Good morning, afternoon, evening, or night wherever you are. One of the coziest things you can add to your daily routine is a podcast. As someone who doesn’t necessarily like living in infinite silence, I always have something on in the background. Usually, it’s a YouTube video I’ve seen a bunch of times but more recently, I’ve been switching out the over watched videos with podcasts. They’ve been coming in handy during my commute and when I’m cooking, journaling, or getting ready for the day.
I think that down the line, once I’ve listened to a couple more, I’ll being publishing a huge post on all the podcasts I’ve listened to and my thoughts on them. My favorite thing about podcasts are how thought provoking they can be. As a fellow creative, I love to see people dive into topics that they’re passionate about, whether that be about their vulnerabilities, favorite books, crime, and more. I love creative passion and I’m constantly trying to consume different forms of media or journalism. Podcasts, particularly, are the perfect combination of nostalgic radio shows with a modern flair that leave me scribbling notes into my journal.
The past weekend, I was reading through my notes and realized that it may be beneficial to actually combine them all in a comprehensible way and start sharing them. Knowing that I personally would enjoy being introduced to different quotes, discussions, or podcasts, I decided to start a series on my blog where I’d go into stuff that I’ve recently learned about or connected to from a podcast episode.
So my fellow lovers of words, grab yourself a nice cup of tea and let’s dive into things I loved from a couple of episodes from the podcast, Saturn Returns with Caggie.
My oh my, I am so glad I found this podcast. I saw Niomi Smart, a YouTuber who I follow, mention that she was going to be featuring on Caggie’s podcast and that they had to reshoot some of it because the original episode was filmed before the ending of her engagement. She mentioned that it was hard for her to re-film and revisit the episode because of how drastically different her life was from when they started filming the episode to when it ended. I knew immediately that I had to check it out because if there’s one thing that I respect about Niomi, it’s her perseverance and the way she eloquently talks about her vulnerabilities and explores self-growth. Okay, that was three things but, all in all, she’s someone who I greatly respect.
While I do passively follow astrology as a result of being brought up in a culture where it plays a big role in many of our customs, beliefs, and behaviors, I personally do not intentionally implement into my life on a daily basis. I’m not sure if that made sense, but by that statement, I mean to say that I recognize it’s there, I believe in many things, but I don’t seek it out.
Part of me was a bit skeptical going into this episode because I didn’t know how much astrology was going to play into it or whether or not I’d like that aspect of it but I quickly found out that I had nothing to worry about. Besides the fact that I knew that Niomi was going to be featured in an episode, I didn’t know much about what it was. In fact, it wasn’t until I started the episode that I realized it even was centered around an astrological concept.
If you are someone who is weary about astrology or it isn’t your jam I don’t think that this show is overwhelming in anyway! If you’re someone who gets confused about astrology, you won’t have to worry too much about it because in each episode, Caggie brings along her friend who specializes in astrology to explain certain aspects of what one’s Saturn Return is.
To keep it brief and simple, one’s Saturn Return is centered around their late twenties as well as big moments of transition. One encounters their Saturn return when Saturn returns to its original position that it was in your birth chart. The return marks a time of transition, and comes around in your late twenties. In mythology, Saturn was the only son of Gaia who owned up to the task of killing his father who was hurting his mother when the other gods were scared to face up to their big, intimidating father. Following his father’s death, a peaceful time of success and growth known as the Golden Age. This decision to do the hard thing and take ownership of one’s responsibilities stems from this myth of Saturn doing the responsible thing even though it was daunting and hard. It marks the transition from a volatile time when people just settled and lived in instability to a time of peace after a hard transition that obviously wasn’t necessarily easy.
There’s a lot more to this concept of Saturn Return, including the fact that one experiences mini Saturn Returns every seven years up to the Saturn Return before the cycle renews. This part of Saturn Return is explored in Ruby’s episode but the show as a whole, especially the first four or three episodes give a summary so check them out if you want to learn more!
E p i s o d e s R e f e r e n c e d : 3.5 Independence, Perfectionism, and Letting Go With Niomi Smart
Obviously, for Niomi, it was her transition in losing the person who she thought would she would be spending the rest of her life with.
In the show, Niomi asks Caggie:
“When you do realize that this is your Saturn Return and that this is why things have been turbulent the past few months, did it provide any comfort from being more aware of the world and astrology?
Caggie replied:
“Definitely, you realize the universe isn’t working against you, it’s working for you. The pain is what sculpts the clay. You can’t be an established person with your values and integrity and sense of self just by easing and breezing through life. You need to have these experiences that make you who you are. A big part is the resistance. If it’s not right for you, it’ll go by like snaps that. When we try to hold onto things for dear life that just aren’t right for us, that’s when the unbearable pain happens. Whereas, if you hold your hands up and trust that this is happening for me, then it’ll become clear soon. We don’t know exactly when and exactly why, but it’ll happen. Eventually, we can look back at our experiences and think/recognize that time was so horrible but I’m so glad it happened.”
