Saturn Returns with Caggie - 6.1 Embracing our Shadow Parts with Psychotherapist, Britt Frank

Episode Date: October 10, 2022

Psychotherapist and Trauma Specialist, Britt Frank, joins Caggie to unpack what our shadow parts are and why it’s important to understand them as well as what purpose they serve. We all have trauma to some degree (even if you don’t think you do.) and this often plays out in relationships, this Ep covers self-soothing practices and tips for preservation strategies for when you become activated.   Other areas of discussion include being in tune with our bodies, and how mental health is far less about the mind and more about what’s happening in our nervous system. They also discuss the Saturnian initiation from Maiden to Woman and unpack the saviour complex that many of us carry and why we might be resistant to step into our power. They also touch on Internal Family System therapy (IFS)- something you may be familiar with if you enjoyed the episode with Gabby Bernstein in Season 5. Here's a link if you wish to listen.  The Key Saturnian themes covered in this episode are: Autonomy + Responsibility. Order ‘The Science of Stuck’ by Britt Frank. --- 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. So trauma is for everyone. People get so pissed off at me when I say that. They're like, well, if trauma is for everyone, then that means nothing. That means absolutely nothing. I'm like, no, it doesn't. It just means if you're human to some degree, you're going to have trauma. So let's learn how it works. Cause it's not like they have trauma and I don't. It's like, yeah, you actually do. Today I am joined by the wonderful Brit Frank, who was introduced to me by our mutual friend Mo Gowda. And I wanted to have this conversation with Brit because when we go through

our Saturn return or any transition in life we are often faced with our own coping strategies perhaps our traumas are coming to the surface our own unhealthy mechanisms and that can start to create a lot of shame because we feel we are the reason we are stuck that there is something inherently wrong with us that we are broken in some way and what I love about Britt's work is that she really unpacks that so that you can realize that actually you're not broken you're functioning just as you're supposed to but these parts of you are acting in a way that are trying to self-preserve to protect you. It's just about understanding them and unpacking them and uprooting what's underneath

so that we can actually transition through and become the next version of ourselves. Britt's work is around trauma. She's a psychotherapist and trauma specialist, and her work is particularly focused around understanding the language of our body as well as our mind in order to heal ourselves and work through our problems and past hurts. She has been on her own journey of addiction perhaps what addiction might look like in my life and how this was a big theme towards my late 20s to really reconcile. Also, we discuss the importance of ownership and the importance of owning the shadow parts of ourselves, which we all have, we all possess.

And I think it's when we put those shadow parts further into the darkness and wrap them in shame is when they kind of feel like they have power over us. And I hope that this episode will help you in sort of reclaiming these aspects of yourself. We also explore why we might be self-sabotaging or procrastinating. And rather than just internalizing these as a identity piece that this is just me I'm broken we unpack that actually there's a pain point underneath usually from the past that we don't feel we're fully equipped to manage and handle. We also discuss internal family system therapy which is something I explored with Gabby Bernstein in last season of Saturn Returns and I really love this model because it's about reclaiming all the parts of us and knowing that

they are actually all working for us not against us this idea that your personality is not just one thing and that you are made up of multiple parts and how it combines the somatic nervous system and the nervous system as well as the spiritual and the psychological elements and the medical and the genetic so it's a lot that we unpack in this episode but I hope you'll find it useful and as it relates to Saturn there is a big theme here of responsibility of not playing the victim in your life and how actually when we move through these things we have to move to a place of autonomy and what that brings and why that often brings up a lot of fear so I'll leave you with this episode I hope you find it useful because I definitely did and before we get into it let's just hear

quickly from our astrological guide Nora. With the naked eye there are five planets that can be observed in the night sky. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and then the furthest one, Saturn. The quintessential boundary of how far a naked eye can see and perceive a planet. Throughout the ages, Saturn has been a symbol for boundaries, restrictions, painful experiences, but holds us contained within this world and then even more so it's the planet of self-accountability, of discipline, of responsibility, which paves the way to self-containment and self-sovereignty. How do we reconcile a martyr complex with self-accountability? We can't because ultimately the choice is black or white.

You can't be a martyr if you're taking responsibility and accountability of your life. If you're deciding to empower yourself and make the steps necessary to step out of a victim mentality. We learn in this life, sometimes the hard way, and especially as we start to honour our inner boundaries and our outer boundaries, that whether we live once or reincarnate a thousand times, this life, this experience we're living now, is the only responsibility we have to live well, to the best of our ability. As we go through Saturn transits and Saturn return, we're taught to rise above the coping mechanisms and the pains and traumas that have caused them, influenced them.

Our wounds get triggered, which in turn helps us to heal them, leaving nothing but a scar as a reminder of our battle wounds and the courage we found to offer ourselves healing, safety, sovereignty. Hello, Britt. Hi. Hi, how are you? I'm well. Thanks so much for having me. Yay, tech. Yay, tech. Where are you in the world? I'm from New York, but I am out of Kansas City now. So I'm smack in the middle of hot,

very hot. Yeah. But for the audience that doesn't know, would you be able to talk a little bit about what you do and how you got into the work that you do? Sure. What I do. So I am a psychotherapist and I am a trauma specialist. And I just wrote a book called The Science of Stuck. So basically what I do is help people drive their bodies and brains. Like we all feel crazy. We all feel lazy. I have a really like wild backstory, drug addiction and trauma and relational issues and eating disorders. Not everybody has to go to the depths of the abyss, but we all get stuck somewhere. So my work really focuses on helping people know you're not crazy.'s no such thing as crazy here's why you're stuck here's what you can do to get moving because you've worked in those places as well haven't you yes I have been inpatient as a patient and I've been

inpatient as a therapist I've worked both sides yeah because I think you you always like I often wonder because I think that people get into this space because they usually have had those experiences in some capacity themselves obviously when you're in a session with someone like they would never reveal that necessarily. So it's really interesting. I would love to like dive into that at some point. But in terms of the work that you do one on one with people, is that a specific focus? Is that trauma related? is it like just depending on what they have going on? So my private practice actually brings a variety of people and not again, not everyone has severe mental illness. Not everyone is on the edges of the most extreme, but I found that,

you know, people generally come in with the same body of things, at least the people that I work with, career, relationship, sex, body. The people I work with generally have relative safety and access to resources. So that's my big disclaimer. Everything I talk about assumes you're not under oppression and that you're not in the middle of a war and that you're not in the middle of being abused because that's a whole separate conversation. So the people I work with generally don't have that situation going on. So when they come in, they'll say things like, my anxiety is keeping me stuck. I feel crazy all the time. I'm struggling with procrastination or an addiction. And it's like, it's not because of what you think

