Saturn Returns with Caggie - *Magic Moments* Triumphant platonic love with Kelly Vittengl

Episode Date: January 13, 2023

In the lead up to the release of Caggie's first book Saturn Returns. This special mini series brings her favourite moments from the last three years back to the forefront: "And as we continue our trip down memory lane, I wanted to bring you an episode that is very close to my heart. I get so many messages asking me to do something around friendship and the breakup of friendship. We spend so much time talking about romantic relationships, and we don’t give enough to platonic love. This was one of my biggest lessons and discoveries during my Saturn return, as someone who places a lot of time and importance on romantic partnerships, love in friendships is what really saved me."  Caggie is joined by Kelly Vittengl, who played an instrumental role in Caggie's own Saturn return. Kelly is the founder of interiors company Frances Loom, a mental health advocate and a spiritual seeker, as well as one of Caggie’s best friends. They discuss female friendships through your Saturn return, how we seek identity in our relationships, the importance of inner child work and how to cultivate individuality and dismantle the unhelpful messaging we absorb through society and the media.  --- Follow or subscribe to "Saturn Returns" for future episodes, where we explore the transformative impact of Saturn's return with inspiring guests and thought-provoking discussions. Follow Caggie Dunlop on Instagram to stay updated on her personal journey and you can find Saturn Returns on Instagram, YouTube and TikTok.  Order the Saturn Returns Book. Join our community newsletter here.  Find all things Saturn Returns, offerings and more here.

Hello everyone and welcome to Saturn Returns with me, Kagi Dunlop. This is a podcast that aims to bring clarity during transitional times where there can be confusion and doubt. As we continue our trip down memory lane, I wanted to bring you an episode where I'm joined by someone very close to my heart. And the reason I'm bringing out this episode is because I get so many messages asking me to do something around friendship and the breakup of friendship and, you know, how it's a theme that just doesn't get enough airtime. We spend a lot of time talking about romantic relationships. I know I do. And we don't give enough to our friendships, and we don't give enough to our friendships to triumphant platonic love as I titled this episode and that was one of my biggest lessons and discoveries during my Saturn return was you

know someone that puts a lot of importance on romantic partnerships how actually those friendships were the ones that kind of healed me and saved me. And Kelly was one of those people that came into my life during a difficult and turbulent time. And it was platonic love at first sight. And she made me feel so seen and so understood when I was going through the midst of a very painful breakup. And so it's a big theme of the book. It's a big chapter around discovering our self-worth, discovering what's important. And our friendships really, you know, we should treasure them. They are the people that mend us when we're breaking

and put us back together again. And so we need to nurture those relationships just as much as we do our romantic ones. Also, we will be unpacking in the live shows, friendship, and the sort of difficulties with it and the complexities of it, especially when friendships end, or you have a sort of friendship breakup. Because so many of you have messaged me about it. So it feels appropriate to kind of bring that out. So if you want to come and see us in January, you can find ticket links in the show notes. And if you want to pre-order the Saturn Returns book,

you can also find a link in the show notes. Please, please do because I want it to get as far and wide as possible and I need my community to help me do that. So thank you very much in advance if you have pre-ordered it. And I hope you enjoy this episode with one of the great loves of my life on platonic love and unpacking our sort of friendship and everything we discuss. So I hope you enjoy. Hello everyone and welcome to Saturn Returns with me, Kagi Dunlop. This is a new podcast that aims to bring clarity during transitional times where there can be confusion and doubt. There's been such like an energy exchange between both of us.

there's been such like an energy exchange between both of us I've seen it in myself and I think I've seen it in you just that we're both like really kind of rising into these like roles that that we're both that feel so authentic to both of us I feel that's really true we've kind of ignited each other yeah a lot today I am joined by founder of renowned interiors brand Frances Loom, Kelly Vittingall. She is also a mental health advocate and host of Joan podcast and a spiritual seeker. But perhaps most importantly to me, she is one of my bestest friends. And a lot of you have requested an episode around female friendships. So I figured it would be appropriate to bring Kelly on for this final episode of Saturn Returns season one. So in this special episode we discuss the importance of

inner child work, the benefits of living abroad and how media has sculpted an unobtainable ideal for women and how we can dismantle that but most importantly we discuss the wonders of triumphant platonic love and female friendship during your Saturn return and especially mine friendship was an incredibly big theme so I hope you enjoy this episode and enjoy our conversation and we're just gonna dive on in. So here's Kelly. Because you moved to London only a couple of years ago. I moved to London like roughly three years ago. But I've lived in so many different places. I've lived in New York City.

