Saturn Returns with Caggie - 2.10 Self-Sabotage: Africa Brooke

Episode Date: December 7, 2020

Caggie is joined by mindset coach, motivational speaker and fellow avid tea drinker, Africa Brooke. They discuss how to work through self-sabotaging tendencies, dealing with addiction and moving toward sobriety, as they share their own personal experiences. Plus, how to make peace with the past version of yourself and reclaim your own personal sovereignty and sexuality.   --- Follow or subscribe to "Saturn Returns" for future episodes, where we explore the transformative impact of Saturn's return with inspiring guests and thought-provoking discussions. Follow Caggie Dunlop on Instagram to stay updated on her personal journey and you can find Saturn Returns on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.  Order the Saturn Returns Book. Join our community newsletter here.  Find all things Saturn Returns, offerings and more here.

Hello and welcome to Saturn Returns with me, Kagi Dunlop. This is a podcast that aims to bring clarity during transitional times where there can be confusion and doubt. The real me that had to navigate the real world without drugs and alcohol and parties and the consequences. I never felt like enough because now I'm comparing myself to this version that everyone loves. So I don't feel like enough. It's like, is this the only way for me to be able to get that kind of validation? And it was. But it comes to a point where you have to have like personal sovereignty

and be like, am I going to take ownership over this? Or is it going to own me? Yeah. And people just start drifting away from you. for sure or is it going to own me yeah and people just start drifting away from you I am very excited to be joined by Africa Brooke for this episode of Saturn Returns I was introduced to Africa's work through Anoni Forbat who came on the podcast at the beginning of the season and I wanted to speak to someone specifically about self-sabotage because I find it such an interesting thing and I definitely am someone that suffers from it quite badly myself but also the sort of creativity behind my self-sabotaging ways. When I was introduced to Africa's work I was like

this is my girl. She is a mindset and business coach and an NLP practitioner and as soon as I started watching her videos on Instagram I was like oh wow this girl is awesome and we had the best conversation it went on so long that I actually had to break this into two parts so you'll be hearing the second part early next year but this one we really focus on addiction self-sabotaging behaviors limiting self-belief and making peace with the past version of yourself which I think is such an important part of your Saturn Returns journey because you do change so much and you let go of so many ways of behaving that just aren't serving you anymore that you've outgrown and it can be really difficult it can be a difficult process because there is a sort of death of self like I've discussed previously but also to make peace with the person that you used

to be so we really talk about that because both of us have gone through these humongous transitions in terms of the kind of people we are today and I'm very grateful to now call her a friend after having this meeting with her. So I hope you enjoy it and you learn something from it. And thank you very much for listening. But before we get into the episode, let's check in with our astrological guide for the season, Nora. So it's a big theme during the Saturn return, this theme of self-sabotage and self-denial, feeling like we are not good enough to receive love unless we have the perfect career, or feeling like we're not good enough to get the career position we want unless we work hard and overdo it at the workplace and

kind of compromise ourselves. Saturn return really confronts us with these little fallacies in our self-confidence, and it asks us to show up for ourselves and to become that inner authority that we always have had. It kind of confronts us and obligates us to stop patterns of self-sabotage so that we can thrive and truly mature into the adults that we are meant to become after the Saturn return which is after the age of 30. The age between 28 and 30 can be very confronting on that front where we do self-sabotage and we do deny ourselves happiness in some ways. Saturn is really just teaching us by ways of fear and by ways of obstacles

to choose ourselves and to not compromise ourselves and to not devalue ourselves nice to meet you nice to meet you too i'm very excited about this conversation me too but also you have a very strong energy like amazing energy and that's why i was so excited to meet you because i was like oh my god i can't wait to actually be in the presence of her. And it was as soon as I walked in and I was like, oh my God, she's really the real deal. Thank you. Can you explain to everyone a little bit about what you do and who you are? Yes, absolutely. So my name is Africa.

