that dream I wanted to ask sorry I'm clearly going back but I was thinking about like validation and stuff and you're talking about how fame was such a big component of how you were measuring success at what point did you change that success metric and realize that chasing that wasn't going to be useful or valuable to you yeah it wasn't emotionally fulfilling so it was there was a clear moment where I actually went so my Saturn return I went through a breakup that was very dramatic. It was one of those ones that I thought it was all kind of fixed and that was my person. And then suddenly the rug was pulled from underneath me. And in the process of kind of healing from that, I went to see a healer.

And the healer ended up, she was sort of reading my body, like energetically. And she was asking me what I did and at the time I was pursuing music and things were actually going quite well like I was releasing it was getting good traction but I was and so I said I'm a I'm a singer she was like it's not resonating in your body and I was like oh my god but it was just the directness but it gave me the freedom to actually have an honest conversation about it and I was just like I sighed and I was like I know and I was like but I don't I've been pursuing it for so long I've committed to it that I feel like I have to carry on and at that point I was 30 you know and so I

felt that pressure cooker like of time I was like I've picked this now I have to carry on doing it and she was like well tell me the things that light you up that you enjoy and so I was like well I love you know I love astrology I love spirituality I love poetry I love writing I love community I love connecting and just was like saying all the stuff and she was like nodding along she was like yeah these are all true for you and these are the things you're supposed to be doing but I was like but how is that a career and she was like you need to open up your language around what you're doing and stop saying that you know which I found really interesting she was like say be okay with saying you don't know like because you're going to create more room and more space for the things that are meant for you and it was

just something about that giving being given that permission to not know at that age and be okay with it felt like I suddenly took off a backpack of opinions that I've been carrying uphill for years and started I explain this in the book it's like I felt like I was suddenly running downhill again and I felt free and I didn't know what direction I was going in but I was okay with that and so that was a real pivotal moment and then everything actually did start falling into place so that breakup was a catalyst and then I really started leaning into my spiritual practice and then a couple of people approached me saying have you considered doing a podcast and because of my time in LA when I started writing the concept of

Saturn Returns I kind of revived that and I was like this would actually apply really well as like a toolkit for people going through their Saturn Return and it came from a place of passion purpose but I was doing it like it was so like innate and intrinsic in me that I just felt so aligned with everything about it I never really thought about it being a success or a failure I didn't actually really care I was like this is what I want to put out into the world and all those things just kind of came together at the right time you know all those elements that I couldn't have predicted and you know I never imagined I would be working in the space that I am now but at the same time I couldn't imagine doing anything else it's so interesting about and now it's like so successful and you've got your book and use your life shows that it's it's amazing it's turned into its whole own kind of like mini empire and I felt the same when I first started

when it was in its first situation I didn't it was like the minute I came up the idea I was like I literally can't wait to do this and I'd never checked the listener stats or anything it was only when it got to like a million I was like oh my god this is doing really well I should like maybe try and like monetize it like turn it I didn't because and I and it taught me so much that like when I felt like stopping it the minute I got that feeling like I don't think this is right anymore I was like I have to stop it because I'll run it I might ruin it if I keep going and then it's not feeling and it's not right I just knew that it might so I just I took a break for like two years and now it's about this new idea which again sort of it was one of the things that kind of came to me I was like this is what I want to talk about yeah and it's taught me a lot about when to kind of leave things be

and when to take things and I wanted to go back as well to that thing you're saying about seeing yourself as a singer and not and and really like drilling down into that I've had this well you get these self-limiting beliefs because you're basically blocking off any other you've got your blinkers on you're like that's what I'm doing tunnel vision yeah and then you don't become your identity as well exactly and then you don't allow yourself because loads of stuff is actually just like you said being open-minded to letting yourself fall into something new or yeah because i think we have we do and also we no one cares really what anyone else is doing but in your brain you think well this is going to be such a big deal if i suddenly am like doing something else no one you realize no one really cares everyone's so busy kind of on their

