Saturn Returns with Caggie - 6.6 The Body's Wisdom and Somatic Healing with Donna Lancaster

Episode Date: November 14, 2022

Author of The Bridge, Donna Lancaster, joins Caggie in this episode to explore how our physical body naturally heals our emotional pain. Donna experienced an extreme panic attack which kick-started her to explore the world of mental and physical healing, leading her to create an in-person retreat called The Bridge. Donna went on to write her book, also titled The Bridge, that focuses on tools and mechanisms that we can all adopt to heal and become our most authentic self. Donna and Caggie’s conversation touches upon how we can evolve from our anxious state through physical healing processes such as shaking therapy, how our vulnerability can truly set us free, Wounded Child archetypes and viewing grief through a lense of ‘release’ and ‘relief’. You can buy Donna’s book The Bridge here. --- 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 helps to bring clarity during transitional times where there can be confusion and doubt. I always say, with all respect, I'm a great advocate of talking therapy it's very powerful certainly probably saved my life however I believe and it's just my opinion that you need to get up out of a therapist's chair and involve the body in the healing process so it's that combination of talking and somatic release and that is true healing both. Today I'm joined by the lovely Donna Lancaster who has worked as a coach and therapist for over 30 years. She was formerly head of teaching at the Hoffman Process working with the Hoffman Institute UK. I went on to co-create

the renowned Bridge Retreat which is a six-day personal development experience. She has now made this experience into a book, which is a nine-step program helping you to live more authentically and wholeheartedly. I wanted to speak to Donna because I'd heard a lot about her work and about the bridge from various people that have come on the podcast and people in this space, and it was such a joy to talk to her. In this episode, we speak about the victory of vulnerability, how to build resilience through rejection, somatic healing, grief work, and so much more. Before we get into this episode, let's quickly check in with our astrological guide, Nora.

The progress lunar return starts at about 27 years old, and what it does is it brings us back to our subconscious impulses, because this astrological phenomena is the one that relates not to Saturn, but rather to the Moon. It helps us access forgotten childhood memories, dreams, wishes, but it also brings childhood wounds and traumas to the surface. In essence, this is really clearing the path to such a return by bringing into question, among other things, how our emotional needs are being met, how we've been taking care of our mental health, the state of the relationship with our parental figures,

especially the matriarchal archetypes of our lives. We're in essence being nudged to look at our own cup and how exactly we've been either filling it or emptying it without regard for the needs of the inner child. It's a time where we are taught to mother ourselves at least, that's to hope. It can be a tough time mentally, but if we exercise kindness, It can be a tough time mentally, but if we exercise kindness, patience, but more essentially subconscious reprogramming, it can lead to a rewarding Saturn return, one where we already have aligned our inner needs with our outer world. Well Donna, welcome to the Saturn Returns podcast. It's such a pleasure to have you today. Thank you so much. It's a pleasure to be here. I feel delighted to have been invited.

As we just jumped on this recording, I said that I was immersed in your book and I feel like it's really, I heard about your work through a number of different people actually over the last few years, but actually reading it, it's's really hitting me it's really kind of going to a place on a sort of physical level that's stirring a lot of stuff so I just wanted to say I think you're an incredible writer and everything that you've created is amazing but for the audience that doesn't know would you be able to say a little bit about the bridge and who you are and what you created yeah thank you um so the bridge uh was originally a retreat so um myself and my co-founder Gabby Kruger we've both been working in this field for of personal development for over 30 years and we were wanting to create something that was um that really reflected that sort of sense of a more kind

of female energy and sort of you know that was really about nourishment and tenderness and compassion and kindness and gentleness rather than some of the ways we sort of experienced you know working with people before and so we Bridge Retreat. It was a six-day personal development residential program. So people stayed on site for six days. And, you know, it was really popular and it was a beautiful piece of work and much needed in the world. And then the pandemic happened. And so we tried to take it online. And, you know, those people that did it online, And so we tried to take it online. And, you know, those people that did it online,

they believe they had a really powerful experience, which is great. But for us, it's an in-person retreat. And so we closed, like many small businesses, we made a decision to close that. But at the same time, or actually previously, I'd also been approached about writing a book about the kind of the main sort of core stages of what it meant to symbolically cross the bridge. And so that's where the book came in. And really, with the bridge closing, I had the space to really say, OK, what are the core elements of this work that I know work after 32 years of working with people? And here's the bridge you know you started all

of this it's become incredibly popular now there are a lot of people in this space but at the time I guess it was still relatively new or there weren't so many people occupying it what led you to start doing that yourself because I know your background was a social worker and that you had these kind of moments of rock bottom that kind of put you on that spiritual path so to speak yeah for sure I mean I always say that the my greatest spiritual teacher was pain and so like many people we're drawn in our own healing process without realising it. We're drawn towards something that's familiar, you know, and, you know, in my case, having been a child growing up in a family with domestic violence and a lot of addiction issues and very traumatised childhood.

So it was no, you know, no surprises that I was drawn towards working with children in social work and child protection in particular. particular don't have to be Freud to figure that one out and um but the the I don't want to say mistake but the the gap was for me was that I haven't at that time done my own work in a work and so as I say if you try to soon to go into an area of work where it resonates with your own past then you are without doing your own healing work you are looking always through the wound lens as I call it so that's certainly what happened to me and then you know trying to also having that kind of warrior woman archetype so trying to push on through however getting to a point as it starts at the beginning of the book where I was face down in a ladies' loo at work having a full blown panic attack. And that, like most of these kind of breakthroughs, stroke breakdowns, was a big moment in my life.

And that launched me into a different direction. But, yeah, I've worked in so many different fields before that, after that. But that was kind of a pivotal moment of leading me to go into a new direction, which was more healing work rather than child protection. Social work was really about very reactive, just going in after a kind of metaphorical bomb had gone off in a family and just kind of, you know, trying to patch it all together. But it felt very sticking plaster-ish rather than root cause. And I was interested in the root cause. Was that the first panic attack you've had, that one you describe in the book? Yeah, I mean, I'm not a panicky person. That's not where I go to, you know.

