Saturn Returns with Caggie - 4.4 Neuroscience and Manifestation with Dr Tara Swart

Episode Date: October 11, 2021

Tara is a doctor and neuroscientist who studied at Oxford University and King's College London, and specialised in psychiatry before leaving medicine to set up her own business coaching executives. Her work sits at the intersection between science and spirituality, and her book The Source: Open Your Mind, Change Your Life became a bestseller when it was published in 2019. Caggie and Tara discuss manifestation and the laws of attraction, why it is important to cultivate our values before chasing material goals, the importance of vision boards, and how to rewire the brain to create new neural pathways. --- 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 really want to help people to understand how amazing their brains are and how much they're capable of reaching potential that they're aware of and even maybe that they're not aware of. My guest today is Dr Tara Schwartz. She's a best-selling author, neuroscientist, leadership advisor and a medical doctor. She was educated at Oxford University and King's College London and her role as senior lecturer at MIT and guest lecturer at Oxford ensures that she remains at the forefront of the latest developments in her sector.

Her book The Source, The Secrets of the Universe, The Science of the Brain became a bestseller. Now I wanted to speak to Tara because I was familiar with her work through Lacey Phillips, who has the Expanded podcast. Now this is all about manifestation and she backs it up with neuroscience, which is what Tara does. Now manifestation is a big buzzword at the moment and we delve into that and kind of the complexities of it. But I really wanted to speak to someone that could ground everything in science and that could marry astrology and spirituality with science. So she was the perfect person to speak to you for this because she is so accomplished. She's so impressive, but above all, she's incredibly

kind and humble. And I felt very at ease and very familiar talking to her. It was like talking to an old friend. We start by discussing how she's already familiar with astrology and how it was part of her culture growing up. And we discuss the fascinating intersection between science and spirituality. We also touch on the importance of values because it is my belief that before we start manifesting things, we really need to get clear on why we're manifesting them. We also explore vision boards, which I'm a big fan of. So I hope you enjoy today's episode. It's very fascinating and I loved talking with Tara. But before we get into this episode, let's hear from our astrological guide, Nora. Material manifestation is one of the few subjects that was irrelevant in the occult before modern times.

Why? Because the knowledge of the occult and of the unseen was reserved for the elite, those who already had wealth, already possessed material comforts and everything that came with that. There were those that had the time and comfort to admire the arts and philosophy and the great thinkers and sponsor them. They also had the means to employ astrologists and those of a more mystical nature. They did this in order to achieve soul liberation, to have a beautiful afterlife, in other words. So enter these modern eras, more material times. Those that we are currently living in and suddenly the occult and laws of manifestation have found their ways to the masses and they have as a purpose to help us fulfill material goals, to use the laws of energy in our favor. Saturn is a planet of the people. It's a planet of equality and of justice and it loves when knowledge is being shared in an equal way,

when it's accessible to everybody. It also loves when people are able to live out their lives in an authentic way, yet are able to fulfill their material goals, since this incarnation in itself does have a material purpose. Like we've discussed in the previous season, it is also associated with our carnal desires in its younger stage. It's also associated with the root chakra. Once we have explored all that we desire and wish to manifest, or at least once we are aware of it, Saturn comes along in form of a transit, but more

often when it's time for Saturn return, and it confronts us with a few questions. It asks us, is what you are materializing everything you had hoped for? Are you manifestations in service of your soul? Or are they an expression of your physical desires and enslavements? It asks us to balance it all out. It doesn't mind us aiming for the stars and landing on the moon, so long as we're not sacrificing the sanctity of our authentic soul's expression in favor of fleeting pleasures,

they're probably just a distraction to begin with. So in astrology, you can look at your Saturn's placements in your charts. You can look at its sign, the degree that it's in, the house that it's placed in, and have a glimpse of your purpose and of the great work you are meant to fulfill in this lifetime in order to achieve your soul's liberation. This might surprise you, but I'm actually really into astrology. I think it's because of my Indian roots. So in my culture, when a child is born, their birth chart is instructed immediately. So I've always had one. And when I was older, I had it redone and I was kind of like, wow, this

