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Speaker 1: I stopped people pleasing when I realized the people that

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Speaker 1: I was trying to please were not trying to versificate

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Speaker 1: their energy to me. I also realized that I was

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Speaker 1: putting myself second almost all the time for other people

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Speaker 1: with very little versification. I had to stop for my

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Speaker 1: own sanity and for my own self respect. When you

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Speaker 1: compare your efforts to others and you almost look and

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Speaker 1: you can see they've got boundaries that I don't have,

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Speaker 1: because if I ask them to do what they're asking me,

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Speaker 1: they would say no. Why would they say no? Is

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Speaker 1: it because they're a horrible person? Is it because of

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Speaker 1: this or they're selfish? No, it's because of their boundary.

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Speaker 1: The Number one health and Wellness podcast, Jay Shedy, j Sheddy,

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Speaker 1: jem Lendy only shed.

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Speaker 2: Hey, everyone, welcome back to on Purpose, the place you

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Speaker 2: come to become the happier, healthier and more healed. Today's

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Speaker 2: guest is someone that I've known for quite a few years. Now.

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Speaker 2: We'll share a bit about our background and story of

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Speaker 2: how we got to know each other. I'm speaking about

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Speaker 2: Meghan Rock, a first generation British Trinidadian entrepreneur, author, speaker,

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Speaker 2: and the inspirational force behind the renowned platform the good quote.

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Speaker 2: Her new book is out right now. It's called How

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Speaker 2: to Stop Breaking Your Heart. You'll see a little testimonial

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Speaker 2: here from me, because I think this book is brilliant.

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Speaker 2: It's got so many great insights, wise pieces of guidance

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Speaker 2: that will help you in your lowest, difficult, toughest times

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Speaker 2: and help you avoid those if you manage to be

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Speaker 2: able to surpass them. Please welcome to On Purpose, Megan Roxane. Megan,

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Speaker 2: it's so great to finally have you here. This is awesome.

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Speaker 1: Thank you so much for having me Jay, thank you.

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Speaker 1: It's great to be here.

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Speaker 2: I was so happy when you told me you were

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Speaker 2: writing a book and you said, you know, can you

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Speaker 2: read it and share a testimonial for it, because I

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Speaker 2: know how challenging this journey's been for you. For putting

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Speaker 2: yourself out there. I mean, you built the most motivational

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Speaker 2: page on social media without a doubt, the quote and

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Speaker 2: the amount of impact that it's had, how it shifted

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Speaker 2: the culture of what people were doing on social media.

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Speaker 2: It's had such a beautiful ripple effect to so many

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Speaker 2: other people. You've supported myself including I'll share a bit

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Speaker 2: on that. And you've always had this challenge of putting

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Speaker 2: yourself out there. And so when you were writing this

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Speaker 2: book and I picked it up and I looked at

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Speaker 2: it and you asked me for a couple of words,

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Speaker 2: I was just so proud of you as a friend.

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Speaker 2: I was so excited for you, and I was so

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Speaker 2: excited for everyone else that would now have access to

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Speaker 2: you as well and your story. So congratulations from a friend. Really,

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Speaker 2: I mean it.

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Speaker 1: Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you.

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Speaker 2: I just want to give a bit of background for people.

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Speaker 2: I remember I just i'd started posting content of Facebook

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Speaker 2: in twenty sixteen and it was really taking off. And

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Speaker 2: then I remember Instagram being a platform that I was

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Speaker 2: trying to find traction on and sharing my content, and

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Speaker 2: I was looking at other pages that had the same

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Speaker 2: values as mine, who believed in wisdom, people who believed

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Speaker 2: in wanting to share that freely with everyone, people who

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Speaker 2: wanted to make wisdom as cool and as sexy and

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Speaker 2: as accessible as everything else on the internet. And I

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Speaker 2: remember coming across the good quote, and I remember just

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Speaker 2: sending a DM and saying, Hey, would you guys share

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Speaker 2: my stuff? And I literally, at that time, you used

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Speaker 2: to just send I would find anyone of equal value

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Speaker 2: on social media and I would just DM them and say, hey,

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Speaker 2: I'd love to connect. I'm making content, would you be

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Speaker 2: able to share it? And you were so kind that

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Speaker 2: you decided to support me at that early stage, And honestly,

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Speaker 2: it gave me my first breakthrough on Instagram because all

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Speaker 2: of a sudden, all these people were aware of my work.

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Speaker 2: And what I always found was that it was always

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Speaker 2: still about the content, like content had to be good.

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Speaker 2: But what I found was that the fact that you

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Speaker 2: were able to distribute it to so many more people,

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Speaker 2: I was able to see that my content was resonating

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Speaker 2: with even more people. So I'm so grateful for that

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Speaker 2: initial connection and collaboration we had because it was so

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Speaker 2: important to me and the beginning of my journey. And

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Speaker 2: I know it's not just me, You've helped so many people.

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Speaker 2: So anyway, my first question is, how does it feel when,

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Speaker 2: at four years old, you hear from a grandparent that

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Speaker 2: they don't love you. Oh wow, that's how you start

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Speaker 2: the book?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so that was the first time I ever

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Speaker 1: felt the impact of words physically. I didn't know that

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Speaker 1: words can hurt you. I didn't even know there was

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Speaker 1: a thing of internal pain. I was only four and

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Speaker 1: I was used to getting a little slap behind the

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Speaker 1: back of the leg if I did something naughty, but

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Speaker 1: to be told, especially when my entire reality was based

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Speaker 1: on love. I had a really great home growing up,

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Speaker 1: so to be told that was really difficult to comprehend.

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Speaker 1: But the physical pain of my chest, my heart, it

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Speaker 1: literally felt like somebody was trying to split it. And

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Speaker 1: I would never forget that pain because it was the

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Speaker 1: first time I've ever felt it. And when I explained

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Speaker 1: to my mother what happened and I described the pain,

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Speaker 1: it's almost like she knew, Okay, my family's gotten to

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Speaker 1: her now. It was a good four years, but she

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Speaker 1: didn't ever want me to experience that, and I did,

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Speaker 1: And if I'm being honest with you, it really took

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Speaker 1: away a lot of my innocence as well. I was

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Speaker 1: robbed of innocence during that time. I don't think children

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Speaker 1: should know what it's like to be hurt or spoken

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Speaker 1: too badly, or have to cry themselves at nighttime, or

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Speaker 1: sitting on the so far waiting for their parents to

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Speaker 1: come home, and you know, feeling sad. It's not an

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Speaker 1: emotion that a child should have to feel. I felt it,

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Speaker 1: and it's a lasting memory that I would always remember.

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Speaker 2: Why did he say? Did you ever ask him?

