Transcription
It's a bit windy.
Sorry, I'm late.
It's going to be great. I just need to walk me up. You need anything else or wish for anything else? Tea, coffee. Okay, great.
Yeah.
Yes. Um, so Anander Botton, um, modern day philosopher, what I love about what you want to do is you want to bring these big ideas to the general public in a way that we can all digest and understand them. You were um, a co-founder of School of Life. Um, how many years has School of Life been going?
We started in 2008. I mean amaz like that is such an amazing organization and the good that they've done has been quite extraordinary and the reach that it's had.
Um and I'd like to talk to you today particularly because of the reason that I started this podcast which was the idea was potentially that I should do this podcast about menopause and midlife because that's what I'm sort of well known for. But I said, "Actually, I'd rather do it because I want to try and help people get to a place where they have loved the life that they've lived or they've lived a life that they've loved and that they can die and let go happily and die knowing that they've had a great life with no regrets." And how do we do that? Sometimes we have to begin again. And if I could just interview you non-stop for five days, I think I'd have the answer and we could end again and we'd be done.
Well, we could we could speculate together. But I like I like that very much. The idea that you need to get to a place mentally to cope with your external circumstances. That was that was really, you know, if you went back to the stoic philosophers of ancient Greece and Rome, that's precisely what they thought philosophy should do. It should be about training your mind to cope with whatever external circumstances you're facing. And you know it sounds very odd because nowadays we very much believe that we should be changing the external circumstances but sometimes you can't particularly in relation to death. It's one of those immovable obstacles you cannot you know get past and therefore the idea that you have to meet that external obstacle with a change of your own mindset and I mean it's not just death. There are lots of things which are outside of your control and you face a choice. You know, it's either you're going to get run over, have to commit suicide, end life, or you will somehow have to cope. And it is amazing what happens to people at those points of juncture when when suddenly they think everything was going to be about that and actually I'm going to have to go here. How can I cope? And you think you can't cope. And I think you can almost measure somebody's sort of evolution as a human being for how many times they've come up against those obstacles and have dealt with it. And and let you know, let's not gloss this over. We're talking here about this often happens at night, middle of the night crisis where you think I cannot go on. This thing is bigger than me. I'm jumping out of the window. And I think, you know, a lot of us, probably many more of us than we think. I I included myself in that have been in those places. And how do you then cope? How is there dawn? I'm really interested in dawn. Daw, you know, dawn is the return of sunlight. It's the return of perspective. You know, at 4:00 a.m. it's so dark, you just can't tell what the answer's going to be. You know, your your brain is not firing correctly. All those bits of the mind that are responsible for imagination, creativity are kind of switched off. They're they're sluggish. And you just think it's over. And then dawn comes and there's a light over the landscape. And and there's a little bit of hope. There's something there that you're you're going to make it. You're going to find it's not optimal. It is not where you want it to be, but you're going to find a way through. And these are amazing moments. And I know when I've when I meet somebody, I think I'm meeting somebody now who's been there. You just you pick it up. You think, okay, they've been there. They know what that is. I think that's what it is to be an adult. I mean, there are 12-year-olds who've had to deal with that and there are 50-year-olds who haven't.
Yes.
My kind of people have, you know, and I think they're probably watching and this is the place for them. And we need those places. And out of that comes laughter. Let's not forget there's a lot of joy when you've known that kind of bleakness. My goodness, joy becomes important and and sweet things and tender things. You will never look away from a cuddle or a bit of dark chocolate or um a sunny day. These things assume a momentous importance because you've known the dark stuff. I think this is such an important message to try and get across to people who have an abject terror of facing a problem or dealing with a problem. Because I think a lot of the darkness that comes when thinking about letting go of your life because we're we're all terminal.
Yep.
We're all going to die.
We're all dying. We're all dying. You can't avoid it.
I'm dying now.
No, you've always been dying since the day you were born. You know that it would be awful to look back and think I didn't do that thing because I was frightened. And not only that, what you lost out on was the joy that you were just talking about.
And I love the idea of fear because of course we get held back by fear and we have this kind of basic timidity. What happens if I call them and they weren't interested? What happens if I pitched an idea and it was rejected? What happen? And really at those moments you need to think, what's the true emergency? The true emergency is death. That's the ultimate emergency in compared with that true emergency. That thing you're a little bit scared of doing on a Monday morning. Forget it. You know, it's a tiny thing. Give it a shot. What does it matter? Make a fool of yourself. You know, at the school of life, we always have this thing that confidence is not born out of telling people you can do it. You're wonderful. You're beautiful. It's a It's saying we're all idiots. There's We're on a planet, 8 billion people. What other options? What other options are there for you? So if you're really scared about, oh, I might look like an idiot if I try that. Don't worry. That was decided a long time ago. It was decided by the highest authorities. You are an idiot already. So you've got nowhere particular to fall. Go for it.
I love because you you've said before in talks that you know, be weird. Like don't be afraid to be the silly one that goes for the thing that doesn't work.
You know, it's interesting the weird thing because we all start I mean little kids are very weird. Age two or three kids are so strange. They want to eat odd things. They want to put their hands in strange places that they think they're this or that. It's just it's madness. And then by nine they're starting to get a lot less weird. By 15 they're doing what everybody in the class is doing and they're completely boring. That's why teenagers are so boring. Um and then hopefully it gets better and better and by the time you're 89 or 122, you're completely weird. By which I really mean um loyal to what it's actually like to be human. And most of the time the story we tell ourselves about what it's like to be human is an abbreviated cliche dried out husk of a of an actual account of what it is to be us. And so the best people just go, you know what, and it happens in small ways and large. Think about entertaining, right? Someone who knows how to be a bit weird in entertaining knows that if you're trying to make somebody else feel comfortable, you've got to remember what it was like for you to be uncomfortable and for what made you comfortable. So, don't give people food you wouldn't eat. Don't make them sit on chairs you don't want to eat. Don't make them do stuff you wouldn't want to do. Stay loyal to who you are and how strange you are. And yeah,
I think a massive part of um the journey to accepting death is finding out who you are. And you're just saying, you know, be who you are. But I think I got to like menopause and what have been learning and I'm still not there yet.
Of who am I really?
Y
and I think part of that is what do I want?
What do I want?
It's always been for my kids or providing for the family. And I am on a I feel like I'm on a bit of a journey of what do I want which in turn will show me who I am.
Yeah.
Um but I I would quite like to find out if you've got any practical tips for people who are maybe a bit younger than me because I am quite old and I kind of wish I'd started this journey 20 years ago.
Yeah. Um, how can you how can you start this journey?
By the way, this is a big theme. Saving people time. Because why on earth do these life lessons sink in so late on? Couldn't we just, you know, we're trying to save people time. It's like I took 20 years to learn this. Please don't take 20 years to learn this. Please, you know, I'm all the time saying this to people and I'm sure you are too. So, um, okay. So how do we learn to I mean look childhood is a very difficult period and I think we all need to understand that children are born into the world utterly dependent on those around them. The few people around them who are randomly chosen and who will be suffering from various distortions of their own minds. I mean, it's very rare that you are born into a sane family. Most of us are born into you know, it's a lopsided sort of proposition. So we have to understand that this is this is the way we're born. How long are we going to let that lopsided entry into the world determine our lives? Um, ideally a minimal amount of time. What you need to do is to realize the nature of the lopsidedness, accept the lopsidedness, and start to correct it as early as possible.