it's not a coincidence. There's, you know, the science to it is the fact that the planets are in a certain position, and they were used for navigation for centuries. So all the things that are seen as alternative, to me, astrology is the one that actually has some kind of physical basis. I love that. I did actually really love at school when we learned about the planets and everything. I think in my mind, at every stage that I came into in touch with anything to do with astrology, it just cemented my belief that it had a scientific basis. So actually, if you look back at the timeline of neuroscience, like when the first brain cell was identified, and when people understood, you know, how it worked and things like that, if you go back even further, there's quite a lot of evidence

that Ayurveda, which translates as the science of life, is actually the starting point of neuroscience. And I mean, sophisticated scanning techniques have only been here for about 25 years. But at some point, probably when science became more of a thing, I think medicine and, you know, Chinese herbal medicine and Ayurveda and all of those things split up. And one of the key phrases in spirituality is, there is no separation. And I've always wondered why, why do those things have to be separate? Why can't you use, you know, sort of modern medicine and traditional medicine? And it's exactly the same with astrology. Why can't you live your life,

maybe in a particular religious belief or, you know, in a very professional way, you know, professional, like that doesn't go with woo-woo stuff, but also do that. And that was a really personal journey for me to sort of have that persona of being a doctor and a scientist. And on a previous podcast in America, the guy actually said to me, did you not think you were taking a risk writing a book about spirituality? I mean, you're a professor at MIT. The most kind of techie university.

You know, it's one thing for me to do. I was a reality TV star. It's only up from here. But you on the other hand, it's a bit more of a risk. I think it was a really true journey. So I went on the journey for myself and I expressed that outwardly through the book. And I really saw when I did my research about the laws of attraction and manifestation,

how absolutely aligned the neuroscience was with those things. You know, there were a couple of things I couldn't explain, but like 80, 90 percent of them, it was sort of like, oh, yeah yeah that's how that works in the brain yeah so would you say that it's sped up your spiritual journey a little bit I do actually I would say that because I mean I've been somebody who would meditate and do yoga for many many years like over a decade but what I learned I naturally in lockdown just stopped formally meditating most of the time and just lived in a really mindful way like mindful eating and sort of growing my own vegetables and you know being much more into composting and recycling and things than I had been and really like living with the seasons and nature and everything and then I was in a spiritual conversation on Clubhouse and somebody said,

who studies this, that that's actually an evolution of spirituality in your life, which is that at first it's separate. It's the 10 minutes that you meditate, it's the 90 minute yoga class, and then you go back to your normal life. But there is a stage beyond which you don't necessarily do those things but your whole life is more mindful and spiritual so I was quite pleased I was like oh I've obviously naturally gone through that I love that and actually I really relate to that because a lot of people ask me about my routine my spiritual practice and it's probably less in a way but it's now you mentioned that I try and make it part of everything I do and the intentionality behind it. It because ultimately, these things shift your your values. And this is

something that I want to get into. Because before we dive into manifestation, which is obviously some it's a massive buzzword at the moment, as is mindfulness as is authenticity and these are all really important concepts but I want us to kind of break down what's at the root of each of them or what should be before people start practicing and using these tools and so I would like to kind of just get the like the basics of how we get to our root values before we start manifesting. Yeah, okay. So I believe that materialism is actually making us unhappier than ever. I completely agree.

We've got bigger houses, faster cars. More options. Yeah, but we're less happy than ever before. We were happier when we were walking around on the savannah barefoot, you know, sort of actually looking at the stars and the moon at night and sitting around the fire with our families and stuff. So, I mean, I sort of feel like a real sage or kind of like Yoda or the Dalai Lama if I say like materialism is the opposite of happiness. But I just still think there's a lot of people that don't think that at all. And I think it's fine to have material goods and nice things and spare money,

but those things should only be a by-product of your spiritual journey. And I've seen that happen to me. What I've seen is the less that I focus on anything material being on my vision board, the wealthier I've become in, you know, many angles, including love and happiness and home and things like that, but also financial. So it was almost like, you know, when I stopped focusing on that as a need,

