Saturn Returns with Caggie - Amy Millie: How Can We Navigate Attachment Styles and Emotional Expression in Relationships?

Episode Date: March 3, 2025

In this episode of Letters to Venus, Caggie is joined by relational coach @itsamymillie to explore the depths of attachment theory, emotional expression, and personal development.  Amy, a developmental coach and content creator, shares her intuitive approach to helping clients uncover unconscious emotions, particularly anger, and how these suppressed feelings impact relationships. This insightful conversation explores: 💌 The importance of understanding early attachments and their impact on adult relationships 💌 How suppressed emotions like anger manifest and the societal shame around expressing these emotions 💌 The challenges of expressing healthy anger and navigating relationship dynamics 💌 Exploring attachment styles (anxious, avoidant) and their role in creating trust and boundaries in relationships 💌 The role of dreams in understanding unconscious emotions and personal growth 💌 The necessity of grieving past identities during transitions, such as the Saturn Return, and embracing new personal growth 💌 Reaching out for support and building community during challenging life changes This thought-provoking episode will help you better understand your emotional patterns and navigate your relationship dynamics with greater awareness and compassion. — Letters to Venus is a transformative spin-off of Saturn Returns that explores the mysteries of love, relationships, and dating. Hosted by Caggie, this series draws inspiration from Venus - the goddess of love, beauty, and desire - guiding you on your heart’s journey, uncovering your relationship patterns, and leading you to true intimacy. Alongside this series, we’re excited to offer the Letters to Venus course, where you can join Caggie and special guests for 4 exclusive online masterclasses from March 20th to April 10th. In astrology, Venus rules love, connection, and self-worth. She helps us embrace pleasure, deepen relationships, and step into our most radiant, magnetic selves. During this course, you’ll gain access to sacred teachings, love and dating Q&As, and powerful conversations that will help you: 💌 Break old patterns and cultivate healthier, more fulfilling relationships 💌 Strengthen your Venus energy to boost your confidence, magnetism, and self-worth 💌 Navigate modern dating with clarity, ease, and authenticity This is your invitation to explore love in all its depth, with Caggie offering her spiritual, sisterly guidance alongside guest experts in an intimate community space. Spots are limited - this is a unique opportunity you don’t want to miss. Sign up today!

For those of you looking to deepen your understanding of love and healthy partnership, I am launching a live course as a companion to Letters to Venus. This course is an opportunity to go deeper, guided by experts and supported by a like-minded community. So whether you're out there seeking a partner and you're tired of dating the same person in different forms, or if you're feeling unsure about the next step in your current relationship, or if you just feel like you've got patterns going on that you just can't quite unpick, this course will offer a safe and private space to explore love and relationships without judgment. to explore love and relationships without judgment.

I will be your personal cosmic agony aunt leading weekly live webinars, along with workshops and panel discussions hosted by incredible guest experts. Spaces are limited, so if you would like to join, head to the show notes or visit satamreturns.co.uk to sign up. Hello everyone and welcome to a new spin-off show from Saturn Returns all around love, relationships and dating. This is Letters to Venus. Venus is the goddess of love, the celestial muse of beauty, desire

and connection. She teaches us that love is not just something we seek, it is something we embody. Hello everyone and welcome back to another episode of Letters to Venus, our spin-off show around love and relationships brought to you by Saturn Returns. Today I have the pleasure of sitting down with Amy Millie who is a relationship coach. And if you thought that I was soft spoken, this episode could pass as ASMR. We have very similar energies, very similar voices and I absolutely, well, I just love her. I think she's wonderful.

And also her approach to relationships, particularly what I loved that we touched on in this episode was attachment theory. It's something that gets passed around a lot. There are a lot of slightly varying perspectives on it and I really enjoyed diving deep into that subject with her. So I hope that you enjoy this and learn something from it and if you found it useful please share it on social media or write us a review, this really helps us get discovered by more like-minded people. So enjoy! Amy, welcome to Saturn Returns. Thank you for having me. I feel like you have a very calming presence and energy and voice. You told that often.

That's really nice to hear. Yeah, it's so interesting that like, that's what I'm told. And I was actually talking to my partner about this because it's like that's one part of my personality and it's really real. And I can kind of, it feels like a part that I just sort of tap into. But there's another part of me that internally is having a totally different experience.

I'm like, I'm freaking out. It's like, ah, I'm so nervous. Like before today, I was like, I'm so nervous. Like before today, I was like, I'm so nervous. I feel like I'm such a bad conversationist. And there are all these stories that I'm kind of telling myself in my head. But it's just so interesting how people come across because I think about you that you have such a calm presence. I was thinking this last night. I was like the combination of both of us, because I'm always told that as well. People are like what people listen to podcasts before I'm going to sleep so you can calm down because

the voice is pretty soothing. And you know, when I've done talks and stuff, people like, you know, you sound like you know what you're talking about. And I'm like, that is so not true. And similar to my partner. It's like, like this is going to be a sort of, is it AM? ASMR? It's like the tough thing into the microphone. For the audience that might not be familiar with your work, would you be able to explain a little bit about who you are and what you do? Yeah, sure. So I'm a developmental coach and a content creator. So what I mean by developmental is I really work with clients on their personal development. So coming to new understandings about themselves, so that they can kind of

begin to make more informed decisions about how they want to live their lives, how they want to move forward in relationships or with themselves. So it's really about, I would say, kind of bringing the unconscious into conscious awareness and that can be quite a long process. And do you have any specific modalities that you use to bring the subconscious into people's awareness? So at the moment I'm doing a course in psychodynamic theory. What's that? So it really looks at kind of our childhood and our early attachments and how that affects us growing up

and really just affects our entire lives. And so I think as children, we have to find ways to survive in the world. Like if we don't have secure attachments to our caregivers, we have to find ways somehow to survive. And we're really creative at doing that. But then what happens is we push a lot of stuff down that maybe is authentic. And we start maybe living our lives for our parents or for other people, or doing what society thinks we should do.

