Saturn Returns with Caggie - 2.15 Body Neutrality with Jada Sezer

Episode Date: January 11, 2021

This week, Caggie is joined by UN Ambassador for women, and body positivity and mental health advocate, Jada Sezer. The pair discuss confidence and self worth, where it comes from and how to nurture it. They also explore the term 'body neutrality' and the transition from the obsession that many women have with the way they look, to appreciating all that the body can help us to achieve. There are lots of great articles on the topics Jada mentions, but one the SR production team thought you might like on Forbes.com is called "Men Should take Parental Leave and Here's Why" --- 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. When women are on a date, I think we forget that we should be thinking, do you make me happy? Are you funny enough for me? Are you interesting enough for me? You me happy are you funny enough for me are you interesting enough for me you know are you good enough for me like I know I would go on dates and not think that I'd be like oh I hope I look good I hope I'm good enough today and being my best self and actually no we're sitting across those tables and we should be asking those questions today's guest on Saturn Returns is Jada Cesar now Now Jada has quite a lot going on. We have a lot of mutual friends and she's a very impressive young woman.

She's a UN ambassador for women with a master's degree in child psychology, as well as being a body positivity and mental health advocate. I loved having this conversation with Jada. I really think she's an inspiring girl and I think a lot of people look up to her for good reason she uses her platform to speak out on subjects around body positivity and mental health and we discuss all those things in this episode one thing I found particularly interesting was this idea of body neutrality you know the conversation has shifted in a more positive way but is it still this obsession around women and their bodies? But before we dive into today's episode, let's check in with Nora, our astrological guide for the season. I think that body neutrality philosophy is very interesting because to me it sounds very Saturnian, it's very mature, it's very grounded, it's not as gregarious as a body positivity

movement which is brilliant but that sounds more Jupiterian to me, it sounds more expansive. The body neutrality philosophy honors our body by way of, I mean, being grateful for it and seeing what it does for us on a daily basis. It's making us aware of our boundaries, but also of all the possibilities that we have within us. So we're making it very physical and we're making it about our body, our vehicle in this world. making it about our body, our vehicle in this world. And I think that as you are being made aware of it, we are willing to take better care of it, acknowledge what it does do for us and kind of do everything that we can to preserve it. And I think it feel that instinctively during a Saturn return. Jada, welcome to the Saturn Returns podcast. Hi thanks for having me. How are you? This morning I'm feeling grounded, settled, happy, ready to take on the weekend. Because I would say for

the audience or people that don't know you from the outside you were definitely someone that seems like they really have a strong sense of self would you say you've always been that way and is that something that you are aware of or is that just something that perhaps comes across to someone like me I don't think I've ever thought of myself like that um I think definitely growing up I was very strong headed in a sense of my my dad would enroll me into a lot of hobbies and you know this I've said this before but like I played the violin for many years and I swam for many years and I learned to have a strong sense of self and that's where a lot of my self-esteem comes from and I was able to carry that into the work that I'd been doing for the last 10 years as a plus-size model and a mental health activist but I didn't ever know that I was

projecting that out there in fact I probably felt that I wasn't doing enough and I needed to do more and I needed to be stronger and get you know more credentials under my belt and know more about what I was talking about was that an influence of your father then kind of enrolling you in all these things yeah yeah absolutely he was somebody that would say to me so are you going to do your master's and I'll be like yeah I've signed up I'm about to do it and he's like okay can you do this in six months? How long does it take? I'm like, no, no, no. It's going to take me like a year and maybe I can maybe defer it and do it in two years. And he'd be like, why two years? Come on, you can do this six months. Like he'd just be so

irrational, but not in a pressurizing way, in such a loving way. Like he would just want the best. He would, and not in a way that he expected the best like you would be worthless if you don't achieve it but you can it was like you can and I support you and I see you as somebody that can do that so he's quite a powerful influence in your life you know he not only in hindsight he passed away five five years ago and only in hindsight I really appreciated that he was an immigrant from Turkey that came to the UK that got into the hospitality industry that became an entrepreneur set up his own business and actually that takes a lot of guts for somebody that can speak English and a lot of guts I think he and somebody that can't speak English and managed to learn how to do taxes like that's the bane of my life I mean