I'm from New York. I'm from upstate New York. I've lived in New York City. I've lived in Los Angeles. I've lived in London and all of these places. I've moved completely on my own. But it's been such an interesting transition to London because I moved for love and then he and I broke up and I, you know, going through my Saturn return was so intense for me. So I went through this period of time

where I just was like being pummeled to basically what felt like I was being forced to take off a mask that I had grown to sort of fake being this person. And it wasn't necessarily that I was faking. It was just... A version of you. Yeah, it was just a version of me that I was putting out there that, like, I was trying to be. I wanted to be so bad, but I was also not acknowledging so many parts of myself. There was, like, all of this shadow that I wasn't acknowledging.

What was the sort of version of you that you were putting out? Just like, you know, I'd started this business. It was super successful. Like the Instagram followers, like all of that stuff was happening. And I was like, and I wanted to be that person. And I, and I, you know, I had met this guy from Italy and like, he was beautiful. And we were just having this really beautiful Instagram. And it was like all this stuff because I'd put so much for my whole life. I'd put so much validation on my exterior, on the way I looked, on how people perceived me. I still struggle with that, like how with how people perceive me. So what started happening was I started getting panic attacks sort of out of the blue.

And it was like I had one and then I had another one a month later and then another one three weeks later and then another one two weeks later and then they just started coming on and on and on to the point where I was what I felt like I felt like I was in a perpetual state of panic like 24 hours a day. What what is the sort of physicality of it to someone that's not actually because I think at the time gets thrown around quite loosely now. So there's definitely a difference between an anxiety attack and a panic attack. Anxiety attack is more of this kind of like sort of overwhelming, like thoughts are everywhere, maybe some dissociation. My experience of a panic attack is like, I can remember I used to like touch my skin because I just had this feeling of wanting to crawl out of my body. That's what it felt like. It was just like, get me out of here. It was like

shortness of breath, bracing heart, just cannot control the mind whatsoever. You're like, you're gone. You're like on another planet. I was so out of my body. I didn't know who I was. I didn't know how to be the person that I had kind of molded myself to be. And the way that I described the panic attacks now, looking back, like it felt like my soul was like screaming inside of my body. Like wake, like it felt like it was like rattling inside of a cage, like wake up. You have to like wake up to who you actually are. And since then I've been on such a journey of like, of just self-discovery. But would you then say that that was sort of really when you begun to embark on your spiritual path? Yeah. I'd say that that was like,

I'd been on a spiritual path for a while and had been interested in spirituality for a very, very long time, but it was really that like breaking down of self, like complete shattering of self. That's what it felt like for me. Like I, everything I knew about myself, everything I thought I knew about myself was demolished. So it was interesting because it was sort of this like rebuilding of self. It was sort of this like, okay, we have a blank slate, which is a really weird place to be in when you're 27.

To be like- But in hindsight, a really good place to be in. Yeah. Hindsight, really good. But it's so difficult to be, you know, to suddenly, I mean, in a lot of ways, I felt like I felt like a baby or something. I was like, okay, so how does this work again? How do I function in the world? And, and since then it's just been this real, real journey of like, you know, a big one for me. And we talk about this a lot is going back to childhood, really looking at my childhood, um, which was very idyllic and I have amazing parents, but something that's really kind of on the forefront of mental health right now is this looking at emotional trauma, which is not heavily studied. It's relatively new.

And how that fosters in the body. And how that fosters in the body. Yeah. Because emotional trauma, I was talking to my mom the other day and she was like, is there like a different word? It just sounds so intense. And I said to her, I was like, a very sensitive child could be yelled at. So it's not actually about the event. It's about how one processes it. Or doesn't. Exactly. Or doesn't process it. And it's really subconscious as well. heart is that you have to do so much deep diving into your own subconscious into your own patterning into the way that you look at the world I mean it requires a pretty intense amount of dedication

and awareness to be honest like you have to be willing and want and wishing to do the work because the other thing is it doesn't feel it doesn't feel particularly good oh no it's incredibly uncomfortable yeah it's very uncomfortable and also to go back to what you mentioned about 27 like when we are reaching 27 or when we are like growing up towards that age we have this whole lifetime of of conditioning and experiences and we're like we're set up we think we know everything and we think we're on this trajectory and we're like by 30 like yeah i've got it and then suddenly everything just is like, and I blows up in your face. And then it goes against everything we think we should be in society and, and to have achieved and know about ourselves.