it became sort of bigger than I could ever have imagined. And another thing I want to say is, we don't know everything that can happen. And I'm a really big believer in actually leaving some space on my, what I call an action board or in my manifestations and trusting that, you know, God, the universe, the planets, whatever you'd like to call it, may have something bigger in store for me than what my little mind is able to imagine is the best thing that I can possibly, you know, achieve. So, and that is based on how the brain works, because we have this very strong need to avoid loss. It's two to two and a half times

stronger than our willingness to go and take a healthy risk and try and get a reward like a, you know, a better job or a new relationship so it's quite important to not be limited by your own you know fear fears yeah I actually I was writing about this recently and I referred to it as the the fertile void where you when I went through this transit and I went through you you know, depression and all the things and looking back, I'm so grateful for them because they enriched me and created a whole new way of being and living and seeing the world. But I think we live in a culture that's like fills up everything. And we live in a world where we don't want space. And look, I'm very guilty of this as well.

Like I could definitely create a lot more mental space in my life. How would you suggest, because obviously meditating is a way that people do this. How would you suggest people can do it? Actually, there's some new scientific evidence that says that spending time in nature is one of the healthiest things that you can do for your mental health and your spiritual evolution. And, you know, even if you live in London, you can, you know, get to a park or go down by the river or, you know, even if it's just your little balcony or your windowsill and, you know, looking out of the window, there are really small things to bigger things that we can all do to try to bring that into our lives more personally I find music is a really

good way to kind of get into that meditative state and for other people you know dance or art I think yeah art is a really powerful one I and I always try and push this message that it doesn't have to be your job or your career, but it's just as a means of self-expression. Creativity is a really powerful thing. I think incorporating these things, even if they're very subtle and small at the beginning, they really do bring happiness. And look, I've got to acknowledge here that we are talking as two privileged people that live in nice parts of you know one of the greatest cities in the world so yeah that's just an important caveat to mention but equally I think it was my experience when I was living in LA and I was seeing a huge amount of wealth fame all the things that people aspire to have. Well, a lot of people

aspire to have. And I also saw on the other side of the coin, the most unhappiness and sadness and depression and drugs and all, all the really, there was like, you know, it's the dark side of the American dream and it's, it's very real. And that kind of made me start thinking, why am I chasing these things? Who told me to chase them? And what is really at the end of it? And to really kind of have to shift my own values. I literally got goosebumps with the way you said, who told me that I want those things? Because I haven't ever put it like that to myself, but that's a brilliant way of starting to ask yourself those questions like,

what do you really want to do? I mean, for me, it happened, it obviously had been a thought process for a couple of years, I was thinking of leaving medicine, but I woke up one morning and I thought, everyone said, you're so clever, you should go to medical school. Then they said, you're so clever, you should do a PhD. And I just thought, if I'm so clever, I should be able to do whatever I want to do. And I've never even known what that was, because, you know, that's what my parents' expectation was, that I would become a doctor. And, you know, I was very much a grown adult by the time I first actually said to myself, what would you have chosen to do at university or, you know, in terms of a career if nobody else had told you what they thought you should do? So coaching was

the thing that I went into. And I do, I love it. But what it's evolved into more of the spirituality piece is just, you know, I mean, I just have these times where I now feel like I know the reason that I was put on this earth. I know what I was meant to do and I'm doing it. And that's amazing. And I was thinking also, I can't believe you said the dark side of the American dreams. I'm actually working on a TV show with some guys in LA and we were sort of talking about manifestation and, you know, different things that people want in their lives. And I said to them, I do not want any episode about gaining material wealth. I'm against that. There's definitely a reason that the American dream came about, you know, after a period of hardship and everything. But it's like we need

the American dream 2.0. Because all of those things that are in the American dream are not making people happy. The mental health statistics show that. So it's exactly the words that you said, mental health statistics show that. So it's exactly the words that you said, authenticity, purpose, maybe even legacy, you know, and legacy not being that you leave your children millions of dollars, because there's that whole phrase like rags to rags in three generations, clogs to clogs in three generations, rice paddy to rice paddy in three generations. I mean, it's in every culture. So it's about kind of, you know, leaving something meaningful in the world. What can you talk about the TV show? Yeah, it's very, very early stages, but it's basically it's about reinvention, but not on the superficial level.