Niomi’s episode covered the topic of letting go and how to cope with a transition period that you don’t really expect. She talked about how important the period after her break up was for her in finding and building her true authentic self and to truly nourish her mind and soul by feeling the feelings, something she didn’t really do in her first breakup.
These words were comforting for me in the way universal truths are comforting. We all know them. We all know that the pain is necessary and that uncertainty is always going to be there and that with time, things will slow down and time will take us somewhere better where we’re happier and one with ourselves. It’s just that when we’re knee deep in the process of whatever our transition may be, things feel so extreme in the sense that we can’t see past the pain and heaviness of uncertainty and fear. This quote was a good reminder that with time and accepting the feelings for what they are, we can use them to mold ourselves into something better rather than just ignoring everything and drifting through life with no purpose.
E p i s o d e s R e f e r e n c e d : 1.2 Getting Sober Curious With Ruby Warrington
I’m new to Ruby Warrington and haven’t heard of her work before this podcast. Ruby runs her own podcast called “Sober Curious” that’s centered around exactly what the title says. Ruby leads the discussion on pursuing curiosity on sobriety. I personally don’t drink alcohol but drinking is such a big factor in socializing that it’s hard to ignore.
When I tell people I don’t drink, the first question they ask is, “is it because of religious reasons?” When I say no, they just look at me weird. They try asking a couple of times again if I want a beer or some other beverage and when I say no, they tend to roll their eyes or scoff at me.
I think it’s so weird why people can’t wrap their minds over someone not drinking. Religion is a valid excuse but the lack of desire to drink apparently isn’t valid enough. Obviously, this podcast episode covers a lot about alcohol so if you’re sensitive or triggered by that topic, I’d suggest caution before listening to it.
This episode went over trying to question one’s relationship with alcohol and talked about exploring the idea of sobriety and how hard it may be for people who are so used to drinking, especially in social situations, to explore sobriety and deal with the loneliness that tends to come with it. I clearly connected with many points in this discussion. One thing I like about this podcast is that no matter what the central topic of the discussion is and whether you relate to it or not, there’s alway something you can take away from it.
Ruby Warrington’s episode also explored the sense of belonging when you’re pursuing a journey different from others, and in this case, the journey being sobriety. There were a lot of other people who were mentioned in this episode and were quoted who I definitely want to check out in the future. Both Caggie and Ruby quoted two different people who have left me in the most deeply introspective mood.
“Toko-Pa Turner writes a lot about belonging and what it means to belong. They said, “we go through periods in life when self imposed exile is necessary in order to find the truer version of ourselves and truer belonging of people who will accept us as we are” – Ruby
The whole concept of self-imposed exile’s lit a fire in my brain and soul. I feel that in our fast moving society, there isn’t enough time to sit and really connect with ourselves and explore what we want or who we want in our life. Our character is heavily shaped by our surroundings and society. From the beginning, our character arc is based on how we can become an active member of society, as much as our bodies allow us to, in order to find success and progress both our and society’s future. I think it’s interesting that many of us loose our authenticity when living life and that we can only find it when things around us come to a stop or slow down.
This quote made me realize just how much of our truth and our identity is polluted by the world around us.
Which leads me to Caggie’s Quote.
“Mark Groves said: ‘We sacrifice our authenticity to belong’. We have two extreme needs in us to be our authentic self but also to feel like we belong and when they’re in conflict with each other, we will sacrifice ourselves o belong”.
As someone who was raised to be and is also inherently mindful of others, I’m extremely receptive of people’s expectations and standards for me and that’s inevitably amped up my sense of belonging and pleasing others.
When I read that word, “sacrifice”, it really showed the depth of how many of us let ourselves go in attempt to belong. In this conflict of being our true authentic self and finding that belonging feeling, we’re immediately ready to self-eject ourselves out of the question. Can we truly find belonging if we’re not all the way there? Can we truly solve a problem with only half the solution? No, no we cannot yet we still try to do it.
If you dive deeper into the way we’re ready to self eject ourselves first, we can see it stemming from the way the world works. In the fast moving corporate society we live in today, we can see in any big business that the best way to earn profits is to cut out as much cost as possible and find work arounds to ensure a higher revenue. Our society finds work arounds and short cuts to problems because it tends to result in more immediate success, growth, and money, therefore making it a worthy approach.
We behave just like that as well, because if we toss parts of ourselves out, we can find the happiness of belonging immediately rather than having to work to find it.
It’s sad how much of us give up so much to fit into the norms of society.
In conclusion of this essay, “True belongings finding a community where we really feel like we’re appreciated for exactly who we are.” – Ruby.
Let’s not throw any of ourselves out to belong.
Caggie, Niomi Smart, Ruby Warrington, Toko-Pa Turner, Mark Groves
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