I'm still learning how to do taxes and he, I think it was his presence that had a massive influence, just the way he was. I think I definitely grew into my ability to harness self-esteem, but he gave me the foundations to sort of bounce from by attaching self-esteem to a skill set or a hobby how does that work i guess like as in if you've achieved x then you like it builds your self-esteem absolutely i think like you know it's healthier to have your self-esteem attached to you know camaraderie as a team in a sport with your mates and you know moving further up the league in a healthy way of course it become it can become unhealthy but in a healthy way that would give me more fulfillment than perhaps feeling like I need to stick to one body size and restrict myself and what I eat so that I can get these positive strokes of reinforcement about my

appearance and I remember really feeling this a lot when I lived in New York is within is that when you were modeling when I was modeling yeah I lived in Manhattan and I remember walking in some rooms and being so naive to the fashion industry I knew nothing about it before I got into it I didn't even know the difference between like high stream couture and editorial. I was like so oblivious because I had worked in a mental health space where people were compassionate and asked how you were doing and really cared for your answer. And then I stepped into a room that was like, hi, how are you doing? And as soon as you answer, they kind of turn their head away and are taking a seat, you know. And they're just brutal. Brutal.

So wait, to take it back a step, the mental health stuff you were doing before, like, because you've achieved. kind of turn their head away and are taking a seat you know and they're just brutal brutal so wait to take it back a step the mental health stuff you were doing before like because you've achieved a lot in you know considering how young you are so what were you what were you studying and then how did that get onto mental health and then how did you get onto the modeling industry okay how long have we got so i'll keep it short in a nutshell. So I was studying my master's and in the last six months, I was working with a lot of young people that had eating disorders and body dysmorphia.

And I couldn't quite, I guess, tell them as much as I wanted to tell them in that space of like, you can get through this, you can do it. And I was trying to understand like the crux of a lot of their, their traumas. And although a lot was family related, it was almost accepted in certain spaces to restrict your diet. So a lot of these young girls had anorexia and they would then get praised when they would walk outside and people would say,

you look great. And, and they would say, you know and and they would say you know I wish I look like x or I wish that my face looked like this and I would question you know I would I traveled a lot in my kind of uni years and I would go to different countries and everyone's idea of you was so different and so for me I and as somebody that grew up never reading magazines I didn't have an idea or the pressure of and it should look like yeah it doesn't sound like you had any family pressure either to like be or look a certain way no no I mean my mum's Spanish my dad's Turkish food is a massive part of our culture uh the dinner table in the kitchen is where all the conversations happen as soon as you walk in our house we give you food and we sit you down and have tea and we have I grew up having a good relationship with my body of course I was aware

that I was bigger than my peers I was taller than my peers I was like a size 14 five foot nine at how old at like 12 oh wow really yeah really developed like big boobs big bum like what was that experience like for you because I had the complete opposite and that was it was horrible like I was the one that had like didn't develop all the girls around me all my friends like looked older and I was like I wish I looked like that that's interesting I just realized that when you're a teenager you always want what you can't teenager you always want what you can't have and you want a mold to become the average norm I wanted I wanted a really normal name I didn't want to be called Jada I wanted to be called Jade not that you know it's

it's more normal in this country to be called that and I would say to everyone my name's Jade because they would get it now I'm like I love my name um but it was you do feel it and it's this like subtle sense of not fitting in yeah because those things that make us stand out then fit we just want to cut them away but then I think I mean I particularly think that post your Saturn returns into your 30s you're like I love all those things that set me apart but it takes that journey to getting there absolutely absolutely and then from there I guess I just was busy with all my hobbies so I would feel like I don't look like everyone else but I actually have some stuff to talk about when I'm in those rooms and I'm taught when I'm sat down with these boys like the group of guys that we used to hang around with I would be able to conversate in different ways and pull from

different areas of my life whereas some people didn't and so they felt they had to become whatever they felt they had to become like a certain size or look a certain way I guess or to capture people's attention and imagination it was to focus on their appearance and I completely get it and I just felt the same kind of echo of that when I was modeling in New York and I'd walk into these rooms with these beautiful beautiful girls that were just the saddest the most unhappiest and actually not very nice and so well because they've been pulled apart all the time yeah yeah and actually of course that is the case and but I think we can sometimes project like beautiful people are on the outside and that means that they are beautiful on the inside

and we all have a kaleidoscope of different aspects to our personality and I think growing up that women like girls weren't propelled into the space of being able to show how multi-hyphenate they are in the same way they are now like we see adverts with girls that are engineers and and train drivers and fine women you know but when I was, I didn't see any of that. There was one beauty ideal, sort of. Yeah, and, you know, you're a girl. You sit pretty, you cross your legs, you keep quiet, and you be sweet and kind.