it's because of. There's a reason. And there's like a science-based reason. Okay. What is the thing that most people think these things are because of? It's so wild. Most people think it's because there is something fundamentally wrong with them. I'm just a lazy person. I just have an addicted personality. And genetics count, those matter. And largely, our brains are doing what our brains are supposed to do. Like even our most insane symptoms and experiences are our brain's best effort to keep us alive. And the biggest myth is most people think their brains are out to get them. Like your brain's on your side. Your brain is on your side, even if it feels really hostile in there. I think that's a really important thing to note because I've

definitely been there where I've been thinking there's something miswired it's not it's not computing the right way and also because these things have a lot of they're still quite a taboo subject it's changing a lot and I you know I would actually that's just one of the questions I have for you in terms of how much it's changed but there's a huge amount of shame that we wrap up in these feelings and then think that we're broken or inadequate or there's something wrong with us. And then we, you know, we go and hopefully get the opportunity to speak to people like you. But it's interesting that you say like throughout the themes that people come to you with, that's fundamentally at the core of their belief system. I mean, I think culturally because of the stigma and the shame, we were all taught,

if you have a problem in your life, it's because of you. You're not trying hard enough. You're not working hard enough. You're not doing enough affirmations. And I love affirmations and I love thought work, but mental health is not about your mind. Mental health is what's happening in your nervous system. And people don't know that they have a body and the body does things. And when the body does things, it's going to look a lot like mental illness, but it's not, not always. And largely it's not. It's crazy actually that nervous system work is only become apparent in my vocabulary and in my practices in probably the last six months. That's amazing. Maybe a year, maybe a year actually. A year. I mean,

it's not taught. I mean, I had to do very expensive, optional years and years of training, but people don't know that therapists don't have to be trained in the nervous system. So like you could go to a licensed therapist for 10 years and never hear that you have a nervous system and here's how it works. It is wild.

I know. And how that communicates, your brain is then feeding off that information. So I think, you know, it was, I think I did a course that one of the modules was around nervous system work, and it was specifically looking at relationships. And again, I'd never made those connections at all. I'd never thought, hmm, how is this person making my nervous system feel? hmm, how is this person making my nervous system feel? And then actually when I unpacked that, I was like, my nervous system would go into sort of disarray when I'd meet someone and I'd confuse that as butterflies or like that there was some kind of good thing going on there. But actually my nervous system was being like,

no, we don't actually like this. This is not, this is anxiety. This is not like, yes, go further into this situation. But it took me 33 years or 32 years to figure that out. It's such a good dating hack to know that like the thing, you can be incredibly attracted to somebody who is incredibly not a good fit for you. Like the butterflies are not

a sign of goodness. They're a sign of dopamine, but that's not always good. I know. I know. I would have saved myself a lot of unnecessary pain. And I always think of it this way that, you know, if you think of animals in the wild, they don't have language in the same way that we do. They're very instinctive they have to rely on their sort of physical responses to things even when like they haven't seen something they've sensed something is wrong that their environment isn't safe and they'll run they'll fucking run and whereas we're like we'll send something it's not safe we'll be like call up our friends be like so this is happening but like I think it's a

good idea can you convince me it's a good idea and they're like yeah it's a good idea keep going do you know what I mean you just have a few wines and you're like yeah let's keep going through this like let's do this bad consciousness is bad because we talk ourselves out of our instincts it's like no your body knows this person is bad for you but but like he really means well and it's like you know he's just having a hard day he's like no he sucks run go yeah exactly your body knows so like is that a big part of your practice in terms of people that come to you that say something's fundamentally wrong how do you unpack that with them? And how does like nervous

system work, play into it? And for the audience that doesn't know, would you be able to kind of dismantle that in a terminology or way that people can understand? Yeah, and the terminology in the field, it's very clinical and very jargony. And it doesn't need to be it's like, we don't need to talk about the polyvagal system and blah, blah. I mean, it's good information. But like, here's the basics, your head is attached to a body. When was the last time you asked yourself, how do I feel in my body around this person or this TV show or this song I'm listening to, or this food that I'm eating? Because when I first had a therapist tell me, Brit, what do you feel in your body? I'm like, what are you talking about? Like,

I'm just a floating head. I don't understand the question. I don't understand the assignment at all. This thing just walked me in the room. It's not part of that. This is not part of the problem. The problem is here. This is just like whatever. And so the work I do teaches people the language. It's like learning another language. If you understand how your body communicates with sensations, with movement, with symptoms, with all kinds of weird stuff, then you can learn to decode what it's saying instead of, oh my God, I feel like shit. I must be crazy. It's like, no, you feel like shit because there's an actual thing happening in your environment that's not good for you or not healthy or not safe. So it's really learning to decode how your body talks.

And you help people identify what that thing is in their environment that is unsettling them. Sometimes. Sometimes you actually don't know. Like I'll have people come in and they'll say, I don't know what's wrong with me. Logically, everything is fine. My job is fine. My spouse is fine. The kids suck, but they're fine and everything is fine. So what is my problem? And I don't always know the answer. Sometimes you don't know the why, but you don't need to know the why. It's like, okay, if logically everything looks fine and you're a hot mess, then there could be some past trauma. And the biggest myth about trauma is people think you have to be assaulted or in a war or in a disaster. It's like, it doesn't. Trauma is brain indigestion. Our brain doesn't always metabolize what we see, feel, hear, experience, and then it gets stuck.

So trauma is for everyone. People get so pissed off at me when I say that. They're like, well, if trauma is for everyone, then that means nothing. That means absolutely nothing. I'm like, no, it doesn't. It just means if you're human, to some degree, you're going to have trauma. So let's learn how it works. Because it's not like they have trauma and I don't. It's like, yeah, you actually do. Yeah. And I think in in the UK we're catching up but it's very sort of oh no I've never experienced anything traumatic and then you actually explain you know I actually was working with a healer yesterday and I went like for the first time ever I went back to a part of my life that I'd never visited and in my mind I'm like oh it

was fine like it wasn't that bad she was like that was a that was a traumatic experience and I was like no no it wasn't she was like no no let's just make space for that rather than kind of and that's a very British thing you know we're just like oh no it wasn't that bad and then within that it you know it kind of goes back to what we were saying about the body, it stays in the body. So from your perspective, does trauma get stuck in the body and then kind of manifest in other ways later in life, if it's not fully addressed and fully acknowledged? Yeah. And it's like our food. It's like, not everything you eat is going to give you a stomach ache, but you can get a stomach ache from anything that you eat. And trauma is the same. Not everything is going to traumatize us. Not every bad experience is going to give you a stomach ache, but you can get a stomach ache from anything that you eat.