That's all the stuff that society and our families love them all have like put on us because it's just the way that it's been. So there's this, there is this massive awakening happening right now where people are realizing that they're unhappy. And everybody's like, wait, but why? And it's realizing that we're all conditioned out of ourselves. But then also going back to that point of when things do feel like they're collapsing, it's very easy for us to have this conversation in the hindsight on the other side of it. for us to have this conversation in the hindsight on the like other side of it and be and you do just suddenly it's like coming out of this this tornado and you're like oh that was completely

necessary and actually like really benefited me yeah but at the time like if someone had told me I would probably be like what the fuck do you mean yeah and how I don't know whether I would have had well I definitely didn't have the tools but whether I would have had, well, I definitely didn't have the tools, but whether I would have had the stability to go into that work, to do the inner child work, because you do need to have, you do need to be safe. Yeah. Well, that's part of it is that you have to start building safe relationships outside of yourself. So there's a term called co-regulation, which we all need, like we're creatures of community. We have to be around other people. There are help. There's like, it's massively beneficial to our health

to be around other people. Yeah. That actually reminded me of, I say his name wrong. Is it Gabor Mate? Gabor Mate. Gabor Mate, who you adore. Yeah, I do. And you introduced me to.

And he was talking about how children can't actually like regulate their emotions. No no they can't emotions it's actually impossible like biologically children can't regulate their own emotions so if they get angry they don't know how to calm themselves turn the anger down they need someone else the parent caretaker sibling whomever to bounce that emotion off of in order to regulate it. And if that emotion goes unregulated, if the child is sent to the room or whatever it is to deal with it on their own, oftentimes what happens is that emotion gets repressed and then it gets stuck. And then it turns, you know, I mean, here we are like having panic attacks at 27.

Again, it's so interesting. My mom and I have been talking a lot about my own childhood and my parents are wonderful. And my mom was an amazing mom, but we've been talking about the ways in which I felt under parented, I guess. And I said to her this morning, I said, you know, as a society, as a world, as a Western world, we are literally emotional, emotionally illiterate is the word that I used. Like we live in such a value driven, not, not the good kind of values, I guess. It's, um, monetary value, monetary value, physical value, um, material, yeah. Material value. That's the word. It's like, everything's about like how you look, how much money you're making, what you're doing. And it just isn't serving us and I mean look around it's literally crumbling like it's crumbling so going

back to the like the inner child stuff because I know that a lot of people are curious about it and it is I don't think it's by any means a new thing but it's been I think it's been some of the most valuable work you and I have done for sure. 1,000%. Because I would say that everybody would benefit from doing inner child work. Everyone has a wounded inner child. Yeah. But some people will probably be like, I don't know if I need to. I don't know whether that like resonates with me. What would you say are the sort of like signals that perhaps you have some work to do?

I mean, oh my God. There's so many. I mean, relationships are like the first place. Yeah. And can we just go into that? Because I was reading Alan de Botton. I always sound like such an idiot when I pronounce his name like a French accent. But I don't want to call him like Alan.

Alan de Botton. But he talks about, you know, how in relationship we automatically go into this space of of often like a child parent dynamic and i know personally i definitely fall into that role and also just without even thinking about it call each other baby like he's baby voices and when he wrote it down like when i read it i was like that's so weird but it's so normal yeah yeah so often what's happening is when we go into relationship on a subconscious level, we're trying to heal a wounded relationship from childhood. So like if you, there's usually one parent that you have a bigger wound with than the

other, depending upon who raised you. We all just listened to that. One person came to mind. And what's happening is that as a child, when you couldn't, when you were trying to have your needs met, which our core needs are being seen and being heard. And when you're not, when those things aren't happening, you know, that's when children start to act out. Like when they start to scream, when they start to, you know, they're trying to get your attention some way. So if they couldn't heal it, then there's always this kind of, again, it's subconscious. We can't, we don't

see it on a conscious level, this attempt to heal that relationship for ourselves through another person so there's often someone else will show up oftentimes it's a mirror for what we need to see within ourselves and also the most fucked up part is that we're like super attracted to it well because it's comfortable too because that's what it's familiar it's familiar that's the thing it's familiar so basically a massive thing is kind of unpinning your concept of love and what that might have been growing up and what you observed in the family yeah so again it takes like i can imagine that people listening to this are like are having there's going to be so much resistance to doing it the ego will literally be like, don't want to talk about it. Don't want to think about it because it's painful because it doesn't feel good. It's uncomfortable. Like

we said before, it doesn't feel good to do this work. Well, going back to what you said about being seen and being heard, we also have these driving forces of like wanting to go through and be our like best selves, but also the child child the inner child and the ego is like we want to stay safe we're not doing any of this shit la la la la let's block out our ears and not and not do this because it's like the unknown just terrifies everybody yeah the ego basically is trying to protect the shadow and what the shadow is is just the parts of ourselves that we believe are unlovable which is untrue all human beings beings are worthy and valuable and lovable. And that's the thing is that so many of us grew up believing that love was conditional. Like, you know, even a parent who was like, you know, scolded you for

