Saturn Returns with Caggie - 3.12 Hedonism to Healing with Jordan Stephens

Episode Date: June 21, 2021

Actor, musician and poet Jordan Stephens joins Caggie in today's episode, to discuss creativity, mental health and how we begin to craft our authentic identity in our late twenties. Like Caggie, Jordan found fame at a young age as part of pop duo Rizzle Kicks, and describes his early twenties as hedonistic and self-destructive. They discuss how and why we self-sabotage, Jordan's path to sobriety and the wonderfully simple principles to live by for a happier and healthier mind and life. --- 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 everyone 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. I just kept ruining my life basically. I would get into these hedonistic spirals whenever something emotionally challenging would come up in my life and it just went too far man. I just I kept falling in love and breaking hearts including my own. Today I'm joined by musician, actor and poet Jordan Stevens. Jordan is about to release new music and you may have also seen him recently appearing on TV in May Martin's amazing series Feel Good. As we explore in this episode, Jordan was very young when he came to fame and he and I used to know each other back in the day when he was in Rizzle Kicks and I was in Made in Chelsea. But talking to him now, he is 29 and it seems his internal and external worlds have changed a lot. I guess

mine have too. I found him incredibly reflective, emotionally intelligent, thoughtful and aware. In this episode we discuss the impact of fame through both our experiences. We explore hedonism, sobriety, how important it is to pay attention to our bodies, self-destruction in relationships and in life, self-reflecting, and the art of poetry. Just as a warning, we do discuss some tough stuff, including depression, alcohol, and drug abuse, and we touch on self-harm, so please do take care if these subjects are triggering for you. Before we get into this episode with Jordan, let's hear from our astrological guide, Nora. We've all met an aspect of Saturn during our lifetime. We have.

Classically, it's the father, grandfather, big brother, or any overly authoritarian, masculine parental figure growing up. Then later it's the school principal or our main teacher for the year. And as you become increasingly aware of society, it becomes the government, although never the king. You see there's a structure and a discipline behind this face of Saturn, which we undoubtedly all have gotten to know. Some of us though incorporate the lesser this face of Saturn, which we undoubtedly all have gotten to know. Some of us, though, incorporate the lesser-known side of Saturn, especially before our first Saturn return. We explore the rebel, the face of Saturn that in Roman mythology overthrew his own father and became an authority himself.

We meet the face of Saturn that celebrates and leans towards hedonism as is partly portrayed by Saturnalia, a festivity that celebrated the god Saturn in Roman times around the 17th of December each year. We meet the face of Saturn that accumulates karma as is portrayed by the major arcana card, the devil, in tarot, a card that symbolizes or ties to the earthly realm and everything that exceeds our wildest desires but also enslaves us if we don't exercise discipline. Things like money, power, glory, lust, and any other type of excess you can imagine, even things like obsession. Then comes our first Saturn return, or a major Saturn transit, and it tests us with all of its faces, the face of the archetypal father, or societal expectations, or the devil. And we're not asked to submit to either of those faces rather we're asked to incorporate

them into our psyches in a balanced manner so that we may transcend their obvious expressions and make use of all of the aspects of saturn to our benefit in our lives the one that exercises authority the one that solidifies our position in society, and the one that helps us achieve our desires without becoming enslaved to them. We step into full accountability, and in doing so, we realize that we create the life that we want, and that in a way, we too are Saturn. Jordan, how's it going? Yes it's going well I think. You think? Doesn't sound very convincing. No I have yeah I've had a very calm start to the year. I just turned 29. Happy birthday. Thank you which is of course very much in keeping with i mean is that why the podcast

is called saturn returns is this something absolutely i've heard i've heard that 27 to 30 is a definitely a kickoff period exactly where the major shifts i mean last year was a bit aside of the you know fucking pandemic i think uh i did have you know some big pandemic, I think. I did have, you know, some big personal shifts. I thought it was quite interesting. I think it's just, 20s are wild, man. Well, you're coming to the end of that decade. So what have they been like for you on a whole? I think my 20s have been, well, I had a very fast beginning. It was really quick.

You know, I was like already famous when I turned 20 and that was fun hedonistic I'd say the first three to four you know 20 to 24 and then around 24 I think I started to grow up a little bit to be honest I think when you're in the public eye at a young age you know you I feel like you live in a suspended existence and and I think a lot of I have a lot of reality checks and um and since about 25 I think I've been I've been trying to wind down if anything I've been trying to uh balance myself out yeah a little bit just because I think a part of me knew it as well when when was younger. I knew that it wasn't going to last, my kind of just like complete and utter hedonism. I think I had to sort stuff out a bit.