And trauma is the same. Not everything is going to traumatize us. Not every bad experience is going to traumatize us. But every single experience that we have needs to be processed. And even if we don't think it's bad, it doesn't matter. It's like if our body decides this is bad, I don't want to digest it. It's not a logical process. You actually don't get a say in whether, you know,

you could actually go through some really big, horrible traumatic event and not get anything stuck. Like you could go through something bad and be fine, but you could also go through something small and be a disaster. So it's like your body gets to make that call. So let's not fight that because the past is not, people are like, oh, it was such a long time ago. The past is in the past. I'm like, well, that's crap because the past time isn't real. We've made that up. The past is not in like this box called the past. The past is in your cells and your organs and your tissues and you carry it with you. So we have to metabolize it or we're going to feel really crappy. So I think sometimes when people acknowledge a trauma, let's say, from the past,

then they, I've noticed, and I've noticed this in myself, you can become trying to over-intellectualize it and reason with it and grapple with it and be like, oh, but this person did this thing. And it's kind of like, that's not really the point. At all. You know, it's like, it's not about villainizing or making up the story that justifies the trauma being there in the first place. Because like you said, it could be something that was like, I don't know, someone might view as seemingly insignificant or small, but it's had that impact on the body regardless. And that's what needs to be unearthed. So what is your kind of practice and process for unearthing that and for people that perhaps overly intellectualize it, I guess, too much?

Yeah. So the, well, they didn't. Well, they were doing the best they could. That one's a biggie. And it's like, all right, well, let's say you go to a restaurant and you eat a piece of food that was contaminated with salmonella. The chef didn't mean to poison you. They actually didn't mean to make you sick, but that is not going to keep you from having your head in a toilet all night. So someone's intention has very little to do with the impact it's having on you. So the trauma work is not about blaming your parents or, you know, saying it was their fault or no, I need to forgive them because they didn't mean it. It's like, they may not have meant it. Nevertheless, your head is in the toilet and you're puking. So the question isn't who's to

blame. The question is, what does your body need right now so we can help it feel a little less freaked out? So the blame thing and the intellectualizing and the, well, you know, it's not like it was as bad as somebody else's thing. And I should just be grateful because my life is really like, that's cool. And that's important. That's perspective. Yay. And that doesn't stop the puking when you eat poison food. So we have to do both. We have to do the thought work and understand the logic behind it and know that you can't think your way out of how your body feels. And I wish we could because I hate feelings and I didn't feel my feelings until my 30s. I'm like, I don't have feelings. I'm just a floating head. I'm fine. Everything is fine. Nothing to see here. But we

have to feel the feelings which are physiological. They're not intellectual. It's because you work on somatic healing, don't you? Which would you be able to kind of explain how that works? Because that's kind of how that's working with the body, right? Yeah. And there's a lot of ways of working. I'm trained in a trauma therapy called somatic experiencing, which is just a very multi-syllabic way of saying you have a body and your body does things just like animals in the wild. And here's how the fight flight freeze thing works. Like

here's what happens when your body goes into a flight response. Here's what happens when your body goes into a freeze response. And like, if you've ever had a fight with a significant other, you know, there's a point where they are no longer the person you love. And now they're a tiger about to eat you and you will do anything to defend to the death. And all of a sudden you're like, and it's like, where did your logic go? This is what somatic work helps you do. It's like, here's what your body's doing

and here's how to get it back online. So it feels like you're driving the car and the car is not driving you. After you've, because once your sort of system gets dysregulated, it's obviously quite hard in that moment. I think we all know what that's like, especially with a partner, when like one sets the other off and then it's just like.

Yeah, then it's game on. There's nothing to be done until that fire is out. It's not like, oh, wait a second, let me stop and re-regulate my nervous system using my coping skills from somatic work. It's like, no, that fire just needs to burn until it's like out. And then we can figure out, all right, where do things go off the rails? And where can we, you know, plan for if this happens in your fight, that's your cue to exit until you both settled a bit. Yeah. As in you hope that you have enough foresight to go about to say something that's

going to be really damaging. I'm going to just leave the room. It's a good skill or never fight in a vehicle. Don't ever fight in a car because you can't escape and your nervous system, I go a little, I mean, there's no such thing as a crazy person, but I go what looks like crazy if I'm confronted in a car because I can't get out. And so I get a little hot. So I've learned don't have arguments in moving cars it's just not a good idea that's a really good point and I think just generally if you are once you set each other off because your bodies are then communicating so it's like even if not much is being said your whole body has just gone into that kind of prickly stage of like you say like animal there's a tiger He's turned into a tiger.

And it's hard then because you try and use logic, but actually your body in that point has sort of taken over. Completely. And we don't know. And if we don't know that that's happening, then we're either going to feel like our partner is a terrible person or that we're a terrible person and that we totally suck. Now, I still don't do this perfectly, but I'm at a point now where I can say to my significant other, okay, listen, I don't know what my body is doing right now, but if we keep going, this is not going to go well for either of us. So I need to take an hour to go do my things and then I will be back. And that is such a useful thing to know. It's like, hey, your body is about to blow. So let's like disengage, quick disengagement is one

of the best relationship preservation strategies that there is yeah but and it's something that i too am trying to master and we're getting a little bit better at it however what i've noticed is within the sort of realms of attachment theory my nature is to be i actually sometimes think i sort of oscillate between the two but I guess quite anxiously attached so I don't the idea of a separation especially in an argument can make me think oh my god but no we have to fix this now or like stay in each other's company or I'm going to be abandoned I have that too I have all of that I had for years what we would have called borderline personality disorder, which we now know is a manifestation of trauma and of complex trauma,

but that's what it would have been diagnosed with when I had it. And I had it for 20 years. And it was like, if you even walk two feet away from me, I'm going to go, oh my God, don't leave me. Don't leave me. Don't leave me. And then as soon as you don't leave me, then I'm going to be like, fuck you. You suck. Go away. Come back. Don't leave me. Get out of my way. I mean, just really wild attachment stuff. So my partner knows now enough to say when, you know, when he needs to take a break, he's like, listen, not going anywhere. Yeah. Not leaving you. We're fine. We'll work it out. We are two adults. So tell the, and he'll say to me, tell those little parts of yourself that everything is fine. I just don't want to be inappropriately angry. So I am going to go for a run. And then it's my job to soothe those inner children that are going, oh my God,