And so what I work with with clients is like, they come to me and they're like, Hey, I'm stuck in life. And we start to kind of unpick what's yours. What's your parents? What are other people's ideas? Um, and let's get to like the root of all of this. So like the core feelings that people hold back, they're suppressing what they might not be expressing. So someone might come to me and we're kind of in discussion and I'm picking up on something. It's like, it's really quite intuitive

actually. And I'm picking up on something and I'm aware of it and I have this niggling feeling, or maybe I start to feel kind of anxious in the moment and then I'll bring it up. As in you're picking up on their anxiety and yeah. A lot of the time that is what's happening. And so sometimes I'll bring it up and sometimes I won't, if it feels right, I might. And they might say something like,

I wasn't even aware that actually that is what's going on. That's what's underneath this story that's happening kind of consciously, but unconsciously there's this feeling that I haven't been aware of. And so it's really about expressing what's underneath and externalizing it. Is there usually, are there things that you come across time and time again specifically for men or women that's a suppressed feeling? Or is it really a mixed bag? It's really a mixed bag. I would say anger is quite a common one. Yeah, for women. For women, but also for men at times too, depending on their circumstances, how they've been raised.

But rage is such a big one and I think a lot of people are ashamed of anger. It's like something that I love talking about actually because it like, why we all feel angry. We actually all feel rageful at times. But we are ashamed of expressing it, of feeling it, of even acknowledging it. It's interesting that we're kind of going into this because actually I say Adam there like nodding along. Because since I've been pregnant, so I'm now six months pregnant, I suddenly, like quite early on, got this, I don't know how else to describe it, but like pregnancy rage.

Yeah. Where I suddenly went from being someone that had, I don't wanna say, I'm definitely not a doormat, but it would take a lot to get me angry. And I'm always trying to kind of manage situations and probably grown up. I definitely grew up in a way that was like, I don't want to say it was a volatile household, but there was big emotions, a lot of anger expressed by everyone apart from me. I was going to say, I would always just be the mediator and I'd

absorb it, but I wouldn't express my own. And my sort of default setting is to either retreat or the emotion that comes out is sadness. So even actually talking about it now, I can notice physically that I like my voice tightens even just talking about kind of expressing that. But throughout my pregnancy, I really noticed that my fuse was like non-existent. And I was just like ready to explode at people. So if I felt like someone was taking advantage of me in a work situation, I was like, ready to go. I was like, this is really

interesting. But I think it's, it's all been there for a long time. For sure. It's just been, it's an aspect of myself that I have suppressed because it hasn't felt safe. Or there's been shame around expressing it. And I've got to say, I've kind of loved it. Yeah. Have you found that you are able to express it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And what's it like? It's a discomfort in it because of course there's a big part of me that still has that people-pleaser, like I don't want to upset anyone, but there's also a huge liberation in it, you know, being like, I know that that's in me and it's okay for me to express it. Obviously within reason.

You're like sure. Sometimes the stories that go through my head. I'll tell you one that the other day I was driving and this man was driving towards me and it was that kind of thing where it's like who's going to kind of back back away. He had enough room to get through. He was just like looking at me like I was supposed to do something. Like you were in the wrong, right? Yeah, you can clearly get in. And he then started like, he had like, I don't know, like a Porsche or something, started

really accelerating it aggressively and then pushing me. You could see him like mouthing to himself, like bitch or whatever. I just bought some ketchup and in my head I was like, I'm gonna get out of the car, jump on his car and pour ketchup all over me. I honestly didn't do that. I could feel this whole story playing out and I was like, wow, how did that come from? The rape stories. Yeah. I don't even know if that's a phrase,

but like, I have the same thing when I am so rageful. Or it's like, I think it's in a situation where we actually can't express it. Where it's like, maybe we've got a proof. That would have been a healthy thing to do. Oh my God, that's funny. It would have been like one of those things that would have gone viral on TikTok.

Crazy pregnant woman pause ketchup over man's bosh. In a fit of rage. Because he looked at her funny. No, but I think it's in situations where, because obviously, you know, there are times where we can express anger and there are times where we can express anger, and there are times where it's not appropriate to just completely let loose. Yeah. But these things that play out in our head, right, like the ketchup story, although it's

like really funny talking about it, it says something internally. It's like, I need to find that there's something happening here internally,, I need to find that there's something happening here internally that I need to find a way to express. Or I'm just becoming aware of my own rage in this moment. Like you're aware of your own internal experience and this kind of fantasy you have of, well, what was it? It was there a fantasy? It was like, I want to make him

feel as irritated as I feel. I think it's more expression. It's more about like self-expression without caring about the consequences of what other people think. I think we navigate life always thinking like, no, don't let that come out or don't express that because it will upset the other person. I actually remember like, I'll say another thing, I was like, I'm just sharing this story. But when I was like probably 10 years old, I remember I had like a crush on this boy at school for a week or something. And I remember talking to him. I can't remember why I did this, but I just had this sudden impulse and I slapped him.