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Speaker 1: Or did you My grandfather was a interesting man. He

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Speaker 1: actually passed away four days before my book came out.

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Speaker 2: Wow.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's been intense because I was caring for

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Speaker 1: him as well, a request that was given to me

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Speaker 1: by my mother, which I mentioned in the book. My

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Speaker 1: grandfather he lived a very selfish life in a sense

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Speaker 1: where he didn't care how he hurts people, what his

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Speaker 1: words did. He didn't care. He was a happy go

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Speaker 1: lucky rum drinker.

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Speaker 2: You know.

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Speaker 1: As a man, he did what he had to do

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Speaker 1: for his family. He provided, but as a person he

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Speaker 1: wasn't that great. He had great friends, you know in

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Speaker 1: the family in the West Indies. Everyone think he was

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Speaker 1: this great guy, but actually to live with him, he

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Speaker 1: was a bit of a monster. The reason why I'm

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Speaker 1: being careful of my words is because my grandfather and

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Speaker 1: I went on a journey in the last two years

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Speaker 1: of me caring for him and I forgave him and

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Speaker 1: he explained to me the reasoning behind his treatment towards

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Speaker 1: his children, and it was simply put what he experienced

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Speaker 1: is what he provided. So there's a level of generational

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Speaker 1: ignorance that was passed down from my grandfather, and the

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Speaker 1: ricochet of that is why I'm sitting right here with

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Speaker 1: this book in your hand. There wasn't that much emotional

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Speaker 1: intelligence with my grandparents. You know, they would do something

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Speaker 1: to you, they wouldn't apologize, and that was kind of

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Speaker 1: something the generation that they came from were customed to do.

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Speaker 1: And apologizing to your children, it's not really something that

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Speaker 1: you hear people do. My mother apologized to me many times.

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Speaker 1: She said to me one time, you know, anything that

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Speaker 1: I experienced in my house growing up, I will not

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Speaker 1: bring here. So my grandfather was just a character that

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Speaker 1: I knew. Was always miserable, always angry, drinking, love to

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Speaker 1: watch cricket, and that was basically it. He wasn't a

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Speaker 1: great person to be around if you were looking for

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Speaker 1: motivation or anything positive.

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Speaker 2: Wow, how did it feel? I didn't even think we're

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Speaker 2: going to go down this direction? But it's I have

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Speaker 2: to ask, like, how did it feel to care for

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Speaker 2: someone who told you they didn't love you that early

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Speaker 2: in your life? Because that process seems to be I know,

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Speaker 2: when I'm speaking to a lot of my community, or

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Speaker 2: I'm reading comments or I read dms, and I really

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Speaker 2: listen in on what my community cares about so I

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Speaker 2: can serve them better. And a lot of people find

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Speaker 2: themselves in that position where someone who's caused them pain

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Speaker 2: is the person that they're now caring for or they're supporting,

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Speaker 2: or they're in the same house for years, and the

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Speaker 2: question is always, Jay, how do I survive around someone

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Speaker 2: like that, let alone care for them? So how did

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Speaker 2: you even reconcile it in the beginning of that two

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Speaker 2: year journey, because that feels like the ultimate test of

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Speaker 2: everything that you're saying in the book.

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Speaker 1: Well, this is going to sound so strange, but in

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Speaker 1: my spirit this morning, I knew you were going to

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Speaker 1: ask me something like that, and I saw that you

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Speaker 1: shared something on your stories. Somebody asked you about their

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Speaker 1: relationship with their mother and your reply was forgiveness and empathy.

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Speaker 1: And that's it, Jay, That's literally it. I My mother

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Speaker 1: asked me to care for my grandfather was passing away,

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Speaker 1: and reluctantly I said yes because that was my best friend,

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Speaker 1: and I knew that there was a reason behind it,

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Speaker 1: and at the time I didn't want to do it.

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Speaker 1: But I just knew through future Megan, this is an

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Speaker 1: investment that I actually have to go through and devote

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Speaker 1: myself to. And it was literally for that. My mother's

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Speaker 1: last lesson was for me to care for my grandfather

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Speaker 1: so I can understand the power of forgiveness. I thought

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Speaker 1: I understood forgiveness, but I didn't. Looking after my grandfather

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Speaker 1: meant that I had to create new boundaries. I had

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Speaker 1: to stand up for myself in so many ways. There

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Speaker 1: were so many rumors spread by other malicious family members

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Speaker 1: of mine that were untrue that I had to work

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Speaker 1: my way around whilst grieving for my mum. You know,

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Speaker 1: my grandfather was left unattended for the years that I

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Speaker 1: was looking after my mother. When she was passing away

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Speaker 1: from stage four cancer. We actually went to the West

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Speaker 1: Indies and when I got back, I assumed that my

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Speaker 1: mother's sit blinds were looking after him, but they weren't.

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Speaker 1: So when I got back, I was faced with the

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Speaker 1: responsibility of looking after him, renovating his house, bringing him

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Speaker 1: back to a full bill of health, which I did,

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Speaker 1: and during that entire process there was a level of

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Speaker 1: trust that had to be obtained. Even helping my grandfather

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Speaker 1: walk again, I had to literally help him walk, and

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Speaker 1: there were times where he would just be like, pass

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Speaker 1: me the guinness, I haven't got time for this. I'll

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Speaker 1: just sit here, you know. And there were other times

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Speaker 1: where he was really determined. And it was through these

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Speaker 1: experiences I had no other choice but to seek forgiveness

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Speaker 1: because I was spending a lot of time with him.

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Speaker 1: And then there were a lot of unanswered questions, a

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Speaker 1: lot of things that I needed for my own journey,

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Speaker 1: a lot of things that I wanted to a lot

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Speaker 1: of chapters that I wanted to close for my mother,

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Speaker 1: even though she passed away, just for the principle of it,

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Speaker 1: you know. So my grandfather and I did a lot

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Speaker 1: of talking. When I became more aware of his reasonings,

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Speaker 1: his justifications, which weren't great at all, but transparently truthful,

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Speaker 1: I then started to develop a level of respect for him.

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Speaker 1: It takes a lot of bravery and courage at ninety

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Speaker 1: years old to admit where you've gone wrong in life

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Speaker 1: and actually apologize to somebody less than half your age,

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Speaker 1: especially if it's not part of your culture or it's

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Speaker 1: not something that you've been raised to do. So when

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Speaker 1: my grandfather passed away, you know. I went to view

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Speaker 1: his body and I sat there and I just thought

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Speaker 1: to myself, it is well, it is well. The chapter

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Speaker 1: is closed. I broke that curse. Moving on. My children

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Speaker 1: don't have to hear about their great grandfather. Is so

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Speaker 1: much anger in my voice. I could just say I

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Speaker 1: could talk about the last two years. I don't have

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Speaker 1: to talk about everything that happened before because I've healed

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Speaker 1: past that. And the reason why we do heal obviously

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Speaker 1: for our own harmony, but so we don't pass on

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Speaker 1: more pain. I didn't have to inherit my family's pain

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Speaker 1: and trauma, but I did. But it's my duty and

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Speaker 1: my job to ensure that I don't pass it on.

