Saturn Returns with Caggie - 3.14 Transitions in life and love with Camille Charrière

Episode Date: July 5, 2021

Writer, influencer and darling of the fashion world Camille Charrière joins Caggie today for the last episode of season 3. Camille has amassed over a million followers on instagram and established herself as one of the most sought after women to work with in the fashion space. In this episode, she speaks openly about how she got to where she is now, the comparison culture that social media breeds, and her journey in love - how she learnt the importance of trusting timing, and met her fiancé. --- 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 Dallinor. This is a podcast that aims to bring clarity during transitional times where there can be confusion and doubt. I just was convinced that I wasn't going to meet anybody who would just see me for who I really am and would only see me instead for the version of myself that I created online. And that version didn't feel like who I really am. Today is rather bittersweet because it is the last episode of season three. But for it, I'm joined by the very wonderful Camille Cherrier, a darling of the fashion world, a writer and a personal friend.

She has one of my favorite fashion accounts on Instagram and I'm not the only one who feels that way. She has amassed over a million followers. Now, if like me, sometimes you see people on social media and you see this curated life that we all present to the world, you know, that's what Instagram does. In this episode, she really lifts the lid on how she feels about certain things. And she's so easy to talk to. She's so bright. And it was really interesting to hear how social media has impacted her on a personal level and the kind of effects it's had. We discussed comparison culture, our needs for external validation. She also takes us back to when she was younger and

some of the depression she experienced in her teenage years and the winding career path that ended up in the fashion industry. We also get into relationships. We discussed love addiction because she wrote a brilliant piece in Harper's Bazaar recently and how timing is everything. So I hope you enjoy this episode. Before we get into it, let's check in with our astrological guide, Nora. You hear Saturn, you hear discipline. By now, I think we all can connect these two together, but that's in its higher form. In its lower form, it can also cause compulsive repression. This repression doesn't necessarily come from a need to keep control or to be perfect. Rather, it just stems

out of fear, which can work for us or against us. For example, our ancestors managed this fear positively because they had to survive hostile natural environments in order for the human race to survive, right? That's why we're all here. So that's a positive way of using fear, using it as a motivator to achieve something that is absolutely crucial for our well-being, our legacy, our life path. But then we can also use this fear in a lesser beneficial way, in a way that owns us. And we've all done this at some point. Talking about the fear of judgment, whether it be the judgment of our family members, friends, community, societal norms, I mean like today it's social media, doing anything or conversely nothing

out of fear of judgment not only represses our authenticity, but it can also make us prone to needing to find validation and a need for acceptance outside of ourselves. So even when we achieve all of the things that we thought we wanted and that were expected from us, we'll still feel an emptiness inside simply because a lot of these choices and then also the rewards that came with those choices were misaligned with our true hopes and wishes for ourself, for our path, for our life. So if you are going through a Saturn return or you feel like Saturn is affecting you in this way in your own charts, meaning emphasizing fear and a need to please the norms of anybody else except for yourself, you could go back to your first experience

where you felt rejected or not accepted simply because you either voiced something that felt true to you or you did something that you really liked but that wasn't accepted and that maybe caused this need for you to repress your own needs so you can go back to that experience and then in a true Saturnian style you can start the inner work from there hi Kagi thank you so much for having me how are you doing I mean up and down I know I used to feel like this when I was much younger I used to have these massive ups and downs and I haven't felt like this in a while but at the moment I've just accepted that it's how it is yeah so when you when you say when you were younger when you were like how old

um when I was a teenager I got I got really badly depressed when I was in high school and I had to be taken out of high school for a few months. So is that at like 16 or younger? Yeah, 17. I had been made to go and do science when I was supposed to go and do literature. And I was so unhappy. It was just really bad. And my parents had made me do this. and my parents had made me do this and I think it was learning from a very early age how unhappy I was when I was doing something work-wise that didn't stimulate me that has led to a lot of

brave decisions that I've made subsequently in the rest of my career and life. So from 17 and when you went into that period of depression how long did that go on for and did it change when you changed course as in when you stopped doing science no no basically I I did like what everybody else did except that I just didn't go to school didn't revise and went and did my exams having not done anything and thinking I was going to fail everything and I did really well which probably wasn't a good thing because it taught me that I could wing things and just blag my way. And because of all this massive thing that happened to me, my parents then completely backflipped and tried to go and make me do literature. And I had secretly age, what was it, 18, gone and taken the test to go and do a bilingual law degree at the big university called Paris 10. And I came top of the whole thing and got offered a place to go to university in London.