And I was never that little girl. I was a tomboy. I used to sit with, like, my legs wide open. Like, I had no sense of self when I was, like, a kid. And I just was never somebody that was ever going to be stifled. Like, I had an opinion of things like I would sit I remember being eight years old and watching a documentary I don't know why I was watching it but it was about um the dog meat industry in South Korea and I remember

finishing that saying to my mum we need to write to the house of parliament and we need to stop this I loved animals growing up. I was like completely obsessed. It wasn't Barbies. It was all about dogs and horses. And I was like, OK, fine. All right, write in, do what you need to do. And we'd get letters in the post every month about an update. And so I just think going back to your very first question of my sense of self, I think my dad had a huge influence on letting me be letting me spread my wings to its widest capacity which could easily have shut down and I

think I just ran with it I was like cool all right I'm gonna do this well those those early years are the most formative ones and so the influence of our parents is is so crucial because and I think what happens is a lot of people get told like they can't show all of themselves and then they kind of cut parts away but to talk about the um so when you went and worked with some girls how old were the girls that you're working with in terms of the ones with the eating disorders and stuff like that um so it was between 7 and 14 I think 7 and 14 yeah as young as 7 yeah yeah absolutely it and this was you know I was observational doing observational work at this point and it was the impetus to talk about it and then my frustrations and my like the urgency to change things came through on Instagram and so I would create images with me in the foreground with my body that I'm a size 16

and would just write how I felt and how I felt other people should feel about their bodies and why we needed to be kinder to ourselves and this was new like you know it's quite common now and it's a conversation that it's it's mainstream in some ways but it wasn't body positivity but at the time it wasn't no and it was really new to see somebody that looked like me reflected in those spaces but social media kind of democratized everything in some way and so it completely changed the landscape yeah allowed us to share whatever we felt we wanted to so then working with those girls was that was it something that you were

passionate about before or was it really through that experience of seeing it firsthand you were like fuck something needs to change and I need to be someone that actually stands up for this absolutely yeah I if I'm looking back I had no interest in talking about body positivity it wasn't something that I necessarily cared about I was I didn't have I think people term it now like body neutrality where you don't think about your body sorry to interrupt body neutrality is like when you don't really think about it too much. Yeah. I mean, does any woman think like that? I mean, I don't think I thought maybe at like 12.

Okay. I think from what I think is a really difficult time is during adolescence when you go through puberty because obviously both men and women our bodies change but the difference is a woman's changes in a way that sometimes I believe feels like it's turning on you and I think that I went I developed very late and I remember like going from like a stick that just all I wanted was to put on weight because I hated that I looked younger and like no boys looked at me and I know a lot of people listening will be like oh poor you you were thin but actually you know like you said every the grass is always

greener like you always want what you don't have and I just like would eat so much and then suddenly I started to put on a bit of weight but it kind of went on in all the wrong places and I was like this doesn't feel very good and then I went then I yo-yoed like really dramatically to the other side and I kind of to be completely honest was like slightly at war with my body for the best part of the next decade sort of quietly so I think that you know the idea of body neutrality is like an amazing concept and something that I'm perhaps most in now and I don't identify so much with my body in terms of that narrating my self-worth but I was brought up that it would and I think a lot of people might feel the same

and with social media the interesting movement that's happened now it's like like you say it's incredibly positive that it's opened up a space for different body types and open conversations about all this kind of stuff but in a way it's just another way of women's bodies being objectified and obsessed over it's just like the different terminology and different categories but it's still the impetus and focus is on the female form and its value absolutely absolutely i couldn't agree more and i think putting this term allows people to um kind of articulate maybe how they're feeling yeah but at the same time why are we still talking about it why why like let's talk about how amazing women are working you know developing like tech companies or let's talk about other things besides our appearance for a change because there's someone that's sort of like it sounds like in a way accidentally gone into that space and

becoming an advocate for it do you ever get frustrated like I don't want to talk about this anymore because it's you know it's not who I am or what I am about ultimately I don't get frustrated um I get incredibly exhausted at times um and and want to talk about other things and I do I kind of use it as a Trojan horse and just yeah with something else but what I found is I'm sort of moving out of the modeling fashion world because I think during that decade of my life and maybe it is moving into my 30s now and being in a really loving relationship and partnership where I don't feel, like I feel like I've leveraged my work in that space

to the place that I wanted it to become. So in 10 years, plus size models weren't, they were non-existent in the UK. And I was one of the first in so many different ways. And now I think it's really saturated. I think brands are now extending their size ranges consistently and constantly. And they see that it's such a lucrative market. And now I'm kind of like my work is done or there's so many front runners in that space that can do this better and are more passionate than I am.