I was very destructive. And so I have been trying to venture into the depths, which often comes with patience and, you know, like therapy. And I've done various courses in in kind of grief and um yeah I've been trying to I don't know what the word would be I've been trying to feel things I think I think maybe that's what I'm that's what I'm trying to say I mean honestly I was so high in the first of my early 20s that I I'm not sure I was really feeling anything if I'm being honest that I believe that allowing yourself to feel things and and and recognizing your own patterns of behavior are are really important in in regards to I suppose some kind of personal

harmony maybe totally um and attracting the right kind of energy into your life I guess you said you behave quite recklessly in your early 20s. Was that innate in you, would you say? And that that was just exaggerated by the opportunities and the kind of like suddenly being thrown into the spotlight? Or was it, did it come as a consequence of being given those things at a young age? I think, I find fame interesting. I find like the fact that becoming famous young i don't

think generally speaking is a great idea yeah i mean it might vary i don't know i i would certainly be tentative if i had if i still have a child and able to be i don't know heading in a certain direction i would perhaps suggest you know don't know heading in a certain direction I would perhaps suggest you know approaching you know life in a more marathon-esque way just because I think a slow build is is nice and so I think ultimately the reason why I think some young people achieve things quickly is because they want to escape something you know it's like I remember when I was younger my late teens I remember thinking or mid-teens I want to get me and my mom out of the situation that we're in I had an unbelievable amount of drive when I was about 14 15 16 like

it was ridiculous I had no shame anything I would just totally I'd enter every competition I'd work my ass off I barely had any friends I just just, I just really wanted to, to succeed, I suppose, relative to my idea of success at the time. But to answer your question, the hedonism, I suppose, yeah, it would be as a result of perhaps not having grown up enough to know who I was a little bit. Like it's super fun. Listen, there's a lot of fun to be had. But I did begin to notice that I'd get particularly hedonistic when I perhaps couldn't handle certain emotions. So I think I didn't have the tools within me to be able to acknowledge the effect that certain things had on me.

Also, people were dying when I was younger. I'd lost both my grands and stuff. and stuff massive really important aspects of my being and and just I needed to grieve these these losses and um I didn't even understand it as grief you know I was I was very on we go kind of thing um and I think by my mid-20s it caught up with me a little bit so through the the early part of your 20s it was just quite go go go and I guess I mean I can definitely relate to quite a destructive way of being in my early 20s as well that was a constant seeking for escapism from what I was feeling and I think it often runs parallel with people that feel quite deeply and don't necessarily know how to regulate their own emotional systems. So they just go to things that are accessible in that given moment.

Yeah, of course. I think, yeah, there's, you get, it's a high, you're chasing, I feel like I was chasing a high. In whatever form. like I was chasing a high um in whatever form well yeah and also what was so wild about my early success was that it was my first attempt and I think that's I think that that's that's like which is a blessing in a curse I guess well yeah just now now knowing more about life I've looked back and been like that is actually really quite unusual yeah I got rejected a lot I suppose in a micro way within where I wherever I was in Brighton at the time and you know I just kept going and then it was just I remember this moment where you know we'd made this video to down with the trumpets and we stuck it up on

YouTube and then you know these record labels started messaging us and I just thought I thought yeah yeah right this is where I should this is how it happens and then and then we put out an album and and um it goes platinum and we're like right I was like yeah right this is yeah this is easy right it was all very homegrown but it's the support system that I think was lacking a little bit because especially when you're young boys or young men there's a hedonism is at one with the idea of power and exposure and I think it's easy to slip into yeah a wild mindset rather than a future kind of mindset but we never entered into the industry being like yeah let's be super marketable we wanted to just make music you make music. And there was a point where I just felt like I'm not, I wasn't ready for that side of things. I wasn't ready for public expectation and critique.