It was just like came out of nowhere. Do you remember why? I can't remember why. I think I did obviously like wanted his attention or something. He got really upset and started crying. And I remember feeling so ashamed by it. I was like, oh my God, I just, something just took over me and I hurt him.

And now I've done exactly the opposite of what I wanted to achieve. And then I remember that as being like a significant memory of like never allow your emotions to kind of take over in that way, like an aggressive emotion. That's really interesting. And so that's always been my kind of default.

And when I've tried to express anger, it always gets hijacked by sadness and tears. Because I think there's something to be said about that though, because a lot of people would argue that anger is a secondary emotion. I'm not sure that I always agree, but there are cases where I do think it's a secondary emotion. So for me, like I will always feel angry first. Like that's my go-to emotion. And then if I sit with it for a bit,

a lot of the time it's not anger that I'm feeling. It's actually like, I feel maybe ashamed or I feel humiliated or I feel hurt or I feel rejected. And so maybe that's what you're talking about, right? Like these situations where perhaps anger is a secondary emotion. Anger is the feeling that comes up first but underneath that there is something deeper and maybe more vulnerable. Probably. And how do people navigate expressing healthy anger or healthy rage if it is even such

a thing? Yeah it's something I'm still figuring out. When you have clients that come to you and you're like, okay, there's a lot of suppressed. Yeah, so a lot of the rage that a client might feel is often to do with certain relationships in their life. Like historical ones or? Yeah, generally historical relationships, which means the rage is historical,

which means it's really deep and strong. And the work I do with clients is relational. And so if there's rage there, the aim of the work or a large part of the work is being able to bring that emotion into the room. So because the work is relational, what that means is hopefully if I build a good relationship with a client that I can almost act as a stand-in attachment figure. So they learn within our relationship, this is what a healthy dynamic should look like.

I feel contained, I feel safe to express, I feel like I can be honest and authentic and I'm not gonna be judged. So the full range of my emotions is accepted here. Much like a child, an infant should feel with a parent, but that's often an experience that a lot of us don't have, which is what leads a lot of us to therapy or coaching in the first place. a lot of us do therapy or coaching in the first place. And so if the rage is historical and the rage is relational,

and if they're angry at a parent or a caregiver, well, that at some point is going to come out at me, as it should. But what happens is generally there is something called a corrective emotional experience. So I respond in a different way to their parent. I am not responding with anger back. I'm not shaming them. I'm not humiliating them. I'm not making them feel bad. I'm letting them own their experience. And in that experience of, okay,

I can actually be accepted here, they are potentially working through something really deep and primal. I love that. So it's kind of like role play. Almost. Yeah. Yeah. And it gives them a new experience that they can then refer to going forward. Exactly. That's the hope. So it gives them a new experience that they can then refer to going forward. Exactly, that's the hope. So it gives them this kind of new foundation or a lot of people go into relationships and they're like, I don't know what a healthy relationship looks like. I've never had an experience of one.

Therapy and coaching, I think, can provide that for you. I know that my therapist has provided that for me on a really deep level for your relationship. Absolutely. I don't think I'd be able to be in the relationship I'm in now without my therapist. Like, I have to give her so much credit because first of all, when I first started dating my partner, I was convinced that he actually didn't like me and he didn't want to be with me

and he was just sort of using me and playing this game. It sounds so simple, but my therapist would point out things that would like challenge my own narrative and my own story or feelings about myself. So she'd be like, he's driven an hour and a half to see you. Why would he drive an hour and a half to see you if he didn't like you? And there was something about that experience. I was like this back and forth and I really trusted what she was telling me

because I looked up to her, literally like, I would look up to a mother, like this wise mother. And she's helped me so much in learning to trust not only my partner, but myself within the relationship as well. Because it's interesting how, you know, doing the work that you do and helping other people, but then we obviously always have our own blind spots

to our own behaviour that we need help and a sounding board to kind of bounce off to go, well, actually, this is something that I need to kind of bring more into my own awareness. For sure. How has that, if you don't mind sharing, like what other aspects, so you said there's the part that felt like

he doesn't really want to be with me. Does that stem from a core belief of your own? Yeah, it stems from, it stems from this feeling that really, it's a very kind of, and you can almost feel when it's like a child, like a child place, this feeling of just like I am not actually that important or interesting to anyone. And you know, without getting too personal, I did have that experience growing up. Or this idea that I said to you today, I was nervous about coming here because I was like, maybe I'm not good in conversation.

And then I think, because I have this thought a lot. And so I think the best thing to do is learn to be curious about your experience, right? And so I try and do it with myself. Where on earth is that coming from? And I was like, well, did anyone have conversations with me in like, in the home growing up? And actually we weren't from a family

where people had conversations or and I didn't like, and I didn't have a model of what a conversation really looked like unless it was an argument. You're smiling. Yeah. And so I was like, okay, well, and I think if you can be curious about your experience, you can find where this story has come from. It's like, okay, now I can be a bit more compassionate with myself. We learn like this, we only learn from experience and a lot of us missed out on crucial experiences growing up.