But that's kind of what I was getting at. Because I think sometimes when people say that that's something they experience, the listener, whoever might think, oh, that's, you know, perhaps their disposition. But I think it's like you said, it was the first time you experienced something like that. And it's worth taking note when your body does go into that state. Totally. And I think that's why I thought it was a heart attack, because it was so alien to me to feel extreme panic. And anyone that's had a panic attack, this isn't mild anxiety. You know, this is disabling, kind of, it feels like you're going to die, you know, and I really, really did feel like at that point, I thought I'm having a heart attack that could only be the only

thing because it was so much pain around my heart I couldn't get my breath I was on the floor couldn't stand you know and I couldn't catch my breath and I just thought I must you know I'm gonna die so that's how extreme it was and very very out of character and I've never had one since thank goodness um so yeah it was a very alien concept to me. And you mentioned a second ago about this sort of thing of operating or seeing things through the lens of the wound and your experience of doing that. Would you agree that most people do that anyway

or they kind of seek out something that replicates the wound so that they can then address it. But I think so many people aren't conscious or aware of that. So it actually just, and it's something you touch on in the book that I find such an interesting topic is that of kind of victimhood of when we don't see the lessons or the things that are coming into our life as an opportunity to kind of work through and grow. We just see them as things happening to us that make us a victim of life yeah I think that our wounds are everywhere

or our projections about our wounds are everywhere so we can get drawn to situations including relationships you know intimate relationships friendships everything that reminds us of our past and it depends what what perspective you hold about that because I think it is for us all an opportunity to heal and complete with our unfinished business from the past but no one teaches us this stuff you know so it's the sort of things we need to learn at school. So we just end up, rather than healing, rewounding ourselves. And that can be including at work. You know, it was the last thing, let alone how inappropriate it was. But the last thing I needed as a traumatised survivor of domestic violence from my childhood was to go into household after household after household where there was abuse and violence and addiction,

active addiction, because, you know, that was not healthy for me. And as I said before, it meant that I was always I was making really big decisions, not alone, but certainly part of a decision making process about about vulnerable children through a wound lens. So, yeah, I think it's one thing if you work in a supermarket, as an example, where you might be a bit reactive with the customers and your wounds come through in that way. But when you're in a job where you're making big decisions about vulnerable people, that's when it gets really, really dangerous. And so there's so many opportunities to heal, you know um but nobody's explaining this

stuff to us um we have to kind of stumble across it you know if we're lucky and also what that must have been doing on your nervous system you know every time you were in those situations but because it wasn't directly your experience or happening you probably sort of thought oh I need to just like you say put on that warrior front and and deal with this stuff because I'm helping and this is my role but not actually recognizing how it was impacting you every day no absolutely and and because of like you say because of the warrior I was really good at pushing on through, you know, and that is a survival response, if you like. And I was very, very good at it until, and this is the beautiful thing, about the body's wisdom, until my body brought me to my knees, literally, and my body said,

just no more, you know, it's not happening, Donna. And it was a beautiful moment. And now I've learned from you, it was a Saturn, Donna. And it was a beautiful moment. And now I've learned from you, it was a Saturn return moment, because I was 30. Yeah, I was gonna say when I was reading it, I was like, this was your sad. I mean, it could not be a more, like such a Saturn return story at exactly that time. And in such a dramatic way, when everything just kind of came crumbling down, but essentially, it was so you could build things on a on a more solid foundation to kind of go into that point a little bit about the body's wisdom because I think it's something we're becoming more in tune with and aware of but it's still relatively new territory for a lot of people and I think we are also very programmed to

be very in our heads and disconnected from our body. And that's something that I definitely was for the majority of my life. How can people or like, how have you noticed when people aren't aware of their body and how their body might be speaking to them? And how can we start to communicate better with our with the sort of language of our body yeah i mean it's such a important question and i think you know so many of us are operating from what i call the neck up you know and it is it's just like the body's like a you know you maybe take care of it quite well and you you do your yoga and you do your exercise and you work out and you put nutritious food in it but it's like treated like a machine it's like a separate entity and the mind is doing all the so-called work and and this body just carries us around you know but as you know we are one holistic being and and the thing that um so much of my work is about is about supporting people to not leave their body as a lot of traumatized people do to not disassociate,

to start to learn to safely be embodied, to actually be in their body completely. And that is a slow process, you know, and for many people, it takes time. But so much of the work I do is around things like shaking, so therapeutic shaking, based on the work of Dr. Peter Levine. I don't know if you know his work. He wrote an amazing book, Kagi, called Waking the Tiger. And it's really looking at how animals that are not kept in captivity, generally under challenging and stressful situations, don't afterwards suffer from trauma. Because why? Because they shake. They have this organic process where they shake and and do deep breathing you know and that's a lot of the groups that I do is we work with physically

shaking the body because we are animals and allowing the body to help support itself to access and release some of the tension and constriction in the body and then also breathing and breath work and that's why I think breath work has become so, so popular. It's because people are recognizing it's a really great way to calm the nervous system and to get back into the body. My boyfriend's reading that book because I've seen it at his house, but I didn't know what it was about. So it's basically the observation that animals in the wild

will shake their bodies afterwards in terms of processing what they've just experienced as a natural instinct yeah exactly and our natural instinct is the same I mean obviously we're doing Dr Peter Levine's work in injustice but in a nutshell it is that we are animals if you think about when when you get a fright, your body starts to shake. Your teeth start to chatter. You go into shock. But what's happening is we are not allowing that to complete the process. And so even Dr. Peter Levine, in his book,