And in terms of what I do, I help people to overcome self-sabotage. I work with people to rewire their way of thinking, to change their mindsets. And self-sabotage is something that I'm just so passionate about because I could have a PhD. In self-sabotage. Oh, yeah. You need to in order to be able to tell people how not to do it. Right?

So I'm an NLP practitioner. So NLP is neuro-linguistic programming. It's pretty much like a user's manual for the mind. So it's like really understanding our behavior and the way that we think, but on a subconscious level. So it's working with the subconscious mind and I'm a clinical hypnotherapist. I'm a mindset coach. And I also work with people in terms of business. So fusing all of those things through a business lens that's amazing i'm not gonna lie when you said the self-sabotaging thing it like it stirred a lot of stuff really

yeah because i think i mean we're all guilty of it in our own ways but what i i've done a lot of work around myself sabotaging and we're going to bring this back to 2016 for you because i think we have some similar experiences in the more obvious ways that one self-sabotages. However, self-sabotaging can be very creative. Yes. And because it's not necessarily on a conscious thought level, it can creep up on you and suddenly you're like, oh, wow, I've just destroyed something I really like. Absolutely. And suddenly you're like, oh, wow, I've just destroyed something I really like.

Absolutely. And for you, would you say, just so I kind of know, would you say that it's something that now when it shows up, you're very aware of it? Or because of the level of awareness that you have, it shows up in sneakier ways? Because that's how it happens. It's sneaky. Like at the beginning, I was like, okay okay things going well in my life got get drunk ruin everything yes pretty standard I think a lot of people can relate to that but it was like very much I was like okay how can I press the destruction button and it was like it was deeper than just drinking and being a bit reckless it was like I was

ruining stuff for myself yeah and so I did a lot of work around that but now yeah it's it creeps in sneakily it does the one thing that I love to let people know about self-sabotage and I'll just give a definition of what it is essentially it is when you get in your own way it's when you won't allow yourself to experience fulfillment when you won't allow yourself to follow through when you won't allow yourself to experience fulfillment, when you won't allow yourself to follow through, when you won't allow yourself to go for the opportunities that you really want, or when things are going well, you know, you start to feel resistance and something on a subconscious level tells you to put a spanner in the works. But the most important thing,

and I think this is something that has helped me so much, is understanding that we're not doing it because we hate ourselves. You're not doing it because you truly believe you're a piece of shit who doesn't deserve anything good. No, it's actually a way of preserving yourself. You're protecting yourself from something. Of the unknown. Yeah, of the unknown. Of the unknown. Yeah, of the unknown.

And it can seem like such an odd thing, you know, because I was thinking to myself, how was I protecting myself by having reckless casual sex? How was I protecting myself by binge drinking and blacking out? And whether you're curious about it in that. Yeah. Yeah. Right. But then I realized that I was protecting myself from facing what was really happening, from facing my traumas, from having a look at my fears. I was protecting myself from loneliness. I thought this was the only way that I could connect with people.

That this was intimacy. Right, exactly. So I think it's important to realize that it's all about protecting yourself. But now as a self-aware adult, as self-aware person you have to find new healthier ways to protect yourself right so to bring it back for you because a big part of your journey was 2016 when you went sober yes 2016 I was 24 I'm 28 now I um finally got sober after 10 years of having such a toxic relationship with drugs and alcohol. And it wasn't in a way where I was physically dependent. It wasn't a case of me drinking or doing drugs every single day, but I was a binge drinker and I was a binge anything. I could

not just kind of have a little bit of anything and step away. The intention was always to kind of escape my body and to escape my mind from 14 until 24. But alcohol was my vice. Drugs were a big part of that, but alcohol for me. Oh, absolutely. It really was. So I tried seven times to get sober, consciously tried, but I just couldn't do it. I just couldn't do it. What

did that involve? That involved me saying verbalizing that I'm not going to be drinking anymore it involved me trying my best to stay away from the environments that were kind of calling me in in the beginning it was moderation right and for me moderation was much more evil than just stopping because i get that yeah i totally get that because my intention was not to kind of just sip the drink or it was to get fucked up every single time and this is the it's such a personal thing one's relationship with alcohol yeah it's like it's not very helpful when people are we don't have a problem so just like moderate because it's literally like saying okay go out every night and play Russian roulette with yourself.