It helped us in adult life. Yeah. And so we are like learning how to live or learning how to be in the world for the first time as adults when that should have happened as children, but didn't for so many of us. And I also think that the day and age that we're in right now is everyone is becoming a lot more conscious and aware. And there are so many more resources. I mean, my mom always says to me,

like, we just didn't speak in the way that you guys do. It just wasn't. Yeah. It just, you know, mental health was like more. You were right, yeah. And now there is so much, which is fantastic. But like you say, people are kind of learning to walk with it.

It's all very new. And then when you kind of go into the context of relationships, it's not only navigating it as an adult, but it's also bringing up all of that inner child stuff. And that is really, you know, there's this sort of social media thing that's like, you've got to love yourself before you can be loved by someone else. It kind of keeps you closed off, whereas work is really in the container of a relationship.

But that's the challenging stuff because we, doesn't matter how many podcasts we listen to or books we read, there'll be stuff that comes up that's so historical, that it's really hard to even register what is happening versus the reality of the situation. And I found that in, I definitely found over the last year, it's been a real awakening for me in my own blind spots. And I think a lot of what we're kind of edging towards here is like attachment theory, which again, people are a lot more aware of, but it's usually in this quite binary, oh, I'm anxiously attached and therefore it means these things. And I always considered myself to be quite anxiously attached at the beginnings of a relationship. But then I've been with my partner now three and a half years and I could notice, subtly

notice, the avoidant in me. And then when I really looked back and was curious over like previous experiences, I could see the avoidant there much more clearly than I had before. And so I really was like engaging in that part of myself, which brought up a huge amount of shame actually, because I was like, I would go and I remember I went to like an event and there were these girls there that I know that were a few years younger than me and they were talking, they'd like, a few of them had gone through breakups and they were saying, oh, he's like totally avoidant and like blah, blah, blah. And it's often kind of given this

— Bad rap. Yeah, like avoidants just don't care. Like they're just like selfish people that just don't want you. Yeah, horrible rap. Yeah. And they're like, that's not true! So what's the internal experience?

For me, it's knowing that it's the kind of the conflict of like the very thing that I want is the same thing that I'm pushing away and creating these stories around why I push it away. So like I said, it's like been a very subtle awareness to go, hang on, this is a me thing. Whereas I think I've always made it about the other person and that the core belief underneath is like,

I'm safer alone. Yeah. Like I don't know how to manage or contain this sort of intimacy and love that when you're really vulnerable with someone, that brings with it this risk. Massive risk. Massive risk.

Risk of? I guess being abandoned, being betrayed, being hurt. And I think when like my brain can't figure out abandoned, being betrayed, being hurt. And I think when like my brain can't figure out how to like reason with how like what to do in those scenarios, it's like, well, let's just pull away because that brings us safety. And having to sit in the discomfort of that has been challenging for me.

But I feel like I'm finally like through like coming out the other side. But it's something I haven't spoken about because of, I think, the shame and also kind of navigating it in real time and having these conflicting, confusing feelings. Yes, yeah, it's so vulnerable to share, especially when we're aware of our own avoidant parts. When you were saying just then, there's something that I really want, but I'm kind of pushing

it away. It made me emotional because I was thinking, well, first of of all I can relate to that experience, but also I'm imagining what it's like for anyone really to be in the situation where it's like I really, really want you, I want this intimacy, but it's so terrifying, it's so risky, it's so overwhelming and so the only thing I know to do is to just push you away, to retreat, to go inwards. But actually, I don't know about you, but for me, it's like the more I go inwards, I feel so alone and so isolated. And you create the very thing that you don't want. Yes. It's interesting because you said your belief is like,

I'm actually better off alone. And so it's like, great, let's create that experience for ourselves. I do it too. It's like, OK, we're alone. Are you happy now? It's like, no, I feel horrible. It's like an existential aloneness.

And so in relationships, it's really hard to kind of take that risk and understand that the only way through it is to move towards, is to take, even though it feels like deeply uncomfortable sometimes. Like deeply uncomfortable and almost threatening sometimes. Yeah, like our nervous system is like... Yeah.

Because it's also moving from, I guess, there's a sort of hyperindependence to avoidance, you know, it's like, and you can romanticize that. And almost be proud of it. Yeah. Almost be proud. Like, I don't need someone. I've spoken to so many people and I've thought this myself. It's like, you know, I've gotten through everything by myself. I actually don't need anyone. And it's like, we're almost expecting an award for how it's like this so called self sufficiency. But actually what we really want underneath it all, which is what I think everyone wants is connection. But it's really the fear of dependency and intimacy that stops us. And especially if you have an experience where you have been betrayed or hurt and then that

creates all these fragments of information where you're like, okay, this is clearly not safe. So therefore, my default setting is to kind of keep in that independent I, me versus the we, you know, because people also are so terrified of codependency. And that's also villainized as this thing, right? Oh, you never want to be codependent. So how do we kind of bridge the gap between that and healthy interdependency. Yeah. So codependence is something that is spoken about so much online. And it can be really confusing as to kind of what it, what it looks like in reality or what it looks like in an actual relationship. And I think what people are saying is our relationship is co-dependent, which means there's something about this relationship that feels entangled and enmeshed. I was speaking to my partner the other day about interdependence and

the importance of it. And I think the way we kind of move towards that is recognizing that there does need to be some separateness in a relationship. You can have a really healthy relationship, but you can also recognize that you are two separate individuals who are coming together. You're not coming together to become one. You are coming together to learn about the other, to support each other's growth, to encourage one another, but you are separate. And so there needs to be a sense of how can we keep this separateness. And I think a good way of keeping some separateness is to really be clear on some boundaries, some limitations, being aware of, okay, where do I end and you begin?