How do we how do we find out what our lopsidedness is? Is it that we sit and ask ourselves questions or
I mean, you know, it depends in which area. Love and work, the two great areas of life. This is Freud said, you know, happiness means getting love and work right. And most of us get love and work dramatically wrong with things that are probably related to to early childhood or you know, we pick up what happens in childhood is that we don't only learn language and social skills. We learn a whole emotional vocabulary about who we are, how we function, what's expected of us, uh what it takes to be good, um uh you know, what it means to be a boy, a girl, gender, roles, etc. All of this is encoded in us unconsciously. And we need to understand the language we've learned in order to become self-aware and question because bits of it are going to be barmy um really really strange, really distorted. There will be an excessive focus on some areas and and not on others. And ultimately the goal of adulthood is to become your own arbiter of your own value and of your own mission and of your own joys etc. It used to belong in other people. You know, a child looks up at its parent and goes, who am I? What am I worth? And the answer comes back from the parent's face and that answer is loaded with prejudice and bizarre stuff right and after a certain age you think that happened to me in the past. I can't let that continue. At some point, I've got to become. And by the way, we do this in love. I mean, in love, you know, most of us spend a good portion of our lives thinking, I'm not complete until I'm I meet somebody else who's able to mirror for me a good picture of who I am. I won't tolerate myself until someone else can say, you're okay. And until then, I'm not okay.
Can I quickly ask you something about that? So, um, cuz I think what I think what you're saying is I want to find somebody where I like myself. Okay. So, you're showing me a version of I become a nice person when I'm with you.
I give you power of attorney over my worth. I give you I give you the power to decide whether I'm a good person or a bad person. Think about loneliness.
Shouldn't we know if we're a good person or
but of course that's not the history. So let's passionate towards the history because we've come from a place where we, you know, we take our school grades to our parents and go, what am I worth? Am I a good person? And maybe there are good evolutionary reasons why that's the case. But the point is, how long do we want to let that continue? At some point, we have to seize the reins and go, now I'm an adult. And part of adulthood means not surrendering my power to decide my worth always to random external authorities. I mean, you know, again, in relationships, people people get into terrible trouble because they stick around people who beam back a terribly negative image of them and they go, I've got to spend another decade persuading this person that I'm a worthwhile human being. And you think, no, you don't. If if if you are not getting back an image that you like and that broadly, you know, agrees with your sensible reasons for your own assessment and sense of worth, get out. Don't be around such a situation. We we do so much of giving up to others something that should be self-generated and we get into terrible trouble because of that.
Something that I'm really interested in which kind of plays into to what what you're talking about. I mean, we we've kind of touched on a bit that life is suffering. You know, this idea that we've all got to try and be happy all the time. It's unachievable. It's um untenable and it's not realistic. And I do worry about people trying to achieve something that they're never going to be able to achieve because life is difficult. And getting through those difficult times a bit like um going through a crisis or doing something you're frightened of means that when you get through it, you're like, "Yes, I'm not through it."
Yeah.
Um
but also I feel like
um I do you know what? I've completely lost my
Give me two minutes cuz I'm actually going to come back to it. We were just talking. What were we just talking about?
Well, it's about it's about whether you allow somebody else to determine what your worth is about your childhood and the way that children children will sort of look to their parents or those around them to decide whether they're a good person or a bad person.
Yes. And
so I think I think basically what I was saying was that um as we get to the point where we start believing ourselves, there is like a time in your life where you have to cleanse your life of people that are toxic. I've remembered it. Oh my god, thank you so much. That was like doing the best poo ever. I love you and like this has never happened to me before, but can I just say something?
Yeah,
thank you for being patient and letting me find it. No, it makes me feel emotional. I'm so grateful to you. Anyway, I feel [ __ ] great.
So, what I hear about quite often is um people that can't take responsibility for themselves and I'm really interested because uh I've I've had some experience of addiction and um treatment centers. I didn't personally go into treatment center. I went to a fellowship. that um it is said in a treatment center that an addict that is stuck in victim mode is almost impossible to treat because they can't recover because they don't believe that they can help themselves. They've lost power.
Yeah.
What creates are we born victims or do we become victims? And if someone is in victim mode, they often don't want to get out because it's easier. Um, but how can we do can we help a victim? Can do we have to just leave them be? What what do we do?
I mean, look, I'm quite I'm inclined to be quite generous towards that word victim. You know, people go, "Oh, you that person feels, you know, victimized, etc." And and I want to start by going, let's not put them, let's not label them. Let's not label them. That's what you know, let's not treat them as bad people etc. So I think all of us I mean, what do we mean by victimhood? Let's say I go outside and it's the third time I've left the house and it every time I leave the house it looks sunny but then every time I I've spent 5 minutes walking down the road it starts to rain and I get completely drenched and I've forgotten my umbrella. By the third time this happens I start to feel the world's getting at me. Right? I feel like I'm being victimized by the weather. Right? Or I go into a restaurant and I say, "Can I have a nice table?" And they go, "Yeah, over there." And you realize the table's wobbly and there's a strange smell and they've given you the worst table and you think, "I'm being victimized in the pizza restaurant or whatever it is." So, it's quite possible to feel that you're being got at by the world. Often, it has to do with a deep sense that you're unworthy and that you're not a good person. The more you feel, I'm not good. I'm unworthy. There's something wrong with me, the more you'll constantly be reading insult everywhere. Everyone's laughing at me. Yes, people are getting at me, etc. So, so again, huge compassion. This is this comes from not really having been seen, loved, honored, etc. And then you make it worse for yourself because you're permanently seeing yourself as a good a fitting, plausible candidate for victimization, and then you feel victimized by things that go wrong. The tube train left the station in order to hurt me. Um, my date didn't show up because they loathe me, you know. So everything is connected up with something wrong with you. And of course, what we really realize is that the world's much more random. The weather wasn't interested in you. The tube is not trying to humiliate you. The date that was late, they had some problem with their own family, whatever it is. You know, there's there's often a lot more going on than the victimized person feels. And so that's why, by the way, it's really useful to get out on a starry night and look at the stars because suddenly you're aware of the vastness in which we all live and you think, you know what, it's not all about me. And that's a beautiful thought because normally we think it's not all about me and that's a bad thing. It should be more about me. And then sometimes you look at something vast like the ocean, like the stars, and you think, "Thank goodness that I'm not the center of this show. This show's been going on a lot longer. It's a lot bigger. I am a grain of sand. Thank God." And so that's a sort of anti-victimization um strategy um to realize that you know it started long before you, it'll go on long after you. It's not about you and thank God it's not about you. But um I mean partly so partly the response is to think the universe is not being run by you. This is kind of
Do you think victims know that they're victims or or they're in living in victimhood? that things are getting worse and worse for them and that they want to change it or
I I think it's really about an abdication of power. Yes.