Yes. Yes. Oh my goodness. That's exactly what it was like. And you're like, oh, I was surprised last night. I can do this thing. And then like a couple of nights later and suddenly you're like waking up and you're like, I have no idea what I did last night. Kagi, that is exactly what it was like. And I kept people around me and I didn't realize that it was, I was strategically doing this, but I kept people around me who also had the same drinking behavior, who also had the same drug taking behavior. And I'm not going to lie, I had fun. I've had a lot of fun in my life, but I knew just how much I was suffering. And so many people that I speak to, people that message me, people that I know, people that I knew from the past also knew that this is a very dangerous thing that I'm doing

it's not normal to lose five hours of your time yeah to be on yeah to be on autopilot for such a long amount of time so would you have these like blackout things where you you know you were walking and talking as Africa like you were walking and talking as africa like you were doing stuff you were going places but you had no awareness yeah oh yeah yeah i used to that's terrifying oh my goodness but it was because it's like you're kind of possessed because then the next day people like you did this and you were quite funny and you're like but then like someone's like but you also did that and you're like maybe oh my god that's the thing and you know what i would experience such deep shame you know you kind of enter a room and

people loved fun time africa people fucking loved it and i loved it because people loved it it was amazing when it was amazing you know you're having so much fun you don't know when it's going to take a turn and then it all just changes and you wake up in the morning. Waking up in Surrey when the last memory I had was Soho. That happened. I went for lunch in Soho and I woke up in Surrey two days later. That's not normal.

That's not okay. Again, there's still a part of me that's like, I love it. Again, there's still a part of me that's like, I love it. And then you just have a deep intuitive feeling that something happened that shouldn't have happened. I would have no idea. I would just know that that cycle is going to repeat where I have to apologize for this version of myself that I take with me every time that I go out. And it's like, I try to silence her before we get to the event.

We have a little chat. Okay, today is going to be different. You're not coming out. Mine was called Katrina. I'd be like, you're not coming out of your cage. And now people even come up to me today. My friends are like, where's Katrina? I'm like, I hope she's

dead I'm really praying that she stays behind her and will never return so I completely get it it was bad because it's a part of you yeah but then it's also it you feel in a way so disassociated from it sure would you say that it was a part of you that you weren't owning? Or was it just the alcohol that made you that way? It was a part of me that I wasn't owning. It was a very repressed part of me. And it's amazing to realize that I'm all of those things now. But at the time, how I would describe it is the part of me that is so confident, the part of me that is so fearless, the part of me that can have a conversation with anyone, the part of me that has so many plans, so many ideas, because this was another thing. And I know exactly what you were like right now. And to other people, it sounds

amazing because I was very good at manipulating people's perception of me. Also, I have to be very honest about something when you look a certain way and you benefit from pretty privilege for example it also creates this persona in an even more amplified way i would just bullshit my life away it was exciting but it was also katrina and he's like, go on. But it was so dangerous because the real me that had to navigate the real world without drugs and alcohol and parties and the consequences, I never felt like enough because now I'm comparing myself to this version that everyone loves. So I don't feel like enough. It's like, is this the only way for me to be able to get that kind of validation um and it was but it comes to a point where you have to have like personal

sovereignty and be like sure am I gonna take ownership for sure or is it gonna own me yeah and people just start drifting away from you because that side of you is only fun for a certain amount of time before an hour yeah I wouldn't kind of stumble everywhere. Maybe there'd be times where I would kind of stumble, whatever. But I would kind of just be, just be there. But my eyes would be... Were gone. I get it.