So it's about reinvention via neuroplasticity, which is the fact that our brains keep changing throughout life and we can actually do things to, you know, change the way that we think, change the way that we experience emotions, change the decisions that we make in life. I really want to help people to understand how amazing their brains are and how much they're capable of reaching potential that they're aware of and even maybe that they're not aware of by understanding just very simple things about how your brain works well can we get into some of that then yes um so i actually wanted to to segue here into how i sort of reworked the laws of attraction using yes and neuroscience please do so when i started into it, which was over a summer holiday a few years ago, south of France, and what I saw was that there isn't even real agreement about what the laws of attraction are. So, you know, if you look at various spiritual sites, it's usually 12, but there's quite some different things. So I sort of went through and distilled it

down and I decided to group it into six sort of categories and they were abundance so abundance is about overturning that loss avoidance that our brain naturally has and thinking big and believing and taking some healthy risks and then manifestation which is making in the real world the things that you want come true magnetic desire is very close to what you speak about in that it's what do you truly want that you have such a strong emotional pull towards not what everybody else you know says you should have or everybody else is doing so even things like the fact that at the age of 30 most girls girls think, oh my God, I should be engaged or married and having my first baby. I mean, that's just not right for everyone, but there's so much pressure. And then I put patience because people will say, okay, you know, I'd like to get engaged or I'd

like to have a house in Hamptons. And then they're like, why is it not happening? Usually the answer is because you're not dating or you're like, you know, dating the wrong kind of people. You're not getting yourself into a career where you can generate enough income to make that happen. So, and with the neuroscience, when you are changing a neural pathway in your brain, when you're learning something new, when you're doing things differently, when you're having better boundaries than you did in a previous relationship, that is actually really hard physical work. It's like building a path. And you go from the motorway that you always used to drive on

and suddenly you're driving on a dirt road and it's like, oh, I'm not used to this. I'm not good at this. And it's very easy to give up. And so the patience part is about understanding that your brain is actually changing physically when you're doing things differently and then I put harmony because there's a couple of things about manifestation I don't like as well which are that if you think bad thoughts or negative thoughts or you think about illness

you know something bad's going to happen to you I think that's it's obviously not true but it's also very dangerous because it pushes people into this toxic positivity, which is like, everything's great all the time. Someone actually wrote to me on Instagram and asked me a question. What, you know, what do you think about this life decision that I'm considering? And then said, I don't want to think about the pros and cons, because if I think about the cons, I might manifest them. And so I said, I completely think it's fine for you to make whichever decision you want to in the end, I might manifest them. And so I said, I completely think it's fine for you to make whichever decision you want to in the end, as long as you've done the proper

psychological work to understand why you want to make that decision. But also weighing up pros and cons doesn't manifest bad things. So I'm a big believer in actually asking myself, okay, what are all my coaching clients? What are all the potential barriers to you achieving this success or whatever's on your manifestation list? So the harmony piece is that you can't do anything that is going to have a bad impact on someone else. You can't do something that's really selfish. It's related to abundance, that there are enough resources for everyone. And if you knowingly, willingly do something that's damaging someone else, then that's not really part of manifestation and authenticity. And the final one is universal connection, which I didn't write a lot about at the time. I've thought about it a lot more now, which is, you know, about things like a collective consciousness.

People that I've been so lucky to have conversations with, like Deepak Chopra and Bruce Lipton talk about a field of energy that we're all part of and you know understanding that when you well not you but one says you know what I want is is to like get married and have this high-flying job in this really lovely house that you're not doing that in isolation everything Everything that you do has an impact on people around you. And that indeed, you know, what people are thinking and feeling even in other parts of the world can have an impact on you. I mean, at the beginning of lockdown, we had this phenomenon of vivid dreaming that was a global phenomenon that hasn't happened since the world wars. Really?