You see, I think what what it what it really what it really means is everybody else is doing something to me.
And I think you know the ultimate anti-victimization strategy is to think you can't control everything, but there are some things you can control and you can control this your mind. You can you've got you've got power, executive power over many of your thoughts. So um what does it really mean that you got rained on that that you got delayed that that you know somebody left you etc. What do these things mean? You can't change the event. You can change what the event means. This is a foundational insight of this sort of personal philosophy. You can't change the world always but you can change your attitude to the world. And therein lies freedom because you can do stuff with your mind. um largely to do with detaching yourself from a view that you are the cause of everything that occurs to you um and and determining as it were. Look, I'm a writer. I spent a lot of time in my in my early career wondering so I would spend hours in a room writing paragraphs, assembling them into books, and then thinking, "Oh, I like this. I wonder what everybody else will think." And putting these books out into the world. And I used to have complete traumas around reviews, getting reviewed by people. Because if you think about what a review is, it's it's condensed. I mean, it's it's a it's a little professional issue, but it has global applicability because all of us are being reviewed all the all of us are books that are being reviewed. And you know, reviewer A didn't like it, but reviewer B liked it. And I weep about reviewer A and celebrate, you know, on and on it would go. um a total oversensitivity to the views of others.
Now I'm like, you know, can we say [ __ ] it on your show? Right.
[ __ ] it is a very important philosophical proposition. You to be able to say [ __ ] it to many many things is a route to adulthood. And um at some point you have to think [ __ ] it. My worth the worth of what I've written is not determined by person A or B's response. I know the worth. Let me be the decider of that. and and thereafter who cares it doesn't matter and we can do this over so many other things we are not totally at the mercy of external verdicts takes a long time to learn that.
I feel like nature the universe whatever you believe in gifts you the [ __ ] it button um a as you enter hell the older like the latter part of your life.
I see what you mean.
in order to cope with the latter part of you know finding finding or be beginning that stage of your life and also I feel like aging wrinkles aching bones sleeping less is kind of um rose tinted with the [ __ ] it button like it's everything becomes better.
So let's face it you know very linked to [ __ ] it is laughter laughter is unbelievably laughter is the thing that fills the gap between hope and reality.
Hope say that one more time.
Laughter is the thing that fills the gap between hope and reality. You can take that. I've just thought of it now. But it's, you know, there's a zone, right, between what you're hoping for and what life serves up. Yes.
And you can either fill it with tears or you can fill it with laughter. Let's try and fill it with with the richest kind of laughter. I mean, there's plastic humor when no one laughs. Not funny. The rich humor. Humor gets rich and real when it's up against the darkness. When when basically you're thinking, "Okay, I could jump or else not, but you know, I'm gonna make a joke instead." It's it really is an alternative gallows humor. You know, the humor that you make on the way to the gallows. It's the best humor.
We've mentioned suicide a few times, but actually suicide at this time in people's lives is real. Um many I know perimenopausal women um take their own lives and we know that men at midlife um it is often for women in terms of perimenopause it's can be a time of grieving. For men, it can be a time of going back over your life. And I see a lot of men, male friends of mine trying to unpick what they've achieved and the feeling of darkness that comes over them when they haven't they never became the rock star or the it's a letting go of things.
How can people navigate that? you know, we we've talked about it in quite a light way, but obviously this is a huge issue and I think, you know, I know there's a huge sensitivity to suicide and that the normalization of themes of suicide are are often taken to invite people to commit suicide. I can see that and I can see that that's a risk. I also think it's hugely important to get the topic on the table. Yes. um in order partly to destigmatize it and and in order then to make sure that people don't choose that road if you don't look at it um you can't advise people not to choose it because everyone's so scared of it you know so let's look at it people reach points anyone intelligent who's suffered serious setbacks in love in work in family etc in health um may reach certain nights long nights of the soul where they are thinking should I be here or should I not and that is normal It's absolutely it's not a sign that anything's gone wrong. It's a sign that you are, you know, deeply engaged in the business of living and so there's nothing wrong with you. Um the question is then what do you do? And I think that the choice to make a choice to say I could go down the fatal road or I could choose life. Up till now life has been chosen for me. Now I'm going to choose it. I'm going to choose it consciously. I'm up against awful things which would, you know, one could understand why one would think now it's over. But I'm not going to do that. I've decided that even though there is so much darkness, I'm going to orient myself towards the light and I'm just going to make uh a bloody-minded decision to stick here until the end. Until the end. Not because it's totally joyful. In fact, because it's hell in many ways, but because I've decided and I'm going to stick with my decision. I'm going to keep going. And that's a very legitimate path that people can go down. And you know, anyone anyone past the age of 40, let's say, has probably got large areas of their life that have not gone as they would have hoped. You know, um it's you're going to be living in clown land if you really if everything's really gone well. You know, you married your childhood sweetheart, that's gone well. You know, your career is brilliant. Yeah, there are those people. be terrified if that was me because I'd think it's coming like at some point, you know,
maybe maybe bless these people. It's amazing. It's like, you know, talking about privilege. This is true privilege. And there are there's an elite of, you know, and great they're probably quite soft because these they have not been battle tested. You know, they're a ship that's never been in the water. But, you know, good for them. They're probably not watching. So, for the people who are watching and listening, um uh you know, something major has gone wrong. By the way, this is why friendship post these disasters, it becomes so much richer is really something that you can be getting on with um when you when you connect with somebody else because you're like, I've been in hell. Have you been in hell, too? You're fant I mean, two people who've been in hell. It's a fantastic basis for a friendship.
I'd really like to quickly talk to you about friendship because I think often in midlife, as I said, sometimes we are letting go of old friendships. We're building new friendships. Maybe we've changed, maybe we've experienced something, but um you say something really lovely about how you can forge a friendship and what um is needed for a friendship. Could you just talk through the the kind of major thing that you have to be with someone in order to become friends?
Um look, I think you have to share your suffering. That's what it that's what friendship's about, sharing suffering. It's like you're holding hands through the valley of darkness and you're thinking, "It's [ __ ] isn't it?" And the other one goes, "Yeah, it really is shit." But but you know but we like each other and we're going to support each other and it's beautiful. That's when friendship reach reaches it goes from being a sort of you know luxury add-on to being an absolutely essential bedrock. And some of the reason why people have to let go of friendships is because their friends are not on the same page about suffering as they are. They are refusing to acknowledge their own suffering. They don't want to talk about the other person's suffering. They are blocked in some way emotionally. I mean I've got a friend who I've known since university. Bless him. He's a lovely person. He is refusing to go into his own suffering. He is is standing on the kind of threshold of a certain brittle optimism. I can't go any further with him.