I have the same thing. And my friends would be like, your eyes went, and I was like, you know what, I'm done with her tonight. And I would be walking, talking, being the life and soul but I'm not really you're not you're not there there I'm so thankful we didn't meet you know what's interesting though because my best friend now I only met her or like probably the person I'm close to I only met her a year ago okay she hears about this version of me and she's just like i just can't get my head around oh for sure kind of like i get it with you because i had it in me yeah but

meeting you now i'm like you have like the calmest energy and so it's so interesting that you have that experience chaotic what changed or what shifted from you going into that place for me there wasn't just one thing it was a collection of incidents for the span of 10 years where it had started off being fun. People are entertained by this character. I think by the time I was about 20, that's when I knew there was definitely something wrong. But there was way too much shame to actually speak to anyone about it.

So I would just go onto Google and I would just type, is it normal to blackout? Is it normal to drink this much? And you know, I'd read things, but I still wasn't ready to let go of that identity. It was just so powerful. Well, I was going to say it was so woven into your identity within your friendship groups and everything. How do I exist without this? Yes. Yes. Who who am I? Right. And how do I navigate that? I didn't think it was possible, yeah. You know, now I'm able to have conversations about identity and different selves.

But when you're in it and when you're that young, you don't have the language for it. It's just happening. And you have Google. Yeah, you have Google. That is it. That's just pretty black and white. Right.

And you think something is wrong with you. You don't understand, for example, the industry of alcohol, the way that alcohol is advertised, especially for women, you know, and all of these things that I know now that I didn't know then. But in 2016, it was just me being exhausted. I think it was more of a spiritual exhaustion. I wasn't even going out that much by that time because I knew I had so much anxiety around even going out because I felt so out of control in my own mind and I knew that having one glass of wine

is not what I want I want to drink everything why would I have one did have one did it affect you in any way no it didn't but it would leave me wanting it would feel so empty because that's not what I wanted I wasn't drinking for the taste yeah I could pretend right there we go so you ever come into your dreams alcohol only when I got sober that happened to me yeah big time it happens to so many people like would you have dreams of what you used to do absolutely dreams of me binging you know what I I had it like I mean I've only just started to stop but occasionally I have it again I think it's the subconscious being like I know you're not doing it but just please don't do this again and you know what something also

that would happen to me for about the first two years is that if I had gone out and stayed out quite late and had an amazing time when I wake up in the morning for a brief moment I would feel hungover phantom hangover yeah I get this what is that my friend called them phantom hangovers because you wake up and you're like oh my god I have that shame you're like what did I do and I used to get it after having the dreams as well and then it takes me like a bit of time to be like oh I actually didn't do it is it almost like because you associated alcohol with fun so much and maybe staying out late that it's sort of I think it's just for so long in those scenarios you would do the same thing yeah but it's so burnt into your

like memory and your muscle memory and your body and your emotions that it just comes up being like this is what you would have done this is how you you'd feel. Isn't that crazy? Oh, and then I would just feel, yeah, so grateful that that hasn't happened. So 2016 was me just being fed up of my own shit. And I had tried seven times by that time to get sober. Again, as I was saying, I was reading a lot of things. I would maybe go a week. Longest I did was six months.

And then I ended up having one beer and then I was out for five days. So we've been there also I had lost pretty much all my friends I only had one person that I still am so close to to this very day that understood me had seen me in those moments, had told me the truth about what she sees when that transition happens and how it's not okay, but not in a way of judging me, kind of trying to help me, to support me. And I had my boyfriend at the time who had met me when I was in that part of my life. And then in our relationship, I got sober. So it was quite easy for me in a social aspect

because I didn't have so many people around me to kind of have to navigate sobriety in that. I didn't have many people in my life at that point because of the way that I had been. Which in a weird way is a bit of a blessing. Oh, for sure. Because I think if you're not doing it in the infrastructure of AA or therapy, I believe, and this is only from my personal experience, but it seems similar to yours, that there's a necessary social exile that you have to walk through to get sober, basically. For sure.