I ultimately just wanted to make music. So I think I became destructive as a mechanism because I'm just quite sensitive, to be honest. You know what I mean? And I think I became destructive as a mechanism because I'm just quite sensitive, to be honest. You know what I mean? And I think... Well, that's the thing. It's not to be underestimated being put in the public eye that way and scrutinised it from a young age. And also because, again, in terms of you saying

that people don't quite understand what fame at a young age means, if you haven't grounded yourself or have the infrastructure around you that kind of stability and have a strong sense of self which of course no young kid does yeah then how are you supposed to have built up the resilience for that kind of scrutiny yeah I mean I was a fighter I remember I was a fighter at the start not not literally I mean obviously I had a few scraps but I mean like I I I used to you know argue people on the internet I used to find it fun but what I was doing I mean I would almost say objective this is a fact maybe because that I was running on anxiety the whole time I was just constantly but I would feel I'll be fueled by it you know I would I would run at it

I'd be like right yeah oh what that didn't work okay well let you know I would I would run at it I'd be like right yeah oh what that didn't work okay well let's do this or let's do that or I'd constantly be trying to put out fires and fix things and create new projects and I was just running at like 100 miles an hour and I remember one of my first therapy sessions my therapy said to me I feel as the anxiety as your petrol wow do you want to look into this because it might knock you yeah because well look into it in a way it will knock you if you look into this because it might knock you yeah because well look into it in a way it will knock you if you look into it or as in like this is unsustainable both no you know what she didn't even funnily enough she didn't even no she wasn't even like

you're gonna burn out i mean i suppose that's maybe goes goes about saying maybe i think but she she just said look it's if we look into your behavior and we start to push at certain things that might not be a petrol to you anymore it might you know and then and then you have to replace it with something else it look I was I think I was being productive at the expense of something and instead I've I for example right now I'm I'm a lot less productive than I used to be but I'm still productive and I believe it in a more mature way but my mind definitely isn't racing like it used to and it that first part of therapy was realizing that I was even anxious you know

because it was it was your natural state of being yeah because it's not anxious in the same as other people like Harley's really struggled with stage anxiety or I've I've you know my my ex had a generalized anxiety and I've seen it in different at different levels you know well it sounds like more like adrenaline yeah I would just run at it it'd keep me alive kind of thing so once we start to look at why it was there and my body's response what was it covering what was it covering if you don't mind me asking sorry i asked the reason i'm asking a lot of these questions as well is because a lot of it resonates with with me in in the way that i was when i was younger in the sense that i didn't run off anxiety but i definitely was um i only knew extremes yeah for real so the the idea when literally when people said things like

balance and i i was like, what the fuck is that? Such a foreign concept to me because I just knew being like on a complete high or on a manic low and I didn't really know how to be anything in the middle. But you're fascinating though because I mean, we used to hang out a little bit back in those days, right?

Like eight years ago. Yeah. and how did that feel for you like being being well firstly associated mainly with a tv program that was bridging this bizarre gap between reality and production because I thought it was fascinating well how did you feel of being exposed to the public well I think about this a lot because when that show took off we never really expected that it would but I will be honest in saying that from from being a teenager there was a point when I was about 14 where I was feeling quite depressed and not like I fitted in in the world. And like I couldn't find my place. And I would say that there was quite a conscious moment when I was like, I want to be a different person to who I am.

I want to create like a different version of myself that won't feel the sort of depths of the feelings that I'm feeling. And therefore I'll be happy. that I'm feeling and therefore I'll be happy. And I would say that Made in Chelsea was like almost a manifestation of that wish because it was like a watered down sort of false version of me. And it was also, like you say, it was very produced. It was like also a version that was constructed by producers and writers. And so that became very at odds with my truth. But there was also a part of me that had wanted to project that into the world,

otherwise I wouldn't have done it. But at 21, we don't really know who we are or we don't really have the confidence to be who we are. So we're kind of trying to fit in with the world. And I think the whole point of your Saturn return is when you actually go through the opposite and you're like I need to be who I am and I needed I need to be grounded in that regardless of what that looks like on the exterior or in terms of success but you know that that's going to be more fulfilling and I think that when I was doing that show I was I was out of control yeah like my behavior was out of control like I

was so reckless I was so destructive I was so hedonistic yeah and it was like I was on a self-destruct mission and I and I think I didn't have in a way that you expressed a bit earlier I didn't have the tools to regulate those emotions so my response was like shut everything down and it really became a bit to be honest a bit of a monster for me that kind of a perception that I'd created yeah it is it's interesting um the the nature of public notoriety I find it I find it like, you're confronted by the lack of control of your own image, which I think is, yeah, it's a tough one. I remember I read a book when I was younger,