And so out of loyalty, I see him. We connect. We don't really connect at depth. Other friends, as time is going by, the friendships are getting richer because they're bringing more and more of themselves to the table. They're going, "You know what? My sex life's not great. I'm feeling impotent. I'm no longer turned on. Uh, money's a problem. Uh, I'm feeling humiliated by my children. I don't like my children. Um, I don't like my job. I feel like an imposter. I've got panic attacks. Uh, I feel so ugly. This bit of my body is failing me. Blah blah blah. On and on it goes. These are gifts. You talk about, you know, shopping, it's creamy Christmas, etc. Don't give a bloody present. Give a problem. Give a Give give the gift of vulnerability and sorrow and and and grief. That's what it is. That's a bridge to another person.
Can I just say you've just blown my mind.
Give a gift of vulnerability.
Absolutely.
Oh my god. I bloody love that for Christmas.
Yeah. Do not wrap anything in a in a thing. B. Give someone a bit of what it what the pain of being human.
That's the gift.
That's the gift.
That's so much. Yeah,
you know, it's so interesting because um you know, it really makes me think of these friendships that I've forged with with friends with girlfriends, you know, that I've known for decades. And sometimes I am guilty of just trying to share the good moments.
Yeah.
I'll think they don't want to hear about that. Like they've probably had a lovely day and I I it'll be a burden and oh, we'll be here for hours if we start talking about that. But it's a gift.
Yeah, it's a gift. This is such a great way of looking at it.
Yeah.
I mean, I love that friendship is so important to the quality of life as um our relationships. I think I heard as a stat
Mhm.
and it may have come from you in fact about 60% of your happiness as an adult comes from your relationship. Is that correct?
Um look, it can do. But but let's think about that because I think I'm coming to a new view on this. I'm divorced. I got divorced a couple of years ago.
How long had you been married?
I've been married 20 years.
So I was exactly the same. Seven Seven years ago I got divorced. I've been married for 18 years.
Which is, by the way, anyone, you know, anyone who's come through something like that, it's an enormous It's an enormous thing. It's a really complicated thing. And we of course live in a very romantic culture that associates happiness with a partner. And not just a partner, a partner who understands you, who reads your soul, who's on the same page as you of small things and large, etc., etc., and on and on it goes. And our demands of relationships are beautiful, but they're very exigent. They're very, very high. And they get us into trouble. Um, and so I think a lot of people are walking through the world with the following view. Love is incredibly important. And for me, love hasn't quite gone right. Maybe they're in a relationship and it's not it's a bit scratchy or they're out of a relationship and they can't find the one. They're not they're not able to find
word do you.
Well, you know, I'm very compassionate towards the longing for the one. I I'm not averse to thinking about the one. The question is just what do we want that one to be? What are our criteria for the one? What's really important and
what's important to you?
Well, for me it is connection. The capacity to connect. um over I mean the enemy of love is loneliness. The opposite of love is loneliness. So so what we're really saying is what stops people feeling lonely.
So it is possible to be in a marriage and be lonely.
Totally. Of course. And and to be in company to be lonely. So but but but I also want to say I just want to add in a little stoic uh you know remember my analogy about about being a book and wanting to be read by someone and not knowing what your worth is until there is a reader of you who reads you exactly how you want to be read. Otherwise you panic. I think you know people who are in the dating world or looking for a partner or maybe exiting a relationship etc. There's there can be that feeling of I need somebody who gets me totally otherwise I don't exist otherwise I I can't be until someone sees me absolutely I get that it's a very difficult position to walk through the world with to want to be understood. Absolutely. I think it's best to start like this. My advice to myself and people out there is to say, I understand myself well. I'm committed to understanding myself. I'm the ultimate judge of my own worth. If somebody else comes along and wants to join in that project, read a few lines of the page of me. Um, fine. That's great. Uh, if they don't get it or it's not for them, that doesn't have to be the end of me. That's not an absolute tragedy because you know I have a lot of friends who was on the dating scene. I've been on the dating scene and what happens is people come back from dates and they are devastated. They're like that date went wrong. That person did not promise to be the one who could read me who could understand. And you want to again add a little bit of stoic philosophy here and say your worth is not don't surrender the whole of you to an outside arbiter. So, you know, to come back to the the theme of love, of course, love is important. Of course, a companion who sees you, who understands you, who can interpret you, etc. Beautiful. I've written tons about this. It's fantastic. But it's also important to recognize that life can be led outside of that, that we are not totally at the mercy of another person. It's to give it's to surrender too much power to give somebody else total control over your sense of worth. And I think there are those who are cheerfully single and those who are catastrophically single. You might say the cheerfully single think I might meet somebody be great if I did. They would really add to my life be lovely. They might come in one year, 2 years, 5 years, 25 years or never. I can bear it. I can bear it because my life can be bearable. And then there are the catastrophically single who remember the day that their last relationship ended. It was the, you know, 12th of February at 1903 and it's engraved on their heart. And since then, the only thing they're doing is trying to find that other person. And if they don't find the other person, their life hasn't their life is on hold.
It has no meaning.
And we want to take these people and I know those people cuz they have been a part of me. Um uh and say you're giving up too much control here that something is going wrong here. You you can't you can't give other people that much power. I I also kind of um thinking about friends of mine that go on dates and they'll be they get the ick about something and you think that's such a a nondescript yes a funny thing to get the ick about or or the old red flag about something and you think I'm not sure that that is necessarily a red flag that might just be a misgiving.
Yeah.
And I think that one date
Yeah.
you know, a dinner, a two-hour dinner.
You can't you can't
you can't do it. You got to go back for a second one at least.
I agree. And also, you know, it's a big it's a big theme for me to to constantly I constantly harp on this point. So, let me hop on about it here. Um, we think that people are interested in love and we think we live in a romantic culture where people are dying to get into relationships and and be loved. Half the story at best. The true story is that there is an incredible terror of love and that people are as assiduous in running away from love as they are apparently devoted to running towards love. A lot of the time what people are doing is finding reasons why love is not going to be for them and is not going to work. Why?
Because love places us in an incredibly vulnerable position.
Yes. And if love has burnt you before, maybe in childhood and children are loved by their parents or should be loved and often they get their hearts broken. Little children have heartache and heartbreak. They don't know it. We don't recognize it as such. But you know, if you're a child and mommy and daddy doesn't quite love you. You are broken inside, right? And you take that breakage into adult life and it means that when an adult, you know, pitches up and says, "Here I am. I'm ready to love you." You go, "Oh, on one hand that's wonderful. on the other hand, oh, I feel a bit sick. Oh, I I just realized that, you know, you you look like playing golf or you, you know, don't aren't wearing the right t-shirt or whatever it is. You try and reach for some reason.
Yeah.