So then when I told my parents that I was going to go and do law, they were really upset. They were like, you can't go and do this. And I said, of course I can. And I showed them, I remember showing them the letter and they couldn't believe it. And I actually turned it down. I didn't go to England because I'd felt I'd been so ill that it felt too scary to move to my parents, you are not making this decision for me. I want to do law. I'm going to go and do law. I won't go and do what they're offering and take the place at whatever university it was. But instead, I will go and do it here in Paris. And I loved it. I loved every minute of it. It was a really good decision. So in terms of your dynamic growing up with your parents, because this is something that I've been thinking about a lot in connection to One Satin Return is like sort of your emancipation from your parental figures and not in the sense that you have to divorce them about relationships. That's how we, you know, whether it's genetics, nature or nurture, we absorb so much through them that it obviously influences our life tremendously.

And what I'm kind of investigating at the moment is like the authority, how it shifts from being your parent to becoming you. Yeah, it's so interesting because I was so well behaved as a teenager like really I mean this is really stupid but it's a good example I've never tried smoking ever in my life and I know that surprises me so much because you're in fashion in your French I'm like what constantly my friends are constantly asking me for cigarettes and I'm like, what? People constantly, my friends are constantly asking me for cigarettes. And I'm like, for the millionth time. It was so weird. I just stood my ground.

My mom's dad died of lung cancer. And I knew that for her, she had this fear about smoking. And instead of pushing her on it, I just respected it. And pretty outstanding. I realize that now because, by the way, since then, I have indulged in a lot of incredibly bad behavior, but it did take kind of moving to London to, to kind of get me there because until then I think I was incredibly well behaved and I was seeking validation from then. I would say up until about maybe two or three years ago, I left law when I was probably

25, 26, which is a long time ago now because I'm 33. And I've been working in fashion for about, so it must be, yeah, what, eight years, something like that. Yeah. So for those that don't know, would you mind just kind of like explaining kind of about what you do now and how you got into that space? So I guess we'll go back to like the law part and then how you got to where you are. I don't even want to really talk about the law part and then how you got to where you are I don't even want to really talk about the law part anymore because it feels like it's no longer a part of me

I feel like a fool speaking about my law when I I mean I haven't done that now for too many years to count um I now work in fashion I I guess I'm an influencer I hate that word but I am um I work for a tv channel in France called Kenel Plus. I have a TV show with them. I have a podcast or had a podcast. It's on hold at the minute, but we'll be doing season three in a few months when this is all calmed down. It was too complicated to organize remotely. And I also do a lot of content creation, I guess. I write, as you know. You're an incredible writer. And I've got to say I don't like the word influencer as well because it kind of belittles what you are but in terms of what

you've created online it's it's amazing and like people really aspire to be like you and look up to you and it must be quite a lot of pressure what made made you kind of shift from, you know, that place at 26, 27, to go into where you are now? Well, this is why it's quite good that I've told you that story about when I was much younger, because what happened is that I moved to London for my boyfriend. My boyfriend was English at the time, and couldn't continue in law because I would have had to do another conversion course, which is two more years. And I couldn't afford that. So I got myself a job at a hedge fund in finance. Of course, I absolutely hated it. It was all the cliches. It really was. It was taking clients to strip clubs and cocaine. And I was just like, what the fuck is this? I was really not into any of that. And

when I quit, I didn't really know what I was going to do. But I'd been starting on my lunch breaks. I'd started this blog because I was so unhappy that I needed a creative outlet. So I'd started this blog and I was writing and I enjoyed it so much that I suddenly thought, I'm going to do this for a career. I'm going to go and figure out a way to get myself into the fashion industry and start writing and when I called home to say so I'm leaving I'm leaving my job and I'm not coming back to France and I'm going to go and work in fashion they were all like actually insane were they horrified they were absolutely hot they actually tried to send my brother to take me