he's leaving, he's leaving. I'm going to die, which is reasonable, but that's my job to manage. Yes. And that's a huge piece because one, it takes a very conscious man to do that and that's amazing but also that he's basically saying to you I trust you to self-soothe and that's something that me and my partner have discussed because I think historically and a lot of women fall into this kind of thought process of a man will save me like the kind of savior complex and it's like you're the damsel in distress and so when that inner child like gets activated it's almost like you want that parent to come and like save you and you want that from your partner and for them to turn around like because my partner actually said that to me it's like I need to not play into that role

and know that you can handle things yourself. And like part of the adult part of me was like, oh my God, I love that. The child part of me was like, no. It's so true. I got so, so I have dated a lot of dysfunctional, like bad, bad, bad, bad stuff. I've been married now to a healthy person for two years. And the first time he did the, I trust you enough to manage this. So I love you. And I'm going for a run. I got so infuriated. Like my adult self was like, Oh my God, he loves me enough to respect me. And I was so pissed off. And when he got back, I had the wherewithal to say, just so you know, my inner child is very mad at you, but that's my job. I will handle it. And it is, it's not loving or kind for a partner to rescue

because you can't be rescued and respected at the same time by the same person. Totally. It actually builds up resentment for both parties because you're thinking on some level, they don't trust me to take care of myself. And then they're thinking, I can't trust her to take care of herself.

And that means that I have to, you know, take, it takes up so much emotional mental space that you then start to like get in this dance that's, it's not healthy. Oh, it's so bad. And that exists on the spiritual level, on the psychological level, and then on the physical level. Logically, I might not have noticed when he's respecting me, I'm getting ready to punch someone in the face. And it's like, hey, look, my body is going into a fight response. That's really important. But outsourcing the parent role, the damsel in distress, the prince is coming to save me thing is so disempowering. As much as it's awful to be in charge of our own well-being and our own

inner people, again, assuming that we're not under oppression, it's so much better in the ends because I would rather be respected than rescued. Again, rescue me if I'm in a burning building and I can't get out. That's fine. But assuming I can take care of the things myself, it actually feels better to do it in the end. I would have never believed that ever when I started. No, me neither. I was like, what? Responsibility? Boundaries? No. No, me neither. I was like, what? Responsibility? Boundaries? No. No, never heard of her. But I think that that was like, that for me is what kind of your Saturn return, like that journey was for me. Because I think before that, there's a safety.

And when I use this word, I'm obviously excluding real victims of like abuse and stuff. But there's a safety in playing the victim of your life because it's like you're not responsible for what's happening to you and when you actually take on that responsibility although we all say we want to be respected we want to be empowered we want like it comes with all the stuff where it's like okay the blame kind of has nowhere to fall but onto you but it doesn't mean you're like berating yourself it's like okay I have the power to change this only me. And there's something kind of scary in that. Terrifying.

I mean, that's that dark night of the soul descent into the underworld thing. And I have been in, I was a survivor of childhood abuse and adult relational abuse of all the kinds. And again, I'm not victim blaming and I'll speak just for myself, not for everybody. But for me, there was, did I deserve what happened to me? No, of for everybody. But for me, there was, did I deserve what happened to me? No, of course not. But there was a degree to which, why did I stay when I got really honest with my therapist and myself? One of the reasons I stayed, again, not generalizing, this is just me. One of the reasons I stayed is because if I'm with someone who's quote bad, that means that I get to be good. And if that person is doing bad things, then my goodness is now mine. And if I walk away from that, then I have to own my shadows, my light, the good, the

bad, the ugly. Again, it's an icky thing to have to admit, but I'll say it because I did it. Like really bad abuse. I stayed not only, but one of the reasons, one of the little sneaky hidden reasons is that I didn't want to deal with my own shadow stuff. And that's scary. And it's well worth it. But going into H shadow stuff. And that's scary. And it's well worth it. But going into Hades sucks. It's really hard. Worth it, but hard.

So how long did it take you to get to that point and to have that realization? Many, many years, decades. It finally got to where the relational addiction and the relational dysfunction got paired with drug addiction and methamphetamine use. And things got to a point where it's like, figure this out or you're not going to survive the next chapter of the story. It's like you have two paths. And how old were you when that happened? That was not that long ago. I was in my 30s and I'm 42 now. So you kind of got to a real rock bottom. I did. Not everyone needs to. I tell people, you know, the people I work with, rock bottom is anywhere where you say I am done with the thing. Whatever the thing is, wherever you stop and say game over, that's your rock bottom. For me, rock bottom was like the kind that you read about and, you know, watch on TV. Hades world.

Hades world. Yeah. Because you're right. And also no one can tell you you're at rock bottom. It can't come from anything else. It's like got to be your own inner knowing like something's got to change. Right, and you can hit rock bottom and get a shovel and keep digging. So rock bottom is really wherever you're done. For me, I did have a knowing

that I wasn't ready to physically die yet. Like I didn't, like I had paid in so many years of trauma. A part of me was like, if we can just hang on all of this awfulness, we can alchemize and turn into something else. And so I'm really glad that I hung in there. Not everyone can. I had the privilege of having the ability to go to therapy and to have good trauma work and go to treatment.

Not everyone does. But for me, it's like, oh, OK, I'll just say yes to staying alive today. And like you say, to have that awareness that you could alchemize those experiences and do something incredible with it. And like that seems to be a synonymous theme with most of the guests on the podcast is that they take something that is their struggle and they make it their strength. And I think that that's a really empowering note for the listeners that whatever they're going through, they can be also growing through. And there's like an opportunity in that dark world,

that dark night of the soul that they can actually come out the other side. So thank you for sharing that. And I think that's really inspirational that you went through that and you are where you are now. Thank you. And it's not a toxic positive thing. It's not like I sit there going,

everything happens for a reason. And God was testing me. No, no, no, no, no. It was like, here's the life mess. And do you have the choice to alchemize? If you have the choice to do some alchemy on your stuff, then it's really cool when you can. And I don't think I deserved it. I don't think, you know, this was a punishment or a test. It was just okay,, free will sucks. And a lot of things happened that I chose. A lot of things happened that I did not choose, but you can, again, assuming you have choices and good information, then you can turn all the crap into something good. Like all good stuff comes from poop. You're like truffles and diamonds come from being crushed and pressure and like the metaphor and then like physical pearls. Pearl in the oyster.