he describes a situation where he's hit by a car and his body starts to go into this kind of shaking. And then they pin him and try to strap him to a bed whatever it's called yeah and he because of his wisdom he's kind of saying no don't strap me down I need to do this you know and they're like trying to stop his body shaking and you know fascinating so it really is that supporting the body to do what it naturally knows to do the body is so wise it knows what we need and and that's why I was face down in that toilet because the body just said you you know in a way I was having a heart attack because my heart was so broken and the

body just said no more down she goes because also and you've spoken a lot about it in the book about how you know in the the mind it's very linear and we we sort of give ourselves like a sell-by date to grieve things and to our experiences kind of run chronologically and then we're like okay well so many weeks has passed i guess i'll just move on and that's such a common thing that people say like you know you've got to let let it go whatever and even though that might come from a good place if the body hasn't it's not going anywhere and you there was this beautiful line where you said you know time isn't necessarily a healer it's a great distancer or something along those lines and I was like wow that is so true because I know people in my life and my family that are experiencing unresolved grief, but the

logical mind is like, but that happened 30 years ago. How can I possibly be feeling these feelings now come to the surface? And I think, you know, the pandemic impacted people a lot in that way, because suddenly we had this space. We weren't able to sort of numb ourselves quite like we used to with busyness or whatever it might be and so yeah even you speaking about that story just now of him getting hit by a car like it was a very minor thing that happened to me but I was on the back of my boyfriend's at the time scooter and got hit we got hit by a car coming through traffic it it was very foggy it was that kind of time of year where like it was just it was probably you know November or something and the car just hit the side of my leg and I just remember being in the most agonizing pain and shock

and sort of I guess there was like a trauma there but even you speaking about that story of the man I can feel that part of my leg like twinging and that happened and it brings up this sort of like feeling that I I guess I don't know whether it's something that I haven't quite processed and also I noticed whenever I um if I'm working with a PT and they make me do certain things on that leg all this emotion comes up and I and I just don't want to go there and like I've had you know just cried and cried and cried from doing an exercise on my leg not that it's painful that it's just accessing a part of my body or an experience that I perhaps haven't haven't let go of or something yeah I mean it makes total sense doesn't it and it is that you know he Dr Peter Levine's work he he created a

therapeutic model called somatic experiencing which really slows everything down and that you can go into particular points of the body like you with your leg and you can basically allow the leg to speak you know and and really working with your leg and the emotions that are probably trapped inside you related to what sounds like quite a a big shock you know so um yeah and there's i don't know if you've heard of the treatment of rolfing either you have you heard of rolfing it's an amazing treatment and i i don't know much about it but i've received it and they work on kind of different parts of the body it's like manipulation of the different parts of the body and the the rolfing practitioner that

i work with and she i remember she said that if whenever she works around here people will start either crying around the heart area they'll either start crying or they will tell stories that are very heart-based it was fascinating and she was saying that when she did the head the head would you know become very busy and they'd start but it was literally like as she was manipulating them they started to release these old blocked emotions and fascinating stuff so is it both sort of somatics and talk at the same time? Well, I mean, I think that certainly that's what I believe in my work is that we need the cognitive, you know, we have a mind for a reason. And so we want to, we need the cognitive piece to make sense to join the dots.

That's the awareness piece. And that's very powerful, isn't it? And very important is to understand that, for example, you that you were in this accident, and very important is to understand that for example you that you were in this accident and this happened and these were the sort of uh series of events that led you to have this injury so that's the cognitive piece and then we need to bring the body and the body's wisdom in to complete the healing and that's why i always say with all respect like um i'm a great advocate of talking therapy it's very powerful certainly probably saved my life at that period of my life in my early 30s however I believe and it's just my opinion that you need to get up out of a therapist's chair and involve the body in the healing process

so it's that combination of talking and somatic release. And that is true healing, both. In the book, you cover some big, big topics. And one that's obviously an important one for you and your whole experience and something that you believe in is like grief, you know. And when I think people think of grief, like you say, they often think of a death. And that's what you're like you're grieving someone that's died whereas there's grief grieving that we experience throughout our life of identity relationships friendships all these sorts of things so but my question is because obviously the book is such a beautiful demonstration of some of the practices that were within the retreat.

But without someone to necessarily facilitate those experiences, how can we hold space for ourselves? Because even me reading the book, I could feel the stuff coming up. And then automatically this other part of me that was like, oh, we don't know whether we can go there. Yeah, I mean, I get it. And I think the first thing to say, Peggy, is that this book and the work contained within it is not for everyone. And so I say in the introduction that if somebody's got, for example, complex PTSD, or, you know, severe trauma, or severe sort of mental health issues, this is not a book to work through by yourself. But this is really a series of resources offered to people to support them and it's people that could never even if the retreat was still in existence they

could never afford that kind of experience offering an alternative something else that people can access and it's really important as I say in the book, to do these things safely. And I mean, part of when I released the book, I opened up and offered a free course, which is a free course to accompany people so that people could work together through the chapters, but on their own at their own pace. So sometimes, even though we're on chapter eight tonight step eight some people are still because of where they're at they're still only on step one or two and it's like pacing themselves appropriately and I've made that really clear but there is something about working on these things either you know in community or with a friend a close friend that you can kind of go through the work together and also throughout the work and resources, there's a series of resources which are about recalibrating the nervous system, like the self-parenting resource, where you really are sort of calming down your nervous system and also comforting the wounded child aspects of yourself.

And as I say in the book, there's grief release and there's grief relief, and both are equally important. So there's experiences where you actively choose to access and release some emotions and blockage, some constriction through the various resources like writing to the person that's hurt you, moving your body etc and then there's points where you choose to stop that and it's a conscious choice and it's not avoidance but you just then go into the relief bit which is where you you know put on a funny film and watch that or go out and do some exercise and you're choosing to move between those two so that you don't overwhelm your nervous system. So you do a little bit of work, have a small or a big emotional release, and then you support your body to recalibrate, like with the self-parenting, and then you have some relief from your grief. Easy for me to say with my teeth.