Like, where is this sort of separateness between us? And that can be really difficult to figure out, I think. Especially if there is these attachment styles at play because when you are in a secure, healthy relationship, it's a lot easier to be like, okay, this is my life, this is your life, this is the container of the relationship where we come together and we nurture it and we both give and there's the reciprocity.

Reciprocity. Reciprocity. Because that's also such an important element of a relationship, right, from the reciprocity. Reciprocity. Reciprocity. Because that's also such an important element of a relationship, right, from the early stages. I think that's something that's really downplayed. I think people measure their investment on someone by how much they like them. And that's deeply problematic. It's like that person is not showing up. And you're just like pouring yourself into it. But if you are in a dynamic where there's something unhealthy going on and perhaps it's, you know, your attachment style is being

so triggered because this person is really not invested so it's like setting off an anxiety, it's impossible to create that kind of healthy interdependency, right? Yeah, absolutely. You've got to create the foundations first. I think of it as like, you know, living in a house with rocky foundations. Like if it doesn't start on kind of common ground and you haven't worked to create the kind of reciprocity and trust and respect for one another, then it's forever going to be in balance. A relationship is going to trigger your childhood wounds and your attachment wounds, for sure. Every single person who's in a relationship knows that. But it's about

creating a foundation where you can both tolerate each other's stuff. It's really, really hard. It's really triggering and likely, you know, the kind of anxious avoidant dance is very common and you set each other off in different ways. But the most crucial thing is creating the base, the foundation for all of that, so that you have something sturdy to fall back onto in the conflict, in the arguments, in the disagreements and in the misunderstandings. And presumably that needs to happen pretty early on, right? That's like laying the foundations,

establishing the shared values, being clear about your visions for the future. Do they align? Yeah, but how many people are afraid to have that discussion early on? Like, oh, it's a bit much. And so it's like, okay, well, I'll just fall into this sort of situationship. And so people do, and then they fall into this kind of casual dating affair, which they don't want to be casual. And they tell themselves that they're okay with it. Yeah. And it's like, well, hang on a minute, let's take a step back and figure out why

are we actually doing this? Something is being activated here or reenacted here. It's like, this isn't what we want. And so why am I getting myself into these situations over and over again? And overly investing. And overly investing in someone who's actually not investing in me. What is that saying? But why do people do that? Because it can cut, it can bring on such a strong, visceral, deep pain that's completely blindsides you and it can be all consuming. Yeah, but I think that's the whole point. I think it's supposed to. I think it was Freud that said,

until we know something about ourselves, it will be reenacted. We will act out until we figure out what's going on here. This is a pattern that I keep getting myself into and I keep feeling this visceral thing. And until I start paying attention to that pain that keeps coming up in such an extreme way, I'm gonna keep playing out the same patterns and we do it unconsciously. Yeah, and it's often people that activate.

I think we all have, like, we don't share it, but I think we all have like a story in our own minds about what makes us like unworthy, unlovable. I don't know, something else like not deserving or something. And when that gets triggered by someone, a rejection, it could be like something that's totally insignificant, you barely know them, but it sets off that thing that goes, yeah, this is why I will never be loved. And then we kind of chase that person because we're like, oh, well, that will help this feeling, but it's actually...

It confirms the story. Exactly. And it's this really confusing paradoxical experience because you, you weigh everything on that person, but it's really just that they've ignited something that you need to address in yourself. How can people, personally from your own experience with something like in your relationship, it sounds like that did set something off? Like what is the work that you've done to help heal that internal story you have about yourself? So the work I've done with my therapist has been a lot around learning to self soothe is one thing.

Okay, what can I do when I'm activated because so much is set off? But also learning to trust myself, learning to communicate with my partner, which is an ongoing process. Like, my natural inclination in an argument is to retreat. And that urge is so strong that the urge takes over before I can even be like, Oh, Laura told me I need to communicate. Okay, let's come back to that. And sometimes, sometimes I can't. And that's okay. Yeah. Sometimes it's too quick. I'm just taking off and that's okay. Like we are going to get triggered. But it's also perhaps it's creating a little bit of something that gives you that sense of retreating and safety without really doing it. Yeah.

Yeah. Exactly. I got really When I moved in with my partner, that was where I was like, Oh my God, because where am I going to retreat to? Oh, for sure. And it's like the fantasy of like, I'll have another house that's just fine. Literally just retreat to and then I have that sense of safety. And that's how entrenched like in my nervous system, it was around not feeling safe around other people. And that is something like from childhood. And I've just kind of go to my room, get myself away.

You had your space. I had my space. So it's like, but that's not, it's not realistic for going into a healthy, long-term relationship to be like, well, I'm gonna, I I'm just going to disappear. No, but actually what you're saying is at home in childhood, you hide your space. And I think we can have our space still as we can retreat to our space. There's actually

nothing wrong with that. But it's also about having the ability to, so we have an argument, I'm not going to disappear and not let you know. It's like, okay, we have an argument. I'm recognizing my need for space. I'm going to tell my partner, I really need some space. I'm going to disappear. Let's reconvene in 20 minutes or half an hour. Yeah, just the mature approach. I remember recently, because I was watching you talk about this and I was laughing to myself because recently me and my partner had an argument and I just went into like full on shutdown mode and I was like, I'm gonna, and we were just not talking and it was like, we're both quite stubborn. So I was like, right, I'm gonna go and stay at my dad's and I'm not even gonna tell him.