And I always knew my thing was never going to be about body positivity, but it was going to be teaching people how to just see their own ability to be great and being able to hold a mirror up to people in like the best possible way and I think it's hard to to see that within yourself and so I just now leverage my platform to talk about those things like I'm on my next my new journey is going inside and doing a lot of meditation recently to kind of clear my head of you know how you say you can go through different times in life and you get different messages and conditioning and wiring and I feel like my 20s was filled with me kind of fighting the fashion industry in some way. Which must have been tiring. Exactly. But then at the same time, you also learn the tricks of how do I speak?

How do I behave in this room? How do I move someone's opinion forward? How do I bring them and walk them through this door that they don't really see is the direction they should be going in? And so I do a lot of social media as a content creator. And in the next year, I'm developing actual resources to help people. So going kind of taking a 360 and going back to what I first did. And so I've just, oh God, I've just signed up to do a course, a diploma in neuroplasticity. Oh my God. Wow.

To find out what god you really you really have achieved a lot i mean it hasn't started yet so we'll see if i get to the end what is neuroplasticity for those who don't know so it's understanding how the mind works and it's in it so it's about conditioning um and yeah there's there's just so much more to it that i just, I don't even know. It's actually been something that's been coming up in a lot of conversations for me recently in different spaces. And I mean, I had a friend come over last night and we ended up having quite a deep conversation. And he was like, you almost have like Stockholm syndrome on yourself.

And he was like, you almost have like Stockholm syndrome on yourself. And this thing of creating this quite harsh infrastructure for you because you didn't trust the way you used to behave. You're so in your own head and so self-critical because you think that that's the only way you're going to do well and stay on track. And I just was like, oh my God, I'm actually quite unkind to myself in my head all the time. Like the common narrative is like not very nice, but I'm so used to it that I don't even realize I'm doing it. And at a point in my life, it was perhaps a necessary voice because I wasn't behaving in alignment with myself and wasn't looking after myself. But it's got to the point now where I was like, I don't want to be thinking this way. And it is, like you say, it's a muscle.

It's something that we have to be aware of and practice and actually catch ourselves and be like, no, I'm not going to think that way, but I'm not going to tell myself that thing. What else can I say to myself that achieves the same thing but in a kind way you know we have to sometimes I believe it's necessary to take the more difficult route in life but then when you're actively always doing that to kind of prove a point or it's like going up a mountain with sort of rocks in a backpack it's like sometimes you're just doing that does

that make sense absolutely and the word that comes to mind when you're talking is my favorite word and it's boundaries and I learn boundaries is such an interesting topic for me because I honestly I love the idea and the concept but sometimes I'm like I don't know what it is yeah and. Yeah. And you know, the School of Life, if you haven't watched any of their stuff, love it. It's like my favorite little place that I go to. And, you know, anytime I feel like I don't know, because I don't know about you, but my parents, as lovely as they were, they weren't emotionally articulate in the slightest. That generation just weren't. They weren't.

We never spoke about mental health. I think as far as it went, and I remember having this conversation with my mum, is that my granddad, when he was stressed, he'd have bad nerves. That's the furthest it goes. And you're like, what? And so if I've ever, and even to this day, even with my academic background, even to the studies that I'm about to take on, I still don't know the answers and I google it and I just find like if I don't know the answer I go and research it and the school of life is a great point but the reason I say that is because I was looking into boundaries a lot in this last year and boundaries for me growing up were presented as something bad like you know boundaries are telling someone off or boundaries are saying like no you can't or it's creating distance. But actually, as I've gotten older, I've realized that boundaries are, yes, protecting you, but they're also protecting other people.

Like they're important and they're vital in laying the ground down of what you can expect from me, but also what I can expect from you. So that it's not a gray area, the lines aren't crossed, so you both know where you stand. And when you want to remove the boundary a little bit then somebody else knows where they stand with you and if that person and if I'm speaking more in a relationship term now but if that person likes you and is interested and wants

to release their boundary a little bit then you move closer and closer closer together in that time trust is built in that time you understand that person a bit more okay I've got an interesting point here or question do you think it's easier to establish and create your own boundaries when you know that person is going to meet you and they are gonna respond well and they are gonna nurture that relationship interesting question because i think on some sort of psychological level it's easier to create boundaries when you know you're being held do you know what i mean and i don't mean literally held i mean spiritually held i really actually think the opposite i think it's easier to create boundaries when you feel there's a threat when somebody is incredibly kind and nice you just or like you trust them or you know you're going to be held by them you can then i can let a