own stuff but it's it's an interesting one what you just mentioned about being able to discern between whether something is like going through a transition or a difficult period to stick it out versus knowing to pull away or to kind of shift gears or go in a slightly different direction because I'm someone I think that I can always think that I need to be doing more and I find it hard to recognize when something is actually doing really well you know day to day because I think I get I want to kind of yeah I don't know I always feel like I could be doing more because and we've touched on the music stuff but I don't think that it was that music wasn't authentic for me I think pursuing music in the way that I was wasn't right and I think for me the music is going to exist in a

completely different way I don't think anyone would understand I think I have to demonstrate it so I guess what you're saying is that you were looking but especially because you've been on that trajectory from Made in Chelsea is like the music you wanted to like you were trying to make it but like to make the music kind of a a fame thing in of its own right without realizing so it was like more of a it was like well i felt i think i felt that pressure too because people were like well if she's left you know a hit reality show what's she going to do in music yeah and the press can be notoriously cruel in that they don't really have much room for you know an artist trying to figure out who she is but also i i

think i didn't really like fame that's the thing but I got a lot of validation from it but it actually has never felt I always shied away from it there was a reason that I left that there was a reason I didn't like going to events or didn't like being in the press and so creating Saturn Returns has given me a community versus an audience and that's a lot more nurturing and a lot a lot more rewarding for me putting out music to that community as another asset an aspect of who I am and demonstrating the importance of creative expression which I think we all should do but that's really what I want to do it for because I think when we're when we're young we do these things that bring us joy we're very playful we don't think oh how is learning the piano gonna

make make me money but when we're older we become so career focused that we disengage from these aspects of ourselves that actually really important just for our overall well-being we just cut out the creative part if it's not our job or our earner and I think for me it's about reclaiming those aspects in a way that feels like I have ownership over them FanDuel Casino's exclusive live dealer studio has your chance at the number one feeling, winning. Which beats even the 27th best feeling, saying I do. Who wants this last parachute? I do.

Enjoy the number one feeling, winning, in an exciting live dealer studio, exclusively on Fanduel Casino. Where winning is undefeated. 19 plus and physically located in ontario gambling problem call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca please play responsibly i wanted to go back to the same thing because i think it's really interesting i'm i have not experienced fame in any real way again like being an infant's completely different thing but the taste that i've had of it i think it sounds seems terrible as well like it's not something i'm attracted to i hate the idea of like i i like it actually petrifies me i'm worried if something

did really well that i did to the point where people i don't think i ever will be in this remit but where people like folk like paparazzi i can't even imagine dealing with that do you think anyone actually enjoys it i think certain people do enjoy it there were aspects of it i did enjoy but if it happens too young you know fame should be a byproduct of a talent i think and when it's not and that is often the case with reality TV, because you do get sort of thrown into the limelight overnight, it can create this sort of strange, it for me anyway, it created this strange duality, because I felt like I was trying to establish who I was as a

person whilst this other entity was being created in the press. And was like that looks like me but the way it was written you know the way I was written about didn't really feel I was and I'm sure a lot of people that are very famous might have that feeling you know it becomes this sort of entity that's separate from you in a way. But you seem very level-headed and like how did it impact you that how did being throwing into that so how old were you when you first went on 21 so young when I think about like love islanders and then you watch stoning like I haven't actually watched the season but I do quite like it and then I'm they they're so young and I'm like I actually almost don't think you should be allowed to be on tv relatively

until 25 do you think it's too young I well you can see with a lot of people that become famous young how it can impact them because you know it takes a long time to establish who you are as a human being and what you value and how you want to show up in the world so if you have if you have fame very young i do think it can create a conflict there but each to their own I think everyone's very different and responds to it very differently I'd say that I was quite a always been quite an introspective and sensitive person and perhaps it would be different now because I'm more grounded and more anchored but at the time I couldn't I wasn't really equipped to handle it and that's why I kind of tapped out and did it did it have afterwards how much did that change your

sense of self like what did what were there or or was it did you manage to kind of get out before there were any longer term sort of like well I think I've sort of had the the shadow of reality tv and maiden chelsea follow me around for a very long time sorry and I still get asked about it a lot but I guess it's you know it kind of is in many reasons like why I'm here it kind of put me on the map so it's important to acknowledge that these things bring a lot of opportunity I more just find it interesting I mean because it's such a wild thing to do in your in your like early 20s and then come out and you've got a whole different career and you're very grounded from it and that's not always the way I guess that's not always the way but I would say that my experiences aren't any different to any other individual at my age