having bad grades. Like that's, that tells a child that I'm not loved if I don't have good grades. Yeah. So that's that, there's that value system again. It's like, oh, I need to be this. Or if a parent put emphasis on looks, it's like, oh, I need to look a certain way in order to receive that love from them. It's just kind of revisiting those things. I mean, I think a thing for both of us, I definitely, and I spoke about it when I did the solo podcast, is this idea that I'm like not lovable unless I look at look a certain way and that isn't just prescriptive to relationships that's like the wide like wider society in general it's like I cannot achieve and I cannot be deserving of like all these things until I am

essentially perfect which of course is like just the can keep being kicked down the road because it's not completely yeah and also you are already are perfect like that's the whole thing is that like we literally are all already perfect but the other thing to look at is emotional trauma doesn't just happen from parents and from family it happens from society too so so a way in which I felt you know that I was affected by society say was growing up it sounds silly but growing up watching the victoria's secret fashion show like i saw these women on tv who looked a certain way i was like nine years old when i first watched it with like tyra banks and um i was like oh like look at them look at everyone else looking at them that's what it looks like to be a woman and like a wanted woman

all the media we absorbed yeah oh my Oh my God. Completely. It's like, it's all of the beauty commercials. I mean, it's all of this. I don't necessarily want to call it capitalism, but it's this like, you need this in order to be this. Yeah. It's like all of the commercials were fed and women, my God, it's like, it's just so over the top for women. It just really, really gets me going when I going when I start to talk about it and think about all of the ways in which so many women around the world are just- Don't feel good enough. They don't feel good enough.

And I'm kind of jumping into a bit of a off tangent, but I was listening to something the other day that kind of how this correlates to our sexuality or lack of sexuality, because that's such a big part of it that it's like to be sexual and to be desired, you need to look this way. And if you go through your whole life, never feeling like you do, which most people don't, you don't feel you have ownership over your own sexuality or over your own body or like you are deserving of that part of you yeah you're you become a slave to being better all the time and serving other people yeah to serving other people to not feeling good enough to feeling like you need to be x y and z for this person or you know I mean and I still have it come up like

I've done so much work on this and I still think about going into a relationship and I get this like oh god like that feeling of not being perfect like perfectionism people laugh when I say I'm a recovering perfectionist but I mean I swear to god it's like it's so true I mean you I know but I mean I think you were more like the classic perfectionist than than me because we've got a lot of similarities but then we're also like I'm like I mean just to go back to when we did a pastor making course and yours were like perfect water lady and mine was just like a big pile of mush and you were just like grinning and i was like i know you were at school we wouldn't have been friends well that's the thing is that we all carry it differently so like we it depends on again where

like our wounding is so we really need to catch ourselves at like because the thing is we think these things because we have our entire lives and we never question them and like a massive thing for me is just to go to stop yourself and go why why yeah like when i'm like oh you can't like you can't get in a relationship yet because you haven't achieved this yeah you haven't got that or you don't weigh this. Right. And just being like, why? Who the fuck says?

But that's kind of the beauty of the Saturn return is that like you sort of have to start nearing rock bottom in order to make change. Like it just is the way that it is. Humans don't, we don't make change. You can't bypass that. You cannot bypass that, you know, which is what the Saturn return is for. I think in a lot of ways it's like, oh, let's, let's course correct you like back to who you are, who you really are. And I think a huge thing that you realize is that we feel like everyone is behind us going, you need to do this. You need to do that.

And sometimes that's true. But most of the time it's just us. Yeah. Being like, this is who you've got to be. Yeah. Before you can be. Totally. Worthy.

Yeah. Essentially. But it's also so important for us to develop and have compassion for the reasons why we're telling ourselves these, you know, quote unquote lies. for the reasons why we're telling ourselves these, you know, quote unquote lies, like, and that goes into just, again, doing the work and like realizing the, like listening to, becoming aware of that voice in your head and being like, what am I, what, how do I actually speak to myself? What, what am I telling myself? Because oftentimes it's just lies that are trying to keep you protected. And also comparison, I think is such a huge one because it, you know, we go through school, we go through life all doing things at the same time.

And then it suddenly becomes a bit of a free-for-all and everyone's advancing at different stages. And it's interesting, like, your experience versus mine because you had this successful business and then you moved to England and stuff was, like, from the exterior thriving. Oh, yeah. Whereas I would definitely feel like I wasn't. But I would look at someone like you and be like why don't I have it figured out like she does and yet you were going through yeah why and yet you were going through your own experience oh my god completely yeah I mean no one has it together by the way like no one