And to make those decisions and to let that become a permanent in your new self. Yes, yes. That's what happened for me. and in your new self. Yes, yes. That's what happened for me. And I think because there was so much space in terms of not many people being in my life, that meant there was so much space for new people

to flow into my life that met me at that sober level. I tried AA and I just didn't connect. So I went onto Instagram, as you do. I went onto Instagram and four years ago, there wasn't anyone talking about sobriety in the way that they are now I mean it's still quite a taboo subject yeah yeah and now the good thing is that I feel like a lot of young people are starting to question their relationship with alcohol they're starting to actually question a lot of systems and alcohol is a part of that

but four years ago there was nothing there were just forums with kind of much older people. So I didn't see myself. And especially when it came to black people, African people, I did not see myself. So I went on to Instagram and I started my account, which I still have to this very day. And then I just started sharing my story and not because I thought anyone was going to see it, but it was just like a diary and it's also an accountability thing oh for sure anytime that i felt i was going to drink anytime that i had been so proud of myself because i've been to my first party and i was the first to leave because that was another thing africa never last again i totally get oh my so i would enter spaces. People love it. By the end, they're like, can someone just never wanted to leave. So I'd be so proud of myself that I was able to leave, that I was able to say no. And I would just share. And then over time, um, people started reaching out to me,

people that I knew in the past as well, telling me about their struggles with drugs. I had no idea. Wow. So, yeah, I just started sharing my story on there and I would read books. I would watch talks. I would find forums and kind of connect with people. I would use hashtags to see who was in London. But Instagram really, it changed my life.

I think I was able to remain sober because of the community that I found. And that you built. Yeah. That's incredibly powerful. Yeah. Because I think a lot of people will resonate. It's like, there's a spectrum

and yet it seems quite black and white. It's like, you're either a normal person that drinks or you're like powerless in an AA. Right. And I kind of was of like I don't know like where I land yeah so I constantly go from like that to to like nothing yeah and actually there's a massive thing in between like you say people are becoming a lot more consciously aware yeah systems are breaking down yes this is a huge part of it and I think voices like yours

are incredibly powerful to give people the courage to sort of change their way of behaving too thank you yeah how did you sort of alchemize that into like what you're doing now yes I when I started to see other people sharing just how much me sharing was impacting them I started to realize that actually I was not the one to blame. I started doing a lot of research just about alcohol and mindset in general. And then I was able to shift the blame for myself, from myself, and understand that it was much bigger than that. There were patterns within me that had to be healed. There was trauma that had to be addressed.

There was a certain way in which I was socialized to believe that to get acceptance, I need to be this, I need to be that, all of those things. And once I started to learn that, I think I was able to start accepting myself and looking deeper into myself. And another thing that also happened around that same time is I realized that I had so much sexual shame. so much sexual shame. And the way that sexual shame manifested was that when I was still drinking, casual sex was also something that I really normalized. I felt like that was the only way for me to get connection, especially from men. So I felt so detached from my body, even though I was pretty much using my body very often. So by the time I got sober, I realized that was a huge area that I had to actually take a look

at do some work huge huge because if you'd been using the alcohol to then have that connection then you take that away it was probably pretty obvious that that was something that needed to be looked at oh absolutely there was this book that I found and I recommend this to everyone it's called Women's Anatomy of Arousal by Sherry Winston. And this was a book that pretty much teaches you how to actually connect with your sexuality. Because again, I felt so detached from my sexuality. I thought that I couldn't have sex that I really enjoyed unless I was high or unless I was drunk. And because the first time that I had sex when I was 14, alcohol was a part of that as first time that I had sex when I was 14 alcohol was a part of that as well so it's almost like I started to associate alcohol and sex every single

time so many people do because their first experience usually yeah generalized yes you know wrapped up in alcohol because that lubricates the situation you don't have those uncomfortable moments that you do when you're sober. But then it does create this association between sex and alcohol. And then even to like go even further and trying to dismantle that, there's the sort of patriarchy and how sex is, I think, sold through the male gaze from such a young age. You know, men now grow up watching porn.