just a little more heightened because I think we all have experiences when we're at say at university or we get our first job and we have a friendship group but after a certain while we're like this doesn't align with my values this doesn't feel very good to be around this doesn't feel like the right job okay I need to make a change I don't really know what that change is but I need to make it and then we go through all these kind of transitions and it's a turbulent period our 20s mine was just like I say a little more heightened because it was part of the public domain and I had a whole audience of people telling me things about the path that weren't true yeah I know that another thing that you've spoken about a lot is you don't really drink anymore where did that come from and how did that fit in and how did that kind of change your

your timeline sobriety was huge it was such a pivotal one for me because I recognized that throughout my 20s I was using alcohol as a sort of means of shape-shifting and it was like my method to be whoever I needed to be for whatever situation I found myself in and I had learned to be a chameleon by nature because again to go back to that like seeking external validation I wanted to be liked and loved by everyone when someone would say you know you can't be liked by everyone. I didn't accept that. I was like, but I have to be. So alcohol was my way of doing that, of kind of morphing myself to different people. And I remember one of my oldest best friends,

it's like, you have different caggies. Like you have caggy when you're around that person or caggy when you're with this person, but they're all slightly different. And I didn't even really realize that until they became more extreme and then it was from like 25 to 27 was you know or maybe 20 a bit later like 27 26 27 was when I started experimenting with sobriety so I would do massive periods of not drinking but then I would start again and eventually I had to look back and see okay if

you know the graph of my life when things are going well I'm not drinking and then when things kind of go not great again I started drinking and especially with my mental health so it became once you have that kind of awareness I think it's an act of self-harm to not listen and to not actually change your behavior so I I actually found a podcast called sober curious by Ruby Warrington which kind of explores this term that she coined sober curious which is about an understanding that there's a whole spectrum between people that normal drink and people that are in AA let's say because I think especially as Brits we adopt this oh why aren't you drinking like is there something wrong with you are you an alcoholic whereas part of my work now my mission is to encourage people to actually be like okay actually just doesn't

really agree with my mental health or being sober curious doesn't mean you abstain entirely perhaps you like drink on very rare occasions but it's just about normalizing sobriety as much as we normalize drinking which I think is really important because at the end of the day it's just a socially encouraged and normalized drug you know if you're always at a dinner party but like oh why aren't you doing cocaine you know it's like people don't ask that but they they ask that about drinking. And so, yeah, that was tremendously pivotal for me because that anchored me more than anything else. When you said that, that is so funny when you're like, we need to normalize sobriety as much as we're always drinking. That is actually so funny that you're right, that the norm is to actually drink and drink quite regularly.

And I was going to say before you said that so beautifully much better than I was going to say it that it's interesting we used to have this idea that the only reason you would ever stop drinking or abstain from drinking is if you were like it was wreaking havoc on your life and I think we can let alcohol like I've definitely like last year after my break I was going out quite a lot but I was like oh well I'm not like hungover and it's not really impacting my work and so i was like make up all these reasons to why like it wasn't bad enough but i actually didn't want to i wanted a break from alcohol but i felt like i needed a really good concrete reason to be like i'm actually just not going to drink for a bit and then i did dry january and i was like oh i feel amazing and i haven't really

got drunk since but i and i do i still drink but I'm like really in this moment now where I'm going like it doesn't have to be you don't have to be having a breakdown from alcohol you're allowed to just be like I'm not going to drink this week but that is as well it's so interesting how we're so we want to be part of a group so much and it's this I guess this sort of conflict between authenticity and belonging that will, when we know that something's not right for us, but it's not so far gone that it's, it's massive problems. So we'll just carry on. But I do believe, and it's probably a bit controversial that within the spectrum of addiction and one's relationship to alcohol, that you can move yourself along that line depending on your behavior which is obvious

but what I'm saying is if you continue to ignore that you can get it to a point where it becomes this beast that actually you cannot go near and it can become a really dark thing that every day it's the thing that you think about so for me it's just about recognizing that early on and go, because I'm saying that from a place of experience. I have an addictive nature and I wasn't addicted, but I could see the train that it was on. And I was like, I'm using this as a tool to escape feelings that I find hard to sit with, to be different versions of myself because I don't know who I am or I don't like myself and I could see that actually if I continued in that process that it could go down quite a dark route and so actually it was about really pulling back and confronting those feelings and where they were coming from so now I can actually approach it in a way that's like if I wanted to have a drink on an occasion that that's okay.