boundary go because i feel safe it's a safe secure environment if i didn't feel safe then my back's up a little bit but there's a different there's boundaries and there's barriers you know and i think sometimes they get like mixed up because boundaries like you say it's like it it's a you know these are my non-negotiables this and like to feel safe in a situation where you can actually be like these are my needs can you meet them perhaps on some level we're only it's a lot easier to do that when you know they're going to be met does that make sense uh yeah yeah i think asking someone so i i think for me how i scope out safe secure spaces is by have it by not not mentioning like these are my needs but seeing how but explaining my expectations in some

way and you don't have to meet them but if you choose to be here i'm speaking relationships now i don't know i guess this could work for work relations business relationships do it's like what do you want out the business relationship what do you want out the romantic relationship but and you can leave yeah these really simple things seem really hard for most people to do and myself included why do you think that is i i speculate but i know why they were hard for me is because i didn't have enough healthy relationships being modeled to me boundaries growing up of how to do that i know my parents were wonderful but there wasn't loads of conflict or healthy arguments in the house.

You know, my dad, and it worked for my mum and dad, to be honest. Like my dad was the Turkish man that took care of the family. My mum was happy being the homemaker. But I think for me as somebody that is an entrepreneurial, like boss, I like to think sometimes when I'm making money, woman that knows what she wants and has an opinion on things. There's going to be conflict. There has to be somebody that can match that and meet that.

And conflict is actually a healthy thing. It's brilliant. And I used to feel so uncomfortable. Like anytime I'd see, my two older sisters would argue all the time. They would bicker all the time. And I'm such an empathic person that my stomach used to get like, ugh. Like I used to get a sickly feeling in my stomach when I would hear them arguing. And growing up, I used to hate arguments. I would avoid them.

I was somebody that didn't like conflict. But then, I don't know. I still, parts of me struggle to know how to have a productive argument or share share constructive criticism but i think it's brilliant i think anger is useful i think anger is showing you that you need to create a boundary for yourself and it doesn't mean that you're out of control how we often see it demonstrated on tv in the media of like crazy angry woman yeah i um i was the same growing up actually in terms of like my family's quite argumentative they thrived off it a little bit and i remember observing them and just again i'm a bit of an empath so i just i would hate it because i would absorb all of that energy and just wouldn't i'd

just be sad whereas my family are quite able to just, you know, have a huge raging argument and they'll be like, do you want a cup of tea? Like it's just all kind of gone. And then in turn, that affected my relationships in terms of like me not being able to speak because when what would happen was when the emotion or something came up, I would just bury it and build up a barrier and kind of go emotionally silent

or like shut down emotionally, which is actually really unkind to the other person because they just have no idea what's going on stonewalling when you do that and you do and it's not healthy for you and i really feel like that stress resonates and stays in the body in your body and like whenever i've done that i felt it in my back or and there's such a lovely relief to be able to just like get it out and say it and feel vulnerable and totally and I'm learning now and it's only again this kind of goes back to this thing of like when you're when you're in a relationship

or something that feels safe to do so when you're actually feel comfortable to speak your truth and like conflict doesn't have to be anger it It doesn't have to be shouty. Conflict can be soft and it can be kind and it can be very vulnerable. And actually those, I think those are the experiences that just feel so foreign to us. But there's so much strength in it afterwards because you're like, okay, like I've expressed that.

I've released it from my body and it's been held and I've been met and it doesn't mean that the other person agrees necessarily but they can like you know yeah I just I get I'm smiling a lot right now because I feel like so my boyfriend we've known each other for 10 years we were friends for 10 years and we've been together coming up to a year and a half now and we've been together coming up to a year and a half now and there's been times where I've been so we don't argue really but we have heated conversations at times and there's been times where I've felt so angry about something and I've shut down and I've got in my head and I'm being passive-aggressive and then I'm and I've like and then I've gone out the house and I've gone and

taken myself for a walk and I've had a word with myself and I'm like are you making up a story yeah what's going on what are you what are you telling yourself what's actually what are you saying and you know this is why I've taken up meditation not because of the arguments but because I've been more curious about what am I telling myself what's my story that I constantly bring up or I thrive on. Because the themes are probably the same and that's probably come from some other place entirely that like, I mean, I have the same thing. And it's mainly, I find like a lot is from childhood. And it's like, we want to replay those original wounds