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Speaker 1: And I think that's what my mother was trying to

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Speaker 1: teach me behind the importance of forgiveness is to put

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Speaker 1: a final stop to it so that you can move

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Speaker 1: on and live your life. But you have to forgive

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Speaker 1: because I had so much anger in my heart for

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Speaker 1: my grandfather. But then when I saw him and his

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Speaker 1: little efforts of determination to get walking again. Or I

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Speaker 1: might go and see him in the morning, he might

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Speaker 1: make me some peel out, you know, or some curry

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Speaker 1: goat and Peelau or whatnot. And I think, Okay, there's

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Speaker 1: something bubbling here and I'm not going to be the

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Speaker 1: person to interrupt that. Let me just see where this

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Speaker 1: journey takes us. So when he passed away, I was

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Speaker 1: happy for him. I was happy that he was able

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Speaker 1: to transition. I prayed for him, and I was able

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Speaker 1: to walk away knowing that I don't have to carry

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Speaker 1: that burden anymore.

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Speaker 2: What's so valuable with the insert you just shared is

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Speaker 2: that you were able to place the virtue of forgiveness

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Speaker 2: above how you felt about it because it meant something

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Speaker 2: to your mum, because you believe that it had something

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Speaker 2: to do with a better future for Megan. And I

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Speaker 2: find that to be remarkable in a time where I

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Speaker 2: feel we've actually gone the other way. So a lot

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Speaker 2: of the time, we're so fixated on what makes me

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Speaker 2: feel good now, what makes me comfortable now, what feels

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Speaker 2: right for me now. And it's really interesting, because I've

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Speaker 2: been thinking about this a lot lately, that this pursuit

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Speaker 2: of virtues is actually the only way you'll ever be happy,

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Speaker 2: because even if you did what you wanted now and

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Speaker 2: you disregarded everything else later on, you still haven't healed

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Speaker 2: or created and built forgiveness, and so you're still living

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Speaker 2: in that bitterness and that pain, even if the person

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Speaker 2: passes away, and even if you were away from them

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Speaker 2: for years and years and years. Yeah, but how do

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Speaker 2: we reconcile that, Like, at what point is it self

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Speaker 2: disrespect to aspire for a virtue while someone is potentially

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Speaker 2: creating havoc in your life? How do you see that

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Speaker 2: in terms of setting boundaries in I'm going to care

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Speaker 2: for them because I see this virtue being there, But

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Speaker 2: then at the same time, I'm not just going to

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Speaker 2: allow myself to be abused or disrespect.

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Speaker 1: Growing up, I witnessed my mother do various things to

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Speaker 1: contribute to her healing, whether it was yoga, whether it

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Speaker 1: was going for walks, meditation, simply spend the time alone,

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Speaker 1: also forgiving enforcing her boundaries, which was really difficult for her.

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Speaker 1: She was the first child of six siblings, so she

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Speaker 1: didn't really get to enforce her boundaries, nor did her

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Speaker 1: siblings care or honor them. And I watched that growing up,

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Speaker 1: and I think one of the most profound experiences that

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Speaker 1: I spoke about in the book was when she bumped

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Speaker 1: into her father when they were in Sainsbury's and they

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Speaker 1: reunited and they had their conversations and she ended up

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Speaker 1: looking after him, And there was one day where he

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Speaker 1: was rude to her. And I remember coming home from

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Speaker 1: college and she was cooking really fast, and I could

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Speaker 1: just smell the curry from downstairs, and I was like, Okay,

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Speaker 1: it's in the middle of the week. Mum usually cooks

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Speaker 1: on a Sunday. Are we having guests? No, The guest

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Speaker 1: was the anger that came from the experience she had

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Speaker 1: of her father. She enforced her boundary and it was

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Speaker 1: the first time she's done it in years, so she

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Speaker 1: didn't know how to respond. And I watched that and

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Speaker 1: I watched how it actually strengthened the relationship with her

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Speaker 1: father because he started to respect it. And I think

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Speaker 1: he also realized there's no one else left. So if

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Speaker 1: I'm going to have this relationship, I'm going to have

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Speaker 1: to ensure that I stick to the rules to keep

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Speaker 1: it healthy. So with me now of the same man,

301
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Speaker 1: having to go through the same experiences, my boundary enforcement

302
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Speaker 1: came very quickly. There was one day where I bought

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Speaker 1: him a bottle of guinness. You know, he did a

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Speaker 1: lot of things that day, and we did a reward

305
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Speaker 1: system where if he did a hundred steps, you know,

306
00:16:09,440 --> 00:16:12,480
Speaker 1: and this and that will give him some something. He

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Speaker 1: loved guinness, so I brought him a bottle of guineas

308
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Speaker 1: and it was warm, so he kind of threw it

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Speaker 1: at me and he was like, put it in a freezer.

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Speaker 1: It's warm. And I said, actually, what I'm going to

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Speaker 1: do is I'm going to go home and I'm going

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Speaker 1: to leave the bottle right there and you can put

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Speaker 1: it in the freezer yourself. I'm not having that. That

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Speaker 1: is absolutely rude. And I got up and I left

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Speaker 1: and he called me, and he called me, and he

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Speaker 1: called me, and I picked up and I said, I'm

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Speaker 1: I'm not coming back until you apologize because that was

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Speaker 1: really rude. And when I got back, he made breakfast,

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Speaker 1: you know, he cleaned down, staid like everything that I

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Speaker 1: usually get him to do every day, he did it

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Speaker 1: all in one day. And you know, he apologized and

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Speaker 1: sat down and we had a conversation and I said

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Speaker 1: to him, moving forward, this is not happening because I'm

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Speaker 1: not going to care for you and deplete my own

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Speaker 1: energy at the same time. That's insane. I've watched my

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Speaker 1: mother do that. So throughout this entire process, I just

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Speaker 1: learned that my no is my no, my yes is

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Speaker 1: my yes. If I don't like something, I tell the person.

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Speaker 1: I don't feel bad about telling the person because what's

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Speaker 1: the other option? I take the bad treatment while they're

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Speaker 1: none the wiser. That is hurting me. It doesn't serve anybody.