And I know I'm not gonna suddenly dive into oblivion, but equally, it just doesn't agree with me. It's so funny you said that because I've said that before where towards the end of my relationship and I didn't realize I was doing this, I was going out a lot and I used to go out with my friends and then stay at the houses

because I think I just didn't want to go back to my flat. Nothing was wrong. I just wasn't that happy in my relationship and then the minute we broke up I didn't really do that anymore but I was going out to like 5am quite a lot and then I thought I have to stay at Poppy's house now because it's so late and I think half I was like using it as a reason to like kind of escape but not be present and then I had this kind of thing where I one day did wake up really high with my friend I was like oh my god I rang my friend and I was like oh my god I really need to stop this and then we were talking

about and i said my favorite drink is a really nice glass of wine in italy with a really nice pasta and i never want to drink so much that i can't have that drink i don't want to have so many yeah drinks at the bar that i don't even really want or shots or whatever that that that gets taken away because that is actually to me certain like having a wine with a meal is a very different thing it's like ritual it's like yeah it's it's an act of ceremony which is how it's like intended really but i completely understand what you're saying and i think that that's you know i would love to encourage people to kind of get to that place because i think otherwise it can get to a point and that's why it's quite unique my setup because sometimes a lot of my friends don't drink at all and they're like how come you

can't just be completely sober I'm like because there's still that very rare moment where I want to have that glass of wine in Italy I know that it might make me sleep badly or make me not feel great but I can roll the dice on that one occasion if I want to but just 99% of the time it's just not something that agrees with my system also from like a spiritual standpoint which is a whole nother conversation because I did a solo episode around this this week actually it was about like when you drink i believe you open yourself up to other entities that can kind of come in like negative energy yeah yeah and like spiritual stuff that's you don't want to be messing with it's so funny because i'm not i i i'm very open

spirituality stuff but i don't really know that much about it but i definitely think that like a few drinks is good for me like i think max now I'm like five drinks is like max because I will be hungry I'll have a bit of a headache but I'm not gonna be like whereas I would go out sometimes and just be like couldn't tell you how many drinks I've had but when I'm drunk I will just things will happen that would never and I don't mean because I'm like wasted but I would like have an argument I wake up in the morning I would I don't care about this I was never literally and I was thinking about this and I was like trying to be like if I can't control that if I can't do things in the way that I want to do them then I have to stop drinking at the point where that thing starts but when you said about the evil energy I was like god maybe it's

I'm possessed because that is it is but if you think you know it's spirits it's called spirits like think about it and then it's just crazy to think that, you know, we normalize going out and getting blackouts, but I would get blackouts, but I would be walking, talking and fully animated and making decisions and doing shit that the next day I would have basically no awareness of. And that scares me.

And it's, you know, sometimes people say that they're more themselves when they're drinking, but I'm like, I don't think that's true I think it's just escaping yourself in a way that feels momentarily satisfying so I don't know I think I'm in too much like sometimes I really like drinking sometimes I have loads of fun with my friends and it can for like a release and it's really nice but then other times like when I drink too much or like I've definitely I haven't done it for years thank god but I remember blacking out as well and then drink too much or like I've definitely, I haven't done it for years. Thank God, but I've remembered blacking out as well. And then I tell my friends and I've always done it.