home to bring me back I was just I mean I was pretty ballsy because I think about it now, I feel like I'm a lot less reckless and confident in my decisions than I used to be. That's a really big thing to just sort of figure out on your own. And I applied for a few jobs and I got a job at Net-A-Porter and it worked. What was your job there? I was on the editorial team. So we were writing for the magazine. It was for the edits. And that was incredible because that was my first experience in the fashion industry. But you got your foot in the door. I got my foot in the door. And because I was really nobody, I was writing my little blog and nobody really knew about it or cared about it.

Blogs were not a thing. You didn't have to like get it checked out by, you know, your employer. Nobody was worried that you were going to occupy space or whatever, because it was, it was really the first generation of people doing that. And it wasn't really, it definitely wasn't monetized. It was just something that you were doing again as a creative outlet. Was there anyone that you, at the time that you saw doing something similar and you were like, okay, that's what I'm going to do? Yeah, 100%. That's what happened. I went home for the Christmas holidays and I was sitting on my bed at Christmas and I landed by chance on a blog. Yeah.

A French blog called Biti Oti, Le Blog de Biti. I looked at it and I was like, well, this is great. She's just putting up her outfits and talking about them. I can do that. Right. I remember I was listening to Somewhere Over the Rainbow and I thought, okay, that's it. Cammy Over the Rainbow. It's my parallel universe. I didn't want to use my name. Yeah. Interesting. I kept it really secret and anonymous. Nobody around me really knew I was doing it. It really was for myself. And that's how it all started. But very quickly within, I'd say about,

within a year of me working at Net-A-Porter, I was earning more via my blog than I was via my job. So how, okay, firstly, I have a question about when you started it and you were putting these outfits together, did it feel totally effortless? No, it was a lot of work. Oh, really? Yes. Because you make it look totally effortless no it was a lot of work oh really yes because you make it look

so effortless and I'm like that is my time to make something look that cool effortless thing in the world even now I get even this for example this week my boyfriend is in France for work he's been there for about 10 days and I've been home alone and I've been getting really anxious about how little content I'm putting up, which shouldn't matter. It doesn't matter if you're not constantly putting stuff up, but for some reason, because it's so linked to my career and my identity online, it makes me feel anxious when I don't, which I hate. I really hate that fact. And I'm trying to break free from it, which is why this week I've really sat with that. And even though I'm frustrated

by it, I've really not caved and I've not put up selfies and things like that. I've just been like, you know what, like, wait until someone is here to help you. Don't feel the pressure of always needing to just, yeah, just do it because everybody else is would you say that it's interlinked with your sense of self-worth yes do you think that that's got worse as it as you've got I mean bigger in it yeah which should be the opposite it should feel less the case and instead it feels more and it's so linked with your identity it's it's it's really I don't know if I'm the only person that feels like this but if I go on my Instagram page and I've put up things that don't quite connect with who I am if I've written something that that I

don't think is good enough if I've put up an outfit that I don't love I feel like I'm basically lying to my audience, which is really weird. It's like, there are so many versions of ourself anyway. You couldn't create a sort of a map of yourself if you tried. So why do we expect the version of ourself online to reflect in any way who we are? It would be completely impossible and absurd to expect that. Well, I guess it's obviously it it that's why it's so interesting that social media obviously taps into a part of the human psyche that we we like to believe that we can just present like one facet of our being to the world and hide everything else and that is

addictive not only to project that of ourselves but to see other people doing it and then to feel bad about ourselves by seeing other people doing it so it creates this sort of it's like I call it a hedonic treadmill when it's like the you know the more you have the more you want and there's always someone else by comparison that will have more and because we're constantly exposing ourself to all these different things inevitably it actually even though you know the illusion on social media is that everyone's living this fantastic life the reality is we're all we're probably more disconnected than we've ever been you know paradoxically absolutely and and I mean I don't understand how someone like me who can see on a daily basis, A, how hard and how much I've