Why this most beautiful but also appalling and terrifying spectre, which is to be loved, is not possible. Brief analogy on prison camps. Let's imagine you've been brought up in a prison camp. You've been restricted in your diet. You've had a very calorie-restricted diet. Your stomach has shrunk. You have not been able to absorb the nutrients that you needed. Suddenly the prison gates are opened. You can go out into the world and eat anything. There's you're invited to a banquet. Beautiful grapes, fruits, etc. on the table. What do you do? You can't absorb it. You are sickened by it. It is too rich. It's too much too soon. And I think that some of what goes on when people hit the dating world is someone comes along and goes, "I like you. I want to understand you. I'm on your side. I'm whatever." And it's both beautiful and you want to scream with horror because you think this is the most unfamiliar, strange, and appallingly terrifying thing that's ever happened to me. And I think dating would become easier or love would become easier if we were able to admit how frightening love and tenderness actually are when we're confronted with them. So everybody moans, oh, it's so difficult to find love, etc. You know, count your blessings sometimes that you haven't found the love you say you like because your lovelessness may be protecting you.
Yes.
From a vulnerability and a terror of vulnerability that you are not on top of yet.
That's what I would say to people.
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Did she really use the generative AI digits?
She loves Adobe. I um I actually cried when you talked about um give little you a hug for coming up with all these brilliant strategies to handle the way your life was going and these strategies carry on into later life and manifest don't they in the weirdest ways.
And this is you know this is the basic thing I'm a psychotherapist I trained in psychotherapy late in life thing but you know one of the things that you learn in therapy school and it's a very basic thing lots of your viewers will know it listeners But um it's really the idea that if you look at most of the crazy stuff that people are doing as adults, drinking too much, uh being too superficial, being too deep, sabotaging themselves, all the crazy psychological stuff they're doing, almost always you can trace a line back to those behaviors and a version of those identical behaviors in early childhood that served a person well.
Um you know, somebody disassociated in early childhood. That could be a really great thing if your father's an alcoholic and your mother's depressive. Yeah.
Um the ability to cut yourself from your emotions. Brilliant. You know, you worked that out at five. At five, you worked out that not feeling is a good strategy. You're a genius. Literally genius. This is genius level. Problem is, as so often is the case, something that got you through from 0 to 10 then continues from 10 to 20, 30, 40, 50, and you're still doing it. So, you're pitching up at 40 in a relationship and you are disassociated. Fantastic back then. Now, disaster. your marriage going to collapse etc. And so
it's really you know really important question to ask yourself is
what's the stuff you're doing now that you probably recognize a bit is a bit destructive rather than lashing yourself and thinking I'm a bad person. Have a lot of compassion and think probably this was a genius move on the part of the younger you. What was that? Let's say let's say you're scared all the time. You're not an idiot. You're not a [ __ ] What why are you scared all the time? Maybe because being scared all the time was really clever. If you were in an environment where fear was an early warning system for something seriously dangerous. So if you were terrified all the time, well, you know, that's probably because there was something there that was that was very scary. Let's imagine you're a bit superficial and plastic and everybody and you constantly crack jokes and you can't go deep and you're sort of optimistic in a plastic way and people go, "Well, why are you like this? You can't you know, everyone like you're getting feedback from people that you're a bit fake and all right, rather than go oh my god, there's something wrong with me." I'm thinking, "How did I get to be that way? Children of depressive or angry parents often become comedians because it's so difficult around them. What do you do? You learn to make jokes, to appease, to get people, you know, to to be on your side, etc. And that's fantastic. You, you know, you become the playful kid.
And that's great. Age seven, eight, nine gets you through it.
By the time you're 40, and and every time there's a serious moment or a possibility of seriousness, you have to crack a superficial joke. M you're missing out on the marrow of living and people around you are going to drift away from you because they're sensing I can't get through to this person. So always look what's the problem in in your life now. How might that problem have been related to a solution that you had worked out as a child.
Sounds simple. I mean it's the work of a lifetime.
Yeah. But as in so many of these I I I feel like that's part of the joy of living is looking is working yourself out.
I know. I know. But I mean isn't it isn't it terrible when I think about my life and other people you know you think what did you learn from 30 to 40 40 50 you can put it on a post stamp you know I learned not to give too much advantage to other people I learned to say no to people etc and that sums up a decade.
I learned to say no to people and you think why didn't I learn that sooner there are just I mean again we need to laugh we we are incredibly dumb creatures we're beautifully dumb creatures.
And we just like a cow Just as we led patiently through an obstacle course, it just Yeah, we don't learn fast. It's it's unbelievably slow.
You just talked about saying no.
Yeah.
Saying no is one of the greatest lessons I've ever learned.
I mean, it sits, you know, it sits on such a rich area. This this saying no because saying no is also linked to saying yes. What it really means is what it really means is having an accurate sense of what you feel, which is not, you see, little children don't know what they feel very easily. They're very dependent on the outside world. Um I I was on holiday recently and there was a kid balling its eyes out. And the kid was saying, "I want to go home. I want to go home. I don't like it here." And the mother said, "Um, but you're happy here. We've just come to Greece and we're on on holiday and we spent a lot of money to be here. you're having a nice time."
And the kids stopped crying and I thought oh gosh I mean you know everybody was trying to be a good person but there was something quite complicated going on here which was a narrative you know sometimes you hear uh uh parents saying to children.
But you are happy it's your birthday and the kids going I'm miserable it's my birthday and the ability to unspool that learning from childhood and to go okay all sorts of layers have been added onto me about what I like about who I am about, you know, what I want, etc.
That's someone else's.
And.
Stuff.
This somebody else's stuff and and you go, you know, um there's a lovely quote from the American essayist Ralph Waldo Emerson where he says, "In the minds of geniuses, we find our own neglected thoughts." In the minds of geniuses, we find our own neglected thoughts. In other words, when you read a a poem or a book, you know, a pros poem by by a so-called really clever person, a genius, what you'll often find is something you think yourself, your own but neglected thoughts. You're like, "Oh, that's a bit of me that I'm just finding in somebody else." Now, why? How come we've ended up in a situation where your own thoughts have you're no longer in control of them and some somebody else tells you them? Why? That's because we are alienated very often from our own truest thoughts. We are we're not aware of what we really want, what we really feel, what really brings us joy, what we really, you know, and then we're relying.
Trying to do now in my life.
Right? So, we're then reliant on other people, clever other people to come along and say, I'm going to help you to, you know, but we should be this is the work of the later part of life. Was the work of all life, but it's the work particularly of the of the second part of life, I think, to get a more accurate hold on the actual nature of your thoughts and feelings.
I mean, that is basically who are you?
Yeah.
Who am I? You know, this is my big question.
Yeah. And and who am I? By the way, let's be really sympathetic. Um, you know, when you go to a restaurant and you look at a menu and you think, "What do I want to eat?" Now, in some moods, you think, "Oh, I know. Obviously, it's the spinach and the this whatever." You just know. Sometimes you think, I'm not sure. I'm I'm looking at these words and there's not I can't get a reading of what's what my appetite is in relation to this list of options. That's much more accurate to what most of us feel in relation to many of the questions of life. When people go, what do you want to do with your life? You're like.