of something traumatic in a kind of messed up way. So there's two things. I think there is is what can be triggered in you is a childhood trauma and that is then the narrative that you could then respond to like you did as a kid and you create this self-fulfilling prophecy where you get the same results because you respond in that same way whether it's stonewalling or shouting leaving or you know when you say you're gonna cheat on me and then eventually person does i don't know like those things that end up being reinforcing your own story um and then there's the other version which i recently was listening to a great podcast and

it was talking about how we can become addicted to stress so in a heightened stressful situation which is really vague these days it's not like we see a lion like we did back in the day now it might be for example a feeling that your partner's cheating on you it creates this adrenaline and cortisol that floods your body and then you go into the world and your work that isn't the case you have a lovely work environment actually that environment becomes a bit boring because you become addicted this heightened state of adrenaline so then you seek out a really destructive working relationship then you go and seek out toxic friendships because then you're constantly in this heightened state yeah

and so i think that there's that's a different another way of walking through the world but essentially you shout at that person that you feel is a threat to you but really it's like your inner child is saying i feel like you're gonna leave me i feel really sad right now that you're gonna hurt me i feel very vulnerable and that vulnerability is something that i know i would avoid till the council does it's like you want to say it and i can't just spit it out because i'm just gonna shout at you yeah i'm gonna say i can't just spit it out because i'm just gonna shout at you yeah i'm gonna say there's nothing wrong and really i know i'm like screaming and i'm crying my little girl inside is like but you might leave me and i'm gonna feel lonely no one's gonna love

me and you know all this stuff because what it comes down to i think we all all we want is to be seen and part of that is as well that we want to be vulnerable because we have to be vulnerable to be truly seen. But then all of us have the same fear, I believe, that if we are truly seen and we are found wanting and rejected, what happens then? that one when we when we approach situations with vulnerability and actually allow ourselves to soften people do meet you there you know they meet you with integrity it's just it's in our wiring it really is okay unless we're dating like a sociopath or something there are always exceptions but i'd say by and large like if you can really go into that space and it brings you closer that's why I'm smiling because everyone's got the same fears exactly and then the reaction from that other person is because they thought that they were being hurt and then it just brings you closer

because you really see somebody for actually who they are and this is why again I've really gotten into meditation because it's allowed me to separate myself from that voice and separate my pain from the past from not that I've had any significant trauma that I can really see or or understand but any any hard responses that come through I'm like what does that mean where does that come from I get curious you get curious and I love and that's such a powerful thing actually to just be curious if you know there's any takeaways from this conversation that is one because I think we very quickly go into god I always start thinking like this why am I so hard on myself why am I creating this and that doesn't get anyone anywhere but if you can be curious and observe

your thinking patterns and actually be like that's happened before there wonder why that is yeah and you give yourself like you say a chance to do things differently you can respond rather than react and there's so much power in that and that's actually why meditation because it creates that space between reacting and responding and there is a huge huge difference yeah yeah and I think if we go back to your very very very first question it's like where does like my self-esteem come from and have I always walked through life as like my own person I would say that it's my curiosity that's allowed me to maintain um my own mind in some way because I've considered it and I've listened to it and I've

thought about it and I've had to it and I've thought about it and I've had to take on meditation now because I felt like my life has been so so much busier than it's ever been you have to do that I had to take out I had to give myself space in the mornings for 10 minutes just 10 minutes I'd love to do longer but sometimes I'm just like I just want to get out of this room and get back to life but I have to give myself longer, but sometimes I'm just like, I just want to get out of this room and get back to life. But I have to give myself that designated time, otherwise I just wouldn't. And then I end up responding in autopilot to my emotions.

We absolutely love that, yeah. Actually, that's something that's coming up for me at the moment because the same thing you said about the adrenaline rushy, stressful thing, I definitely think, and I'm not over it completely but you know the nature of how I lived my 20s was very much in that headspace of like thrill seeking in every capacity and then it weirdly sort of ended up you know I don't drink or anything like that and I'm a lot more balanced but I found that I would seek it in coffee so I that would give me that sort of like spike of of stress really and I realized that I was quite addicted to that to that routine um and then also just

that kind of busyness in the mind because that would then of course make everything go into like mania which sometimes like okay you get a lot done for about an hour but then it can become destructive whereas like the busier you get and the more things you have going on the more you actually have to take that personal sovereignty and create that space because otherwise things just become unmanageable and you're not going to enjoy the process yeah but you always have a choice like you can go into a set of tasks and automatically be like this is all so stressful this is all so much and I have to really be mindful of that myself because I do go into sometimes a state of like, I'm overwhelmed and I'm stressed, but also that's a choice. You know, I'm making that choice every time I do that.