I mean people are certainly moving like we're moving in a direction that is more, we're shifting towards being more in our authentic selves. And I think that, you know, as we get there, we're reaching places in which people truly are like living their purpose and are truly authentic. But I mean, I can tell you right now, the majority of human beings on this planet all feel like there's got to be something more and that everyone else is doing something right that they're not doing. I mean, we all feel like that imposter syndrome is just, it's like, I honestly think it's a part of like the human condition. And it doesn't matter who you are or what you've achieved. No, not at all. Yeah. It all comes with its own pressure. Yeah. So going back back to friendship because a lot of people have like I mentioned to you and that's why I wanted to cut I kind of knew we were going to go off on inner child stuff but a lot of people have to ask me to do a piece around female friendship

and I think that you know I definitely went through I had like my friendship group that I had in London and this like version of me that was very established um that I built up throughout like my teen years and early 20s and then like was behaving however I was behaving but there was something in me that was just like this is not who I want to be and I kind of need to separate myself from this in order to explore that version because not only do we have our own narratives but like you go and meet up with a friend and they have their version of you and I always have this really like it's so interesting how you can feel that but I was always such a chameleon that I would just be like that person straight away that was my survival was like be whoever you need to be to fit in and make people feel comfortable and be and feel loved yep yeah and for people to feel

like good around you and I remember one of my friends called me out on it she was like there's a different kagi for every friend my sister called me out on the same thing and I didn't realize but she'd spent time with me like in a few with a few different people and she was like you know I think that I know you and that there's like my kagi but then I see like another one but I didn't even realize I was doing it and that became exhausting in itself because I wasn't living for myself yeah and that's something now I think I've really it's that takes a huge amount of discipline and like courage to master because when you start remaining like a bit more still in one version of who you are.

And cultivating that. Some people just fall by the wayside and that's a difficult process. Well, there's quite a bit of grief that comes up with that too. Like you're grieving old parts of yourself or parts that don't serve you anymore. But you still, you have an attachment to them. So you're letting go of like these versions of yourself that kept you safe you're letting go of friendships you're letting go of a lifestyle you know like there's so much that falls to the wayside and it is I mean could be just as intense as like losing a person

um well we talked so much about the pain of a breakup of a relationship a romantic relationship but we rarely acknowledge the pain of a friendship dying yeah completely and it happens all the time almost every friendship that I've yeah I've had a couple of experiences um we have a different experience in that like I still have my friends from high school but they're like my friends from high school and because I don't live there like you still live in the place that you grew up and if I still lived in my hometown like I can't imagine that I would be hanging out with the same people that I was when I was young you know because I've moved around a lot too and that is such a blessing and it gives you this ability to actually start discovering

who you are and I know it's quite a luxury and not everyone can but I think a lot of people are super fearful of embarking on something like that solo but I cannot recommend it enough because you get to discover like other aspects of yourself oh completely every time I've moved somewhere every time I like land in a new place where I don't actually know anyone I'm like okay like what like who do I want to be you know like are there parts of myself that I was too afraid to show in old relation in old friendships or something like how can I actually step more into my authenticity as who I am with people who I can't really be afraid of like how they're going to take it because well they have no past version to attach themselves onto exactly yeah yeah because if I like oh my god I actually when I went back to Australia so I was super wild when I was in

Australia when I lived there and I went back at Christmas and of course like the version of me now that feels fairly established and like grounded and like the version you know if you came with me and her like the way people like people were coming up to me they were like can i eat this i don't know if i told you this but this girl came up to me she was like last time i saw you you were a guana wrestling and i was like i'm sorry who are you i didn't even recognize her and you were literally wrestling in iguana no no iguana wrestling is this thing that you put like belts around your head and you get on the floor and you like wrestle what and that i was just like oh that's the kind of shit i used to do at like 4am in the morning with a bunch of people like partying but it was just

it was it was you know no pun intended a really sobering moment for me to be like wow that was the version of myself i was then and then to like skip to in LA that was really when I started to be like I don't want to be you know in that partying environment I just want to be a bit more grounded and like if you ask people in LA about me that knew me they were like yeah Kagi doesn't drink she's like super you know hermit-ry but then the people back in london like grew up with be like really yeah yeah yeah and so you know they're all versions of me yeah but i think moving abroad gives you the opportunity to choose yeah it does it definitely does it can be difficult though because you know i've had i have people ask me

all the time like how have you made friends? How have you found friends? And I've- London's particularly tricky too. I know. I know. All of like, all of you girls are like, how on earth did you like land in this group of people? I've had American friends that have moved and I'm like, you're gonna hate it.