Not getting any. I'm not sure. So, what do you need to do? One of the things you need to do is to become a more accurate reader of your deeper self. And the deeper self is shy. The deeper self doesn't shout, "I want to be an accountant or I want to marry this person." It's it's confused. And what we need to do is to be a bit more like archaeologists who are passing over the ground with a metal detector. And every now and then the metal detector lets out a faint, very faint beep. Tiny beep here. And then you go over there and oh, a little beep here. And these beeps are little beeps of interest, of liveliness, of engagement. But they're a bit sporadic. They're a bit like, you know, there was one over there, one over here, you know, one on a Monday, one on a Wednesday. And they're not it's not like a burning thing like this is your mission, son. It's it's.
So right.
And what you need to do is to take these little fragments like a careful archaeologist and assemble them in the back room of your mind into something that will be a plausible mission. Like, oh, okay. I've been studying myself for a long while and now I'm getting a sense that from all these bits that I see maybe my next career move should be that that's not a burning like I know from I've known from the beginning that it's that it's a slow assemblage of things and and in other areas too I mean even pleasure think of holidays are fascinating because holidays I wrote a book called the art of travel which was all about how people go on holiday and travel and one of the fascinating things is that travel is one of the main things that we do for fun and for pleasure and boy oh boy, do we get it wrong in fascinating ways because it's really difficult to know what it, you know, you've got two weeks, you you've got 10 days of holiday, you've got a bit of money.
And it's and it's so that time is so valuable.
So valuable and also you're bombarded with suggestions from other people and very rarely have we do we sit down with ourselves enough and go, okay, it's your time. What do you really want to do with it? If if you know, if you could really, do you really want to go skiing? Is that do you want to go down a slope and you might think not really and if you've properly followed your interests again I love a I love a weird person and and you know those people who stand by the edge of runways plane spotters and they're anorexic right and take a means I love I love an airplane and I have actually stood at the end of a runway and looked at things not not as insidiously as I should but you know um and it's good to have children because you can blame it on them but I loved it right and and and it's quite odd to think what I really like doing is not going to the Tate or the Tate Modern or the National Gallery or any you know elite institution. I want to go to Heathrow and I want to see an Airbus A380 before it touches down when it's about 20 meters from the earth and just hearing that roar that's what I like right or you know I'm interested in electricity substations that's what I do not me that's not mine but you know I could have you know and and and you learn to become a fetishist if I can use a word you know fetish is fetish is the word we give to.
Slightly weird sexual interests that are a bit sort of odd.
We're all fetishists but we don't we need to come out of the closet about our fetishes and those fetishes include things like.
You're embarrassed.
Yeah, the fetishes might include things like I really like a hot bath and having a hot bath is big thing and that's what I want to do all the time or I want to eat a certain kind of food that no one thinks is great or I want to go to a certain place. Be as weird as you actually are. That's surely, you know, talk about gifting. That's a gift you can give yourself to be as odd as you are. And by the way, we were talking about relationships.
And dating. When you arrive on a date.
You know, there can be a terrific impulse to go, "Oh, I'm normal. Are you normal, too?" "Oh, yes, we're both very normal." But there was two wonderfully normal people. Great. Have a lovely time. Ultimately, what you want is not a chance to be so-called normal. You want a chance to make your weird meet somebody else's weird. So, yes, take people into the slightly odder parts of you because that ultimately is what a friendship or a relationship should be about. And if you stay on the threshold of normality always, um, you'll never get anywhere.
It's exhausting if you are a bit weird to try and kind of contain that for too long.
It's so tiring.
And the thing is, we're all weird, which is why little children are so interesting because they're not interested in being normal. And that's why every little child is a fascinating. I mean, there's no boring little child, but there's a lot of boring adults.
A lot. And what makes an adult boring? We're always asked at the school of life, what makes someone interesting?
Um, be as weird as you actually are.
Right? Um, that is the route to being, you know, take a reading of who you are and show that to another person. You will be interesting. People often say things like just when they're getting interesting, people go, "Oh, I'm sure that's going to bore you." Or, "I don't want to bore you with that story." And you want, "No, no, no, no. That's the interesting bit. No, you're about you've been talking nonsense." Or the I don't want to hear about your new sofa. This is this is the lively bit. This is the bit. There's some life here. Carry on. You know what I mean? That stuff.
I am um I'm kind of thinking a lot about people and their gorgeous weirdness and also where that comes from. I think you can be gloriously weird when you feel safe for me. A huge part of getting older and feeling good. I'm also in a really good healthy relationship.
Um but we'd known we'd been friends for 20 years.
Nice. So I think that's a that was a big grounding, you know, we.
Like when I look at think of people that are trying to make a decision about a relationship from one date.
I think that's so difficult. I had 20 years I I knew the very bones of this man like I know the way he thinks everything about him.
Um.
But I've been on an amazing journey to feeling safe in myself.
Yeah. And um I didn't feel safe as a kid.
Yeah.
And um but what has really helped me every now and again is having so I can only be my true weird self when I feel safe.
Yeah.
Um and when I don't feel safe, I feel like I have to lock that bit of me away because I need to conform to be with everyone like everyone else because I don't feel safe. And I I think it's a really important part of being safe sometimes to know that at other times you're not safe. And it sounds a bit weird because that phrase feeling safe, you know, we can mock it etc. Some people do.
Um, because we're not talking here about somebody who's going to murder you or whatever it can be that but but most of the time we're talking about emotional safety, right? And you know there are people who around whom you feel safe and around people you know and I think for example.
The people I feel safe around with I think you're not going to lose your temper arbitrarily. You're going to receive what I say with tolerance and imagination etc. And there are other people around whom you constantly have to walk on eggshells.
And you know they've got crosses to bear they've got problems blah blah blah. It's challenging to be around someone that you constantly feel if I put my foot here there may be an explosion here. That's that's quite taxing. And good bit of advice for people, try not to be that person. You know, try not to be the person who is so reactive that anything that somebody else says to you well-meaning thing is going to lead to an explosion.
Um, and I think you know the our best friends are always people that we think I'm going to I'm going to be able to say more or less anything to them and they'll be able to meet me with it. They're not going to be alarmed. They're just going to meet it. And that again feels so safe, so wonderful. I'm going to give these people a medal.
I mean, I also I think with a best friend, I I always feel that I can be 100% honest.
Yeah.
So, I can tell them something. How many best friends do you have?
One.
Yeah. I've got two. Yeah. And it's it's it's important to remember. I mean, you know, hundreds of people. I know hundreds of people.
I mean, my partner, I would probably say, is a best friend, but I think that they're also partner, and that's quite a heavy load. Quite a heavy heavy load to carry. Best friend and.
Yeah.
And partner.
And by the way, I do think there should be a national best friend day.
Um.
I agree.
And and and you know, because if I think of my two best friends, they've got me through hell.
Yeah.
And you know, they know who they are and they need medals.
Um, and they really do. They do need medals. I owe them my life.
Um, and I think that some people have do not have those people and that's an emergency for them and I want to help them. Let's let's go out and find that best friend for them.
Um, also people feel guilty that they don't have many best friends.
Um.
You know that that and that's why it's important that you say I have one best friend. You Deina who's you know.
If you have only one best friend that's good. That's really nice to hear for people because that's a sign that that normalizes in a really useful way the fact that these people don't grow on trees and you don't have hundreds of them. That's fine.