and I've read it a couple of times again since actually, called The Four Agreements by a guy called Don Miguel Ruiz. But I remember in one of the chapters at the end, he kind of talks about, it's basically an ancient Toltec teaching about these agreements that would enable you to have a reasonably peaceful existence or or at least minimize the stresses you know yeah and in the end he kind of talks about how anonymity being quite powerful and him thinking that it must be incredibly difficult being famous and I thought that I remember reading that and being like you get it well I don't know man because obviously there's loads of perks and you know I think a lot of I remember hearing a lot about

people saying you should never complain about it and because it's what everyone wants from the outside but it's like Jim Carrey has that he says he's like I wish everyone but could become rich and famous so they realize it's not the answer yeah for real that I mean that's that is an amazing quote for real I think it gives listen it's a doorway to something but it's not the answer well it feels like it just feels it feels like you end up in a space where you're just kind of chasing an eternal carrot i know exactly sorry let me say eternally chasing a carrot rather than a carrot eternal being i kind of like that vision though but i do think that and i i um i found this in la especially that there's a certain type of person, and I include myself in this bracket,

that gravitates towards fame because they have like a bit of an emptiness in them. Yeah, it's a void. It's like you're, yeah, it's really interesting that. I think it's also something to do with, I find for myself at the moment, it's also something to do with being useful. Like I definitely want to be useful. I think that's the way to do with, I find for myself at the moment, it's also something to do with being useful. Like I definitely want to be useful.

I think that's the way I've approached looking at having some influence. It's like, well, I might as well give some, be useful. Do you know what I mean? Totally. But like perhaps the elephant in the room in terms of fame or being in the public consciousness is that it might not actually feel as satisfying as it might look you know I think I feel I feel the the biggest shift I suppose in my awareness which is what my therapist was probably getting at in those first few sessions is

once you begin to like pay attention to your body and how your body feels about situations I think your desires in life adjust slightly and I think I think that's what she meant by anxiety being a petrol and it being a choice of mine whether or not I want to approach that because like even you know a lot of great musicians I know or artists sometimes they'll be asked to certain interviews or they'll be you have to go and do a photo shoot or these kind of or or you know in more extreme cases where people are being chased by paparazzi or whatever else it's like realistically it doesn't feel great and and the more you think about how that feels the the the more these shifts come in your life that's why I would look at, say with drinking, I didn't mean to be sober for this long.

Originally, I wanted to stop myself destroying myself. And then after about a year, I got into this space where I was like, instead of the thought process being, I can have this drink and have a really fun night, I would think, I'm not going to feel good tomorrow. My body actually isn't going to feel good. Like I feel like I'm poisoning my body a bit.

And the same thing with cocaine. It was like, you know, everyone was doing so much of it. And I think like you have to battle these thoughts in your head that will completely idealize a situation. I mean, this is what codependency really is, but it's, you know, it'll idealize a situation. I remember that one time when I had this great night, rather than how did I feel all the other times where it didn't work out, you know? Well, it's also, it kind of, it connects as well to the fast fame thing or fame at a young age.

It's that sort of instant gratification. You know, like I want this now. I don't care about the long term consequences. And as you grow up, you kind of have to start shifting that perspective into how is this going to make me feel tomorrow? Totally. And I think there was one one interesting parallel for me was I remember when I was growing up, I used to have this if I if I saw somebody living a simple existence and by simple, I mean quite routine or that you know I could see someone on a farm perhaps you know and I'd look at that and I would think to myself when I was younger I'd be like oh god that totally wouldn't satisfy me because I would because I feel like I'd be too ambitious or something or pass some kind of complete presumption do you know what I mean

on on on a situation or I'd never want to live in a tiny village because because I would just feel totally out of the loop or or like I'd be and the the shift in my thoughts to now is so you know now I would look at somebody on a farm and think how peaceful do you know I mean how peaceful that you that you are only the feeling the feelings within your body must be so calm and i don't necessarily think i could you know just live on a farm because of the way i'm wired maybe i would start to get touchy i don't know but but your perception of it has changed my perception is yeah massively changed it's like listen i'll go for dog i have to walk my dog all the time obviously every day and when I walk my dog without my phone I feel this thing I don't know I just feel