And they literally come back after a couple of weeks, they're like, nobody wanted to be my friend. Because it's so, it's like england is so much smaller than america and everyone just knows each other so there's like not a whole lot of like room for someone who's not from here to like wiggle their way in it's a cultural thing as well we're very cultural yeah a friend of mine her ex-boyfriend um is english and she's american and he used to say that Americans are like peaches and that Brits are like coconuts where Americans are like soft and juicy on the outside and like

welcoming and warm but then there's like a pit on the inside it's like hard to get in once you know once you actually get to the center of them um and then Brits are like really hard on the outside but then once you crack them then there's then there's you're in yeah that is so true i know that is so true because like when i was in america everyone was so friendly but it always felt like quite surface level yeah and like i would kind of be friends for like a couple of weeks or months and then just like never see them again yeah yeah yeah whereas here it's like once you make that friendship yeah then you're in then you're in yeah I'm in you're in you're in don't you worry so I guess we've been pretty lucky with the friendships that we found but it's it takes a minute we have it does it does it takes a minute and like since I've been in London

which has been a couple of years there have been friendships that I've had that that have faded away you know like I've also had periods where I've tried to force friendships you know where I've like wanted when I like when I first moved here especially because I moved here for a relationship and we were together and then we broke up after seven months and then I was going through that whole grieving process and that was kind of a whole nother layer of this like sad and return thing um well I think I don't know whether you did this but I think a lot of people in relationship myself included you kind of especially if you move for them your life is like an extension of totally their life you just kind of you're an accessory in their life really yeah and I didn't know anyone here so like we broke up and I was like okay all my friends were his friends so what

do I do now yeah that's hard it was really hard so I had like a year of grieving that and really kind of staying indoors. And like, that was like a whole nother sort of process of this sort of spiritual awakening, if you want to call it that, was this learning. Because I had been a serial dater, you know, since I was like 15. I hadn't been single for more than three months. Really? Mm-hmm. So he and I, Leo and I broke up and I was like, I was like, okay, wow, I'm single.

And now it's been two and a half years. This is the longest I've been single in my life. But now I can look back and I'm like, oh my God, I needed this. Because again, the same thing. I needed to do a lot of soul searching. I was always looking for myself in men. And also I hadn't established friends here. Looking back on all of it, I'm like, wow, this has been so beautiful.

Like the female friendships that I've created, that, you know, we've created and our other friends. It's been honestly some of like the most beautiful relationships in my life, especially for where I am now. Like as the person I am now, which feels like the most authentic version of myself thus far in my life. And therefore to be seen in that version of you and like loved and held and carried yeah did you anticipate that were you looking for or did it just kind of happen um no I knew I want I mean I wanted friends I knew that but like there was a level of like manifestation that occurred um so in kind of going through that breakup and like really going through a whole nother level of like finding myself and figuring out who I really am without a partner was super important. And to really like stick through that, it did sort of feel like when I did start to put

out the call for girlfriends and like they just started coming in. I mean, it did feel sort of like this magnetic thing that was happening where it was like I was again stepping into my authenticity and then like in came in came friends in came friends and it was always so serendipitous yeah because I wouldn't necessarily say I was seeking out what I was seeking out was something else as in like I need another way of living my life I'm looking for something else I don't know what the fuck that is but like this isn't serving me this isn't right and yeah what the hell else is out there and people kept coming into my life in the most random ways like and I too like you was very much like relationships romantic relationships were such a huge part of my identity but that often caused me to like zigzag off my own path a lot of the time and my value

was around like who I was in that relationship to that person but then coming out of the last one at the end of last year and then like you coming into my life and asked like establishing this this group which is so nurturing I never anticipated and I call it like triumphant platonic loves because I never anticipated that a friendship could give me so much of the nourishment that a romantic partner does give of course it's like completely different but then when you start having those pieces filled by a different sort of love you don't need that romantic one as much like of course you desire it and you can want it and we talk about you know what we want from a partner all the time but we're not like sitting around being like we just want a hug but even

speaking to some different like girlfriends that perhaps you know they all got married like wildfire and I think they look at me as like a bit of a black sheep they're just like why weren't you settled down like because I just don't need to right now unless it's the right person like I don't need to yeah and I think we give each other that support system which is such a nice thing well that's what's been so nice about meeting you like there's been such like an energy exchange between both of us I've seen it in myself and I think I've seen it in you just that we're both like really kind of rising into these like roles that that we're both that feel so authentic to both of us I feel that's really true we've kind of ignited each other yeah a lot yeah because the last nine months have definitely been a rapid growth yeah i mean yeah same for me because we call each other out

on shit too yeah which is also so important by the way like that's a whole nother conversation but well i think women can be quite um catty towards each other in a way that i don't i haven't observed with men in the same way like men are straight up like assholes to each other is that's the form of bonding and it's funny and it's character building and you know but whereas women can be a lot more behind each other's backs and well and this again goes into you know if we want to go down this road and we've talked about this it's that feminine wound it's that like ancient feminine wound where for we've been living in you know I don't want to get too feministic here but we've been living in a patriarchal society for hundreds if not thousands of years where men have been you know in power and women are seen as lesser than and it's always