Yes, right. Pearls are just an irritated, pissed off oyster with a rash, like yay. Exactly. Because it sounds like a big thing here, a big theme is one of autonomy. Was that something that you felt was quite a foreign concept to you for a lot of your life? It was foreign for much of my life. And then it came at too high a price. I didn't want to be autonomous because then I had to be responsible. I had to take ownership over my shadow parts. And, you know, we all have a full set of personality characteristics. We're not all just good. We all have like really, really dark, dark parts of our psyche. And they're wonderful. And if you get to know them,

they don't actually cause damage out in the world. But if you don't want to know them, I didn't want to get to know all of the dark parts of my psyche because I was terrified of them. And so until you do that work, life tends to, I mean, I had clinical depression, I had panic disorder, anxiety disorder, borderline eating disorders, and all of the symptoms were real. But once I realized I have, and I did, I have choices here. And if I say yes to the things that are available to me, this can change and you can't have autonomy and be rescued at the same time. And giving up the maiden fantasy of rescue, that one was a fuck. That was of all the things I've had to do to heal, going from maiden to adult was really hard. That was the hardest one. That was harder than drugs. That was harder than sex. That was harder than any of the other things. But do you think those things tied into

that complex? 1000%. Absolutely. And they show up as all kinds of things, right? All of those things were efforts by my system to self-soothe and self-protect and stay small so I could be taken care of. You know, if you're autonomous, no one's going to come take care of you. I was like, I want someone to take care of all the things, take care of me. And that's not ultimately a good deal. And, you know, that comes at way too high a price. So I tell the people I work with, you can sit in this space, but what is it costing you to be in this quote, comfortable space? Comfort in the sort of discomfort in a way. Yes, yes, yes, yes. So can we just talk about addiction a little bit? Because I've actually

never had anyone on the show to really unpack that. And I feel like you're probably the right person. Okay, here we go. All right. Because it's obviously an incredibly complex subject. And I believe that there's a whole spectrum of addiction. And to a degree, you know, like you said at the beginning, genetics plays a huge part, the environment that you're brought up in. But how much sort of personal sovereignty comes into it so whenever i write about that on social media i usually set off a shit storm of people who get very angry like addiction is not a choice and i'm like i understand i am an addict i get the like i

get that i've been there i know i mean like i and I was addicted to not the quotes, like, you know, people who are addicted to anything, their pain is valid, but like, I get that I'm doing things that I swore I would never do in order to do this drug that I swore I would never take. So like, I understand that there's a large degree to once you're rolling in an addiction, there's no choice. Fine. Got it. Check. That box is checked. Okay, cool. And addiction is a way, and again, genetics, yes. Mental health, yes. Neurotransmitters, yes. All of that. But addiction, the function of it. Why do we get addicted? Because there is a pain point either from the past or from the present that we don't feel we are equipped to manage. And so our protective system jumps in and finds a way to get around

that. So my addiction, what was the benefit? It looked horrible. I was destroying my life. I was doing illegal things. I was having medical consequences. So why would you keep doing that for me? Not for everyone, for me. I didn't have to deal with any of the reality of my childhood. I didn't have to deal with any of the reality of the choices that I made. If I'm addicted, then I get to be away and I wanted to stay away. And so, you know, I've heard it said that the opposite of addiction is connection, which I love. But for me, the opposite of addiction is toler horrible choices. You have to do that without getting buried by the shame. And addiction is shaming and it's shamey and it's shameful and it's awful. And it perpetuates that cycle. Yes, exactly. And it's protective. So whenever I work with people who have addictions, whatever it is, the first thing I tell them is your addiction is not a demon trying to kill you. It's a little unresourced part of you trying to save

you. Again, that doesn't justify your behavior, but we're talking about the healing process. The first thing I have people do is write a letter to their addiction, thanking them for keeping them alive because it works as evidenced by we're having this talk. It's got shivers. Wow. It works. Because I think you're so right. Everything that you've got that initial pain point that's being avoided that probably has shame or you just can't go there. And then the addiction is the kind of shell around it. But then all the consequences of the addiction are so shame inducing that it just gets bigger

and bigger and bigger. And you get further away from feeling that you can deal with whatever is actually underneath. And then we become addicted. Gabor Matei says this, and I love his work. We become addicted to our own stress hormones. So now you have this behavior that's really not good, but now it's become comfortable and familiar. And now we want to stay. I wrapped my addiction around me like a blanket. And I'm like, if I say goodbye to this addiction is really the only thing I've got. My longest running relationship up until that point was with my addiction. So it's very much like a breakup.

It's very sad to say goodbye to something that you've done for so many years that has worked so hard to protect you. Again, even though I was causing chaos out in the world and I had caused harm that I had to repair. Again, it's not about the behavior. And addiction is a suboptimal way of protecting ourselves. And there's a lot of reasons that happens. It's not always because you had a bad childhood.

Lots of people get addicted who had decent childhoods, but it's protective. If we don't honor the function of addiction, we're not going to be able to sustainably heal from it. And then, like you say, it becomes this sort of demon where it feels like this ever present entity that's kind of there because we haven't really acknowledged what it's there for, what purpose it serves. We just think we're being cursed by it. And the idea of it being a demon was very... I joined a fundamentalist cult for a while when I was in early recovery because I really liked the idea of all of my

problems are demons. And if I just pray them away, it is like the ultimate way to spiritually bypass everything. So I'm going to join a cult and pray my demons out of me. And praying demons out of me was a lot more palatable than accepting that these demons are part of me. They're terrified children in need of care. I am the only one who can save these parts of myself. It can't come from outside of myself. What was the cult experience like? So cult life is not sustainable and I would not recommend it. Let's start there. Listen there, kids. Do not try this at home. But it worked for a while because I was spinning in my life and I was such a mess. And here are

these people that said to me, don't worry about figuring out who you are. This is who you are. This is what you think. This is what you read. This is how you eat. This is what you wear and do all of these things. And we're going to love you and take care of you. And you'll have moms and dads and brothers and sisters and just add water and stir and boom family. And all your problems are demons and you can pray them away. So holy, sign me. I was like, where can I sign? Yes, please sign me up.

The problem is, is once you start critically thinking, it's like, wait a second, wait, what about and critical thinking and cult life don't coexist peacefully? So I left. How long did you last? Quite a few years, maybe six, seven years of that. Yeah.

I was hardcore. I was so obnoxious too. I was like, you know, Bible thumping. And this isn't a Christian thing. This is a cult thing. Like there's a continuum. I was on the fringes. It wasn't a hate cult.