really my body feels good I feel peaceful and it's only when I return into the chaos where I I'm starting to notice how it how it feels in my body is that completely under like that was one of my biggest um and it's obviously still something that I haven't by any means mastered but over the last mainly two years but like couple of years was I was at war with my body without even realizing it I was completely disconnected from it I wasn't it wasn't I wasn't allowing it to communicate that's what I mean that's what I was saying in my early 20s that's what I mean disconnected from feeling yeah I totally get that so what I wanted to ask you because this is something that I um that I think about a lot in myself is when I go through periods of depression and that manifests

in the body, how much is that my body communicating to me about a situation versus it's just a random chemical imbalance? Because, you know, the difficulty between humans and animals is that animals don't have language like we do to go no you should probably still do that and you should stay in that situation so they'll just sense something physically and run you know they they respond off their instincts whereas i often feel as humans we ignore them yeah massively and it's and it becomes almost a craft or an art to return to that. I think about that all the time. And there's on this course I did called The Bridge,

which I would firmly recommend to anybody, which is an emotional grief and trauma workshop. I mean, obviously we can't do it at the moment, but there are these, I think it's five or six tentpoles, right? That we talk about in terms of some some kind of harmony and i think they are sleep nutrition exercise community and solitude and creativity oh creativity and nature that's at six six and nature right genuinely if i'm going through it i sit and think if I'm going through it, I sit and think if I'm actively maintaining a healthy balance of all those six temples and almost always one of them's off. Do you know what I mean?

And then I think about in life how because of the system that we're in, you know, without getting too fucking, I don't know, like pseudo political about shit. I don't know, like pseudo political about shit. From my observations of the society, we're in capitalist society, whatever, it runs off people's inadequacy. It runs off a kind of self-hatred, you know? A hundred percent. The more off center you feel,

the more likely you are to try and fix that feeling. But the core things we need to survive are seen as somehow unappealing in our culture. That's what's so mad to me. Like, Kagi, we have to remind ourselves in a day to drink water do you know how fucking insane that is like water is like my animals my dog will get up and just drink water naturally or go for a run drink water he'll get bored drink water he's just drinking water the whole time because we all we all need that we need to drink so much water in a day a lot of our hunger is just dehydration like you know yeah sleeping you sleep better if you drink more water like and then you

know and they all play into each other sleep another thing sleep if you have like a eight hours sleep for like two weeks or something like that right like a consistent night's sleep for two weeks it's something like nine times more effective than antidepressants or some wild statistic like that you know and then and and it all plays into it if you're sad you're up against it because everything in society will be like right well if you're sad you deserve to have a bit of ice cream so now you've got like a sugar rush now you're spiking all over the place then you can't sleep so much i mean so you're like or go and have a drink right you know i'm saying and then you can't

like get to sleep or your sleep's kind of broken or whatever and you get up if you have a drink. Right. You know what I'm saying? And then you can't like get to sleep or your sleep's kind of broken or whatever. And you get up, you've had a drink, you get up, you're dehydrated. You're already on a back foot,

you know? And it's like with creativity, we have all this pressure of whether it's good or not. I'm a total victim to this. Like we, whereas just the act of being creative is just incredibly healing.

Community and solitude, you know, like I think we're in an age where we're barely ever alone. We don't even, I think we've lost sight of what it is to be to just sit alone with no distraction like people used to sit in fucking cafes and just stare at shit like see that is literally my heaven and that of all those things that you that that for me when that part is missing because i've always tried to explain to people, especially in relationships, it's a tricky one,

because I'm like, I need a lot of alone time. And people are always like, yeah, yeah, me too. But I really do. And it often involves, like even today before we spoke, I was like feeling in a bit of a funk and I just lay on my sofa and put on some spiritual music and just stared at the ceiling for an hour and it made me feel so much better because I just like I need my energy to to ground itself and if I'm constantly busying around and in other people's environment or like

spending time with other people I I don't know something like fuses and it doesn't work when i get down or depressed i usually spiral i don't i don't i don't have like extended bouts of depression i get i just like will like have really bad a really bad two days or something yeah and usually the battle is that i've got this voice in me that will, I don't know, it will try and conspire to convince me that I've, like, fucked it, basically. It will just, like, tell me I've just fucked it. Fuck what? Life? Yeah, yeah, just fucked it generally.