That's their idea of sexual intercourse, like from a very young age. That's their education on it. And so we go into it in this very like disconnected, unembodied way. And then wonder like why we have a lot of shame as a society around it, because the way we're practicing it is not right. Yes. Oh, my goodness. You nailed it. You nailed it. And it's also for me as well, porn was my first teacher and this all ties into kind of my sobriety and the kind of coaching that I do now and the way that I use my voice. But for me, porn was my first teacher at the age of nine.

So by the time, yeah. And for so many people it is, and now it's even younger. So by the time I was 14, porn had kind of trained me in terms of what a woman's desire looks like, what my body should move like, what positions I should be in. And because alcohol was also as a performance. Right. And also as something that is done to me, not something that I experienced. So I was faking orgasms from the very beginning up until I was 25. And it's so normalized yeah yeah um so a year after I went sober and you know I was faking them in my relationship oh probably even more I think a lot of people were like yeah but it's so normalized then also

what the problem with that it's so normalized but the problem with that and this is and it's a big topic that I want to be discussing on this season is that if you fake orgasm and you continue along with that narrative that we all have sex like a porn star and that it just happens, this thing of kind of being slightly objectified in this whole performance, how are men ever going to know any difference? Right. Like, we can get annoyed that, you know, oh, I faked it and he didn't actually make me but if you don't communicate what your needs are he's not gonna know and then I think they get annoyed because they're like they want to know yeah but we don't give them that opportunity because we're so stuck in oh okay this is what I've been sold since I was such a young girl so this is what I have to keep doing yeah and it's because we don't feel like it's safe to

communicate and when you feel like it's not safe you're not going to speak about it especially if it's someone that you love you feel like oh but what if I upset them what if they you know um and we're always especially as women I mean we just have to be very honest we're conditioned into this niceness right where we don't want to kind of bother. We don't want to, yeah. So in getting sober for me, I realized that that was huge. And it wasn't even just, oh, for sure. And I also realized that my sexuality wasn't even just about sex in itself,

because I think that's a thinking that we have to kind of step out of where we think sex and sexuality is about penis and vagina penetration. It's not. I truly believe it's like a life penetration. It's not. I truly believe it's like a life force. It's the way that you navigate the world. It's the way that you kind of harness your femininity, you know, by sharing all of those things. That's when I founded my

company, Cherry Revolution. Yeah. Can you tell us a bit about that? Yeah. So that was a result of me realizing that I needed to work through that sexual shame, not having anywhere to speak about it. No one was speaking about it. You know, the conversations would kind of stay in the living room, would stay in the restaurant, and then we just go out and fake orgasms again. And we will come back and talk about it. So out of frustration, and I think a lot of incredible things are born out of a place of frustration and not seeing what it is you actually need and having to create it. I started talking about my pussy and harnessing the relationship with me actually referring to my body in ways that I've been told are shameful. In ways that I've been told it's only okay if a man is speaking about it.

In ways where we're more comfortable with hearing pussy as an insult it's just so weird I just started to question everything someone put up something on Instagram it's like okay why is pussy associated as weakness yes when essentially it's the most powerful life force on earth and it can literally make a human come into this world it It's so interesting. I always say, pay attention to whatever your response was when you heard that word. And it's okay, not out of judgment,

but that can also signal whatever belief you have, right? It then started to serve as a permission slip for other people to do the same. So my sobriety and sexuality and doing more research into mindset and looking at the systems that we live under, it all kind of started to allow me to make peace with everything that I had experienced to kind of give myself some grace. because I think quite a thing for a lot of people listening will be, you know, there is a huge connection between shame and sexuality. Yeah.