had to work to get here and B, how much effort everything is, you know, like taking a picture, putting it up, finding the right caption, like all this stuff takes so much time. But you make it look so seamless. It's not. And I think the fact that I know know that and yet I still am affected when I when I'm looking at other people's pages and comparing myself but to be honest like that is my that is my big flaw I do tend to I tend to compare myself to absolutely everyone and I'm not just talking about Instagram I always I'm always sort of looking at what everybody else well I think we all do everyone's experiencing it because in the day you know when I was and when we were growing up you compare yourself to the girls at school but

that was about the extent of it whereas now you know it's it's one thing for us but imagine growing up it's someone's perfect baby it's someone's perfect holiday it's someone's new book it's someone's like it's everything every single thing and it's completely silly so in terms of what you just said about you know having I guess projecting something on social media that may be an unrealistic ideal of of what one's life looks like or what one's wardrobe looks like or whatever does it make you question like a responsibility there sometimes I feel guilty the whole time really I'm I'm I mean I I struggle with it so so so much it's it's almost baffling that I'm still doing it.

Does it feel like at odds with you sometimes? Yes, massively. Most of the time, I would say. And yes, I'm a complete, I'm a Leo, I'm a show-off. I love being center stage. And then I feel really guilty for it. I mean, for example, if I buy myself something new that I've saved up for, I will still feel guilty about sharing it because I feel like, oh no, like other people could feel like I'm flaunting my privilege or whatever, you know? And it's, I wish I was a little bit more, I just didn't care. But I do. So, I mean, I guess it's the way I've been brought up, but. Yeah. Do you feel like you want to move, because you're doing a lot more writing now.

Yeah. And also the TV stuff. Would you say that that's a space that's feeling more aligned with where you're going? Yes. I mean, when I did start what I was doing, I was writing every day. The blog was a lot of writing.

And it was Instagram that swallowed that up because just, it just completely monopolized, um, the industry. Yeah. And, and I saw it as an opportunity. I had a business brain. I saw that that's where the audience was, that that's where the money was, that, um, that's also what the main currency had become, having followers on Instagram and still is. It seems to be one of the business world's big economies at the moment. You have a lot of power in this world at the moment if you've got an audience. And I don't know for how much longer it's going to be this way, but for the time being, it does actually serve those who do pretty well. So it's something that I this way but for the time being it does actually um it does actually serve those

who do pretty well so it's something that I did see as an opportunity but as a result I did move further and further away from what does um light you up light me up exactly and writing definitely does it's one of the most I find writing very very hard it's a very confronting exercise yeah but it's I guess it's it's probably quite vulnerable for you because I think anything that's very aligned with our truth always is. Yeah, probably. That blank page is terrifying, I think. Yeah. I think, you know, everybody knows what... Well, no, not everybody knows. I think I'm lucky to know that this is one of the things that

truly does fill me up and when I do share something um that I've written I genuinely feel that I have put out um good work regardless of how little or small big or small it is whereas it's true that creating content doesn't give me the same satisfaction at all. But I still do it because it's part of my career. So, yeah. So to bring it back to when you were working at Net-A-Porter, you said that there was that shift suddenly when the blog started making more money than your job at Net-A-Porter was. How quickly did that happen? So you've been doing the blog for like a year? Yeah, it was about a year, a year and a half. It wasn't that long. And then

was it suddenly a quick? The street style became massive. I'd been photographed at Fashion Week a few times. I'd weaseled. I wasn't invited. I just went. I just wanted to see what it was. I didn't know what it was. And I just went and I got photographed. And then I was posted on the street style pages. And back then, again, that was just a very high currency. If you were one of the girls that had been heralded as a street style star, whatever it was that they were calling people back then that was disability and that what meant that the few brands and it was very few back then few brands that were already using social media as a tool for me it was h&m h&m was the first brand that approached me but

they approached me with quite a big campaign they wanted me to shoot a video in paris and of course it's a it's a snowball effect when someone like that gives you a stamp of excellence other brands follow yeah wow and then how and then it kind of did snowball from there yeah then Vogue US um Sarah Moa wrote an article about French girls who'd moved to London and used me as the poster child for the article. Wow, that's quite an honour. Massive honour. I credit her for how quickly I was treated