I went. It feels so good. I went and stayed at my dad's. I'm not even going to tell him. It feels so good. And because I haven't communicated, I didn't know that he was then out that night with clients and he hadn't communicated. So I didn't hear from him. The next day he was upset with me. I was like that did not happen. And I came back and I was like, did you even know where I was last night? And he was like, no, no, where were you? And I was like, oh, my dad's.

And he went for a dramatic effect. Yeah, yeah. Like, oh, well, did it work? I'm like, no, no. Because you really wanted to create some example of what not to do. Yeah. But it's so interesting.

I think it's so real as well, like what you're describing. It's like, I don't know, there are so many things playing out, right? Like what was going on for you in that moment? When you say you wanted to create the dramatic effect, was there a feeling that you wanted to gain? Or is there something that you feel like you've been taken away? So it's like, actually, I'm going to go to my dad's to make myself feel something. I think the big thing that's for me that I've like, again, it's, it's similar to what we've been discussing is this idea of losing my autonomy in a relationship. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like when I'll merge with the other and I will disappear.

And I'm realizing that that's not true. And that's my own stuff and my own inability of having those tools to create those healthy boundaries or to say, I need a little bit of space, but I'll be back in 20 minutes. Yes. There's something actually really vulnerable, again, from personal experience. There's something really vulnerable about going towards a partner and communicating your need for space. For me, it's like, no, because actually, if I just disappear, then I have this sense of agency.

But if I'm communicating to you that I need that space before I take the space, well, I've given you something there and it's almost like you get into, it's so easy to get into these kind of power plays almost. It's like, but I've, but then I've given you something and I don't want to let you, for me it's like the story of I don't want to let you off the hook. I need you to know that I'm really her. And this is the only way I can let you know that I'm actually really her by just disappearing. You know?

Yeah, I completely relate to that. And also I've had the thing is my partner like if I ever said I needed space, he'd always support that. Yeah, very secure and stable in himself. But I definitely have had experiences in the past where that hasn't been okay. You know, I've always felt like my need for space is not okay, it's a difficult thing to communicate

for some reason. But I think if you are a highly sensitive person, like you need your time to just recharge, whether that's in an argument or not. Yes. Well, some people find, you know, that recharging happens alone and other people find that recharging happens with their friends or with their partner. And so that's where this kind of divide can come in. And it's, again, like the anxious avoidant dance, that's how it can all be set off, right? Like that's one cycle.

If you communicate your need for space to someone who is anxiously attached, it's really hard for that person because, and it's not to make people feel bad, it's just the way that it is. It's like, for someone that's anxiously attached, your need for space is threatening to their system. It feels like abandonment.

So it's like, how can we make each other feel as safe as possible? How can we have this relationship and communicate in a way that supports the safety of this relationship? Like you said, the we, not the I. And I guess that comes from, again, it's like giving yourself a new experience, like you said, with the role play and the therapy of going, okay, you know, they expressed their need for space, they took it. I let them they came back. Everything was fine. They came back. Yeah, yeah, they came back. That's what all of us

need to know, right? That no matter what, you will come back. No matter what happens, there is enough safety in this relationship that I trust that we will find a way to reconnect again. How do people discern between their intuition and past experiences like historical ones from childhood? I have a friend that was in a situation where, I guess she sensed that something was wrong.

But her partner kept just saying, no, everything's fine. But then his behavior was not fine. And I think it really was damaging for her because it made her like, she was having an intuitive knowing, but then he was saying, no, you're not. Yeah, it's a horrible experience. Horrible, because it is really damaging.

Obviously it's damaging to the relationship, but it's damaging to your relationship with yourself because you feel like you're going crazy. Yeah, and you feel like you can't trust yourself. Yeah, so how do people know, like, is this me? Is this my stuff? Or is this actually like an inner knowing that I need to pay attention to?

So I don't think there's a clear cut answer, but as you said that, I immediately thought of something in my life that kind of clearly separated it. I was in a situation, an unhealthy situation with someone and it was a similar thing to your friend, right? Well, on some level, kind of consciously I was going along with it, but I wasn't really happy with it and I had this assumption that one day we would like really be together in this healthy, I had this fantasy of this like healthy situation. And then it got to the point where

every single night I would have these very vivid and symbolic dreams. And I knew they were symbolic. What were they? Because there were things like there were these two cats. One of them was like there were these two cats and there was this fence in the middle and like the cats were kind of fighting with each other. I can't remember specifics, but like the cats were fighting with each other. And then one cat like found its way into this really happy situation. But the other cat was trapped in this horrible situation. And I kept having these recurring

or symbolic dreams in some way. And then I was like obsessed with the symbolism and I would start Googling and being like, what is going on here? There was something internally on like a very unconscious level that was saying to me, this isn't right. It's really hard to listen to that consciously because consciously what you want is what is not good for you. You want to prove something to yourself or you want to prove something to someone.