Luckily when I'd been with a group of my girlfriends and they'd be like, we had no idea. You were just, I was, I don't remember about four hours. They're like, you were fine. If anything, I think you may weirdly come across as more sober when you're blacked out. I think Kathy Ray talks about this. You're like animal brain takes over

and you just kind of are like. No, I have like a proper alter ego do you yeah so my good friends that know have known me my whole life they know and it's like a switch that goes in my eyes and they're like oh we're done we're done with her like because i will just there'll be no reasoning with me and i'll just be diving around like everywhere nightmare well apparently I think Catherine Gray said this she wrote the joy of being sober she came on my podcast a few years ago and she was saying that basically I think when you're on blackout you you basically want to fuck eat and I can't remember what that you just want to be like an animal basically so you will

just be on like I'm gonna get late I'm gonna do whatever it is which in a way like that's the thing as someone that's quite sensitive to people's energies and stuff what i enjoyed about it was that complete disconnect i didn't give a fuck like what was going on i would you know shove people out and then when i would hear about it i'd be like i don't know who that is but because i was just completely unaware of all that stuff and that's what I enjoyed so for me it's like finding the healthy ways of kind of disconnecting and and yeah that aren't destructive so I guess you're super spiritual and it's like a massive part of how you lead your life and I think this is interesting because there's lots of I remember when I was like in my very early 20s I would often meet women who were like my age or your age who had

kind of had this party phase and now suddenly were just really into doing yoga and spirituality and I'd be like oh but I'm getting that it's like coming for me it always comes for you like I'm getting into the hot yoga I'm like oh this is amazing and it's it's it's funny because someone said to me and I'm not saying this is you but a friend of mine said she was like it's it's it's funny because someone said to me and i'm not saying this is you but a friend of mine said she was like it's always the women that loved like going to ibiza and taking loads of drugs that end up going back to ibiza and doing like being completely sober because i'm being really into spirituality and i'm not saying you did loads of drugs at all but there's some there's some sort of like similarity between being someone that loves to party and loves to drink well it's

an extremist and then like finding a higher power in sobriety. There's some kind of balance. Totally. Because look, when you are an extremist and you are prone to addiction, you will always look to push, you know, the boat as,

as much as you can. It's just about channeling that in a different direction. So I can tell someone that's like got addiction issues by the way they have tea. Like, honestly, I've been able to, I'm like, I know that person. Cause you know, so I can tell someone that's like got addiction issues by the way they have tea like honestly I've been able to I'm like I know that person because you know it's channeled to a different thing so they stop drinking alcohol they're having like 50 cups of tea a day or they're doing yoga twice a day like it's just redirecting that energy and that sort of extremist nature. So for me, actually, it's about being able to sit in neutrality of like being okay with what that looks like with the kind of mundane of life, which I've, it's like in a way,

kind of my spiritual practice. So I don't become too extreme the other way, but I've been in those environments and I've got to say, I love it because it's so funny the kind of people that gravitate towards that and there's a whole community of people that are and it's you know it's a lot more of a positive one but in its own its own way it's like an addiction in itself and how does that change because I think cutting out alcohol I think one of the biggest fears as well it's like so much my friendships are built around going out and drinking or like living in London so much of what this city is about is going out at night and drinking and how does this how has your like I

guess your world evolved and changed like has it changed your friendships has it changed the way you approach things and and I mean half the thing with drinking I'm like god if everyone was sober I'd be sober do you know what I mean but then I'm like oh well it's fun and I think a lot of people have that because it feels like god I'm gonna lose a lot and to a degree you do my friendship shifted massively because suddenly when I wasn't drinking and behaving that way I didn't really feel aligned with those people or you know I just didn't want to do what they were doing and so there was I speak about in the book is this like necessary fertile void when we go into this in between where we're not who we used to be we're not part of that tribe anymore but we don't quite have the people that are aligned

with us and there's a lot of courage that is required for you to step into that space because you have to trust that in between you have to trust that in between you have to trust that the people that are for you will find you and a big part of that for me was creating the saturn returns community so many of my friends i've met through doing the podcast and then you know when i went through this big breakup at 30 a friend introduced me to this girl called kelly which was like I kind of say it was you know one love left and another love entered in a platonic love form and since my friendships are probably fewer but they're more solid and more meaningful and I don't really even think about