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Speaker 1: So the boundary enforcement, I think I gained a lot

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Speaker 1: of confidence over the span of two years looking after

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Speaker 1: my grandfather, enforcing my boundaries, standing in my word, and

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Speaker 1: not being scared, and that was one of the most

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00:17:30,560 --> 00:17:33,239
Speaker 1: powerful things that I learned. So it wasn't difficult. It

337
00:17:33,320 --> 00:17:36,479
Speaker 1: was more if I respect myself and love myself, I

338
00:17:36,520 --> 00:17:38,960
Speaker 1: will put these boundaries in place so that I don't

339
00:17:38,960 --> 00:17:41,439
Speaker 1: deplete myself every time I come to visit this person.

340
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Speaker 1: And if they respect and love and honor me and

341
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Speaker 1: even are thankful for my devotion to caring for them,

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Speaker 1: they will ensure that the environment is healthy and safe.

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Speaker 1: And that was literally the case. If it wasn't, I

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00:17:52,680 --> 00:17:55,040
Speaker 1: would have just walked away, paid the NHS staff to

345
00:17:55,040 --> 00:17:57,080
Speaker 1: look after him and check in every now and then.

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Speaker 1: Because I have to put myself first. Learn that with

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Speaker 1: my mother's story, as well.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I hope that's really refreshing for people to hear,

349
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Speaker 2: because I feel like when we think of forgiveness, we

350
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Speaker 2: think of it as like this fully all encompassing thing

351
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Speaker 2: where there's no boundaries, you just give in. And to

352
00:18:15,200 --> 00:18:19,359
Speaker 2: hear that clarity because I found that when we don't

353
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Speaker 2: set boundaries, what we don't realize we keep enabling that

354
00:18:22,400 --> 00:18:26,159
Speaker 2: person to behave that way, and we become enablers. We

355
00:18:26,240 --> 00:18:29,280
Speaker 2: think we're helping them, but actually we're hurting them. Yeah,

356
00:18:29,359 --> 00:18:31,200
Speaker 2: and the only one we're helping is ourselves because we

357
00:18:31,240 --> 00:18:34,040
Speaker 2: feel better about ourselves for a second where we're like, oh,

358
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Speaker 2: I'm so tolerant and I did everything just perfectly for them,

359
00:18:37,720 --> 00:18:40,000
Speaker 2: But then what we don't realize is we're just continuing

360
00:18:40,040 --> 00:18:43,600
Speaker 2: that behavior. Yeah. One thing I've discovered really hearing from

361
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Speaker 2: everything you're saying is that there's three types of people

362
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Speaker 2: in life. The first is someone who repeats the pain

363
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Speaker 2: they saw, The second is someone who does the opposite

364
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Speaker 2: of the pain they saw, and the third is someone

365
00:18:58,200 --> 00:19:01,280
Speaker 2: who heals from that pain and gives people what they

366
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Speaker 2: never had and creates a space for people to have

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Speaker 2: the life that they never got the opportunity to have

368
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Speaker 2: and it sounds like you chose that third option. Yeah,

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Speaker 2: and anyone who chooses that third option protects their future self.

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Speaker 2: What's the difference between people pleasing and wanting people to

371
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Speaker 2: be happy? Because I think people get that confused they

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Speaker 2: don't know the difference. Before you hear the answer, here's

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Speaker 2: a quick break, big thanks to our sponsors. Let's get

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Speaker 2: back to it. How would you define what a people

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Speaker 2: pleaser is? Whereas it's someone who likes to see people happy.

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Speaker 1: Okay, So from the chronic people pleaser myself, I would

377
00:19:42,440 --> 00:19:45,840
Speaker 1: say just acknowledging the fact that you do not control

378
00:19:45,920 --> 00:19:48,520
Speaker 1: somebody's happiness. It doesn't matter if you give them everything

379
00:19:48,560 --> 00:19:50,600
Speaker 1: they want. There's going to be another factor in their

380
00:19:50,640 --> 00:19:55,119
Speaker 1: lives that's going to implicate their ability to be completely happy.

381
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Speaker 1: So it's not your responsibility, it's not your purpose to

382
00:19:58,640 --> 00:20:02,159
Speaker 1: make other people happy, and and it's a job that's

383
00:20:02,400 --> 00:20:05,359
Speaker 1: never going to have a reward because there's so many

384
00:20:05,400 --> 00:20:08,800
Speaker 1: factors to our happiness anyway, one person can't achieve that.

385
00:20:09,359 --> 00:20:11,800
Speaker 1: So for me with people pleasing, I just realized that

386
00:20:12,440 --> 00:20:15,879
Speaker 1: as much as I do want to make this person happy,

387
00:20:16,040 --> 00:20:21,080
Speaker 1: my happiness also is valid and it's also important to me,

388
00:20:21,720 --> 00:20:25,480
Speaker 1: So I have to set boundaries, and you have to

389
00:20:25,600 --> 00:20:29,520
Speaker 1: enforce your boundaries with people in general, I always want

390
00:20:29,520 --> 00:20:32,040
Speaker 1: to ensure that I'm creating a healthy space for people,

391
00:20:32,040 --> 00:20:34,680
Speaker 1: whether it's in my home or whether it is as

392
00:20:34,680 --> 00:20:36,359
Speaker 1: long as you're in my presence, I want you to

393
00:20:36,400 --> 00:20:40,600
Speaker 1: be happy. I want you to feel seen, heard, appreciated, valued, understood,

394
00:20:41,119 --> 00:20:43,880
Speaker 1: but again not at my own detriment. So if I'm

395
00:20:43,880 --> 00:20:46,440
Speaker 1: not receiving the same thing from you, then something has

396
00:20:46,480 --> 00:20:49,280
Speaker 1: to give or something has to stop. I stopped people

397
00:20:49,320 --> 00:20:51,400
Speaker 1: pleasing when I realized the people that I was trying

398
00:20:51,400 --> 00:20:54,560
Speaker 1: to please were not trying to recificate that energy to me.

399
00:20:54,960 --> 00:20:57,959
Speaker 1: I also realized that I was putting myself second almost

400
00:20:58,080 --> 00:21:01,840
Speaker 1: all the time for other people with very little reciprocation.

401
00:21:02,480 --> 00:21:05,320
Speaker 1: I just decided that it just wasn't for me. There's

402
00:21:05,359 --> 00:21:08,080
Speaker 1: a whole backstory in my book about people pleasing and

403
00:21:08,119 --> 00:21:11,800
Speaker 1: it explains my journey on that, but in the short form,

404
00:21:12,160 --> 00:21:14,560
Speaker 1: I had to stop for my own sanity and for

405
00:21:14,680 --> 00:21:18,119
Speaker 1: my own self respect, especially when you look when you

406
00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:21,679
Speaker 1: compare your efforts to others, and you almost look and

407
00:21:21,720 --> 00:21:24,480
Speaker 1: you can see they've got boundaries that I don't have.