That's fine. You very have one partner and one best friend. It's fine.
I mean I I was very very lucky and I quite like to talk about therapy.
And the value of that because.
Um I had my first bit of therapy when I was 15.
Yeah. And my parents um felt that it would help me to talk to a third person.
That wasn't connected to the family. And actually it was amazing for me. It was a very good experience.
But I um I have one person now who I met when I was 50.
Yeah.
And I spoke to for a year.
Yeah.
When trying to understand divorce.
Mhm.
Um and um how I was going to handle that and I've stayed in touch with her and she's been brilliant. And so I could I could contact her and go, I've come up against a wall.
Yeah.
With something. Please could you see if you've got an appointment in the next couple of weeks. It's not urgent.
Yeah.
See other people that are urgent, but I would love to unpick something with you. And I think it will take one session and I can speak to her on the phone and we can literally.
Great.
Crack out a solution. But what I'm what I'm trying to ask you is for many people they might go and see someone and they go I didn't like them.
I didn't like therapy. I'm not going to do it.
And actually it's so difficult to find your personally in therapy. Can we just.
I'm glad you say that. Glad you say that because it's so important for people to know that there are many bad therapists out there.
And that there are many therapists who are maybe good but not for them.
That those are two categories. Yes. Because otherwise the alternative is that people think there's something wrong with me and I'm not made for therapy which is almost always not the case. So a lot of bad therapists and a lot of bad a lot of therapists who are not for you.
So keep that in mind. Shop around in the same way that you wouldn't marry the first person you date. So you should not ever feel cuz sometimes therapists are a bit wy they go you know at the end of the first session so when are we meeting again rather than what they should say is is why don't you go away think about it see how you feel and whether you want to come back maybe you don't lots of other people and I quite understand if you you know you should not be inducted into immediately following one kind of therapist it's a very personal kind of relationship it's got to fit I've had several therapists who did not work for me and some who did and That's absolutely the way it should be, can be, must be. Um, but you know, at its best, why do we need a therap why do we need a therapist?
Um, therapists are trained to um be with you through your own exploration of your mind. They are they're they're following you on your journey into your own mind and giving you a little bit of assistance. Some of that assistance means sometimes being really quiet, not saying anything. Sometimes it means being encouraging. Sometimes it means laughing because you said something funny. Sometimes it means not laughing because even though you said something that sounded maybe like it was a joke, actually, it hides a lot of pain. And maybe it's quite useful at that point for the therapist to go, "Oh, I wonder how come that feels quite sad to me," etc. So, they're doing a very subtle bit of footwork around your own gentle exploration of your mind. Also, it provides a concentrated normally 50-minute session during the week when it's about you and your mind and you can cement declarations, moves a little bit more easily in the presence of a witness. You go, I've had enough of X and being heard to have had enough of X or I want more Y. That can really help you to cement change.
That's so true. Saying something out loud in the presence of somebody else.
Gives it weight.
Absolutely. Because yeah, we are social. Yeah, we are social creatures and I think that.
Being witnessed for our desires to evolve is really important. It's odd. It shouldn't be that way, but somehow it is. And so, let's just work with that.
One of the things that I I love about you is the way you're always getting me to think. And we talk a lot about um looking at yourself, looking at that we've talked earlier about finding the tiny weeny little.
Thing down here and how do you feel and collecting them and but you can only find those bits of yourself.
If you listen.
Yeah.
And are aware.
Yeah.
And we can't do that at the moment. I feel so many people are like but I can't do that. I keep listening but we can't do it cuz there's so much noise.
Absolutely.
Everywhere.
Which is you know look humans have been aware of this ever since we invented monasteries and nonearies.
What were monasteries and nonearies? I mean take away the sort of heavy religious bit of it. It's really born from the insight that if you're in a city I mean a city is a metaphor a busy place full of humans you will not be able to direct your thoughts inwards. So the people who built the great monasteries wanted people to leave, some people to leave at certain points and go into a community that is quiet, that promotes introspection, that gives structured moments in which you can look inside. And we need to remember that tradition because it gives us a sense of the kind of efforts we might need to make in order to go inside ourselves. We might need as it were metaphorically to go to a monastery.
Which might mean clearing Sunday evening for of all distraction and lying in a bath or in bed uh with a notebook beside you and thinking right I'm going to try and make sense of this relationship or this career hurdle or this not with my friend or whatever it is I'm going to try and make sense of it and to be aware that there are two parts of you an observer self a conscious self and an unconscious self. The unconscious self is vast and the observer self is tiny. I can sometimes compare it to, you know, a person with a little flashlight and they're like looking around inside a vast library. That library has got volumes in which has inscribed everything you've ever thought, every image you've ever seen, every person you've ever met. And most of these books are sunk in darkness. And you need to go into the stacks into those library stacks and pick out the volumes of yourself in order to try and read key passages that hold a clue as to what you should do next. And that takes time. We can't do that if we're always busy. Let's also remember that the reason why we don't do this is not because we're lazy, but because we're scared.
Yes. Fear.
It's fear. It's not laziness. It's not laziness. We are addicted to our phones, etc. to scrolling because we are afraid of what we might need to confront. You see, imagine if I had to go inside myself and realize that I'd messed up my last relationship that I felt really guilty about someone that there was someone I wanted to contact but I was afraid of contacting them that that there was some massive regret around my career. So, no wonder we get terrified. We don't want to do that work of thinking. But the price you're going to pay for not acknowledging that pain is massive. You are it's going to mess up the future.
It really is. Both, you know, gird yourself to undergo that pain in the name of a more clear and and sort of authentic future.
And I wish I had. It would be regret, I feel like, is one of the worst. You know, if you if you're not going to do it, then just think, well, I'm just not going to do it and making it a decision. Don't let it become a regret later in life.
D, let let's also hear it for regret. I think we've got this model.
Of not wanting to regret.
Of not wanting to regret. And and of.
Oh, you want to hear it for regret. Yes, I love that.
I I want to hear the fact that though of course we must do everything to minimize our regrets and we really must we must do everything listen to your show and you know do everything and do the work and go to therapy in order to of course of course but once we've done everything we can and it may not be very much because depending on where our circumstance but once we've done everything we can we have to accept that to have regrets is human. We would not be properly human if we reached our deathbeds without regrets. Of course, you've got regrets. And that's not some weird anomaly and a sign of failure. It's a sign of imagination. Regret occupies that zone between what you've done and what could be possible. And of course, there will be so many things that could have been possible that you will not have done. You know, there will be people you never spoke to. There will be places you didn't go to. There will be moves you didn't make. There will be thoughts you didn't have, of course. And you have to be it's not just being kind on yourself. You've got to be realistic. This is what it is to be a human being.
So don't miss the fundamental nature of being human. It it's like saying I mean people who say it's like people who say I've got no I'm not jealous. I've I'm not jealous of anyone. You want to go hang on. Either you're seriously out of touch with your feelings which normally the case um or you're in heavy denial uh which normally the case. So um so bit of both.