I'm laughing because I literally experienced this last week, and it's that internal voice that's like, you are terrible at everything you failed blah blah and I I literally forget like who my friends are when it happens it's like it it shields you from reality and creates this this horrible space in your mind where you become a prisoner and the thing is once it's grasped you like that it's quite hard to see out yeah so you say that yours like it's two days because it spirals quite fast yeah yeah I was like I can spiral in like a in like an hour and then I'm just an hour

yeah can you catch the moment sometimes before it happens or like as it's happening, go, no, no, no, you can fuck off. Honestly, if I'm being honest, right, at the moment, and I genuinely mean this, I think I can trace back all the times I've spiralled recently to diet and exercise. Really interesting. As boring as that sounds, man, I fuck I'm saying, it feels like an elephant.

It's like elephant in the room not an elephant um is that like is that sure i can get knocked by things sure i can get triggered by shit right but the actual spiral i'll look back and be like i might have had a coffee at the wrong time you know or i might have doubled up on a coffee that day or i i'd i'd gone like the last spiral I had I'd just eaten sugar for like fucking six days it was like just uh it was just coming out the back of Christmas you know and I like to eat healthfully because I want to respect my body and I want to live you know and you know that that's the consequence sometimes yeah and also like I'm telling you about about feeling my body it just feels shit listen it's satisfying to eat things like today I had like a you know like a really wonderful fucking cinnamon bun or something from a local bakery

because I just wanted to treat myself I get it but but I I made sure I did a workout today you know because it's because it's the balance and the endorphins you get from working out it instantly alleviates it starts to fight those voices and you're not you know know what I mean? And it's just because I'm moving. I know. It's just because I'm needing to move something around my body. And I feel like it becomes this, it's so, it's such a, it seems like- So irritatingly simple. Yes, that's what I'm saying.

It's so irritatingly simple. And I empathize with you too, because when I was, when I've been in my worst space ever and I mean like suicidal like fucking the worst worst worst I remember um doing exercise and being very spiritual and whatever else and I remember that feeling of like this isn't even fucking working but but in that space the maintenance of of that did help me. And also there were other bits that I was struggling with. So it's like in that space, when I've like, you know, done a lot of exercise and I've eaten right,

I remember I was still drinking, for example. So I cut out drinking. That made a massive improvement instantly. And then even in that case, it's because I was so sad at certain points, I wasn't sleeping properly, which is a really tough reality. And I have to just deal with that. But if I know that sad at certain points I wasn't sleeping properly which is a really tough reality and I have to just deal with that but if I know that in my head I'll go to myself like as much as you want to believe these voices which aren't yours by the

way like don't just only listen to the voices that come up after you've slept well for a couple weeks you know and it's like if you've done all of those things if you've taken walks in nature you've breathed in clean air if you've spoken to friends if you spent time alone if you've eaten well three meals a day nutritious food you know if you exercise and you're sleeping and you still feel sad then yeah then there's then something you need to talk about but the chances of that happening i think are quite slim unless it's you know unless there's something a little more neurological. Totally. exercise or their lack of going and drinking to the excessive amount that I did would inevitably cause depression of some sort at some point yeah um what was your because you said that you didn't intend on being sober it just kind of happened all right yeah what was that story like I just kept ruining my life basically I relate yeah yeah like that is the

short version no I um I would get into these hedonistic spirals whenever something emotionally challenging would would come up in my life and it just went too far man I just I kept falling in love and and end up breaking hearts including my own from just yeah just stupid behavior that I um sabotaging yeah of course just a total sabotage and a total reflection of just a fear of I don't know what it would be a fear of intimacy a fear of love all types of shit that I've had to fucking painfully excavate but um yeah i kept falling in love and destroying relationships and and doing it through the means of just not being able to honestly not being able to deal with how i feel about certain things and just instead getting totally trashed and then consequently acting really stupid and then it would you know just

cause this this fucking awful like just yeah and then there was, you know, just cause this fucking awful, like it was just, yeah. And then there was a, you know, a kind of final time where it was a wake up call. And also to be honest, that loss, that grief of losing that relationship at that time opened up grief of all other. Everything else.