But on some level, something, I really believe something will tell you if something isn't right. And it can come out in so many different forms. I think dreams is one of them. Dreams I find so fascinating. I feel like people don't pay enough attention to how informative they can be. Oh my gosh, I know. Do you work with your own dreams now and other people's? Yeah, so I will be really happy to explore a client's dreams,

but obviously it's so subjective. Like we're not entirely sure. There are so many theories, but I love playing with ideas. Clients are like, hey, I had this weird dream. It feels important. I have no idea what it means. I'm like, let's talk about it. Let's have a conversation about it. And I do the same in my therapy sessions. And it doesn't even matter if it's subjective. And like, is this the ultimate truth? Because you're coming to understand, you're still coming to understand something about yourself. So I had this dream not too long ago.

So I was walking down a street in the dream, and then there was this truck that pulled me out of this sense of freedom and happiness and it dragged me into this like abandoned castle. And in the abandoned castle there was this like huge doberman and I had a challenge where I had to get myself out of the castle, but the only way out of the castle was at the top, so I had to, like, fly out. And at the bottom, so, like, the Doberman was kind of in the middle, like, on a middle platform,

and at the bottom of the castle, on the floor, on the ground level, was my partner. And so, the challenge I had was to kind of find my way out. And then what I realized, so the Doberman was also really trying to protect me, but it was really the trigger for me. The Doberman was my protective part that's trying to protect me. And I had to almost float out of this castle to escape the trigger. So we were like, what does floating mean?

And I was like, does that mean I have to dissociate to get away? And so we never came to like a full understanding of what do we do with this? And we're still talking about it. But it is just so like, I, I think it's so fascinating. And also dreams that repeat themselves. I feel like if they, there's a reason that they're coming back, you know, it's like your subconscious is like, Hey, I'm trying to send you a message. Yes, absolutely. Like you say, it doesn't, I think there can be sometimes shame in, in like dreams, because if we're having something that we, we don't want to dream about, we

think about, and then you're like, that was weird, what does that mean? So you like keep it quiet. Right. But actually if you have someone to talk them through with, it's fascinating how you interpret them whether they are symbolic or more literal and then working through them because usually what then tends to happen is it shifts. That's right, yeah. Your unconscious is communicating with you all the time and the more you pay attention to it, the more there can be like movement and something can shift and change. That's how we change our patterns,

that's how we change our like relationship styles, you know, that's how we change as people entirely is when we become aware, I think, of what is unconscious. And for people that might not have, you know, can't afford therapy or anything like that, I always think dream journals are a great, great to start. Oh my gosh, absolutely. So it's also like really fascinating when you then look back and like, whoa. What is going on here?

Yeah. What is going on here? Yeah. Cause there is so much, one of the dreams that I always have that's repeating is because I used to drink a lot and then I gave up. And then I think in the last two years I've sort of found like a really happy place where I like don't really drink. Most of my friends that I've made over the last five years will associate me as someone that's sober curious at least. But I've enjoyed now being able to introduce

like having a drink with my partner, if we're like on holiday or anything like that. But I often have these dreams, a friend of mine used to have them as well, they're like phantom hangover dreams where it's like, I dream that I have gone out, I don't remember what I've done. And then someone's like, oh, you started drinking and you know, you created complete chaos. That is so interesting. And then I wake up with this sort of phantom hangover shame feeling. No way.

And what's really nuts at the moment is, because I still have them. I say I have them like once every two weeks. Wow, yeah. I have them like once every two weeks. If not more. Yeah. And what I find wild as well is that since I've been pregnant, every dream I have, not just those ones, I'm pregnant. No way. Which is weird.

Yeah. So like, it doesn't matter what I'm doing, what the story is, every single dream, I've been pregnant. So even when I have the wild drinking dreams, you're pregnant. Yeah. And then I'm like, what did I do? And people are like, oh, you crashed a plane and ended up in like a different country and told this person they were this. And I'm like, oh my God. And I'm pregnant and I was drinking. Oh my gosh, that is so interesting. It's so interesting that I remain pregnant throughout. For sure.

In my subconscious. Yeah. But so I don't know, we could like theorize all day long, but I would say that the being pregnant and that showing up in your dreams is something that like you identify as. Yeah. It's part of your identity. Like I'm a pregnant woman, but I'm interested.

Which is also weird because I didn't. I wasn't particularly sure about motherhood, if I'm honest. I didn't really have that maternal, this is my destiny kind of thing. So that makes it even stranger that it is like, is so in my subconscious as well. Absolutely, especially the kind of, you crashed a plane or you did something quite, you know, it's like, there are so many ways we could think about that. I wonder if it's anything to do with, you know,

fears about motherhood, as I think most people have. I don't know, they never feel fearful of the pregnancy. It's just more like part of who I am, which is nice. Yeah. Which is really nice. But the drinking dreams, it's always an anxiety dream. I feel like it's myself being like, by the way, like, this is still not a great thing for you. You know, like you're always going to have this my interpretation. Yeah, always going to have this possibility. Yeah. That you may create chaos. For short, what your interpretation when you say it's your interpretation, like, that's the most important

interpretation to start with, especially when it comes to dreams. Yeah. That's how you can start thinking about it. But I would like them to stop. Yeah. I don't want them anymore. Quite annoying. I'm like, Oh, God, you've given me 50,000 versions of the same story.