the drinking aspect because I'll go to things when everyone else is drinking and no one, like everyone knows now that I don't, so it's not a big deal. And it just means that when it gets to a point where if people are kind of taking it to that next level, I'll just take myself home. I think what's the place that I find the most triggering is weddings. Cause that's when I get really

bad social anxiety I just find the whole process of it really awkward and all the small talk with everyone and that's when I'm like oh my god I want to drink I want to drink I want to drink and I also noticed I went on a solo trip to Devon quite recently because I just wanted just some time for myself I think it's important to do but when I went into the hotel and I felt like people there were these couples there and I was like oh my god oh my god I want a drink I feel so awkward I feel so awkward I want a drink so it's still something I have to you know be aware of I completely get that but also we're kind of taught it's very infrequently from actually quite a young age that you go to a social event where the minute you arrive you aren't given a drink so very from like we actually don't experience what it feels like

without a drink but not because we're always choosing to drink or because it's a conscious thing but you turn up at a wedding you're handed a glass of sake you turn up at any event anything it's like a liquid safety blanket yeah so when then you get to an event and you're not given one it's like but you're not only not given one you're not choosing no i don't want so it's actually if it well if you were never given one it wouldn't be an issue you wouldn't think about it if you go to a cafe you're not like where's my glass of champagne but then it's like you have to deal with this social environment which is really only familiar with us once you've because that first sip does a million things doesn't it

like completely you're like okay i'll be fine yeah so that i can imagine the more especially a wedding that must be tough yeah that's the time where it's the most challenging other stuff is not a big deal but i'm such a hermit these days as well so i don't like go out a huge amount do you want to get married i love sorry i love talking about this in my stories the other day i just find it really interesting do i want to get married this is a really interesting topic because when me and my partner have discussed it I can't tell what's mine and what's societally imprinted on me so at one point I'll be like yeah I don't know whether I believe it I think when we first started dating I was like trying to be very unconventional not for him just for myself because i was at that age where you know i was 31 everyone was kind of getting a bit a bit scared a bit nervous and something

that happens for women this sort of like this period of time where everyone feels like the scarcity mindset like all the good ones are gone the pool is very small the biological clock is ticking it's because it's exhausting all these things but then people pass them around they project it onto each other so i went through this phase when i was single of just like rejecting that if anyone came near me and said anything like that i'd be like no and i'd question it and i'd be like that i don't want to be absorbing that kind of narrative because I don't think it's true and I don't think it's healthy and I think it means that we make bad decisions and we settle for far less than we deserve so I was then also kind of reframing

you know the marriage children thing I was like well what would a life look like if I didn't do those things what would a fulfilling life look like if I didn't do those things what would a fulfilling life look like without those sort of traditional boxes being checked and then when I met my partner I definitely met him in a place where I felt very content on my own I was like open to a relationship but I was very clear on my non-negotiables like what I really wanted from a partnership and then you know as things have kind of unraveled and we've had these conversations the more traditional things is something that I do want but I want it based off finding a partner that I want those things with you know it wasn't like I've never been someone that's so maternal

that sort of looks at a baby and thinks I can't wait to have one but being with someone that I love that I can see as a father has kind of awoken that side of me and so now I'm I'm like wanting more traditional stuff the marriage piece you know I again's that, is that just echoing the voices of the generations before us, because so much has changed in society, but I think the way that we still view marriage and the way we, we congratulate women disproportionately to how we congratulate men as if they've just come to life and been chosen and taken off the shelf. It's like, you're you you're okay is something that I have a bit of an issue with and I would encourage people to question their reasoning for getting married you know I know I feel really funny about this I feel the same I kind of I'm like I don't when I

think of marriage I just think of a wedding I don't actually think about the pandemic really unpacked that because people weren't able to have these big weddings and i think a lot of people do view getting married as about a wedding day and that's why they get those post-wedding blues because it's less about the marriage and more about the day so for me it's really important that it's about the marriage it's about building that commitment with someone yeah and I do because I think you can you can be committed to someone without being married I know there's loads of really good fun there's like lots of kind of legal reasons why being married is good but I was talking about this my stories the other day and people were like but I want to feel that