It's like get your teeth around that, grief relief. But then you go out and you do something which is consciously moving away from the pain and the hurt and saying okay I'm you know I'm going to go out and do something to comfort myself I think that's so powerful because I'm sure for a lot of people listening and myself included that it feels like this kind of work would be like opening pandora's box and once you open it you have to just rumble through everything and it's just going to be this overwhelming avalanche of emotion and like history and experiences that your body just couldn't possibly handle in one sitting and to i kind of apply that with everything in life i'm always like i must do it all at once and then it just becomes too much so i really love that sort of dance between

like you say release and relief or perhaps the sort of inner child work and the parenting work and kind of running those things in tandem so you're like you also it's an exercise in itself that brings about the awareness of those two parts. And I think that that's something that we've explored a lot in this podcast. And it's been such an instrumental tool for me in my own journey to have that awareness over that child and that parent. So for the audience that perhaps hasn't listened to an episode around that, would you be able to explain from your own perspective what you mean by those things? Yeah so I mean the wounded child is um is an archetype so it's an aspect of ourselves that we recognize carries an emotional wound from the past and so you know I always give the example so if there was a life event that happened to you

say in childhood doesn't always have to be in childhood but let's just use that as an example so say when you were five or six your parents divorced and that was really difficult for you and then if you imagine that you didn't then your parents perhaps with their own challenges around that divorce they didn't perhaps give you the time to express how you felt and it wasn't talked about or processed so what happens for us as individuals is that we then become emotionally arrested at that age it's like there's a part of us that's still five and so we look you know we grow up and we look like an adult woman man person and yet there's parts of us that usually get triggered in intimate relationships or at work that they yeah and then that five-year-old abandoned child and she felt abandoned by perhaps both her parents but through

the divorce gets reignited again and it's like she's very alive so that's the wounded child and we have many most of us you know if you've had any kind of life experiences you have a you know a five-year-old a seven-year-old 11 year, a 13 and a 17, but enough about me. But it's like those are the wounded child archetypes. And there are also other child archetypes that we move into, as we heal. So as you go, what I call going back for the five year old, so you go back and you, you basically allow that part of you safely through the resources here or in therapy or in a group session to allow yourself to safely access and and release the emotions that you felt and actually have a voice to give a voice to that wounded part of you that was that is five that's

still in there and and then when you do that when you really let that part of you feel seen, heard and understood, be validated in their experience, which is what children need. It's what we as humans need to feel that we're seen, heard, understood and validated. That's what we need as humans. And so when you do that for your five year old self, then what happens is she can emotionally grow up. And it doesn't mean that you never get triggered your abandonment wound as a core wound for many of us. It just means it doesn't hijack you. It means you kind of go, oh, ouch, I can feel that. I noticed that when my partner says he's going to be back at 10 and he comes back at midnight, I noticed, and he doesn't text, I notice and he doesn't text I notice

that I feel angry I feel abandoned I feel rejected you know we notice but it doesn't hijack us and we go into five-year-olds kind of you bastard you know so we move from childish to childlike and that's a beautiful transition and then we move further as we emotionally grow up the wounded child we become rather than childish childlike and we then can access other parts of the child archetype which include playful innocent joyful child you know so we become more childlike but in the kind of best sense you know so that's the the wounded child and then there's the what you know could be called the parent and what also as an archetype called the wise adult so it's like the parent in you the wisdom of you some might even call it your spirit I would but it's like

the part of you that knows the part of you that can take care of yourself the part of you that has your own back, can hold your own hand, that really solid inner elder, if you like, can comfort and soothe the wounded child part of you. And the more you do that with yourself in the ways that I've described, that wisdom just gets stronger and stronger and stronger because you're not, you haven't got like a, you know, a family of five, 10 inner children running rampage because that's the other thing, Kagi, is that like kids, you know, children will start off saying, like tugging at your jumper and saying like, I need help. And they'll say it in a, you know, an ordinary volume. And then they'll start to go, hey, I need help. And they'll start to raise the boy and in

the end it's a scream isn't it and a punch in there you know and that is exactly what happened in that toilet it's like i will get your attention and we have a tantrum because it's like come back for me you know and that is really what it's all about is about going back for that five-year-old little you that's hidden under the bed that gets activated with bosses and figures of authority your partner friendships and then you heal that and then you welcome her home and then the childlike wonder comes out beautiful yeah because especially I think for so many people listening as well, it's in relationship, that aspect gets so brought out. And I actually, to share my own experience, have been navigating that this weekend that's

just passed when, to be quite open, I'm at a point in my relationship that I've never gone past this. And I've never been with someone as long as I've been with my current partner. And even though I'm like, okay, this is a healthy like beautiful nourishing relationship this part of me feels very activated of like when's the other shoe gonna drop and you know perhaps that's because my parents got divorced so I'm always anticipating like something's gonna go wrong something's gonna end someone's gonna do something but then how how present that inner child part of me is so when anything is said I will interpret it in a sort of like about through the through the wounded lens

you know through that kind of abandonment and then my system will go into sort of shutdown it's this fearful avoidant thing where like I want both sort of be taken care of and told that it's okay but also to push away and run and how that will kind of escalate when I'm sort of like behaving in a way and you and you use the word and it's what I use is I have enough awareness that I can communicate whilst it's happening but every time I do speaking my truth about how I'm actually feeling and what's going on feels so exposed and vulnerable. And like I am five years old speaking to a parent that it gets hijacked every single time by emotion. And it's not that and that that's usually crying. And it's not even that I'm thinking I'm sad.