It wasn't a mass suicide cult. And it wasn't a sex cult. Like those are things, but there are other kinds. This was just a completely just wow, wow, what fundamentalist religious cult. And it worked for a while. And then it didn't. But I learned, I understand why it happened. Do you think it was another form of numbing? Yes. Oh, I love that you said that. That's an addiction too, right? Because it took me out of what was true. What was true, Britt? You have this pain point and in trying to soothe it,

you created more pain. That's what's true. No, no, no, no. I'm just going to sit here for an hour and a half and chant in foreign tongues to make the demons leave my body. And I did exorcisms. That was a lot easier than, hey, Britt, you're sad. Why don't you try that? Because that's the thing, I think, with the numbing tools, you know, there's obviously the addictions of drug and alcohol, but then there are so many other. If you're that way inclined and you've learned that that's a technique to protect yourself, you'll find all sorts of things. Fitness, wellness, spirituality.

And these are things that look virtuous. So it's really hard. There was a degree to which when I was a drug addict, I knew, okay, this is bad. But when I was a religious addict, I'm like, look how good I am. I'm so good. I am so good. It's virtuous. So when addiction looks like virtue, that's some fuckery. And that is a really hard workaholism. Like people who are obsessed with even fitness, fitness is good, exercise, good, yay, exercise. And that can become a cult. And anything that we sort of orbit around that promises us pain relief can either be useful or be incredibly toxic and cult-like.

So it's like, pick your, which direction do you want to go? Yeah, I definitely have, because I feel like perhaps we all have the ability to be addictive. I don't know, or we're predisposed to it. But I definitely sense from quite a young, relatively young age. So I was like I can see where this train might be going I don't think I like the destination and it took me a few years to actually realize that I was driving it do you know what I mean I was kind of like okay it's going it's going pretty fucking fast having quite a lot of fun but also like not yeah and then

it kind of when I stopped that it went in a different direction which was very orientated around food but in like a quote-unquote healthy way which again like social media is awash with this of like what I eat in a days and all this kind of stuff it's like I just don't think that I think that's quite toxic because you're just obsessing over something to avoid whatever you are trying not to feel. I'm with you a thousand percent on that, especially with the food. Because if you're doing inner child, inner mothering work, and I think self-parenting work is so important, then feeding yourself becomes an act of self-parenting instead of like performative. Look what I look like, look what I'm doing. Totally. And that's the thing. I like equated a feeling of like fullness,

quite a young age with a feeling of love. And that was at a point, I mean, we're really going in now, but that was at a point where my parents got divorced and I started to kind of, that lack of safety that when the nest was sort of disrupted, I then equated like the safety with food. And it took a long time to kind of dismantle that. How did you do it? Inner child work was a huge one. So I would love to kind of talk about that because I think there's a lot of stuff out

there at the moment, which is fantastic in so many ways it's sort of affirmation self-love like I'm sure the intent is very very good but it often doesn't feel very accessible especially if you you live in a sort of chamber of dark thoughts and then you're like saying I love you to yourself it's like let's kind of bridge that gap do you know what I mean because then it kind of perpetuates that feeling of shame so like I really fucking don't love myself um and to kind of perpetuates that feeling of shame. So like, I really fucking don't love myself. And to kind of unpack what's going on for me, having that acknowledgement. And it really happened after I was 30 of like the child in me. And perhaps I needed to be in a place where I was like stable enough or grounded enough

to really hold space for that part of myself and to have the acknowledgement of like the separateness so that I could be like okay I understand that to a degree we're sort of one unity but there's also someone else that I can speak to and I can comfort and I can acknowledge where things are coming from her versus where they're coming from me like I always repeat this but Mark Groves he's one of my favorite teachers and guests on the podcast he always says if it's hysterical it's historical and it's like it's the truest fucking thing like when you actually have some kind of hysterical response to something if you trace it back there's usually you know a child version of you that's been set off. So how important has that work been for you

on a personal level? And how important is it on a professional one? I think that's the whole crux of all of the work is and one more. And again, there's a lot of ways of working with your internal parts, like my inner child, you know, we're the sum total of every age that we've ever been alive, that age is stored in us. So all of my two-year-old self, all of her experiences are in my body, all of my four-year-old selves and so on. And so if you don't know that you have, you're not just this one thing, they call it the mono mind theory that this is just me. I am a terrible person. I am a drug addict. I am whatever. It's like, no, you're made up of parts. And I think people know it's in our language. Part of me knows I should

go to the gym, but there's this other part of me that's saying, screw it. I want to have all of the fried food. It's like, we know that we are made of parts. It's all in our language. But if we don't understand how it works, then we're just going to feel like completely nuts. But I love the internal family systems model of therapy. I was just about to say, because I only, Gabby Bernstein came on the show and she practices that and she talked about it a lot, but we didn't really go, I don't think, into the intricate details of like what internal family system is and how people can use it. So if you would be able to explain, that would be amazing. Yeah. And I love that she's talking about it because it is, in my experience, the most powerful form of therapy that combines everything. It combines the somatic and the

nervous system and the spiritual and the psychological and the medical and the genetic. It sort of covers all of the bases. It's not like you shouldn't do any other types of work, but if I could only do one kind of work, if I could go back in time and pick one model, it would be the internal family systems model. So yay. So what is internal family systems? The idea is your personality is not one thing. We're made up of parts. And when people are like, oh, my God, am I multiple personality disordered? It's like, no, everything that's complex is made of parts.

Like one tree has bark and leaves and roots. Like it's not just one thing. It's one thing made up of multiple parts. The planet, it's one earth and it's made up of countries and continents and different landmass. All of the complex things are made up of multiple parts, including your personality. So the internal family systems model is a way of getting to know all of the parts of yourself. And Dick Schwartz, who created the model, and he says there are no bad parts. Parts do bad things, like no doubt. Parts do terrible things. But if you get to know all of your parts, like a family, like inside of you is an entire society

of people who all have competing agendas and different thoughts and different needs and different feelings and different preferences, which is why you may feel like some nights you want to go out and like rage and burn everything down. And some days you feel like a terrified little toddler who just wants a hug and a snack. And so IFS is a way, it's a model of working with the parts. Here's how you get to know the parts. Here are your protective parts. Here are your scared, they call them exiles, those parts of us that are tucked away. And then we realized that it's not just here I am, it's separating the I from the part. So for me, my pronouns, she, her, my I from she. So it's not, wow, I suck. It's okay. There's this part of me who did drugs and she made really bad choices.