What do you want me to know? Stop doing it. Yeah. But one thing I wanted to kind of touch on as well, because I know you've spoken about the importance of like having a vision for your future, whether that's in the context of like the vision you want for your relationship or just individually. A lot of people that are listening to this podcast

are usually going through a transitional period that can be challenging and that can bring a sense of identity crisis. How would you advise people, whether they're going through their Saturn return or any other stage to kind of come back to something like that as a North Star versus feeling like, oh my god, I don't know, like life just doesn't feel good and I don't know where to begin. Mm-hmm. I think part of it, a good starting point is, you know, well, what leads any of us to coaching or therapy in the first place is often like, I feel lost. I don't know who I am, right? I actually work with

a lot of people who are kind of approaching their Saturn returns. I was wondering that. Yeah, which is so interesting. So you've noticed from your work that there's definitely something. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Like I think we all get to, and I can identify it myself, like we all get to this point where suddenly we are aware of adulthood, we are aware of ourselves as an adult, our identity is shifting, there are more responsibilities.

It's quite a terrifying time. And then we begin to sort of feel lost and almost ungrounded is how I describe it. Totally, yeah. And I think part of moving forwards towards any kind of vision is recognizing the change and with any change comes a loss. And so how can we grieve the loss of an old kind of life, an old identity, we're like shedding old skin. So grieving is involved in that process. And I think it has to be in order for something else to emerge.

Totally. Because people talk about that though. No. They just think that life like, I think we have this delusion that life hopefully just gets better and gets added. We don't think that when that space is taken up, something else has to leave. Absolutely. I think a good rule of thumb for anyone is whenever there's a change, there is always a loss. There's always a positive, but there's always a loss.

And we have to recognise that loss in order to really move forward and gain clarity. We can't have clarity without the recognition that actually we're also leaving something behind, whether it's good or bad, doesn't really matter. There's something that's being left behind. I definitely felt that in recently over the last year, because I'm 35. So I was aware that I was going through, because we have Saturn squares and oppositions.

So there's the big Saturn return. But then we also have these like seven year cycles where there's another visit, so to speak. And we're faced with the same themes. And it can be it can be a crumbling or it can be an upleveling. So some people during their Saturn return, like if they've been living like really authentically and they're on path, it can just mean upleveling. But like you say, what's important to recognize is there's still a grief and a loss in that. For me, my Saturn return was more of a crumbling, but at this point I was like, what's gonna happen? And it's definitely been an upleveling, you know, like we're pregnant, we've moved

in together. But then I didn't expect the grief of the kind of my old life of my more independent life. Really, it's all the things we've been discussing of me in my little sanctuary in my flat. And now I'm really seeing like, we can have a desire, I think personally, I know that I do, to kind of stick in that comfort zone. Oh yeah. There's no growth there. There isn't. We want, but our brain is wired to keep pulling us

towards what's familiar and what's known and what's comfortable, even if it doesn't feel good. It takes effort and it takes an extreme amount of courage to continue to slowly keep pulling ourselves out of what's familiar, out of what's comfortable and move towards something new. That's like a lifelong process I think we're all working through. Yeah and just edging with that. Yeah. So for people that are kind of going through a grieving because you said a lot of your clients are going through that transition, is there something that you notice that comes up time and time again for people at that particular transition? I think something that I generally notice again and I notice in myself I always

think of my own experience as well as my clients' relationships start changing or people sort of start falling away and there is this sense of loneliness or feeling like you're the only one kind of going through this experience and it's like an all-consuming loneliness. An existential sort of thing. Really like existential. Yeah, I'd say that's the main thing I've noticed, especially the relationships changing and it can be quite jarring because people are aware of, I was like friends with this person, but now I'm kind of noticing that this relationship

is changing because perhaps I'm growing and perhaps I'm not relating to this person in the same way. And that's a really frightening feeling. You can almost wake up one day and be like, this doesn't feel right. Something doesn't feel right anymore. Yeah. And like you say, it's deeply isolating, but I feel like there's, but obviously from doing this podcast now for like five years, I got messages like from people, and I'm sure you from seeing it again and again, and from your own experience and from mine,

I'm almost like, oh, it's a good sign for sure. But no one knows that they're going through it. And also people, it's like, you want to be able to say to someone, this is good, but you can't because ultimately it's like someone is feeling like the world is caving in on them. They are so lonely, they feel so isolated. They have no idea what's going on. And all you can really do, or I found in my work as a coach, is be with them in it. And eventually people are like incredibly clever

and they figure it out for themselves through the process of talking and discovering and dreams or whatever else, journaling, people figure it out. So just being there. Yeah, presence. Yeah, so powerful. Well, I feel like that's kind of a nice note to end on. Is there anything else you have

for our listeners that like a little bit of a takeaway? I know that's always quite a pressurizing thing. Oh gosh, yeah. I would say if there is a transition in your life that you're going through and you're struggling with and you don't know how to move forward, you only need one person to reach out to that can be with you and that can listen. And it's important that you can take that step and be courageous and reach out to them and start speaking because you never know where something could lead you. But reaching out and speaking to people is always the first step. Can that be in the form of a therapist? Absolutely.

Yeah. One person, a therapist, a coach, a friend, a parent, a caregiver, whoever it is, someone that feels safe and can kind of contain your experience. I love that. Thank you. Thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you. I hope everyone had a very relaxing experience listening to that.

You're right. It's the worst. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Letters to Venus. If you enjoyed it, I hope you can share it with a friend who you think might find it useful or write us a review that helps us get discovered by more like-minded people. And if you want to find more from Amy's work you can find her at it's Amy Millie on Instagram. Thank you so much for listening and as always remember you are not alone. Goodbye.