Yeah, man, like my love, one of the first things I cried about after breaking up was literally my grand dying and she died like two and a half years before and it was those spaces and I just remember one of the first thoughts being like right I'm not I'm not gonna go because I could have so easily just been like all right fuck it do you know what I mean all right fuck it I'll just drink more I'll do more drugs I'll get hedonistic I'll have a bunch of fun do you know what I mean but like I just sent something in me was like bro you can't do you know what I mean but like I just sent something in me was like bro you can't

do you know what I mean like it was like the third or fourth time that had happened and I'm like how much it's so obvious that you're it was there's a shadow self of mine that needs to fuck off because not only am I hurting myself I'm genuinely hurting other people um which is you know it's not great I mean listen everybody's gonna get hurt by everybody somebody at some point but if it's prevent if it can be prevented you know i mean or if it can be dealt with in a much more mature way without there being yeah disrespect betrayal you know yeah i guess it's acknowledging our sort of toxic patterns of behavior yeah literally it's not um a fun exercise by any means and it's a lot easier in a way to just continue mindlessly yeah so so basically it was it was that much actually no sorry i drunk a little bit after

and then there was just was one night man where i was just out and i was like i'm not doing this anymore january the 8th three years ago i literally was like i'm done just like that yeah yeah i've never been to a meeting or anything i literally just was like i'm fucking just like that yeah yeah I've never been to a meeting or anything I literally just was like I'm fucking done and then it's obviously with other drugs it's easier anyway because that alcohol's the gateway anyway and then I'll dabble I'm a firm believer in psychedelic healing so I've you know I dabble in like mushrooms and I've done smoked DMT and um this kind of stuff but I don't think that's I think that's healing I don't think that's um hedonism but but yeah so it was basically that and it was you know what it was

I think it was fear you know it was it was I was genuinely scared of myself when I was drunk or high I was genuinely scared of the fact that my mind could become so negligent and so maybe self-centered, yeah. Dude, I totally 100% relate to that. And also mine definitely got worse and worse and worse and worse to the extent where I kind of would have these almost blackouts, but I was still animated and walking and talking and doing things that were so self-centered, you know? And then kind of the next day the shame

I'd feel and the the fear around being like that that I'm capable of doing that is is a terrifying thing it's terrifying but but what's what I thought found even more fascinating was that the fear of myself was so was so powerful that i basically enabled me to become sober which is actually not the healthiest thing like it's quite it's it's it's almost a similar extreme do you know i mean it was like it was an extreme response to an extreme situation uh you know there obviously are benefits to that but um i then a year later, I smoked this thing called, um, five MEO DMT, which is the, the venom of a cane toad of a cane toad. Um, the first part of my trip, I was, I was literally, it was fucking terrifying. Like I can't, it was truly, truly truly it was fear in its truest sense and

but it was from that that I then went into this kind of state of bliss it pushes you so far out of your perception of self that if you're approaching it from just a space of like I just whatever I get I get then you know you're just left with this I suppose kind of freedom I remember I finished the trip it was about 35 minutes and I just kind of burst into tears. And then I just went to my mate's birthday. You know, I literally just, I just went and I felt full of life, you know, and I felt totally like one of the things that I was left with after that experience was a different perception on fear. But I remember when I went to my friend's birthday, I saw my other best mate there and he was like

you've just come from doing that trip to here and I'm like yeah bro like they told me it was blessed and I feel great you know and he was like wow that's crazy and then I went you know what I could drink right now right and I remember his face yeah when I said that he was like what's going on here and the reason I said that is because one of the things I felt so clearly after that trip was my sobriety was so based in that moment out of fear, not choice. It wasn't like I was genuinely scared of myself drinking. And after that experience, I wasn't. And so I just said to him, you know what? I'm not going to drink, but I want you to know that I could.

I get that. I could drink this now and I could not spiral because that's the faith I have in myself and now I feel like there's that more of a point where I'm in a you know a wonderful relationship now and and and you know I think I could drink with with her but I actually just don't want to because I just don't really want to feel shit that's literally it it's not that deep you know yeah I totally get that that's amazing the thing that I wanted to talk to you about as well was how you know you put up a lot of poetry which is amazing by the way and a lot of a lot of writing is that always been something that's been a way that you I look at it as like sort of dispelling

for lack of a better word demons sometimes because that's always been my go-to from a very young age instinctively that I would write poems that would sort of exercise a feeling that I didn't quite understand yeah yeah is that what it is for you as like a creative outlet and how long have you been doing it um I've loved poetry like as far back as I can remember genuinely my my granny V um was such a big part of the reason why I'm a writer and we used to sit down in her little flat in Finchley and she would you know get me to recite Chicken Soup for the Soul and and um read me a lot of john agard and so i've always written i was writing poetry as well as writing raps when i was younger i would do poetry nights in brighton and shit

but the the instagram thing's interesting because the reason i even started writing notes on instagram was because i got bored of my own face you know i like it i like because i like seeing my friends faces you know i mean i get it i'm like anti, I'm not anti a nice picture of a person, but it's that thing of usefulness again. You know, my friend Mackenzie would always say to me that if there's anything you can do with this influence is to be useful. So I was like, well, what can I just do on my Instagram that might be of use to people that what would, you know, someone connect with? And yeah. So I remember I had this piece of writing where I was just kind of in very short sentences just saying how I felt about quite large topics. And then it just popped off more so than pictures of my face.