408
00:21:24,840 --> 00:21:26,960
Speaker 1: Because if I ask them to do what they're asking me,

409
00:21:27,160 --> 00:21:29,879
Speaker 1: they would say no. Why would they say no? Is

410
00:21:29,920 --> 00:21:32,480
Speaker 1: it because they're a horrible person? Is it because of

411
00:21:32,520 --> 00:21:35,400
Speaker 1: this or they're selfish? No, it's because of their boundary.

412
00:21:35,680 --> 00:21:38,639
Speaker 1: So I realized that everybody around me had their boundaries

413
00:21:38,680 --> 00:21:41,440
Speaker 1: when it came to me. But as I was people pleasing,

414
00:21:41,520 --> 00:21:43,960
Speaker 1: I didn't have any for anybody else. And on top

415
00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:46,960
Speaker 1: of that, with people pleasing, it just takes you to

416
00:21:47,040 --> 00:21:49,439
Speaker 1: links that you were never prepared to go, you know,

417
00:21:49,800 --> 00:21:52,320
Speaker 1: and it's just unfair to put yourself in that position.

418
00:21:53,000 --> 00:21:56,280
Speaker 1: Do the best you can to support, but never at

419
00:21:56,320 --> 00:21:58,159
Speaker 1: your own detriment. And if it is going to be

420
00:21:58,200 --> 00:22:00,439
Speaker 1: at your own detriment, then that's something that you have

421
00:22:00,480 --> 00:22:03,119
Speaker 1: to sit down and discuss with yourself. Okay, this is

422
00:22:03,280 --> 00:22:05,560
Speaker 1: costing me this, But what am I learning in the process.

423
00:22:05,680 --> 00:22:07,399
Speaker 1: When does it come to an end? What are my

424
00:22:07,480 --> 00:22:10,960
Speaker 1: boundaries in this particular experience. But across the board, I

425
00:22:11,000 --> 00:22:13,680
Speaker 1: would say scrap people pleasing as a whole. You don't

426
00:22:13,680 --> 00:22:15,320
Speaker 1: need to do that, and the people around you will

427
00:22:15,320 --> 00:22:18,000
Speaker 1: feel uncomfortable with you doing that anyway. You know, there's

428
00:22:18,040 --> 00:22:19,679
Speaker 1: a lot of my friends that would be like relax,

429
00:22:19,760 --> 00:22:24,320
Speaker 1: you're overcompensating just to put me back into into gear.

430
00:22:24,359 --> 00:22:27,399
Speaker 1: Because people pleasing isn't for the habits of people pleasing

431
00:22:27,440 --> 00:22:30,760
Speaker 1: isn't going to stop overnight. It's actual small practices that

432
00:22:30,800 --> 00:22:33,399
Speaker 1: you have to implement on a day to day to

433
00:22:33,520 --> 00:22:37,119
Speaker 1: rewire this this vein of ours to stop doing this nonsense.

434
00:22:37,600 --> 00:22:41,840
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think boundaries. Enforcing your boundaries is the

435
00:22:41,880 --> 00:22:44,240
Speaker 1: main is the key thing to putting an end to

436
00:22:44,280 --> 00:22:48,480
Speaker 1: people pleasing. Then just realizing that put that love into yourself,

437
00:22:48,680 --> 00:22:51,560
Speaker 1: put that devotion and that time and that energy into yourself.

438
00:22:52,080 --> 00:22:53,960
Speaker 1: Why are you so scared to do that? Because you'll

439
00:22:53,960 --> 00:22:56,680
Speaker 1: find a lot of people who people please, they don't

440
00:22:56,720 --> 00:23:01,480
Speaker 1: actually have great relationships with themselves. So that energy's great,

441
00:23:01,560 --> 00:23:05,320
Speaker 1: But just bring it back to yourself, you know first.

442
00:23:05,680 --> 00:23:07,320
Speaker 1: Similar to when you're on the airplane, you have to

443
00:23:07,359 --> 00:23:09,720
Speaker 1: put the mask on first before you help other people.

444
00:23:10,119 --> 00:23:11,040
Speaker 1: It's very similar.

445
00:23:11,280 --> 00:23:13,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, well said, I could agree with you more. I

446
00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:17,680
Speaker 2: think that I started people pleasing when I realized that

447
00:23:17,720 --> 00:23:22,439
Speaker 2: there was nothing I could possibly do to actually please

448
00:23:22,480 --> 00:23:26,440
Speaker 2: someone fully, that there'd always be some gap, some blemish,

449
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:30,200
Speaker 2: some mistake, even if I tried with the deepest, purest

450
00:23:30,200 --> 00:23:35,480
Speaker 2: intention and I recognize that. Actually, if I simply tried

451
00:23:35,520 --> 00:23:38,840
Speaker 2: to create a space for people to flourish, and then

452
00:23:38,880 --> 00:23:40,520
Speaker 2: it was up to them to make the most of it,

453
00:23:40,800 --> 00:23:44,280
Speaker 2: and if they didn't, I could only make the space better,

454
00:23:44,640 --> 00:23:47,600
Speaker 2: but I couldn't please them. I could improve the environment,

455
00:23:47,640 --> 00:23:51,280
Speaker 2: but I couldn't improve them. I think that's when we

456
00:23:51,359 --> 00:23:54,480
Speaker 2: fail is when we make a person our project, or

457
00:23:54,480 --> 00:23:56,720
Speaker 2: we make a person our purpose. We make a person

458
00:23:56,960 --> 00:24:00,679
Speaker 2: our obsession, as opposed to the environment and the space

459
00:24:00,760 --> 00:24:03,959
Speaker 2: and the energy, which you can control. You can control

460
00:24:04,000 --> 00:24:06,200
Speaker 2: the energy someone feels when they walk into your house, Yeah,

461
00:24:06,320 --> 00:24:08,919
Speaker 2: you can't control whether they want to rise to that

462
00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:11,600
Speaker 2: energy or whether they want to bring it down. You

463
00:24:11,640 --> 00:24:14,919
Speaker 2: can control the energy someone has in your workspace, but

464
00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:18,480
Speaker 2: you can't control whether they're going to subscribe to that

465
00:24:18,640 --> 00:24:21,840
Speaker 2: energy or unfollow. Like, you can't change that. And so

466
00:24:22,600 --> 00:24:24,720
Speaker 2: I think if you're spot on that, if we spend

467
00:24:24,840 --> 00:24:29,200
Speaker 2: more time curating energy that we emanate and that we

468
00:24:29,240 --> 00:24:32,080
Speaker 2: live by and the spaces that we walk into have,

469
00:24:33,040 --> 00:24:34,800
Speaker 2: then now we're leaving it up to everyone else.