It's, I mean, dreaming or like or like you know visual imagery is really related to processing emotions and laying down memories and sort of avoiding PTSD so post-traumatic stress disorder is when imagery keeps coming up in your mind because you haven't processed it emotionally and dreaming is a really good way of processing that and so we were processing fear and anxiety and containment and things in these really vivid dreams. And it actually happened to me. And then a journalist phoned me up and asked me about it. So I did the research and it was it happened during the two world wars. So when everybody in the world is going through something, they respond psychologically in a similar way.

But, you know, there's probably more to it than we than we understand. I always say science fiction is just science that hasn't been proven yet there's definitely like hormonal connections between people the way that we interact with each other things like the fact that girls who live together or work really closely together synchronize their periods I know I was just going to mention that yeah and did you know that when you're fertile you are more likely to go for a bad boy. And when you're having your period, you're more likely to go for husband material. No way. That's just, that's blown my mind.

I mean, this last, the last year, basically two years now, is what I found fascinating by it. And what you've just mentioned about vivid dreaming really echoes that, is that we've all gone through a collective and a personal crisis simultaneously. So we've all been unearthing our own demons in a way that we really, most of us didn't want to, let's be honest. But I do think that when we unearth these things, like we have to, do you know what I mean? These things have to come up to the surface and it is a painful experience, but it's the only way that we can kind of progress through them yeah that's why i do believe that planetary movements jolt us out of situations when we're either in autopilot or going down the wrong path and even if somebody's skeptical of that there's no harm in including that that in your belief system and seeing if it makes

any sense, explain something to you, helps you to manage a situation differently. I think that most of us, not all people, obviously, because having worked on psychiatric boards, I've seen when this has not gone right. But most of us, if we do learn from a bad situation, become more resilient in future and can you know sort of deal with it based on some patterns that we recognize in future yeah and my view on it for the for the naysayers is like if it has meaning to someone it matters and so from your perspective as a scientist like how does that affect the brain in terms of if someone is going through a crisis point and they lean on something that

gives them some sort of structure like how can that have a benefit on our wiring yeah so i think i think there's two sides to this coin as well which is that sometimes when you feel very helpless and you do feel like you're a victim of life you need to hold on to something to help you to make sense of what's going on and you know that can of course be drugs or alcohol it could be astrology it could be therapy you know it can be all sorts of things yeah personally i feel that if all it does is allow you to access your intuition if if you know some sort of commentary about your, you know, astrological situation at the moment rings a bell, you know, makes a light bulb go off, makes you think of something that you wouldn't have thought of. That's only good. It's more data. As a scientist, that's what I would say. It's more data. you said so linearly, but also by overly relying on our logic and not listening to our bodies,

not, you know, thinking that emotions aren't important, not honing our intuition, not building our creativity. And the more you do those things, and for some people that will include bringing in some astrology or any, anything else, you know, that you bring into your life then you're just increasing the usage of different brain pathways than the one you've always relied on and I think that has to be a good thing in terms of our pastening and our emotions which are so subconscious and not only are we working on a subconscious level a lot of the time, or we have to, we have to tap into that. But also we're working with things that are generational and have gone on for millennia. And so we're at this point now where a lot of the things that did serve us once upon a time, they're actually now counterproductive.

What are some of the things that you've observed that are through our brain wiring that now are no longer of service to us? So many things. And one of my key questions, and I have used it with clients, is what are you still fighting for or fighting to prove that you don't have to anymore? So I think sometimes we have certain aspirations in our life for so long that we never we never actually acknowledge that we've achieved them so you're still operating from that sort of yeah striving for validation but then as soon as you get something you just move on to the next thing that you don't have so you're you know that's that's an example that's the American dream

I know I mean it's so it's basically it's like you can never be happy with what you've got. And I think that true happiness is just being content with what you've got. As long as you still want something more than what you've got, you can't really be happy. Well, I think it's the balance between striving for more but being content with less. Yeah. Because we need to have goals. We're goal-orientated creatures. Yeah.