It's not actually that I'm sad. that I'm thinking I'm sad. It's not actually that I'm sad. It's just the vulnerability of speaking in itself that then the emotion just floods it. And yeah, it's something that every time I'm like, I don't even know where this emotion is coming from. From your five-year-old self. I mean, it's such a beautiful, honest share, Kagi,

because it's probably universal if we were really, really honest. Unless you had a really secure childhood, unless everything, which I'm always very curious about that. You know, if you had so-called perfect parents, you know, you've got some challenges because that sets its own set of challenges around no one's good enough, etc, etc. But I think that it's such a beautiful thing if you're in relationship to be able to recognise, I mean, I used to work with couples for 10 years in London and to be able to recognise that when you're relating to someone,

you're relating to them from either an adult place or a child-like place or a childish place. And to really have a relationship where you can say I'm in my five-year-old right now you know and that's so healing rather than what often happens like you said when you feel overwhelmed with uh emotion and the tears you know because again five-year-old girls especially that's often when they feel unheard or they can't get their message across it's just a frustration it's like oh you know and then the tears will come but to be able to say to a partner

I feel five right now and then to say what does your five-year-old need and you might be a hug it might be I just yeah I need you to cuddle me or whatever and there's nothing wrong with that it's beautiful and in that moment of healing and then it's about the the five-year-old when she's settled her emotions to then say what I need to say is or I need you to hear is that when this happens you know I feel x or whatever for example not you made me feel that's to be avoided yeah like but but you know that kind of really looking even at your partner and saying when they're responding or reacting to you in a dialogue, it's like, are they in their adult or are they in their child right now?

Because often we're in our child and their partner's in their child. Yeah, well, it sets off the other. Yeah, good luck with that. If you have an argument with two five-year-olds, it's not going to end well but that's often what happens because also like to go back to what we mentioned at the beginning is we will be attracted or drawn to people that perhaps not replicate our wounding but is an opportunity for heat to heal so I understand that sometimes that can be seen as a as a toxic thing

because we're repeating cycles that are unhealthy but it can also be a beautiful thing because relationships are such a container for our healing but equally we will probably activate each other and that's a very normal thing and something that I've tried to also learn within that is sometimes having a moment apart but actually it's saying okay let's just take five minutes to calm down because once your nervous system is activated it's really hard whilst you're together because almost the presence of that person is making you feel you know spiky and ready to attack and then that energy will make them sort of spiky and ready to

attack and before and that's how minor, minor conflicts end up exploding. And you're like, how have we ended up here when we're talking about the dishwasher? Do you know what I mean? I know. It's so beautiful, though. I remember a couple came to see me in my practice and it was about, they thought it was about the loose seat, him leaving the loose seat. And I said, it's never about the loose seat. It's never about the loose seat, him leaving the loose seat. And I said, it's never about the loose seat. It's never about the loose seat, you know.

And we always joked about it being loose seat gate, you know. And then when you dig, you know, it's about you have to really dig on that. And it's almost like a red herring, but it's actually a trigger to then help you do the healing. And then, you know, she felt disrespected when he kept leaving the seat up. He was a rebellious teen. She felt like, you know, this seven-year-old girl whose dad didn't love her, you know,

and you work out the dynamics. It's fascinating. And then you realize, one, it's not about the toilet seat and two, there's an opportunity for healing and growth here. And also to be able to see each other's experience because that's such a big component here is that one's truth doesn't invalidate the other and we often get into this well this is what's happening for

me so you know that's all the story is whereas actually those two things can coexist and neither party is right or wrong it's just like what's going really what's going on internally that's being triggered externally. And so when we can have that conversation with our partner, when we're like, okay, this is what happened to me in the past. Therefore, when these things are said or this happens, this is what might happen to me and how I might react. And then it kind of gives us this opportunity for, like you say, this beautiful experience that can be shared where you can actually become a lot closer from it but it does it does require a lot of vulnerability that you speak about in the book and how like crucial that is and I think we are we are all aware of the importance of vulnerability but actually actioning it is often a different story

because it's usually tied up with the parts of ourselves that we want to keep hidden yes you know as a what I call a warrior woman in recovery believe me I know the challenge of vulnerability it's the warrior woman's nightmare worst nightmare and it's actually essential if you want to have authentic connections is if you really want to take your relationship or any relationship to the next level we need to be courageous and it takes a huge amount of courage to go to our partner or our friend or the person that's hurt our feelings or whatever and say that most vulnerable making thing you know whatever that might be and it is and it's

also exquisite you know I think in in the book I don't know if you remember or if you you've got to that point yet but there's this couple that I called I think Holly and David and they're in the relationship session with me and and it gets exactly like that escalating kind of toilet seat moment where it goes from something seemingly meaningless and then suddenly I think it escal. And then she is attacking him and he's attacking and I get them to pause. And I think you're absolutely right, the pause is so important. And then I asked her if she can say what she needs to say, in a way that brings in her vulnerability. And she then says something like, I can't remember it verbatim, but she says

something like, I'm terrified that you don't love me anymore and that you're going to leave me and that's the truth and in that moment it was so beautiful Kagi because he reached for her because it's like when we hear that kind of vulnerable truth not always sometimes it terrifies us and someone you know he could have run for the hills but he he just reached for her and it's not a happy ever after story they didn't stay together but it was a beautiful ever after story because they they navigated their separation and later their divorce from a place of mutual respect and loving kindness which is all we can ever hope for beautiful oh that literally hit me so hard because like if you

create enough space in that moment when everything is escalating to actually come to that place of vulnerability because also you need that little bit of distance in your sort of cognitive thinking to recognize yourself what's actually going on because when we're in the moment and like we're feeling that feeling we think it's about the lucy you know we even though our body's like perhaps overreacting to lose but we're like no this is what it's about you need to have that like moment to pause to go this is what i'm actually wishing you know this is what i really need to say and like you say that's such a beautiful invitation and I also love that that story in a way wasn't a sort of quote-unquote happy ever after because such a big important learning and message of

mine is it's it's not about the outcome the victory is in the doing and when you can communicate that sort of truth to your partner and more importantly to yourself like that is a victory absolutely it's a true victory and it's a it's a moment where you know it's also that thing where you are vulnerable just for like you say that the process of opening your heart because where does vulnerability take us into our heart it's a softening process so the more vulnerable we become the softer and more tender we are and what does the world need more of more tender and softer and loving and kind and compassionate people so vulnerability is a superpower and it's also it doesn't always work out you know I remember

another client and she wanted to ask somebody out for a date from her work and and I was encouraging her to kind of ice this guy out and just sort of saying you know she said what if he says no and I said and you've asked you've dared to ask for something that you really want and it's okay he has it because it's a question not a demand it's not you will go out with me. It's, would you like to come out for a coffee? Would you like to come out? You know?