And I was like, fuck, man, like, fuck. So I've decided to challenge myself to write more of those pieces. I've decided to challenge myself to write more of those pieces. And I've always been a little bit tentative of being preachy or prescriptive. And a lot of these notes I'm writing, I'm writing to myself as a response to a situation. So yeah, it is what you're saying, really. I'll feel something and then be like,

what is an interesting way of putting of putting that down or I like writing I like writing short sentences because when I was younger I used to write really long complicated ones and also I like describing something in an unusual manner so that's pretty much what it is I wrote something for my 29th birthday with the with the reference to Saturn yeah yeah yeah I love that and I think there was one line in there where I said, I've learned not to buy lifeboats off people who can't sail. Yeah, I love that. And that was because I suppose in the year of me writing these pieces, I noticed there's a real upturn in self-help.

I think we're living in such a chaotic, wild world that everybody's wanting to help everyone else out which is great but it's completely unregulated right and I do love that but I think to the same extent it's like I want to be clear that um yeah not everything you read is is necessarily a reflection of truth and and that I suppose I've been pausing to just yeah I suppose to just reassess what I can say that is actually of use. Rather than just doing it for doing it's sake. I think I liked writing, people like the short sentences I write

because it's also just a complete visualisation of my mind. You know, I like the idea that I can just say something about one topic and then hop to another one in the next sentence. And you're kind of on this continuous journey of just like, that's what my mind's like I just have all these thoughts happening at the same time um so yeah um all right Jordan well thank you so much for joining me and being a guest on Saturn Returns I love this conversation and I can't wait to share it with everyone it's a pleasure well I hope it's been of benefit to some people and i've i've enjoyed speaking to you it's interesting where you're at you know i mean i like it i love this the whole concept of the podcast and and it feels like we've been on a similar journey yeah yeah i think i think um

yeah it's fascinating and maybe we'll both find some respective farms. I do want everyone listening though, just to, I really want everyone just to think about how great nature is. And also I don't want people, I want people, if I'm trying to be useful in this podcast, I want people to just realize that like a lot of the states of emotion we find ourselves in or inhibitory

emotion or the kind of sense of maybe panic or frustration i think it's it's so understandable because the life we live in is absolutely preposterous it's it's so and humans are ridiculous we are ridiculous creatures and i just want people to just feel a sense of relief knowing that like whatever little spanner is in your works, like it is absolutely understandable. I love that. What is this? What is this? What is it, Kagi? I don't know. I'll come back to you with that one. What is this? What is this?

What are we doing? Why are we not just cartwheeling through fields now? That's a very good point. I don't know. There was so much of what Jordan said that I was like, I know what that feels like. I know those thoughts. I know those feelings. And it was really nice because the last time I spoke to him was like probably at a party 10 years ago or something like that we were both in the thick of that hedonism it was parties it was alcohol it was all the rest and who knew that we were probably feeling a similar kind of way

and after all this time to be able to have this very interesting and thought-provoking conversation and I particularly loved what he said about the bridge and those things that you need to check to see whether you're getting enough sleep, whether you're having enough solitude, whether you have your community, whether you're eating right, whether you're drinking enough water. And it sounds so simple, but it is so true. Just to be clear as well, psychedelic healing drugs are illegal in the UK and not recommended by most medical professionals. You can find Jordan on Instagram at Jordan F. Stevens, where you can discover some of his amazing writing. That's Stevens with a PH rather than a V.

You can also follow our astrological guide, Nora, on Instagram at Stars Incline, and you can follow me at Kagi's World. If you enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you could follow the show and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or just share it with a friend. Saturn Returns is a Feast Collective production. The producer is Hannah Varrell and the executive producer is Kate Taylor. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, you are not alone. Goodbye.