You know, because we need to have goals. We're goal-orientated creatures. When we were, you know, having to just survive for food, like that's how we are, and now we do it for money or material gains. But we're just at a point where we're like dissatisfied. We're chronically dissatisfied. And in terms of getting into some of the science of it, because we've got you on, we might as well get into the uh the nerdiest stuff because it's just I mean it's so beyond me but I'm really fascinated by it and I think it's really

important in terms of understanding our brain so there's three main ways that the brain works that contribute to visualization and manifestation kind of you know working if you if you pay attention to it and the first one is selective filtering so if you think about how much information our senses are bombarded with all the time there is obviously a natural filtering mechanism of the brain the one that we're more most aware of is that you don't feel your clothes on your body all day although you've got obviously receptors for sensation on your all over your body, all over your skin. And actually, what you read now, in a week's worth of newspapers, is the amount of information that somebody would have received in their entire lifetime,

like 100 years ago. Whoa. Yes. So it was always the gearing of the brain to filter out things that you don't really need to pay attention to, but we're overly bombarded with information now. So that filtering process, that, you know, it goes on passively, but you can direct that filtering process. So that's why making an action board

or like having, you know having a list of manifestation goals is important because it triggers your brain for, oh, that's something that I want because I thought about that the other day or I saw that on my board or whatever. So it's taking more control of the filtering that's going on and not sort of being so busy and worried about things like putting food on the table that you just miss these other opportunities that you actually really want for longer term goals.

And then selective attention is once all the stuff's filtered out that you aren't interested in, that you actually pay attention to the things that you are interested in. And the classic example is with a car. But even if you've just bought a new pair of trainers or something, you suddenly notice everybody else that has that car or those trainers. So that's selective attention. And so that's priming your brain to really notice the things that you want to, like opportunities that you want to grasp. And then the final piece of it is called value tagging,

which is that list of things that you are paying attention to have to be put in order of importance because they can't all be the same. And value tagging works logically, like there are some things that are relevant to your survival, like you have to earn enough money to eat and you, you know, you have to be part of a family or a social group or a team because you can't really survive completely by yourself. And there's also an emotional element to it which is comes back to what I call magnetic desire and what you call authenticity you know the things that you really really want the things that you feel you were put on this earth to do so basically connecting to what those things are and I don't think I'm going to be able

to really answer your question about how do people find out what those things are because like I said I think it happens at different ages for different people I think it happens to process reasons yeah exactly and it changes as well it that's true yeah it changes but if you never make time to think about it you definitely won't know what they are so yeah so those are the three mechanisms um in the brain behind manifestation and visualization but also neuroplasticity is super important the fact that you can change you can change your relationship patterns you can change how you manage emotions etc etc then you touched on something where you talked about generational you know things that served us generations ago that don't serve us now kind of

thing and there's this whole other field called epigenetics which is the effect of the environment on your genes and so the most famous examples of that that have had research across generations are things like the holocaust and slavery but a really specific one is the dutch famine so during the dutch famine it was like one of, if not the worst case of starvation, you know, that's been documented in history. People's appetite genes changed so that you could survive without eating for longer. So appetite suppression became a thing. And what we saw was that in subsequent generations who hadn't experienced the Dutch famine themselves, their appetite hormones were different. They weren't always exactly the same. So with the Holocaust, it's stress. And so it can actually mean that you're a much more anxious person in subsequent generations, or it can mean

that actually you're a more resilient person. So there are several factors that change that. And where there are whole cultural groups that go through things like slavery or genocide and several countries that are named, if you Google this, there can be a sense of isolation, being different, lack of trust that just pervades subsequent generations, and they don't really know why. That's fascinating. And in terms of people, they don't really know why. That's fascinating. And in terms of like people, for those people listening to rewire their pathways, do you have any tools or strategies for how people can start that process? Yeah, absolutely. And so the last four chapters of my book are completely practical exercises. And they're based on the the science which says that first of all you

have to start by raising awareness so you have to bring from non-conscious to conscious what it is that's running your life because most of the things are so embedded from childhood that we're not even aware of them so it's partly that but it's also just having goals you know actually having goals not just going through life and sort of feeling like a victim. So raising your awareness as much as possible. Then it's about focused attention, which really relates to visualization and manifestation. So looking for opportunities to better yourself, to learn new things, to move towards your goals. And deliberate practice is then really going out there and deliberately living in a way that is aligned to what you you know want in the end and the fourth part is accountability so that's either