Equally, I could go and be like, I've got this, this is easy. Everything's manageable. Everything's okay because it's going to be okay but I think we do get slightly addicted especially in like living in a city and sort of like busyness means you're you're doing it right kind of mentality that we get a bit trapped in that cycle yeah absolutely I think off the back of your point our 20s first of all I think our 20s are about that just working being in this like fantasy realm of you're living for you and you don't have any responsibilities and you're carving out your name and your career and living your best life and then your 30s you want other things you don't want to build up you want to build down you want to get grounded that's what I'm finding. And so family and partnerships and foundations are really what's important.

And so then we start borrowing down and nesting and creating a home, not for everyone, obviously, but like that feels like the next phase of your 30s. And then the 40s are when, you know, you've had your kids for the last decade and it's resurfacing again I'm finding this to be the thing that I'm thinking about more now it's like okay so if I move into the in the next five years if it becomes kids and family for me which I do feel is happening because I'm so distracted by the dreams and fantasies of like little people in the house but also having a career how am I going to do that how am I going to balance the two and does that mean that I actually don't care about myself anymore am I losing my identity what if you have a family yeah yeah that's the kind of things I'm considering

now being somebody like you said that is so like you know focused and concerned about where I'm going next what am I building next how am I giving back in some way it's like okay well if I take my eye off the ball who am I in all of that and what happens if I you know invest all my time in this new family space and this you have to put yourself second suddenly yeah like third or whatever absolutely and I had a really great conversation with a lady the the writer of this article which you can find whatever absolutely and I had a really great conversation with a lady the writer of this article which you can find in Forbes and I'll send it to you so you can put it in the show notes and she was saying because I said you know I don't want to stay at home all

the time like I don't want to be that that mom like I'm thinking about my mom she's like you know have you questioned your internalized framework of what motherhood is which I was like okay and she was like you know parenting is 50 50 it's you know you can if you're able to you can bring in your partner as much or as little as you want that's interesting because for you I guess the structure growing up was very much like mum doing and then dad going out and yeah and you probably didn't even question that you were like god if I go into motherhood how on earth do I do that and then maintain absolutely I was already thinking okay well how do I save up enough money so I can be at home and work from home and have

help at home and do it all and actually I just completely just disregarded my boyfriend until until time said to me i want to be there like i want to be there i want i'm carving out a life for myself where i can be there 50 of the time too and i was like huh the penny dropped i was like wait what you would do that why but why like who is who does that and i'm like yes you can do that obviously it's it's not easy if you're not running your own company or if, you know, paternal leave. It's tricky. It's like two weeks for guys. Yeah. And this is why our society is also not helpful in this way.

Like, the majority of women at their 30s tend to drop off to go into that space. Because they don't see how they can maintain both. And then when they're coming back, they're trying to keep up with their counterparts, their male counterparts that are, you know, at that point probably getting promoted and leaving the country and moving to New York or wherever it is to go to the next level of their career. And when women are coming back, they're behind and there's no reintegrated program to help part-time mothers come back in and progress. You know, what's really frustrating and short-sighted about the whole thing is essentially like those children that they're raising could be the next like CEOs or whatever like it's a really sad fact that people feel like they have to choose still today in a society that

is supposed to be very progressive in certain ways that it feels like it's one thing or the other yeah and I just don't want that for me and I'm lucky enough to have a partner that wants to be there too and I think he'd be a great dad and I'm you know in a relationship where I feel like okay I can trust you I know you're gonna be there I know you're gonna get it I know you're gonna juggle everything or try to and you know again I'm like trying to fight with my framework of like what I've been told is like but women do it better but mothers just know and mothers just get it and you know i'm sure you know evolution plays a big part in that but that's not to say that your partner can't step up to the mark in some way yeah it's the freight i

had an interesting conversation actually with my mother the other day and she kind of brought up marriage in this way that like i think my mom's someone that's super progressive in her way of thinking. She's like a real fucking feminist. But she made this comment about, she's going to hate me for saying this, but about marriage, about like, and she didn't mean this, but the sort of the subliminal message was you need to be picked. Like that's still kind of, as a a society how we seek our value and our worth it's like oh well you're not married you know there's like a hierarchy of relationship it's like you can be in partnership but if you're married you're like a step higher and I just thought I was like do I want to get married because that's when society tells me I'm good enough and that I've