470
00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:35,200
Speaker 1: Yeah.

471
00:24:35,280 --> 00:24:37,280
Speaker 2: Right, you came in this morning and you were smiling

472
00:24:37,320 --> 00:24:38,960
Speaker 2: and you were happy. We gave each other a big

473
00:24:39,000 --> 00:24:43,359
Speaker 2: hug like it's been we've been having bubbly conversation, like reconnecting,

474
00:24:43,440 --> 00:24:46,680
Speaker 2: like we both decided to be on that energy now.

475
00:24:46,720 --> 00:24:49,320
Speaker 2: I wanted this place to be welcoming and inviting and

476
00:24:49,920 --> 00:24:52,560
Speaker 2: hopefully felt that it felt calm and there weren't too

477
00:24:52,560 --> 00:24:54,639
Speaker 2: many people and it wasn't stressful. But then you have

478
00:24:54,720 --> 00:24:58,240
Speaker 2: to also meet me there and bring your energy, and

479
00:24:58,240 --> 00:25:00,679
Speaker 2: then I have to meet you there. And so I

480
00:25:00,720 --> 00:25:04,680
Speaker 2: feel like people will constantly meet you where you're at,

481
00:25:05,280 --> 00:25:07,760
Speaker 2: or they'll force you to meet you where they're at,

482
00:25:08,560 --> 00:25:10,920
Speaker 2: and it's your choice to decide whether you want to

483
00:25:11,000 --> 00:25:14,840
Speaker 2: rise or fall. I want to dive into your journey

484
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:18,679
Speaker 2: a little bit because it feels like you got introduced

485
00:25:18,680 --> 00:25:22,560
Speaker 2: to needing an emotional vocabulary very young in your life.

486
00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:24,280
Speaker 2: Like when I was reading your book, I was like,

487
00:25:24,600 --> 00:25:28,160
Speaker 2: this is someone who the good quote isn't a page

488
00:25:28,440 --> 00:25:32,200
Speaker 2: with good quotes, because just because you're a good writer,

489
00:25:32,320 --> 00:25:35,600
Speaker 2: it's because you've had to live that. It's lived experience

490
00:25:36,160 --> 00:25:38,560
Speaker 2: that is now coming out in the form of good quote.

491
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:41,560
Speaker 2: And I often think about that with me too, and

492
00:25:41,600 --> 00:25:43,800
Speaker 2: I aligned with that that what I share today is

493
00:25:43,800 --> 00:25:47,240
Speaker 2: stuff that I've lived, it's experienced it's pain, it's stress,

494
00:25:47,280 --> 00:25:49,680
Speaker 2: it's overwhelmed. It's a role I've played for many years.

495
00:25:49,760 --> 00:25:54,399
Speaker 2: I always say I mediated my entire family's relationship and

496
00:25:54,480 --> 00:25:56,480
Speaker 2: dynamic for many, many years. So a lot of the

497
00:25:56,520 --> 00:25:59,320
Speaker 2: mediation I do today is because that's the role I've

498
00:25:59,359 --> 00:26:03,760
Speaker 2: always played. And so with you, I got the sense

499
00:26:03,800 --> 00:26:07,160
Speaker 2: that your emotional vocabulary grew very young in life. Yeah,

500
00:26:07,320 --> 00:26:10,119
Speaker 2: and then you felt like sharing it. I wanted to

501
00:26:10,119 --> 00:26:12,440
Speaker 2: ask you were talking about. Twenty eleven was Tumbler where

502
00:26:12,440 --> 00:26:15,560
Speaker 2: you started sharing wisdom. Twenty fourteen was when the good

503
00:26:15,640 --> 00:26:20,240
Speaker 2: Quote was taken out, When you started writing and sharing

504
00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:25,320
Speaker 2: these experiences, How scared or worried were you originally about

505
00:26:25,320 --> 00:26:28,000
Speaker 2: how they'd be seen? And how long did it take

506
00:26:28,000 --> 00:26:29,760
Speaker 2: you to even have the courage to like write and

507
00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:30,959
Speaker 2: put out your first post?

508
00:26:31,400 --> 00:26:34,160
Speaker 1: Firstly, to dive deeper into the reasonings behind a good quote.

509
00:26:34,400 --> 00:26:37,160
Speaker 1: There are so many quote pages out there. The good

510
00:26:37,200 --> 00:26:40,439
Speaker 1: Quote does have the most followers because we started but

511
00:26:40,720 --> 00:26:44,600
Speaker 1: it wasn't a hustle. It wasn't something that I thought.

512
00:26:44,760 --> 00:26:47,199
Speaker 1: I didn't even think of money, you know. It was

513
00:26:47,240 --> 00:26:50,119
Speaker 1: a hobby and it was something that came from desperation,

514
00:26:50,440 --> 00:26:53,200
Speaker 1: lack of community. I was in a really dark place

515
00:26:53,720 --> 00:26:57,320
Speaker 1: and I couldn't find the community that I was looking for,

516
00:26:57,359 --> 00:26:59,040
Speaker 1: so I had no other option but to create it

517
00:26:59,040 --> 00:27:03,480
Speaker 1: myself on Tumbla. Tumblr is a beautiful platform. Oh my gosh.

518
00:27:03,560 --> 00:27:05,680
Speaker 1: I absolutely love it. It's just it doesn't have any

519
00:27:05,680 --> 00:27:08,000
Speaker 1: of the metrics that we fuss over on all the

520
00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:10,520
Speaker 1: other platforms. It's just it is what it is. You

521
00:27:10,520 --> 00:27:12,920
Speaker 1: don't care about the followers. You can put your whole

522
00:27:12,960 --> 00:27:15,320
Speaker 1: self on there and somebody is going to follow you

523
00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:18,439
Speaker 1: because they like you. That's what I think is amazing

524
00:27:18,480 --> 00:27:22,639
Speaker 1: about tumbler. It's just a blank page blog post. Someone's

525
00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 1: going to read your blog, and if they like it

526
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:27,360
Speaker 1: or if they resonate with it, that's a follower. That's

527
00:27:27,400 --> 00:27:31,280
Speaker 1: now one member of your community. So when I started Tumbler,

528
00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:35,240
Speaker 1: I was listening to Whiskalifa. He had a mixtape called

529
00:27:35,280 --> 00:27:37,800
Speaker 1: Cushion Orange Juice and there's a song on there, and

530
00:27:37,880 --> 00:27:39,760
Speaker 1: oh my gosh, every time I came on podcast, I

531
00:27:40,160 --> 00:27:41,679
Speaker 1: talk about it and I never get the name of

532
00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:45,040
Speaker 1: the song. It goes something like we Belong at the

533
00:27:45,040 --> 00:27:47,320
Speaker 1: Top or something like that. And I was in a

534
00:27:47,359 --> 00:27:49,320
Speaker 1: really bad place when I was listening to that. I

535
00:27:49,359 --> 00:27:52,399
Speaker 1: dropped out of UNI. My friends were making their lives,

536
00:27:52,400 --> 00:27:54,720
Speaker 1: and I was still very stark, and I listened to

537
00:27:54,760 --> 00:27:56,879
Speaker 1: the lyrics and it's very simple, you know, and I

538
00:27:56,920 --> 00:27:59,560
Speaker 1: just thought to myself, Yeah, actually, I'm going to make it.