having a vision board or a friend or a therapist or a journal or you know whatever your version of accountability is that makes you not give up I would say if if your you know listeners go out and do one thing it would be to create an action board and have it by their bed and look at it every night before they fall asleep that's like the minimum that I would encourage people to do I love that and that's quite it's like I used to do that with my homework I used to sleep with it under my pillow hoping with lines I had to learn or something like that I was like and it honestly but um what I wanted to mention and this kind of ties into this what we talked about at the beginning of how people think well I don't want to think bad thoughts because I might manifest them

I do understand it because it's like when you wake up and you stub your toe and you go it's going to be one of those days and then literally that day just like it you know you missed the bus it goes like that because your your brain is then picking up on all the things that aren't going right rather than thinking of all the things that are so I think it's more about saying that if I wake up in the morning and stub my toe that I I could choose to say, oh, wow, all the bad things that were going to happen to me today have just happened like straight away. So now I'm going to have a really great day. Because what you think changes the day. And again, behavioral economics. The example is with like losing $10 or gaining $10. If we find $10 on the street, we're happy for like a small moment and then we

kind of forget about it. But if we lose something, we dwell on that over and over again. We might still be thinking about it when we're lying in bed at night. So where, you know, the examples that you've given of, I miss the bus or like the traffic lights are all red or whatever. It is quite important to reframe that, not in a toxic positive way, but in a more, you know, that it doesn't ruin the rest of your day kind of way yeah in a let it go kind of way the other thing before I let you go I've written down something else that I have no idea what it means bdnf have you just been like googling me and reading things and watching things and then picking out

words that you obviously looked at and thought, oh, that's interesting. And then classic me, I'll do it. And then I'll remember what it means. And then I don't. It's brain derived neurotrophic factor. So it's basically, it's a type of endorphin. It's only in the brain and central nervous system. And trophic means growth. So it's only in the in the brain and central nervous system and trophic means growth so it's growth of baby nerve cells into adult nerve cells now if you have you know any friends or family members and you've seen their child go from zero to two you basically see a completely helpless creature learn to walk talk you know, control their bowels and their bladder. So there's a huge amount of neurotrophic growth going on in that first two years of life.

In adulthood, it obviously happens a lot less. We know that there are embryonic nerve cells around the memory part of the brain, which is a great word. I'm amazed you didn't write this word down, hippocampus. So the hippocampus is in the limbic system. And there are some baby cells there that if you do things like aerobic exercise, you eat lots of foods that are high in antioxidants, you can really increase the turnover of those cells growing into new adult cells and attaching to other pathways in your brain. So that's really about innovation and creativity. It's like new pathways pathways in your brain so that's really about innovation and creativity it's like new pathways forming in your brain not just strengthening existing pathways

wow that's really interesting because you know how they always say that when we're children we're sponges and we pick up on all things and we you know we learn language easily and as we get older we you know if you ever i don't know if you ski but if you ever see an adult trying to learn to ski it's embarrassing it's definitely clumsy and and difficult but you see these tiny children and they just seem to like get it like immediately I mean you know you know that you could learn a language or learn a musical instrument in adulthood it's not it's going to take longer um depends how intensely you do it obviously if you practiced every day then you could get good quicker why does it take longer because our brains although they are plastic or flexible are less flexible than children's brains um so children's brains

are they're constantly growing and changing anyway just as they acquire like you know movement skills and speech skills and things like that our brains if we don't force some change are quite happy to just stay on neutral and I actually love that again this aligns astrology with neuroscience which is about like being forced into change you know rather than cruising. And so if you do something like learn a new language or a musical instrument, because it's so, it takes so much effort, you're actually forcing your brain to change and you get other benefits from doing that. So you're able to regulate your emotions better, you're able to solve more complex problems, just because you've made your brain go through a change like that. So I try to do a major neuroplasticity learning each year. In lockdown, my husband gave me tennis lessons. I mean, I played tennis as a child,