like someone, a voice of authority, basically, within the industry. People like her truly do have, just holds a lot of power, you know, and that was in the fashion industry. It meant a lot. If somebody like V and it that was in the fashion industry if somebody somebody like Vogue says that you're one to watch then then suddenly you become one to watch totally from the way you're talking about it it's kind of like you know one person can say one thing

and it and it doesn't matter what the actual reality is it's like that then becomes well I don't know about that now because I think that's how the industry operated for a really long time. I don't think with the rise of social media that that is still the case. I think that now it is the general public that is choosing who it wants to follow and who it believes in. And I do actually think that that is the big change that the social media revolution has brought. Well, it's democratized everything. 100%. everything 100 but that is to me that's a good thing i mean people like me would not have had an opportunity unless i'd been using social media i i i went in through the back door you know i was 26 when i started working in fashion i hadn't done all the internships i didn't have the money to sustain

myself unless i was in a real job so i had a real job and I was doing this on the side. I think that most of the people that were working in places like Vogue or as journalists or in fashion cupboards had their parents paying their rent for them, which I didn't have. So I couldn't do that. I had to find another way in. Also, I didn't have any connections in the fashion industry. So I had to just figure out another way in. Well, there's also a lot of nepotism involved. So we've kind of gone over the dark side of social media, but I guess in the more positive aspect that how it has democratized things, we're living in a time where, like you said, the public decide, which can be an incredibly positive thing because we essentially can become our own talk shows, our own radio stations, our own whatever.

I think it's also why TikTok is so fascinating because Instagram has been over, has been around for a while now. It seems almost surreal to be able to sort of grow your following. It feels like a mountain to be climbed. So I think tiktok is is doing so well because it gives everybody their five minutes of fame your content could go viral no matter who you are i get why the younger generation who have watched people like me build massive careers and earn good money via social media but who now feel that it does feel like probably now we're the gatekeepers, you know, like it feels like it's difficult to build an audience now on social media because it's so saturated. So saturated, yeah.

The reason I have a lot of followers is because I started very early on. So there were not a lot of people. So it went quite fast. But now it's not the same. It's much harder unless you're Amanda Gorman and you speak at the inauguration and you've got three million new followers overnight, I think. Yeah, exactly. But those are few and far between these days. Yes, there are not many. And even she is, I mean, she's a star in her own right, but she is an exception. Okay. But then we go into a whole thing where it's like children growing up, you know, I was reading something yesterday that said 30% of young kids, when you ask them what they want to be, they say YouTubers. Yeah, I know.

And to be honest, I thought it would perhaps be more, but is that, you know, what is that going to mean for future generations that essentially things are based off? I read something recently and I can't remember the stats. I wouldn't be able to give it to you, but that a lot of kids feel like failures because they're not earning these huge amounts of money by the time they're 16, because they can see other kids of their generation suddenly becoming millionaires and becoming millionaires, not overnight, but over the course of like a year or so. And it's putting immense pressure on teenagers to measure success from the age of 20. I mean, I'm sorry, but my career has taken me,

and I still feel like I'm only at the beginning of it. Me too. I'm constantly evolving and my benchmarks and goals are constantly changing. And I can see how difficult it would be to grow up if this is the kind of main culture around you, the people that you're looking up to. Totally. I actually interviewed a girl, you know, she was the youngest guest I've had, I think she's 21. She's called Nia. And she was saying how, you know, some people her age would feel like a failure because they haven't bought a house yet I was like what like and that's because like you say they're seeing people as young as 16 who are becoming essentially millionaires overnight

and how that creates such an unrealistic expectation yep and we don't talk about the effects on all these youtubers tiktokers influencers instagrammers the impact that it has on their mental health this having to put on a performance and turn your real life into a reality tv show that you are editing yourself on a daily basis i don't know how happy you can be if this is it becomes such a huge part of your life. How do you put an end to it? How do you suddenly go back to living like a normal person if this is how you've lived your whole life?