commitment and I don't necessarily think I actually love the idea of having a wedding day but I I wouldn't be doing it for the marriage because I think I could be committed to someone for life without the marriage well I think it's always like if you ask yourself if you couldn't have a wedding if you didn't have a big ring and you couldn't show it off and tell people you were engaged would you exactly and that kind of says yeah says a lot so I don't know but at the same you know I was trying to explain this to my partner because I think the way men and women view it is very different but I said to him I was brought up I was in a wedding dress or I thought it was a wedding dress I think it was yellow and a fairy outfit but I was trying to marry my cousin at the age of like

four years old you know what I mean like that was what yeah it's been programmed in us from such young age our big wedding day and so there is something I think in me that still romanticizes that and wants that moment but I think it's just a important for it to be for the right reasons it's I think what happens to me and like you said about the maternal thing I find that really interesting because I've heard lots of people say they don't want kids they desperately want children whereas I feel a bit like you where when I see someone do like a pregnancy announcement on Instagram and they're like showing their pregnancy set up oh my god I'm so excited I try and imagine feeling that way and I can't really but I'm also not like I definitely don't

want children but I'm not like more indifferent I haven't like had that thing where you're like I can't especially when I see girls that are slightly younger than me in their earlier 20s I'm thinking why do you feel like that I'm like where is this coming from and same with the marriage thing where people like I can't wait to be married it's more like I I'm like why don't I have this like people replying like I think marriage is so important and then it's it's more me reacting to people wanting it rather than me feeling innately sure I just I'm like I almost want to feel really really certain and I don't have that feeling but I think that that's okay and I think we need to normalize those feelings and thoughts as well and not make it seem not make us feel less womanly because we

don't feel maternal or if we choose not to have children that we're you know less of a woman in any way because I think it's motherhood is so wrapped up in defining what it means to be a woman that I think that that's a challenging thing for people and but today people are choosing all sorts of different avenues and that might mean not having children or not getting married but that doesn't mean you're not going to live a full and fulfilling life how old you know 32 no 33 I honestly keep forgetting how old I am like I really I was like I'm 33 what does 33 feel like compared to like 28 for example like how I'm really excited about my 30s i

feel like everyone says it's like the best time i love my 30s do you yeah and that's another thing that i've really had to unpack is you know those corrosive sentences that women get i even had lunch with a friend recently who's a man and he's a bit older and he said that he was talking with his therapist i hope he doesn't see this but he was talking with his therapist about you know women between a certain age bracket of 27 28 to like 35 and as he was saying this i was like okay i am in this bracket he's like that they're crazy and stuff because they have this pressure cooker and all this stuff and i was like even just saying that to me is not okay because it's it's untrue and it's really damaging to kind of pass that round because there's no reason that you should feel that way

and men don't feel that way so i mean i mean, I've kind of gone off on a tangent. But when I was, I felt that pressure around 29. It was a bit more in my career. But I've just really tried to establish different groups of different friends. So I never feel like I'm the only one that's not doing something. Because I've got a collection of people around me that are living their life in very varied ways. So I can see how they are fulfilled without kids

or people that are divorced and now living life independently or whatever it might be. Because when we only have friends that are doing the same thing and they've all got money and they've all got kids, of inevitably we're going to feel like we're missing out but actually that's a really key component is diversifying the people you're spending time with and my 30s have been so much better because I know myself and I know what I want and I feel content in my own company the complicated thing is that within that and I wonder how intentional this is in my sort of midnight hour thoughts that society tells

you a lot of things are no longer available to you that you you know that if you haven't found the right partner it's going to be really hard small pool biological clocks ticking you know you've got your careers not where it's supposed to be but you've got to have a kit so there's all these things that are just kind of these pervasive things that are coming at us and i think it's important to really reject them you know because you can change course at any moment in your life you can change career you can start something that you always wanted to do don't listen to people that are going to tell you otherwise because they are just projecting their own limitations onto you it's so interesting what

you said about that bracket that that guy said to you because I do think even though I it's really annoying for him to say that I do also feel like that is true where you feel like I've got to get everything's got to fit into that window whether it's like getting to this point in my career where I'm settled enough and then having a partner so that if I'm gonna have a baby I've got all of my eggs and blah blah but I've started to view things as like why can't your career why can't we just be working towards something and then your biggest moment is in your like the crescendo happens when you're 55 that's amazing like why does it have to be that and it's all tied around like when women are the most fertile the most beautiful to men like that's what it's all really centered on all of those