been picked or do I want to get married because I want a marriage yeah and I thought if you could never tell anyone that you were getting married and you couldn't have a party would you want to do it and I thought that was a really interesting thing to think about exactly how we should be questioning these things as well because who are we doing this all for there's so many people that are married and in relationships that are so lonely that should be single but they can't get out of it because of fear and shame and sorry but we don't get picked when we're on a when women are on a date i think we forget that we should be thinking do you make me happy are you funny enough for me are you interesting enough for me you know are you good enough for me like I know I would go on dates and not think that I'd be like oh I hope I look

good I hope I'm good enough today and being my best self and actually no we're sitting across those tables and we should be asking those questions and that's the same with everything like are we equal in this space like do I do I, do I want to get married to you? If you don't want to get married to me also, what does this marriage mean? Like I personally, I'm, I'm, I grew up in a family that was Christian and Muslim. And so my household was a mix mash of everything. And my dad was fundamentally incredibly spiritual. So we had strong moral foundations, but never one practice that we had to do and that's how I'll raise my children so I'm not I don't want to get married

for any religious reasons and to be honest I don't care if I really do or not the only reason I would get married is for legalities and but besides that I mean he'll say like but I would get married because of love and I'll be like but I, but I actually know people that are probably together for, like, 40-odd years, have never been married, and they love each other. They're not going anywhere. Because that's the thing. I think there's something in that, because it's like, you're choosing each other every day. Like, every single day, you're choosing to stay together. single day you're choosing to stay together whereas there is something about like construct of marriage and it's a statistical fact that it makes people suddenly like I'm stuck with you now

and it kind of can change I think I mean you know there's that amazing quote which is like marriage is a great institution but I'm not ready for an institution yet like I do think there's something incredible about it but I don't necessarily think it's the be-all or end-all of what constitutes like a good relationship. Yeah, and I also think that you're, I think we forget like the emotional commitments that we've made and the attachments that we're forming that aren't just easy to walk away from

because you don't have to pay the money to a lawyer to get your marriage ripped apart, you know, leaving someone, whether you're married or not. But you've been, you know, you've got that deep rooted relationship. You can have a marriage for 40 years that doesn't ever reach the intimacy of a relationship that's not married for 20, you know. It's not a measure. It's not a measure it's not a measure but it's easy to kind of put those boxes in place a hundred you're stronger when you've ticked this and tick that and tick that but who says i just think we're living in a matrix like

we really are like what when we step out into the world and we abide by certain rules and systems i sound like i'm going crazy and I've drank some but like who who said that yeah who created who ran that show it's the same thing you said about just being curious about these things because I think we just automatically like that's what I have to do I get people message me saying like I'm 27 and I'm still single like help I'm like really this is the wrong crowd like I just can't believe that people are still thinking like that but they don't question the why enough yeah the only thing that ever makes me feel pressured was the fact that we do have a ticking biological clock that's

the only thing and to be honest I came to peace with that because I thought, well, there's so many little kids, whether they, my boyfriend always says it, whether it comes to you or through you or to you, you will still have it. So like if I, if I ended up adopting, then so be it. Maybe that was what was meant to be for me and for that little kid. And so I had to come to peace with that. for that little kid and so I had to come to peace with that and that took a lot of pressure off me when I thought okay well if it's 40 if it's 30 that I find this or 50 then so be it yeah that's a good attitude to have and in terms of um any takeaways for our audience who are struggling during like a big transition in life and perhaps struggling with their self-esteem, what would your advice be?

I think be kind and compassionate to yourself because transitions are inevitable. We go through seasons. The world is spinning right now. We're constantly moving. You're never going to be set and stuck and stay there so just be kind to yourself in this space because this is where you can go down to that deep dark black hole and all these traumas can come up and you can really hurt and harm yourself in that space be kind

and know it will pass and you'll get through it and I think in the hardest moments is where the most you're rich with information of okay well what's the problem here if you just get curious you can really understand what's the problem here what am i saying to myself what am i doing and don't realize i do um and how can i change it if you want to change it don't get me wrong also have a couple of days on the sofa crying and do all that stuff eat all the ice cream yeah eat all the ice cream do all of that that good stuff and then pull up your socks and get curious I like that well thank you so much this was such a joy to talk to you oh you too thanks Kagi thanks Jada if you enjoyed this episode you can find Jada at Jada Cesar on Instagram

or me at Kagi's World or Nora at Stars Incline this podcast is growing by word of mouth so do keep sharing it with your friends or anyone you think might find it useful Saturn Returns is a Feast Collective production. The executive producer is Kate Taylor. Until next time, thank you so much for listening and remember you are not alone.