Because it's external validation. Yeah. That then becomes essentially how you feel yourself worse. That's what you were asking me earlier. You were asking me whether, you know, if I was affected by how my content was performing and I hate to say it but of course I think all of us not all the time but you always you do think about it of course and it doesn't really I mean obviously there's the scale where you are but then there's a relativity to it so if a girl at school has a thousand followers and she gets X likes and one day she gets less or she gets more, it's the same dopamine hit.

I completely agree with that. And I think you can be just as warped if you're posting for a few than if you're posting for a lot. I think that's, yeah, that's a very fair point. yeah that's that's a very fair point is it something because you said it is something that you think about a lot do you know how you kind of want to unpin that connection I guess yes I want to start talking about it more it's also why I was very happy that you asked me to come on here I feel like if people like me talk more openly about the realities of it. I don't mean like so that people feel sorry for us. I realize how privileged this may sound. And I'm not trying to get you to fetch the tiny violins. That's not what I'm trying to do. I'm just saying it's worth talking about more openly how much anxiety comes from being connected all the time. We've all watched, or certainly if you guys haven't, you should watch the documentary called The Social Dilemma on Netflix.

Yeah, it was pretty sobering. The other thing that I wanted to discuss with you is you wrote an incredible piece about love addiction. Yes. And how sort of that played a really key role in you know your 20s and your I guess idealizing love which I definitely know I'm guilty of as well and so I can't there was so many you know it resonated with so many people I saw that it got such an amazing response but also I definitely read it and I was like yeah this kind of hits

home for me as well thank you so much and thank you for sharing it it actually meant a lot it was something that I was quite scared of putting out there it felt very um it was it was showing a part of myself that I think I'd been trying to hide for such a long time I don't think a lot of people knew how much of a struggle it was for me to date. I always thought that it was linked to the fact that I had such a big online presence, which doesn't really make sense because a lot of girls have got a lot of followers on Instagram and still have boyfriends. How was that connected for you? Because I convinced it, it goes back to worth. I'd convinced myself that no one worthy would want someone who does such a silly job. Wow. I just was convinced that

I wasn't going to meet anybody who would just see me for who I really am and would only see me instead for what the version of myself that I created online. And that version didn't feel like who I really am so I was I remember when I would meet men boys at the time I would never tell them what I did I would never share the name of my Instagram account whatever of course that's completely pointless. Everybody Googles everyone these days. And funnily enough, I always fell for boys that were completely invisible online. And I never knew this when I was falling for that. So it wasn't like I would Google and check that they had nothing online. And then I was like, cool, he's someone I'm going to be interested in. It was more like, I'm a very chemistry focused person. The person I was describing in the article was someone that I decided I'd fallen in love with basically the first night I met after having kissed him, which we can.

We've been there. We've all been there. But I then proceeded to try and Google him and look him up. And I couldn't find anything. He didn't have Instagram. He didn't use Facebook. And I was like, perfect. This is my ideal husband. Because also like, this is the thing that I really love the most about the man that I'm currently engaged to. Currently, as if I am engaged to. He doesn't give a shit. He respects what I've done and definitely doesn't make me feel

guilty or bad for having to post although he does not like when I'm spending too much time on my phone but he does really respect my career trajectory and has never made me feel embarrassed or guilty about having to do whatever I need to do to make a living. But on the other flip side of that, he would be very happy if I tomorrow turned around and said, I'm done with this. I want to do something else. So he doesn't like me for it and he doesn't not like me for it. Do you know what I'm trying to say? That's not very honest. No, but it's just, it is what it is what it is so would you essentially I guess what you're saying is that it was more about you acknowledging and being at peace with that part of yourself and really and what you did

because you were sort of putting that into relationship or why they weren't working or whatever but actually it's not because actually like and this is something that I did touch on in the piece because you read a lot when you're single about how you need to start by working on yourself before you're going to meet someone. Which can be a bit of a cop-out. Which I don't think is true. I don't think I had accepted myself when I met Francois.