but I hadn't played it for years. So I improved my tennis. I've had a keyboard for about two years I've never used. I've learned languages in the past. I even think like, you know, learning to cook a new recipe or coding, I think would be a really cool thing to do. I'm probably not going to do it. But you know, that would be a really intense learning. That's really fascinating that these things actually affect our ability to regulate our emotions. Just before I let you go, this is the final thing. Because we touched on this. And I think it's a it's a great takeaway. And it's something that I. And I talk about journaling a lot on this podcast, but I think vision boards, sometimes people think, oh, it sounds a bit late.

I remember once going on a date with someone, I went to their house and I saw their vision board and I was like, I felt like I'd seen something I shouldn't see. It's a very private thing, but I think that it's, you know, first and foremost for people to start really tuning into their values because, you know, this whole conversation, essentially, we've realized that so many people really achieve what they want to, but they don't. They're so caught up in the next thing that they barely acknowledge that they've got there. that they've got there. And so I think that's a really beautiful way that people can hold themselves accountable, have something to work towards, and create a bit of structure and harmony in their lives. And so for that reason, I actually suggest that people have gratitude lists as part of their journaling, but also accomplishments lists. So you write down, you know, your sort of golden moments at work, or things that you're really proud of or compliments that people have given you. And so you can revisit them when you if you feel a bit down

or demotivated. And I also want to say, I think this is quite important. So I used to have my early vision boards on the wall in my bathroom in my flat. So anyone who's going to see that is somebody who's been invited into my home. And I should be unashamed of sharing the things that I want, because if I have to be embarrassed by them, then am I really going to do the things that I need to to make that happen? And do I feel that I deserve them? So although a lot of my clients do take a photo of their vision board and have it as their screensaver on their phone and probably have it like inside their wardrobe door or something. I'm quite, maybe not with a new date, but, you know, with your friends. I mean, just to give you a bit of context, it was like a cut out version of him holding an Oscar.

I should not be laughing at that but it was quite funny also though I always say this but be wary of who you share your dreams with that's true yeah because unfortunately there are likely to be people at some stages of your life that don't really want to see you get everything that you or they or they project their own limiting beliefs so I think sometimes especially when things are really at their infancy they're precious and they're delicate so one thing that popped into my mind about being a bit careful with your vision board is that mine is almost entirely metaphorical so if you saw mine you might be able to guess what some of the things are, but most of it, you wouldn't know what it means. So that's a good way of...

Can you give us an example of that? So when I was... In the year that my business went from just being me freelance to actually a proper business, all I had was a picture of a horse kicking up some water. And to me, that meant that I build a business that's got loyal people working in it, that's stable, that causes a bit of disruption in the industry. That was the kicking up the water.

So it can happen, you know, some of the things can be open to interpretation. Yes. And that kind of ties back in really nicely to what we mentioned at the beginning about stepping out of this linear way of thinking. because if it is too rigid and, you know, that evokes a certain type of emotional feeling, we're going to be more in tune for when something happens and we go, ah, that's giving me that feeling. I'm going to go towards it. Exactly. That's what I think. I love the metaphorical ones because I feel more like you're working with the universe then because it could

be something a bit unexpected. Yeah. Wonderful. Beautiful. Thank you. Thank you. I really enjoyed this conversation with Tara because I'm sure as some of you have experienced, when one announces their interest in astrology, it can be dismissed as a sort of woo-woo and wacky thing. Whereas speaking with Tara and her experience of spirituality and marrying that with science really legitimizes it in a way that I think is really important because they aren't separate. They are one of the same. So I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you would like to find out more about Tara, you can find her at tarashwart.com

and you can find her Instagram at tarashwart. If you would like to follow our astrological guide, Nora, you can find her at Stars Incline. And we now have a Saturn Returns Instagram, which is Saturn Returns Co. And you can find me at Kagi's World. If you enjoyed this episode, I would love it if you could share it with a friend who you think might find it useful. And if you could write us a review on Apple Podcasts, that really helps us get discovered by more like-minded people. 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.