And we're going to have a big mess to clean up. And I love her and I understand her. And I'm going to help her figure out how to navigate these consequences. It's not like, oh, everything. It's like a competent parent doesn't just let a child do whatever. A competent parent knows how to teach a child and how to help them. And when the child- That's playing up. Yes, exactly. So IFS is a way of understanding you're made of parts and how to get to know them and how

to unburden them from all of their things that they've picked up, beliefs about themselves, core beliefs about the world and traumas they've experienced. It's a really beautiful way of working with the system. And reclaiming those exiled parts of themselves. Yes. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. And when you unburden them, they have your gifts, your creativity, your innovation, your passion, all of the things that we say we want are generally buried with the exiles. That's why one of the reasons why we need to go get them. To go back to the stuff about, let's say addiction, if that's an exiled part of us

that's playing up and then behaving in that way that then kind of goes down that train what's the reclamation process like and how can you either be supported in you know by seeing someone like yourself or independently and doing the work on your own so with addiction if you think there's this little child part and let's say there's this little part that had something bad happen. This little part can't tolerate the feelings. I'm totally unaware that I'm made of parts. So then this other part, which is an addiction part, comes over and goes, I will protect

you. And this part doesn't have any skills. So this part learns if I'm an addict, I can protect you. So from the IFS lens, you heal addiction by releasing the addict from having to protect the little part. It's okay. I am willing to listen to my own story. I'm willing to listen to these sensations in my body. I'm willing to learn to tolerate my physiology, my feelings, my truth. And then the addiction part doesn't need to do that job anymore. And once you free up an addict part, they're very happy to

not be doing that job. Like it's a shit job for those parts having to protect you in those ways. So you heal addiction. This isn't the only way and this isn't like the right way. It's a way. One of the ways to work with addiction is to release the addict from functioning as a protector. If you heal the original wounds, the addiction no longer needs to be there. from functioning as a protector. If you heal the original wounds, the addiction no longer needs to be there. And with healing the original wound, obviously, I can imagine there's a huge expression or need for the emotion to come up and surface. I'm sure you find that people find that very hard to do, especially if it's something from the past, because again, it goes back to that logic piece of like, well, that's not happening now. And I didn't realize that was that big a deal so they don't really want to go

there and I think this problem it's a generalization but for men especially that kind of keep that stuff and it's like quote unquote not manly or like weak and so it might be kind of brewing and coming out in other kind of ways but it just can't be come to the surface because they're so conditioned to push it back down and again of course like women men whoever experienced that but how do you kind of get to that breakthrough point well for the first thing this is where the somatic piece is helpful like catharsis and going into retelling of a story and reliving it is not always helpful. And often it can be re-traumatizing. So I am not a fan of just vomit up all your shit,

because if telling our story was all we needed to do, we would all be healed. Because I've told my sob stories a thousand times and I never felt any better. Our stories need to be witnessed, like that's true. But then there's a degree to which the story doesn't, like some of my trauma was pre-verbal. If you're traumatized as an infant, you're never going to remember what happened. And that's where knowing the language of the body is helpful. So IFS is not about hunting down. And the men I work with are very appreciative when I say,

we're not hunting for bad memories. We're not trying to like understand where your mom abused you. We're just saying to your body, what did it feel like, like to you? And then learning to tolerate. Make space for that. Yes. And tolerating the sensations, which trauma healing in the shortest possible language is tolerating your body sensations.

And so catharsis can be sort of counterintuitive. So when we're working with trauma, we don't retell the story. We don't relive the story. We do it in a very small, they call it titrated, contained way where it's a little bit at a time. It's like you don't shove a T-bone steak down your throat and expect it to go well. You take little bites. And how does that like, does that mean over sessions, over time? Is it quite monitored? And again, this isn't the only way to do it, but the way I do it is a lot of work can happen in one session because once you understand how your system works, it might be that I work with someone on one trauma, but just doing that sort of releases the whole system. So it's

not like one and done and you're healed, but lots of work can happen in one session. And I also have people that I've worked with for a long time who, because their protective system was so practiced in doing what they do, it takes a long time sometimes, but it doesn't have to, it does not have to take years and years and years to get to know your parts and to learn to self-parent. That's really good news. Like I can't be like in two sessions or less, you're going to have your life all healed, but it can happen fast. Yeah. It can happen faster. I tell people it'll be faster than you think, but longer than you'd like. What are some of the other myths around mental health or these things that people struggle with that you see that you want to kind

of debunk? Well, the stigma about it being like strong versus weak. I'm like, this has nothing to do with strong and weak. It's like you have a brain if you're a human and your brain has a fight, flight, freeze response and you don't have to be a weak person to have your brain hit the panic alarm. And so if you are a human, this work is for you. And it's really de-stigmatizing to know, oh, none of this is logical. Like my logic has very little to do with what's happening here. It's like your Wi-Fi is off and we need to work with like this thing and all the logic in the world is not going to

turn off your brain's panic button. And so if you know, oh, my brain has a panic button, then you won't feel like it's just me. I must be crazy. I just suck. Like procrastination is not because you're a horrible person. It's because your brain is in a fear response. So let's deal with that. It's not a justification. It's like, but if you know you're stuck in a fear response, then we can somatically work to release that response. It's not because you're lazy or you're horrible. In terms of people, like,

because I feel like a lot of people right now, especially with everything that's going on in the world and a lot of uncertainty, like there's this big thing around people trying to find their purpose and feeling stuck because they don't feel in alignment and there's there's a lot of very real pressure that comes with that we also live in a in a world where there's visibility to what people are doing all the time and these incredible things and more options than

ever before it can it can make you feel very stuck and trapped and like oh my god there's so many steps to take or like so many different avenues to go down I don't know where to begin what is your advice for people feeling in that kind of funk a bit stuck phase of life and people get mad about this too because the answer is not fun but it's true it's like what's my purpose on this planet is too big of a question. You're never going to digest that. And then you're going to feel shame about it. And that's going to make you not do more things. And then you're going to feel shame about that. And then off we go. So let's start with, if you're trying to figure out who you are and what you're about, like, let's start with the most basics right now. I imagine

if you're listening, you're wearing clothes. Did you put those clothes on because you like them? Cause you like the way they make you feel? Or is this just unconsciously, I'm just getting dressed? Is the food that you're eating right now food that you even want to be eating? Do you even enjoy the food that you're eating? Is the music you're listening? Start by just asking yourself, do I like what I'm doing right now? Do I like what I'm wearing? Do I like this road that I'm taking to work? And if the answer is no, don't stress. Don't torture yourself with, I need to change it. Change happens later. Let's start by getting conscious about it and just go through your day and ask yourself once an hour, whatever the thing you're

doing is, how does it feel in your body to be doing it? Does it feel good? Does it feel bad? Don't stop. Don't change. That's too much pressure. Let's just start by noticing. Observing it. Yeah. Let's just observe it. And then as you get practiced in that, then it's okay. Of all of these things that you're doing, which things do you feel like you can make a change in? Like, let's start with the easy. People are so quick to blow over the little baby itty bitty steps, but that's how you get to the stuff you're asking me for. So let's start with what can we do right now today? Not in a month, not you have to buy all this equipment to do it. It's like, what can you do right now today? Not in a month, not you have to buy all this equipment to do it.