I think he has really helped me accept because because he has no judgment I've started to feel a lot more relaxed about what I do and that's why I also wanted to give a little bit of hope in my piece to all the people who feel that until they fix themselves and all their issues they're never going to meet someone I don't think that's true it's not true and it's it's actually something that I have a massive problem with in, in the sort of spirituality and self-help world that it essentially, it's just a way of avoiding relationship because you're like, oh, I've got to work on this aspect of myself. But the reality is it's not like you become this perfect person and then your perfect person

shows up. Relationships are mirrors for where you have work to do on yourself, which can be uncomfortable and confronting. Yeah. And that's why I think the love addiction thing and surrounding yourself with toxic people can be really a common thing that happens when you yourself are not really feeling great about who you are. So that's what people mean when they say work on yourself. I think it's, it's more that I think when you give off a certain type of energy, you're not surrounding yourself by the kind of people that are going to make you happy and feel worthy. And because to me, a relationship has resulted in me working on a lot of things about myself.

And I think when you do meet the right person, you find someone with whom you want to grow. None of us are going to be static for the rest of our life. You don't meet someone and be like, okay, perfect. This is me now for the rest of my life. I'm done. On the contrary, being in a relationship is really, really hard. It's a lot of compromise. It's a lot of doing things that you wouldn't necessarily have done if you were just looking after yourself and your own problems.

And it challenges you to communicate things. I think your happiness is also something that now depends on what someone else wants to do and what their hopes and dreams are. And being with someone is hard. It means you have to, you can't be selfish all the time anymore. So's important to remember I think that's why when when we're a bit younger we project onto people that are not quite right because we're not ready yet to actually do all the things that would actually that a relationship would require of us yeah because I guess it's also that thing of does the right person come along when you're ready or when you're ready do you meet the right person in the sense of how much is it to do with that person and how much is it to do with where you are in your life I think there's no formula and this is the other thing like we have so much

control over so many things in our lives we think that this is something that we can sort of manifest but I just think there's a lot of luck. There's a lot of timing. I mean, I think also being aware of red flags and not investing time and energy into something that's definitely wrong and not going to go anywhere is something that you learn to get better at in time. I was definitely very bad at that when I was younger and got better and better at noticing when guys were really stringing me along or whether I was becoming really obsessive over someone who was definitely not in me. But those things you need to learn, you know, it's, it's, it takes time. 100%.

And the thing is, I think we always think that if someone doesn't want us, it's our fault. It's we've done something wrong. We're not good enough. We're not pretty enough. We're not smart enough. We're not whatever it is. And actually, often it says more about where that person is at that time in their life. and we talk about this a lot with my with my fiance how if we'd met two or three years ago we would never have worked timing is everything and I'm completely aware of that I think I would have a probably not noticed him as a person and be also not being prepared to put in the work that a relationship actually requires. Not really. Yeah, I get that. It's a real challenging thing, I think, of post-Saturn return when you're like, you realize that a relationship has to be, you know, for it to be rooted in reality, you have to really dedicate yourself to it in a way that I think throughout my 20s, I was never willing to do yeah and also like you need to remember that there are different chapters and

things that are important in your life I mean your career is obviously important your friendships are really important your family is really important your finding a partner is important all these things take a lot of time and you can't do everything at the same time. So it's, it's okay to work on, you know, like, like just acknowledge that a few areas of your life are going well versus others that perhaps are not the best that they could be, but that's, that's normal. Yeah. Um, and to round up, cause I think we have covered so much ground, but is there anything that you'd want to share with our listeners who are, you know, navigating the complexities of career or relationship through their Saturn maternal twenties? Any pearls of wisdom? I want to be positive. But the thing is, what I have experienced is that this involves a lot of loss.