things it's just based on the male lens yeah when are they the most fuckable that's what they've got to achieve everything and then but also that isn't true because even from my like my sisters and people that i know women as far as i'm concerned get much more like beautiful in your 30s because you know yourselves better you learn style or whatever but every woman that i know is kind of and it sounds really basic but compared to when i think everyone always used to be like oh 24 23 which is so young it's like when a woman peaks i'm sure that's what people used to say no it's not about that it's about when a woman easily manipulates yeah yeah so if you're quite unsure of who you are you can be crafted into whatever someone else wants you to be and it goes back to what we were talking about

the beginning of when you subcontract your own authority onto other people so the patriarchy want women to feel like their opportunity is smaller just at the moment when they know who they are yeah that's so true I definitely and I that's and I'm kind of excited the reason I'm excited to get into my 30s as well is because I know that once you're past that point it's like I'm you're almost freed a little bit of some of that kind of pressure that comes with well on the brink of any new decade there's a sort of sweet scent of novelty about it where you feel like you have a whole 10 years to figure it all out all over again and then like at 39 I'm sure the anxiety begins again as you think I can't believe I'm about yeah and then probably repeats but I just think I think the more the way I'm

trying to view it is because so many things just don't work out whether it's like I've had a thousand things in my job in my life my career that almost happened that just didn't happen and I've had three like quite serious relationships that like the last one especially felt like that could have been forever and then it wasn't and so I think in a weird way I've been quite lucky to have so many false starts because it's made me really comfortable with being like this is just going to keep happening yeah I think where it could be really unsettling is if you have like a very steady career very steady partner everything's going quite like smoothly and then the rugs pulled yeah and I

think I've been lucky that I've had all these like quite mini not that trauma not like that big of a deal but just things going wrong yeah I can relate to that you know it's about having that blank canvas all over again and seeing it as an opportunity rather than a dead end or that everything's fallen apart and actually perhaps it's all falling together I also do wonder though if that's also me shaking things up constantly like because I actually I do wonder if a bit of that is me maybe it's not happening to me maybe I'm making that happen do you know what I mean like kind of never letting things settle the dust settle and just being like I also think that that's something that does shift in your 30s because in my 20s I was kind of darting around and I still to a degree have to I that sort of neutrality thing of just allowing things to be as they are and letting them unfold as they're

supposed to rather than trying to sort of be everywhere and make things happen in the way that I want is that there's a sort of surrendering to that that I think happens as you get a bit older do you get itchy feet I I've been reading this book around perfectionism and I've just started it but it sort of defines each of the perfectionists and I am in the category of the messy perfectionist which isn't a surprise but it's sort of this thing around that I constantly want to be starting new projects I love the beginning of anything new and I think that I can do 50 million things at once I struggle with the more granular day-to-day tasks the things that don't really seem like huge steps but that actually amount to something significant over time that's where that's my sort of toxic trait in business is that I probably want to be doing too much making two

bigger leaps and actually appreciating that real change and real like significant stuff comes from those little things I really relate to that yeah and I have to check myself because also it's coming I think it's probably still coming from a place of not enoughness you know I'm not doing enough so I need to add more to my plate whereas actually it's perhaps about refining what's already on my plate and doing it in you know a better way I think that's such a nice way of looking at it. Thank you so much for talking to me. I've absolutely loved this.

Oh, thank you for having me. Where do you want to point the people in the direction? Obviously, you've got Saturn in Towns, the book. Are you doing any more live events? We are going to be doing some live events. I've got one, depending on when this comes out, I'm going to be doing them at Mortimer House. Amazing.

And then we've got some courses coming out. And then, of course, there's the book. That's so exciting. Lots to look forward to. Well, thank you so much for joining me. And thank you, everyone, for listening. I will see you next week. Bye. We'll be right back. I do. Who wants this last parachute? I do. Daily Jackpots. A chance to win with every spin and a guaranteed winner

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