If we've lived in a certain way and been behaving in a certain way up until a certain point, but then suddenly realise that we want to do things differently, how do we make peace with the past version of ourselves and let that go and then begin to truly embody, like, who we are and what we stand for in this moment yes oh that's a good question for me one of the biggest things I had to do was inner child work because I realized that there was a part of myself a very young part of myself that had decided from a very young age that I wasn't enough and making peace with myself personally wasn't about

me doing it from where I was as a 24 year old woman I actually had to do the deeper work of going way back onto my timeline and I know that for some people hearing this it might sound like it's a lot of work and that's because it fucking is. I think we need to realize that in order to actually really make peace, not on a superficial level, it's going to be hard. But I sometimes think that people can just rehash the past and you can intellectualize it

and make it make sense in your mind, but you actually haven't done the emotional body work yes oh my goodness that's exactly it and i realized that i did have much deeper to go but i still wasn't able to get deep enough and because none of it was speaking to the subconscious relationship it was speaking to my conscious mind right my analytical mind which goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning of like these internal belief systems like if you can't touch them it doesn't matter how much you desire something or want something it's like they're going to be essentially accommodating the shit

yeah so for me making peace was about actually getting to the root of what was happening and for me it was my beliefs and they were beliefs that were not created in my 20s beliefs that were formed when I was verys beliefs that were formed when I was very young beliefs that were formed because I grew up in a home where I saw physical abuse and you know I made a lot of decisions about what that meant about me that's when I discovered NLP so you do a lot of timeline work where you go onto your timeline and look at the moment in which you made that decision about yourself. And I did a lot of kind of ritualistic stuff,

like writing letters to that version of myself, to the version of myself that used to black out and lie and cheat and not know when to fucking leave a party, because I had so much resentment towards that part of myself in the beginning of my sobriety, which is normal. And also because whenever I ran into people from the past, they-

remind you who you used to be. Yeah, I know. I totally get that. And you're like, not that fucking person anymore. And they don't always mean to. I feel like you have people that intentionally question your new path and they want to remind you like oh come on that's not really i know who you truly are right and then there are people who do it in a it happens in a very subtle way

in a conversational way but it triggers that part of you and you're like no i'm not that same person anymore or you know you might find yourself in situations where the things that you used to find funny you just don't find funny anymore. But you have someone in front of you who is still speaking to you at that level that you used to be. Because also that's a familiar comfort for them because they're like, that's the role you play in my life as far as I'm concerned. Especially if they haven't been on that path with you of yourself development. Whereas instead of trying to get rid of them and talk shit about them and say,

I'm not that person anymore. Just kind of make peace with the fact that that is what you needed at the time. Believe it or not, that is actually what needed to happen. It was a necessary tool for you to survive. Oh, for sure. It's all you knew.

And you were also doing the very best with what you had. That's something that I remind myself. Because I read somewhere and I always find it very useful to come back to. It's like everyone's doing the very best with what you had. That's something that I remind myself. Because I read somewhere, and I always find it very useful to come back to, it's like everyone's doing the best they can with the tools and self-awareness they have available. And so it's like, let's not berate ourselves for the past versions of ourselves

when we didn't know any better. Yes. I know for me... I feel like we would have got on five years ago. I mean, we get on now in a very different way, but I feel like we would have had on five years ago I mean we get on now in a very different way but I feel like we would have had a lot of fun right can I ask what you think was your biggest lessons or even just some of the little things that you feel when you look back at that time you're able to see that actually this had to happen because if that hadn't happened I wouldn't know this now I think it put me on a spiritual path

and I think for that I'm eternally grateful and it also encouraged me or forced me to cultivate relationships and also balance within myself which were all like foreign concepts really but what I describe to people now if they're like well can you just casually drink this is very dramatic but it feels spiritually dark for me the next day I guess that's one thing and also you know it's really interesting everything you're saying about embodying those parts of ourselves that we we deny like because I'm a people pleaser I can be quite shy and I think that for me alcohol was a way that I just like I wasn't aware of what people were thinking feeling so I could just be whatever the fuck I