It involves a lot of accepting that you have to shed a version of yourself that is no longer serving you, that you have to perhaps surround yourself with the people in your life that are the most in tune to what you're going through. And sometimes that means not being able to carry through friendships that have meant the world to you, but that suddenly don't seem to click anymore. And admitting that is very hard, I think. And a lot of other things. I think I used to, you know, I used to want to do everything. And, you know, I wanted to be able to be partying and working and, you know, I used to want to do everything. And, you know, I wanted to be able to be partying

and working and, you know, having all the friends and like being at every event. And suddenly you just realize there's no more time for that. If you want to be working on yourself and making things happen for yourself, there's a lot of things that you have to turn down and stay away from. And actually, I think that has been hard for me to admit. And I think it's something that we don't talk about much. I completely agree. At the beginning, I was like, I want to be positive as if this was something negative. I don't think it's something negative. I just think it's something that's really hard to go through. It's growing pains. And it's something that I didn't expect to have to sort of look back on all those

younger fun years and think well that's not going to work for me anymore and have to figure out who I am then going forward and that's not easy but that's okay yeah well I think that's okay. Yeah. Well, I think that's perfect. I really enjoyed having this conversation with Camille and I feel like I could talk to her for hours and hours about so many things, because like I said, she's so bright. She's so interesting and she was very honest about her own experience. And just to add and reiterate what we said in the conversation, I understand the privilege and having a following and being able to be in this space and have this influence is an incredible privilege, and that's not to be disregarded in any way.

However, what's very interesting about it is that she's coming to these realisations now that writing is what really lights her up what really feeds her soul and I guess part of my mission with this podcast and it's just happened organically is for people to really tune into their purpose that doesn't always mean that it's going to be your breadwinner and it doesn't always mean that it's going to align with the external world and by that I mean sometimes the world is going to tell us who they think we should be and it's a hard thing to be able to discern what's true for you versus what the world is telling you

and so to kind of wrap up this season I hope that like me you may have taken away what can I do for me what have I been denying myself what is my soul yearning for where can I start pursuing these things even in a very organic light way because I think we talk ourselves out of so many creative endeavors or passions because we feel like it's not, we're not going to be the best at it, we're not going to win at it, but it's really not about that, I think it's about having these things as a personal outlet of self-expression and from what I gathered from speaking with Camille, like she's such an incredible writer and I hope that she continues to push in that direction because it sounds like it really lights up her soul so that was one of my

takeaways and I hope you enjoyed this conversation you can find Camille on Instagram at Camille Cherie that's Camille with two l's and then Cherie is spelt c-h-a-r-r-i-e-r-e and you can follow our astrological guide Nora on Instagram at stars incline and you can follow me at kaggy's world if you have enjoyed this season of Saturn returns and you haven't listened to seasons one and two please go back and binge on all of them I love hearing from you guys I love hearing what these episodes mean to you what you've uncovered about yourself in the process so I hope we can continue to grow this community we'll be taking a short break before we come back for season four and just to add before we sign off I wanted to say a personal thank you because I don't think you guys realize how much I need you as much as like I know I get a

lot of messages about the podcast and saying what it's meant and in a moment I'm going to share with you one of the reviews on Apple because you know seeing those and realizing how it's impacted you it really affects me in such a meaningful way and it has helped me be more accountable for my own life my own journey it seems every episode the themes that we navigate and discuss I intellectually grasp and then I have to live it it's sort of it's almost like the universe will be like okay now here's the lesson and so it has been a wild journey for me over the last year, but I really believe in this community and how we can all support each other, and I hope we continue to do so.

So on that note, here is one of the reviews from one of our friends on Apple. Kagi's podcast often brings me what I need before I realize I need it. She covers so many topics with great guests, and this has made me feel a little less lost on my own journey. I'm 29 and like many others going through life's ups and downs, navigating spiritual awakenings, realizations, changing as a person and entering adulthood,

30s. Feeling lonely, leaving the booze behind and so many more things. It's hard to put into words how much this podcast has helped me. So honestly, when I read things like that, it just means so much to me because it's helped me. And I think the whole point of creating this show was that I felt very lost on my own journey and it's it always feels very individual it feels like we're the only one that's experiencing it but what I've realized from creating this is that we aren't alone we have each other being our authentic selves being able to be vulnerable is so liberating and it's actually so empowering paradoxically because i think we think if we are vulnerable and expose our truth that it will you know we'll break down in some way but it's really

not the case so anyway i won't go on too much but we will be back bigger and better and i can't wait for what's to come. Thanks again. Saturn Returns is a Feast Collective production. The producer is Hannah Barrell and the executive producer is Kate Taylor. Thank you so much for listening. And remember, you are not alone. Goodbye.