It's like, what can you do right now today? Start noticing what does it feel like in your body to be wearing that shirt? What does it feel like in your body to be listening to that whatever? And then just notice. And then we can move on from there. I love that because it's, again, we go through life often on autopilot and thinking about these bigger things, but it's those little things that amount to change or that feeling of being stuck that you actually I don't know it

could be like a commute that you hate yes that you're just like you just you're like you resign yourself to the fact that it's just like that has to happen that way and then every day you kind of feel yourself getting into a bit of a lull and then you kind of end up in a, I don't know, a therapy session saying you're depressed and you don't know why, but it could be something as simple as that thing that you haven't fully acknowledged and also realize that it's possible to change, like those little changes. Yes. And we might not always get to do the big changes. You know, like if you have to keep your job, that sucks because there are real reasons why you need to provide. Like, fine, we're not going to change that.

But it's almost never the case that there's nothing. Like for some people in some situations, that is true. But more likely than not, if you're listening to this, there is some place that we can actually do some changes. And what people will say to me is, well, yeah, like I can do that little thing, but how am I going to get to where I want to go by doing this stupid little stuff? I'm like, you're going to get there a lot faster doing the little stuff than if you do nothing. A micro step forward is forward. And so you're no longer stuck

once you start moving, even if you're moving in the wrong direction. Like let's just take little tiny steps and see what happens. And then we can sort of course correct. But whatever my choices is medicine, if you're feeling stuck, that's a really good question to ask. Like right now with my commute, what are my choices? Do I have any? Yeah. Can I cycle? Yes, exactly. Can I walk? Can I get a ride? Whatever. Because it is those daily disciplines and the little things that actually, but they, when you're kind of going through, I guess, a personal crisis and thinking more existentially, you're like, if I take a walk once a day, that's not going to solve this. But actually, you'd be surprised how much that can transform the way you view your life

or yourself. Exactly. And then it's getting honest, right? Like, is it the reason you're not taking the walk because you really don't believe it's going to help? Or are you afraid of being alone with your thoughts for 10 minutes? Because if you are, I get that. Like that makes sense. I can validate that. Like I don't, I didn't want to like, this was like a hostile forest with like evil creatures in it. I get it. If you're afraid to walk, cause you're afraid of what might come up, that's fine. Then we're going to take it and we're going to do maybe you do 10 jumping jacks instead where you don't have

to think. But if you're getting honest, is it really because you don't believe the little steps are going to count? Or is it because even the little steps feel overwhelming to your nervous system? No problem. Like we can work with that. But like, why bother? It's all bullshit. I'm like, that's a comfortable story. How true is it? How did you get to the point like was once you were through the cult and all that kind of stuff to then actually be able to sit with your own thoughts and allow that because I think that that's someone something a lot of people feel is that fear around just being with themselves and that's like we even if we're alone at home, we're on our phones, we're watching TV, like, not really alone with what's going on upstairs. So how did you get to that point?

Internal family systems. When you're alone with really, really like weird, intrusive thinking, and you understand that that's not you thinking that, those are your parts. And it's like, well, it makes sense that I have a 13 year old that wants to like do X, Y, and Z. I don't have to be afraid of her. I need to sit there with her and get curious about her. And really only in the last few years that I felt like any like, okay, I feel like I have enough of this down where it's not always terrifying. I mean, I still go to therapy and do all the things, but the internal family systems

is the best way to know if you're alone with your thoughts, they're not demons. They're parts of you and they're wonderful and they're beautiful. And they're, most of them are terrified and they're just as scared as you. So we need an adult. Where is the adult in the room? If we're all screaming and having tantrums, it's going to be a hot mess. But if you can find the inner adults to parent the parts, then it's actually really fun sitting alone with your thoughts. Cause my parts think sometimes they think really creative, But if you can find the inner adults to parent the parts, then it's actually really fun sitting alone with your thoughts. Because my parts think, sometimes they think really creative, interesting things.

And sometimes they go to really weird places. But because I know that that's not me, I can go, wow, okay, that's a thought that just came up. Okay, that's interesting. Wonder where that came from. Cool. What should we do with this now? You don't have to be afraid of those weird thoughts.

We all have them. Yeah, that's right. We definitely do. We all have them. Like, yes. I love that. Well, I mean, I feel like we've covered quite a lot of ground. Is there anything else you would like to add as a takeaway for our listeners? Obviously, the majority are kind of going through a transition, a shift in life. So I mean, if there's any more piles of wisdom you'd like to leave us with, please do. There's no such thing as crazy. Everything that you're experiencing makes sense. Even if you don't know the context, even if you don't know the history, even if you don't know why, just if you can start with the assumption that your brain is on your side,

and everything makes sense, and there's no such thing as crazy, it's going to at least point you in the right direction. And then the two guarantees with a change process is one, it's going to suck. And two, it's going to be worth it. So stay the course. I love that. Thank you so much, Britt. That was such a perfect ending. Thank you. And thank you for joining us on the Saturn Returns podcast. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me. on the Saturn Returns podcast. It's been an absolute pleasure.

Thanks for having me. I love this episode with Brit because she has such a wonderful approach to some quite complex and heavy subjects with a lightness and ease that I find. I just really resonate with that way of approaching this kind of stuff because it can get a bit heavy. So injecting that sort of lightness and humor into it makes it

you know it makes everyone feel less alone and yeah I just really loved this conversation with her there was there was so much wisdom in it that I've had to listen back a couple of times so I suggest you do the same and perhaps share it with a friend you think might find it useful if you want to find out more about Brit you can find her on Instagram at Brit Frank and you can get her book The Science of Stuck from Amazon or any good retailer. Also just a reminder that my own book Saturn Returns is now available for pre-order um this has been something i've been working on for the last year and a half it has felt like a very long journey but i am so excited for you guys to read it i will put a link in the show notes where you guys can order it as it would mean the world if

you did it's a very personal insight into my life my journey interweaved with astrology so you'll get everything you need to know about your own Saturn return and yeah I hope you enjoy it just another note that if you guys did find this episode useful and have enjoyed listening to Saturn returns I would love it if you could leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or just share it with a friend because this helps us get discovered by more like-minded people. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Saturn Returns and remember, you are not alone. Goodbye.