And so she dared via email. That was as much as she could do. And he didn't reply. And so the wonderful thing is we worked with the victory, as you call it, of vulnerability it's like and she was so proud of herself you know she had that initial ouch and it builds resilience by the way which is a big theme in the book and and then it was like oh my goodness I I dared you know I dared to ask this man out and it did it almost didn't matter and it she said it kind of shows that she felt like it was like a lucky

escape because he didn't even have the decency to respond you know to sort of say you know no I'm washing my hair or something let's unpack that for a sec because I think it's such an important thing that we all are terrified about and that's sort of making the first move whether that means asking someone out or kind of talking about a relationship status or talking about something at work that's uncomfortable approaching any kind of conflict that feels you know potentially we might get rejected and how much we will avoid those situations to protect ourselves which then become counterintuitive because we then don't even know whether that was a possibility. And a lot of people I think will, you know, you get left in a state of wonder, what if? And always kind of looking back thinking, what if I'd just taken,

what if I'd just taken that chance? And it's so much better living with, you know, short-term disappointment than long term regret. And I say that as someone that's immensely terrified of that kind of rejection and has avoided, you know, the possibility of being faced with it. But I have also had moments of victory where I've done something that's like seemingly kind of crazy and just so against what I have been taught or learned but actually I've just been crystal clear that it's about me living in alignment with my integrity that the act itself is not about it's not dependent on them responding to me in the way that I need them to so I think that's such a beautiful thing for our listeners, but also how when that person doesn't respond.

Luckily, when I've done it, I have had a response. It might not have been the response I wanted, but it was met with a beautiful mirroring of integrity. And that for me was so powerful because it's like you say, you kind of are living from the heart space and a rejection doesn't always need to be painful but we're living in this this modern phenomenon of ghosting where people just go silent and it's such a painful thing for people so how for our listeners when they are going through that when they have perhaps done something brave and it's not been received in any kind of way it's just been ignored how can they navigate that because it often

unearths all our insecurities and all our fears of our worth and our lovability yeah and it's again it's that beautiful kind of collective experience of being human it's what connects us is that we're tribal we all need to belong we all want to feel that we belong and that we're welcome and so the fear of rejection and and it's very human and I think it's very beautiful and I think it can be exaggerated if you've got a poor wound around that and also I I always say I I love that part of. I love the part of myself that still gets nervous when I come onto a podcast with somebody I've never met before. You know, I love, I don't go, oh, my goodness, I'm nervous.

I'm like, oh, look, the sweetness. There's that six-year-old Donna that she's still like, will Kagi like me? And so it's so lovely to see her. You know, she's still alive in me, that part of me. So I think that's the thing is recognizing it makes us so beautifully human and the difference I think as somebody who considers herself an elder for me is that I don't judge have a judgment about it I think it's beautiful that we

get a kind of fear of rejection as long as it's not the extreme kind of core wound disproportionate reaction. But I think for your listeners, it is about, like you said, the victory is in the action. It's in the process. It's not in the result. And so I think it was Simon Sinek that said that, you know, how you build resilience fundamentally is through so-called failures, failing over and over again. And I've definitely done that. I don't know about you and it is that thing like with real intimate relationships or whatever it might be is you not

only so-called failing at them but then you you kind of look around in kind of the rubble of your last relationship and you get some gift from it and I always describe it as a turd bowed gift. It's like a gift, but it's got a turd for a bow. Because it comes at a high price. And that's that thing of pain being a great spiritual teacher. And so for your listeners, it's like, it's okay to feel a bit of an ouch. What's not okay is to then, you know, go and do something sort of you know unhelpful storm over to their desk how dare you not reply to money you know but or just fall into like a

toxic spiral it's like oh well I'm gonna go out and like do something that's really bad for me it's a sort of self-punishment because I think that's what you touched on is this um the shaming that we do to ourselves as a result of it rather than compassion and that's what you touched on is this um the shaming that we do to ourselves as a result of it rather than compassion and that's often our default it's like we'll do something it will be rejected or we don't get a reply or we don't get what we were hoping to achieve and then that voice in our head is like see you're undeserving of that you don't deserve to be loved you did this you did that and that then caused that's the thing that causes the rejection it's the rejection of self yes absolutely and that is

a what you're talking about there is is definitely a core wounding that needs the attention that's the five-year-old that we talked about it's that part of us that we need to to really turn towards and figure out you know maybe it's not that the guy in this present moment that didn't answer your request for a coffee, maybe if you go back, when did you first feel rejected? When did you first feel that you weren't welcome? When did you first feel, and it's usually childhood, you know, so when we join those dots and do the brief work, as I call it, which is allowing ourselves to have those feelings about the original source of them, what happened way back when, what that means is then when we come

to these situations, we're, you know, a little bit more resilient each time. And so you just get, and if you take enough risks with your vulnerability safely, and you really put yourself in situations of so-called failing what I would call stumbling and bumbling you know and you end up nose down yet again in humility street as I call it and dirt and you kind of look around in the dirt what can I learn here and then back up you get is what happens Kagi is you just get more and more resilient and then you realize and this is a beautiful thing which links I, I think, to Saturn Return, is as you move into that next phase of life, and get into that phase of moving more towards a more wise, if you like, a more mature

space, is that you don't take things so personally. You know, you really, that's one of the gifts about getting older, if you do your work,, that's one of the gifts about getting older. If you do your work, because there's plenty of people my age that are just, you know, still tantrum eating five-year-olds. If you do your inner work, you get to a stage where you're like, that's not about me. You know, that man not answering her is about his inadequacy to communicate a no, a boundary, you know.