wanted to be and there was something liberating in that and it's like okay how can I incorporate that into my life and like you say in a healthy way and be a little bit stronger and have like stronger boundaries and say no I would say it's when you're able to stand up for yourself state your needs and to state your desires and to stand up for yourself in a way that feels quite scary but in a way that frees you in so many ways and I say that knowing full well that to state our needs and our desires often feels unsafe. So boundaries can seem quite disrespectful. They can seem like someone's being harsh because we're not told that our needs are important. We're not told that it's important to actually say how you feel. If you're not okay with something, instead of just allowing it to happen, it can seem rude or it can feel like a

personal attack. But instead of it being in your mind can seem rude or it can feel like a personal attack. But instead of it being in your mind, you actually express it because there's a big difference. I think we confuse barriers for boundaries. And I think of barriers as when you know that you're not okay with this thing and this is not okay. And then you keep it in your mind and you don't actually express it. When I talk about saying no with yes energy, it's about saying no in a way that is in fear based. It's not about saying no in a way where you're shrinking yourself

with that no, but actually you're standing tall in that no and saying, I respect myself enough to not allow this to go ahead. And there are so many ways, right? It can be, I gracefully decline. I say, thank you for approaching me with this it looks amazing i can't wait to see how it turns out but unfortunately i don't have the capacity for that okay question does the energy come first or the language or do they simultaneously kind of match up i believe the energy comes first with everything you have to feel it oh for sure with everything i think it's energy first and we also i think if we don't check our energy yeah going into a situation i think we rehearse what we're going to say but if we don't like people are responding to energy all the time and language

is just like the outer layer yes and i think it's also understanding that if i say yes to something that i don't want to be a part of that is self-betrayal if I fake an orgasm that is self-betrayal if I drink again that is self-betrayal and with the kind of awareness that I have and the identity that I'm trying to cultivate I don't see oh for sure because sometimes we think we have to wait for the big things to happen for us to start saying no but it's the tiny little things that happen every single day this is where also self-compassion comes in when you notice these things about yourself and you're like huh noticing patterns and then instead of berating yourself for the pattern just actually look at it in an objective way just look at everything this is what i do and this ties in with the how do you make peace with yourself

is that i don't think the making peace happens once and then you're done. That's another important thing. You're constantly going to have to do that. So it has to be a practice. You have to start somewhere. I think we also get very overwhelmed when we realize just how much needs to be changed or how much we want to change something. And it often leads us into inaction where we don't actually do anything at all and we decide that this is just who I am you know I think I think that happens like take it or leave it yeah this is just who I am because I think we're both examples of people that like if you want to change you can you can I remind people this all the time when they meet me at the level that I'm at now and i just remind

you just have to scroll right down on the same page online that i have on instagram to see where my day one was everything is still there and you you're able to actually see the progress but you have to show up for it you have to show up you have to show up for it even when you don't want to yeah which is quite a lot sometimes oh for, for sure. We've unpacked a lot. I feel like I've learned so much. Thank you so much for coming on. This was amazing. Adore you.

I think you're amazing. Thank you. Thank you for creating us with your pearls of wisdom. Thank you. I love this. So if you enjoyed this episode with Africa, listen out for a mini episode that we have coming in the new year where we continue this conversation but we'll be focusing more on the money mindset

and professional life and our attitudes towards money and our relationship to it really on a very sort of energetic level so watch this space and thank you very much for listening if you want to follow africa on social media you can find her at africa brook and me at kagi's world i also wanted to share some very exciting news with you guys i'm going to be doing my first saturn returns with kagi live show in the new year and it will be in line with the socially distanced guidelines so please don't forget to check out my socials for more details on the saturn returns with kagi live show saturn returns is a feast collective production the producer is scala o'malley and the executive producer is kate taylor until next time thank you so much for listening and remember you are not alone

goodbye