been like oh who's like who's the woman going to get in society like it's there's always been this kind of undertone of like first of all women not being equal to men we all know that but also women like women against women like who's got what who's dating who who's marrying who like and there's there's competition and it's because it's like there's like objectified ornaments on the shelf that are like who are we going to pick therefore once you Once you get picked. What do you look like? Do you cook? Like, are you like, it's been,

it's, it's always been about like what it is that we have to offer materially and not, you know, historically hasn't had to do really with like who the person is. So there's been this like, and again, it's why women are so easy to sort of back to the capitalistic conversation, like buy this makeup

and you're going to be so you're going to look like you know Claudia Schiffer yeah exactly women are susceptible to that kind of thing because it's just been hundreds of years of us just not being able to be authentically ourselves we're not taught taught how to communicate. So now, you know, like I'm learning, I feel like I've really been stepping into who I am and feeling really grounded in who I am. So, and learning how to communicate for the first time in my life and ask for what I want and what I need. And it can be difficult, but all of a sudden when you start doing it, when you start, you know, with friendships, like saying, Hey, this thing happened and it didn't make me feel that good. Like, can thing happened and it didn't make me feel

that good. Like, can we talk about it? You realize that there is a way to have a dialogue, but we're so afraid to have that dialogue because we're also afraid of rejection, which again goes back to childhood and like. Also, we're just not taught how to have. Right. Emotionally illiterate. Yeah. And how to communicate and have confrontation in a healthy way. And then like, you know, within friendship and also relationship, and then we harbour that or then speak behind each other's backs because we don't want to go through that icky in between. Oh my God, I had such like, I can remember being in high school.

All the older boys were into me and my friends because we were like fresh meat coming in. And there was so much competition between me and my friends because we were like, like fresh meat coming in. And, um, there was so much competition between me and my, me and my best friend. And I remember wanting to put gum in her hair at a football game, which is so ridiculous. But it's like, again, it's that like, Oh, that boy that I want likes her. Like there's, there's no, for women, I think oftentimes men take precedent over the friendship and men just don't have that as much as we do like like oh you're into her okay cool like yeah whatever there's plenty of them out there where it's been like fighting over them yeah

because we're taught we've been taught so much that our value so much of our value is in our partner and who we're with and being picked and especially you know it's like a very unfair thing of you know especially like after 30 that you know there's this mentality that men kind of come into their own and like just get better and better and better and whereas women like they're like oh why is she still single and I've had conversations with guy friends about it and they're like oh you know they literally will be like yeah but why is she single she's like x age I'm like are you fucking joking oh my god it makes me so crazy even like even again back to media stuff there was an two Chanel ads that came out in the same year Brad Pitt was in one

of them and it was um an older supermodel in the other one. Chrissy Turlington, maybe. Brad Pitt's photo is like rugged. You can see every wrinkle. Like they like, you know, change the lighting in the image just to make him look more weathered. And he looks sexy as hell. And then you've got the Chrissy Turlington photo. And they're the same age. Or maybe not, but roughly. And she's edited to shit.

Completely, like every wrinkle's removed. And it's like, is that messaging and that's the other problem is that because it's been going on for so long again there's it's so subconscious to us like it is now considered radical for a woman to like not get botox i know which is awful insane i did an exercise a couple of years ago when I was feeling a lot of that pressure of like, oosh, maybe I should get my lips done. Or like, again, because of all that subconscious programming that I needed to look a certain way. I'm so glad you didn't. I know. I mean, well, now I look at my face and I'm like, oh, I like, I love, I love my face.

But I did this exercise with myself where I wrote down everything about my body that I wanted to change. And then I flipped it. And I was like, okay, what is it that I love about my lips? And I was like, I love kissing with my lips. I love that they give me this opportunity and this ability to feel something with someone else. So as a sort of antidote to that subliminal message, or not even subliminal, that messaging that's going out there all the time, it's to write like a list. Yeah. Well, again, it's kind of flipping the script. It's like developing the awareness to sort of pinpoint

what it is that you are telling yourself. And why? What is that voice in your head? And what is it saying to you? So just flipping the script, becoming aware of the thoughts that are negative and figuring out because they're never true. So there's this exercise. It's actually so good. You have, you heard of Byron Katie. Okay. She's a spiritual teacher who developed this. It's called the work. That's what she calls it. Um, where you ask yourself four questions. So if you have a thought about something, you know, like, you know, I recently had a friend, I walked through this exercise with her because her now boyfriend wasn't her boyfriend yet at the time. She was like, he's not responding to my texts and he just, he's not into it. He's not into it.

And so I stopped her and I was like, okay, we're going to go through these four questions. One, is that true? In the moment, you're completely convincing yourself that yes, it's true. So it's a yes or no answer. Oftentimes we say yes. So the second question is, can you be absolutely sure that that's true? So I said to her, can you absolutely know that he's not responded to you in a couple of hours because he doesn't like you anymore? No, you cannot be absolutely sure of that. Third question is how do you feel when you believe that thought? So she started going through the list, insecure, sad, you know, all of the things.