So you just take it less and less personally when you have done your inner healing work about the original source of the wound. Yes, I think that going back to that place is so crucial and it comes up again and again in your book and with all the sort of methods and tools for doing that. And you mentioned about how in the context of relationship, when we, and this is something I've been writing about recently, when we have, I don't know,

a feeling that comes up or that rejection that feels unmeasured to the situation, as in if someone we've like gone on one date with doesn't respond or doesn't want to see us again, like it shouldn't feel like the end of the world but sometimes it does and we can pin our sense of worth onto having that outcome be different how much do you think because you speak about childhood being the early imprint of that but our early adult relationships in term I mean around like you know our teenage years which i don't we're always kind of in psychology focused on the zero to seven and those formative years usually impacted by our parents and that dynamic but how much do you think the sort of 14 years when we are first

exploring you know because that within the sort of Saturn return space is also a Saturn square. It's a moment where we initiate into a level of adulthood again. And we experience that through going through puberty and this very big shift in identity and our role in the world and who we are and moving through it. And it's known as a very uncomfortable time, but then also how we then

interact with the opposite sex and exploring that side do you think that that plays a big part in how we operate in our adult life in relationships yeah I mean you know teenage years are yeah I mean who would go back there sorry it's so so challenging in so many levels and I think more than ever now with social media etc I really feel you know for young people but but I mean in terms of teen relationships onwards it depends again what lens you look through Kagi because for me first of all the level of your resilience and self-belief at that age will be defined by your early experience of childhood. And then that is just, you know, you're a super, super insecure teenager. Generally, there's something earlier that has impacted, like a significant divorce, like a parent dying or going away when they were young,

like something like that early on can have a massive ripple effect. And so they come into their teens, let alone with hormones raging, etc, etc. But they're already feeling a sense of lack of grounding and instability and insecurity. And so then you kind of make, you know, the relationship choices seem that much more impactful, because you're not on solid ground. And so there's that element. But I mean, the thing that I'm trained in is Imago relationship therapy and Imago relationship therapy. Imago means image. or it's true, it's just one theory of which there are many, certainly been very helpful in my experience working with couples for 10 years. And that is that we are drawn towards people, even from teenage years, that remind us of both the negative and the positive qualities of our parents, you know, so it's like you are already and this is the beauty of the universal intelligence you're already in your teams being drawn towards people that remind you and most teams would go no way you know i'm not

my mother how horrific it's like because it sounds so fucked up wait i'm seeking out my dad it's not so fucked up but it's actually exquisite perfection because it's basically you're being presented again and again well first of all why would we be drawn towards people that remind us of both the good and the bad of our parents because it's familiar it's familiar familiar that word comes from family you know it's like it's what we know so of course we're gonna you know if if we experienced our dad as being really, you know, kind of very intelligent and had a very fine wit, then we are naturally going to be, because we've grown up around that kind of energy, and if we had a positive relationship, we're going to naturally be drawn to, say, men, as an example, that have a robust intellect and have

a fine wit. We're just going to be, I like men who are funny and they're bright and intelligent. And that's the connection. But it also has a darker side, if you like, the shadow, which is if our dad or our mother was super controlling and quite critical, we will unconsciously be drawn towards people that have those so-called negative qualities as well. So we will find ourselves in relationships where people are criticizing us and when people are trying to control us because it's what we know. But the beauty of it is, is that that's an opportunity again and again and again for healing, Peggy. I went out through my whole teens into well into my 30s. I was a slow learner. I went into my late 30s with versions of my father, addicts.

My father was an alcoholic. Surprise, surprise. And I didn't just limit it to alcoholism. You know, I went out with work addicts, sex addicts, drug addicts. I didn't, you know, I didn't discriminate. I went out with addicts. And why was I doing that? They were just versions of my father, you know, and on a really core, beautiful level is the child in me was wanting them to put down the pint or the work or whatever it was or the drug and choose me, you know. And the healing part was when I recognised that these were versions of my father and that I needed to choose me. And then everything changed in who I was attracted to. You know, I would not entertain having a relationship,

even a friendship with an active addict not somebody in addiction recovery I have several friends in addiction recovery and utmost respect to them but somebody that was actively in addiction it's not possible thank you for sharing that I had a very similar experience around a similar age and it was through a like a timeline exercise and before I hadn't recognized any pattern in the people that I was attracted to once it clicked I was like holy shit and then like you say that it's only when you kind of fully recognize it then you can begin doing your own healing and within that there's also a reprogramming to what you're drawn to which is such an exciting place to be, especially for our listeners that's perhaps having that kind of aha moment.

Because like you say, it's so in our system, it's so familiar that we're then drawn to it and attracted to it, that to actually move away from that, it's not easy. And like, you know, a lot of people will go their entire life and they'll end up with that person because they haven't recognized the pattern. Yes. Yeah. And I think it is to get to a point.

And this is why I'm such an advocate for therapeutic work, you know, doing inner healing work is you get to a place where you can really embrace all the kind of riches that this partner, as an example, reminds you of your parents. It's like, oh, he's fun like my dad. He's a great storyteller. He's really funny. He loves reading like my mom. So you get all that and you're like, I'm always going to be drawn. Same with my friendships. I'll always be drawn to those qualities. And that's wonderful. And then the bits that are more shadowy, the darker dimensions of both my mother and my father, it's like I've got to a place where, like I said, if it's a person who's in recovery from addiction, you know, I'm really drawn to people like that because they've kind of been through the struggle and also they've come out the other side.