539
00:28:00,000 --> 00:28:01,800
Speaker 1: I'm actually going to make it. Just gotta keep telling

540
00:28:01,840 --> 00:28:05,560
Speaker 1: myself that. Okay, wow, that's what that quote did for me.

541
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:10,080
Speaker 1: That was my first initial feeling. I was like, yeah,

542
00:28:10,119 --> 00:28:12,960
Speaker 1: that's what the lyvic did for me. So I went

543
00:28:13,040 --> 00:28:16,960
Speaker 1: on to Tumblr and I tried to blog with word first.

544
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:21,040
Speaker 1: I remember at the time, Vice was starting to really emerge,

545
00:28:21,080 --> 00:28:23,840
Speaker 1: and I joined a Vice blog in Network and I

546
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:27,439
Speaker 1: had my own blog and nothing worked. And then I

547
00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:30,080
Speaker 1: got on Tumblr and I took a picture of Whiskalifa

548
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:32,400
Speaker 1: and I put that livic that touched me on top

549
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:35,240
Speaker 1: of that picture. I darkened it. I posted it with

550
00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:38,360
Speaker 1: some hashtags and I fell asleep, and the next day

551
00:28:38,400 --> 00:28:41,640
Speaker 1: I woke up to like twelve thousand followers and a

552
00:28:41,680 --> 00:28:46,920
Speaker 1: whole bunch of requests, and I was like, Okay, briskly

553
00:28:47,160 --> 00:28:48,680
Speaker 1: was really popular at the time, so I think I

554
00:28:48,760 --> 00:28:52,000
Speaker 1: kind of jumped on that. But the fact is, nobody

555
00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:55,760
Speaker 1: else was making picture quotes out of positive hip hop lyrics,

556
00:28:56,320 --> 00:28:58,760
Speaker 1: and then I never told any of my friends that

557
00:28:58,800 --> 00:29:01,800
Speaker 1: this blog was mine. I started seeing my friends display

558
00:29:01,840 --> 00:29:06,719
Speaker 1: pictures on BlackBerry, Messenger and Facebook change to my quotes,

559
00:29:07,200 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 1: and then I realized that there were people who were

560
00:29:09,040 --> 00:29:11,800
Speaker 1: going through things that would find a particular quote and

561
00:29:11,880 --> 00:29:13,760
Speaker 1: put it on their display picture. So now you know

562
00:29:14,400 --> 00:29:17,040
Speaker 1: they're in their emotions today, they're sad about this, and

563
00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:19,960
Speaker 1: it kind of made it easier to share how you're

564
00:29:19,960 --> 00:29:24,000
Speaker 1: feeling within without having to actually vocalize it. So for me,

565
00:29:24,520 --> 00:29:28,640
Speaker 1: Cushion Wisdom and Tumbler was just like, Wow, I didn't

566
00:29:28,680 --> 00:29:31,400
Speaker 1: know I can connect to this many people. I didn't

567
00:29:31,400 --> 00:29:33,720
Speaker 1: think people needed these quotes as much as I did,

568
00:29:34,480 --> 00:29:36,760
Speaker 1: But I have twelve thousand people that resonate with me now.

569
00:29:37,160 --> 00:29:41,000
Speaker 1: So three weeks in to launching Tumblr, I started a

570
00:29:41,160 --> 00:29:44,680
Speaker 1: clothing line called Cool storybo, which was a slogan back

571
00:29:44,680 --> 00:29:47,400
Speaker 1: in the day. And my mother was an accountant a

572
00:29:47,400 --> 00:29:50,520
Speaker 1: bookkeeper at the time, and she was making about forty

573
00:29:50,560 --> 00:29:54,160
Speaker 1: thousand a year, and I pulled in thirty six thousand

574
00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 1: pounds in three weeks for just selling that clothing based

575
00:29:57,440 --> 00:30:00,960
Speaker 1: on that community, and I kept it very transparent. I'm

576
00:30:00,960 --> 00:30:04,360
Speaker 1: building this, I'm putting this for sale because I'm trying

577
00:30:04,440 --> 00:30:07,320
Speaker 1: to figure out what it is I'm doing with my creativity.

578
00:30:07,440 --> 00:30:10,480
Speaker 1: So I'm invested in myself. You can purchase if you want,

579
00:30:10,800 --> 00:30:15,479
Speaker 1: so many orders Jay, And it made me realize how

580
00:30:16,440 --> 00:30:21,600
Speaker 1: needed this platform is. People really need encouragement, you know,

581
00:30:21,720 --> 00:30:26,479
Speaker 1: people really need to be seen. And just as Chushian

582
00:30:26,480 --> 00:30:28,600
Speaker 1: Wisdom started to grow, and my mother got diagnosed with

583
00:30:28,960 --> 00:30:31,880
Speaker 1: breast cancer, so I took a year off and I

584
00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:36,560
Speaker 1: cared for her. And during that year, I think I

585
00:30:36,600 --> 00:30:39,840
Speaker 1: kind of lost the momentum of Christian wisdom. I met

586
00:30:39,840 --> 00:30:44,920
Speaker 1: my business partner in a Caribbean restaurant and he was like,

587
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:47,240
Speaker 1: this is what you should be doing. We can do this,

588
00:30:47,280 --> 00:30:49,040
Speaker 1: we can do that. We move over to the good quote.

589
00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:51,640
Speaker 1: And on the good quote it was a bit different

590
00:30:51,720 --> 00:30:55,160
Speaker 1: because I instead of taking pictures that I didn't take

591
00:30:55,320 --> 00:30:58,680
Speaker 1: and other people's lyrics I didn't write, I had to

592
00:30:58,720 --> 00:31:00,880
Speaker 1: find writers. So I went on to Twitter and I

593
00:31:00,920 --> 00:31:04,200
Speaker 1: started looking for writers and I found a bunch new

594
00:31:04,360 --> 00:31:07,360
Speaker 1: up and coming writers, maybe five hundred followers, a thousand followers.