And then the fourth question is who would you be without that thought? So if you were in the same exact situation and you weren't thinking that thought, who would you be? I love that. And then what you do is flip it around. So then you take the statement, he's not calling me because he's not thinking about me or doesn't like me. And you say, he does like me. It's again, because again, like you don't know the truth of the situation. So what all you're doing is telling yourself. You're making a choice. You're completely making a choice.

goes back to this idea that you know through the media and advertising all this messaging is basically to constantly tell us and remind us that our worth is outside of ourselves so with when someone comes into our life if it's a guy and he's not responding that feeling of like oh my god I'm worthless because he hasn't responded to me like now I actually don't have because it's taken me a long fucking time to get there but because I sometimes like my worth isn't dependent on that nor is one's worth dependent on them getting x y and z done to their face so they can look like someone they've seen on social media right and like it's also I can't I'm gonnaquote this, but it's like an educated and empowered woman has been long considered a dangerous thing. And that is, I think, both of our mission in different ways that we want to make women empowered and just do whatever resonates with them, with what we're discussing, that allows them to kind of take ownership over themselves and to start embodying some of this stuff whatever that looks like and whatever practices they need to do but to stop them

being on this kind of like conveyor belt of society that's just like this is how you have to think and this is what you have to have to be to be worthy of anything it's just so subconscious it just it does take it takes, but it's so beautiful. Like doing the work and really beginning to look at yourself and like committing to yourself is really what's happening is just the most important thing that someone can do for themselves. I used to carry a notebook around with me and write out the questions and actually do that every time, you know, quote unquote negative thought popped into my head. And write it down.

And write it down and go through those. Is it true? Is it, you know,-unquote negative thought popped into my head um just and write it down and write it down and go through those and is it true is it you know and just to flip the script for myself and like really really commit to doing that because it just it just does take work it doesn't just happen well it's like that thing you put up on instagram the other day it's like we can only what was it meet people as deeply as they've met themselves. Yes, exactly. And it's kind of the same thing. So you can't really just go from where you are to like having those kind of friendships. You need to begin that path yourself. Agreed.

And life ultimately, like everyone who comes into our life is a mirror. So like you do that work on yourself, you're going to naturally, magnetically start calling in people who are also doing the same thing. How, what would your advice be on sort of trying to find find those people find like those women that's what you're looking for those kind of friendships what i always recommend is like figure out what your interests are so if it's like if you are on a more spiritual path that is like yoga or something finding yoga classes meditation classes and going I've

never been too shy to like just walk up to someone and be like hey just like start chatting with them it's yeah that's interesting because when I was younger I used to have a serious problem with doing anything on my own like I always had to have a friend I was terrified whereas now I push myself to do things like on my own because it's uncomfortable and it can be a little bit scary and a little bit uncomfortable but like you always achieve something from it. That's such a good point I used to be the same way and I remember being nervous like the first few times I went to yoga classes as though like everyone in the room was looking at me and now I mean like I'm still terrible at yoga I'm like the least flexible person ever but I go and I could care less. So again, it's kind of just like those practices over time, disconfirming, disconfirming

experiences, which is just, we have to put ourselves through experiences to disconfirm the belief that we have that like, Oh God, I can't go alone. Or like, Oh my gosh, everyone's going to be looking at me. Like you just have to do it honestly. And then you realize that that's not true. And it's not true. Exactly. It practice it just takes work it just you've got to like feel into the discomfort and just sort of push through it and the more of that authenticity that you step into the easier it becomes ultimately and then this and then the faster people start coming in so that's perfect yeah that's my recommendation thank you so much for coming on you're welcome thank you love you love you

I hope you guys enjoyed this episode and learned something from mine and Kelly's conversation Kelly always has the best advice for me and it was such a gift that she came into my life when she did and I know that as we transition through our 20s, friendships are a huge theme and there can be a lot of grief when they end. So finding like minded individuals is so important as we grow and develop. Now, it has been such a joy making this podcast for you guys. And I'm truly overwhelmed by the messages of support. And that has meant so much to so many of you. So we will be back after a little bit of a

break and I just wanted to say a massive massive thank you to all of you who have listened and shared it's been such an amazing journey for me so thank you very much from the bottom of my heart you can find Kelly's brand Frances Loom on instagram at francis loom or kelly vittingle which we will put underneath because it's a complicated one to spell and you can find me at kaggy's world saturn returns is a feast collective production the producer is hannah varrell and the executive producer is kate taylor until next time thank you so so much for listening and remember you are not alone goodbye Until next time, thank you so, so much for listening. And remember, you are not alone. Goodbye.