So I think you just get more and more to a place where you make your peace with it. And it's also, I mean, just to really and more to a place where you make your peace with it and and and it's also I mean just to really screw with your listeners heads is also been proven that women especially go for men that in a heterosexual relationship they go for men that physically look like their fathers and this is so it's not obviously absolute, of course not. But my daughter, both my daughters, their partners look like their dads. You know, my children have got different fathers. And both my daughter's partners look like their respective fathers. Fascinating.

So interesting. Because also, one of my favorite, it's only a tiny book, but it um alan de botton's uh it's called i think lessons on love or something it's from the school of life series and he speaks about this but then also speaks about the recoil dynamic which apparently is when we actually reject the aspects of our parents so we seek the opposite which i think is something that often people do so but if if people are drawn mainly to the negative things and they find themselves in a pattern of going for certain people that are bring destructive things to their life what are the kind of steps they can take to to move through and pass that therapy therapy no quick fix guys sorry there's definitely no quick fix and neither yeah no no and and

neither should there be because this is this is the richness you know you know from the whole Saturn return this is the this is what I call you know when your nose down in the dirt of humility street in your life of which we go down several times stay down there you don't wallow but you stay down there long enough to find the gift the third vote gift and then you come back up and you start again and so it is with with people if they are drawn to to the negative it is to see it through the lens of what's trying to happen is healing what's trying to happen is is so for me lots of surprise surprise lots of those addicted partners treated me poorly you know and so my healing was what doing with them what I couldn't do with my own father which was to stand up eventually took me a long time and say don't

speak to me like that I am not if you continue to speak to me like that I will leave and that was the moment where it was like the universe said okay she's got it now the lessons learned we could we don't have to send her any more of those really destructive relationships and that is what happened so I chose me I stood up to my dad basically basically, in that it was an avatar boyfriend, but really was my dad behind him. And I said, I won't accept that behavior. It's not OK for me that you're, you know, drinking to whatever. This doesn't work for me. I'm off. And how beautiful to respect yourself enough to do that.

Yeah. And like you say, I think the lessons will just keep coming until you're ready for that sort of initiation. And then once you are, the universe will deliver something that is in alignment with what you truly need and desire. And there's something that I've just been thinking about whilst we're talking about this topic is, talking about this topic is it's interesting how people respond or how they feel when their partner meets their parents because I think obviously we care about what our parents think but it can often throw people because you're like do they like them you know it plays such an important role and obviously if you are going for someone that is like a replica of your parents like they're more likely to get on so you feel again it reinforces that like oh yes this is all

good whereas if you've actually gone some for someone that's right for you based on your truth it doesn't really matter what your your parents think of them do you know what i mean i think that's just an important thing i wanted to add there because I think we can often pick people through the lens of our parents validation as well yeah I think I think that that is um again very human and very natural and and the more we we kind of get into that kind of healing those wounds from the past and really becoming into an emotional grown-up which is what this book is about, which is what my work is about, is supporting people to grow up emotionally and also bring all of the delicious qualities

of the childlike rather than childish. So I will say I'm five and I'm 55 and I'm five in the best possible sense. And then it becomes less important, like you say, to need the validation of your parents. And there's also the recognition of transference. Do you know about transference, Kagi? No.

Yeah, so transference in a nutshell, again, transference is when we transfer the past over the present. So we react to people standing in front of us, like me with the addicts. But so say your partner, so say like the example you said when you have some conflict with your current partner, and often what we're doing is we're transferring a past, i.e. a parent usually, over our partner. So we are in what I call a transference trance,

which means we're speaking to them through the kind of transference trance as our parent, not our partner. Does that make sense? As in we're speaking to them as sort of, I guess, the child version to our parent. Yeah, so for example, if your partner came home later than you expected and it triggered in you that feeling of being abandoned by your dad, I'm not saying this is you,

but just as an example, and so then they come in and you notice you would have a disproportionate reaction when it's really big. Is that at that saying, which you may have heard of when it's hysterical, it's historical. Meaning my favorite saying, when it's disproportionate, when you're hysterical, you know, this isn't about the toilet seat. This isn't about my partner being 10 minutes late. This has triggered something really old and painful inside of me. And then what happens in transplants is then we can then we become like a child talking. So you're like, you felt abandoned or, or rejected by your partner, because he didn't text you to say he's going to be late,

you go into a childlike place and then in transference you can't even see your partner as in not literally but as in you're you're going through the trance and speaking to your dad and it's like you're basically saying you should I felt this and it's like I'm 10 minutes late you know and that's transference and people are in transference all the time with their bosses brackets parents any figures of authority basically are often transferred onto we transfer our parents over the top of them god that's so powerful well thank you so much for joining me today i have learned pleasure a lot lots digest for myself and also for our listeners and yeah we'll put a link in show

notes to the book and thank you again thank you so much it was a joy when we do get rejected in life which inevitably we all will at some point what's really important is to come to a place of compassion rather than shaming ourselves and that was something that i found really useful from this episode. I also found this piece around reprogramming what we're attracted to once you get to know your wounded child super interesting and how we are drawn to our parents. And I think that that is such a bizarre thing, but it's also so true.

And it's quite a lot for all of us to kind of go and unpack so I hope that gives you some food for thought and also this concept of transference which Donna explains me which I'd never heard of before and how very true that is you know the idea of whoever we speak to we're actually playing out like a past wound and a past experience in our current situation and I think to be able to have that awareness to stop that happening would be really powerful. I really loved Donna's book The Bridge so if you guys want to get a copy we will put a link in the show notes because it's a fantastic read and yeah I just loved her story especially as it was a Saturn return experience

of her having that rock bottom that spiritual awakening and so much of this wisdom goes to show like the body is keeping the score the body knows and we just need to listen to it to re-engage to nurture that connection a little more if you enjoyed this episode I would love it if you could share it with a friend who you think might find it useful or write us a review on Apple because that 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.