Um, but of course you're envious. We're all envious. How how bizarre you would be to look upon the rich good fortune of others and not feel it. Of course.
Envy is such an interesting one because it is seen as the greatest sin of all, isn't it? It's like.
It's a kind of toxic evil trait that you could possibly be envious of somebody else. And I think it's quite interesting that because everybody feels it.
And also you wouldn't be, you know, the old should envy the young. They should also pity the young. um uh and vice versa. Um, you know, the rich envy the poor, the poor envy the you know, there's envy across all barriers. Parents envy their children. Of course they do. They actually, you know, and we're like, "Oh, no, no, that doesn't exist." Of course it exists. To envy is merely to recognize something good, the existence of something good. It could be in an unexpected place, but it's it's to acknowledge honestly that you have spotted something good that you don't have. And that should be happening to you every day. If you're alive and in touch with with reality, you'll be thinking, "Hang on a minute. Why don't I have that pair of shoes, that relationship, that money, that house, that thing, because life is very un you know, we know about political inequality, but my goodness, there's inequality across all things.
Um, across so many other different playing fields that don't have political parties associated with them, but think of the think of the the massive inequality of satisfaction in life. Think of the the lottery of health, of beauty, of intelligence. These are all things in which which are radically unequally distributed through society. And we've got this thing called politics which aims to look at financial inequality. Fine. That's fine. We lots of struggles over that financial bit. But think of all the other massive areas of inequality for which ultimately there isn't political restitution most of the time. They can't you can't found a political party to rectify the malddistribution of you know intelligence or something. there's there's unfortunately going to be endemic inequality, endemic um disparities in levels of satisfaction, therefore envy, therefore regret.
I think one of the other really kind of toxic feelings that um I wouldn't want to die with would be resentment or anger towards somebody and this idea of um forgiveness.
Mhm.
I remember when my um I was estranged from my mother in the end and she was living in South Africa and um she was dying.
In South Africa and it was I'd made a choice to not go.
To her and it felt like in my my own head and my heart that I'd let go of the I think it was anger.
But you know if.
Anger but it felt nice to do that but in a way she she wouldn't have she wouldn't have received it in my head she received it.
And I guess a regret possibly of mine is that she she knew how I felt.
Um, that's interesting I've never said that out loud.
It's it's such tricky territory because I know.
I wonder how it lands with you, but I know that we're supposed to forgive.
Um.
And yet I think a lot of us know behaviors maybe in a parent.
Maybe in an ex, maybe, you know, someone who came across.
That we think.
That's just endemically shitty. It's really difficult.
And what do we do with that? I think it's too Hollywood to go I love you anyway or it's beautiful or whatever you know it's like no.
Cuz actually they are like or it was awful.
It was awful and and and it's kind of no excuse so so then there's the question of right what do we do with that I mean there is a way into which of course it chews up your life.
That's what I mean right.
How do you stop it how can you die without it ruining your life.
Yeah and I I do think then you require a dose solitary pessimism of going.
They were my parent.
And I you know I carry it as a wound forever that that parent who should have been there for me did not act as they should. I can't reinvent my notion of children and parents. I can't I can't pretend that something was that wasn't or wasn't that was I can't I don't want to twist my sense. Got to stay loyal to my feeling that something went really badly wrong here and I can't just give a Hollywood ending to this. The question is yeah, how does one act next? And I do think then there's then a way of looking away just saying okay I refuse to keep looking at that. I'm just going to look at other I know it. I've seen it. I've wept. I've done the work.
Now onto something else because because life is short and I'm there are other people who do not have this issue. I let it go. There is a certain dignity in sometimes just saying something awful here just I just park it just move away I don't forgive it I understand it I'm not naive about it I'm just going elsewhere thanks very much to protect yourself but of course at some point everybody reaches that state known as adulthood where whatever tragedy they suffered you think okay.
You you had the power that is in an adult to take responsibility to change to not pass it on. M.
So huge compassion for what you went through but did you really need to do that thing.
And then and then did you really need to over many years maybe not say sorry not properly acknowledge not properly go into it was that is that forgivable maybe not.
Maybe not you know.
I I just got to say like I knew I mean I feel like I know your work.
But in a really um comfortable.
And um eyeopening way. You've made me look at lots of things differently.
I particularly will be enjoying my silences.
Over the next few weeks and ruminating.
Oh, can we just finish?
Yeah.
I'd like to round up on dawn.
M.
Let's think about when the light light of the new day comes and what that brings for you.
Um, that we are creatures of cycles and moods and we forget it about ourselves. We tend to think that what we think is fixed and fixed forever and that hurts particularly when what we're thinking is quite dark. We think that's forever. No, it's not. It's a mood. It's a weather. There's weather. It's constantly weather. And so though it looks rigid, though it looks like it will never shift, it will. It's shifted before and it will shift again. And when you're in a very happy mood, think, yeah, there'll be some dark weather too. It's just the mobile nature. We're made of water. Most of us is water. We're viscous. We we think of ourselves as like something fixed and rigid. We're not. We're we're constantly mobile. We change. And there's beauty in that, too. An acceptance of the, you know, just as the weather's constantly got patterns of shifting ups and downs, so so too the human mood is. And if we can accept that about ourselves and others will be somehow lighter about the changes we keep needing to go through. And if anybody is experiencing a very very dark moment, I'd just like to say if you're living in the UK.
That we are heading into autumn and then into winter and dawn comes at an acceptable time at this time of year.
Yeah.
You know, actually to experience a dawn.
Yeah.
And watch it happen.
Is a time of great hope.
And that there is renewal again. We're we're going into another season. So the seasonal nature of existence is something we need to you know there's a giant metaphor in the idea that there is summer, autumn, winter and then spring. That there is a springtime every day there is a springtime. We're constantly experiencing springs. We're constantly experiencing autumns.
And I think one of one of the things about despair is a sense of stasis. Like we're fixed now. What is will always be.
M. And I think anyone who's in that mood just think there will be a new mood. You don't even know what it will be like. You don't know. Thing about despair is it's based on an assumption that you know what's coming and you don't. You actually don't. For better and for worse, you do not know what's coming and you don't know how you're going to feel. So surrender sometimes to thinking, you know, when you've tried everything else and you can't make progress, think, I don't I don't know where to go next, but I'm just going to ride this rapid. I don't know where I'm going to wind up. I'm just going to keep going today. Don't know how I'll feel this evening. I'm just going to keep going and tomorrow and the next day. I don't know where this is heading, but I'm just I'm just going to keep on going on this journey and see where I'll wind up without any prediction. And that is just keep on keeping on. There's a really nice expression in anonymous fellowships of just for today.
Absolutely.
That we just keep it in one day.
Absolutely.
And that there's always an end to this day and tomorrow there's a new dawn.
A new day, new potential. Let's see what that brings.
So beautiful. So true. Thank you.
Allah, I'm going to come over. Are you a hugger?
Um I wasn't for ages and now I've become a full hugger. So I'm coming in. I'm coming in. I'm going to.
Yeah. Like this. Ah, okay.