595
00:31:07,520 --> 00:31:09,440
Speaker 1: But I was reading through their timelines and I was like,

596
00:31:09,480 --> 00:31:12,720
Speaker 1: oh shit, this is really I like this. And the

597
00:31:12,800 --> 00:31:16,440
Speaker 1: demand on Instagram was much more than Tumblr. So I

598
00:31:16,480 --> 00:31:19,040
Speaker 1: went from posting a few times a day on Tumblr

599
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:22,719
Speaker 1: to twenty four hours a day on Instagram. And I

600
00:31:22,800 --> 00:31:25,640
Speaker 1: was explaining this to other people. Anytime people ask me

601
00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:28,000
Speaker 1: about this story, I tell them I slept for fifty

602
00:31:28,080 --> 00:31:31,400
Speaker 1: minutes and then I would wake up quickly post because

603
00:31:31,400 --> 00:31:34,080
Speaker 1: there was no scheduling. There was no scheduling apps. I

604
00:31:34,240 --> 00:31:37,240
Speaker 1: was going mad. My mental health was declined the day.

605
00:31:37,400 --> 00:31:41,560
Speaker 1: But my followers. I gained a million followers in the months. Wow,

606
00:31:41,600 --> 00:31:46,360
Speaker 1: in my first months. We've never seen anything like that before.

607
00:31:46,920 --> 00:31:49,800
Speaker 1: And every celebrity at one stage was following us. We

608
00:31:49,840 --> 00:31:52,800
Speaker 1: had when I met you in La I actually messaged

609
00:31:52,840 --> 00:31:57,320
Speaker 1: Chloe Kardashian and she replied, you know, and so many people.

610
00:31:57,640 --> 00:31:59,720
Speaker 1: I actually had an I think the first person that

611
00:31:59,720 --> 00:32:02,360
Speaker 1: had been of us was a singer called Keerry Hilson.

612
00:32:02,800 --> 00:32:05,600
Speaker 1: I think we credit her incorrectly found out that it

613
00:32:05,640 --> 00:32:07,720
Speaker 1: wasn't even her quote. I mean, this is just between

614
00:32:07,800 --> 00:32:10,520
Speaker 1: me and you. But it was insane the impact that

615
00:32:10,600 --> 00:32:13,880
Speaker 1: it had. And I didn't have any confidence to post

616
00:32:13,960 --> 00:32:17,840
Speaker 1: my staff. I didn't because I cited myself up to

617
00:32:17,880 --> 00:32:21,080
Speaker 1: believe that I'm just a distributor. I'm not the talent.

618
00:32:21,200 --> 00:32:23,240
Speaker 1: I find the talent and I bring it to the

619
00:32:23,280 --> 00:32:26,360
Speaker 1: platform for the community. This isn't about me. And there

620
00:32:26,400 --> 00:32:28,040
Speaker 1: was one occasion where I did try to put my

621
00:32:28,080 --> 00:32:29,480
Speaker 1: face to it and I was hit with a lot

622
00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:33,200
Speaker 1: of racism. And it upset me because obviously this is

623
00:32:33,200 --> 00:32:35,120
Speaker 1: a community that I put my heart and soul into.

624
00:32:35,200 --> 00:32:38,280
Speaker 1: Why are they racist? Who is following me? That's racist?

625
00:32:38,280 --> 00:32:41,200
Speaker 1: So I stopped putting my face out there, and I

626
00:32:41,240 --> 00:32:44,040
Speaker 1: did that for ten years. I didn't gain to answer

627
00:32:44,040 --> 00:32:47,440
Speaker 1: your question. I didn't gain the confidence to put my

628
00:32:47,680 --> 00:32:50,440
Speaker 1: work out there until maybe about four or five years later.

629
00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:53,200
Speaker 1: You know that was from the encouragement of the writers

630
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:55,400
Speaker 1: that I was sharing. You know, we would have really

631
00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:57,880
Speaker 1: deep conversations. I would post things on Twitter and they

632
00:32:57,880 --> 00:33:00,360
Speaker 1: would be like share this, share this. And it was

633
00:33:00,400 --> 00:33:03,520
Speaker 1: not until I really saw your growth that I thought

634
00:33:03,520 --> 00:33:08,720
Speaker 1: to myself, Okay, the good quote is really huge. I

635
00:33:08,760 --> 00:33:11,560
Speaker 1: could change my life at any moment. And then the

636
00:33:11,600 --> 00:33:15,280
Speaker 1: anxiety came in and the imposter syndrome came in, and

637
00:33:15,320 --> 00:33:16,840
Speaker 1: I just thought, you know what, I'm best to be

638
00:33:16,840 --> 00:33:19,680
Speaker 1: behind the scenes. Let me just work with great people,

639
00:33:19,760 --> 00:33:21,479
Speaker 1: let me meet great people, Let me use this as

640
00:33:21,480 --> 00:33:24,280
Speaker 1: an opportunity to network and I'll figure out myself later.

641
00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:27,840
Speaker 1: You know. I spoke in the book about premonitions. I

642
00:33:27,920 --> 00:33:29,600
Speaker 1: used to get a lot of premonitions as a kid.

643
00:33:29,640 --> 00:33:31,960
Speaker 1: It's one of the reasons why my mother went back

644
00:33:32,000 --> 00:33:34,120
Speaker 1: to church, because she left the church after she gave

645
00:33:34,160 --> 00:33:36,160
Speaker 1: birth to me. She was a part of a really

646
00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:39,000
Speaker 1: strict church. You know, you couldn't wear trousers, you could

647
00:33:39,040 --> 00:33:41,920
Speaker 1: not be pregnant if you were not married. So Mum left,

648
00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:44,880
Speaker 1: you know. But I kept seeing things, and I kept

649
00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:47,680
Speaker 1: getting really interest in dreams. And I remember from a

650
00:33:47,720 --> 00:33:49,960
Speaker 1: young age my mother would say to me, you know,

651
00:33:50,440 --> 00:33:52,960
Speaker 1: you have to get ready to like education is the

652
00:33:53,000 --> 00:33:55,280
Speaker 1: most important thing. And I said to her, not in

653
00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:57,719
Speaker 1: my life. I'm going to live my life when I'm thirty.

654
00:33:58,760 --> 00:34:00,880
Speaker 1: That's when life is coming from me. Because I kept

655
00:34:00,880 --> 00:34:03,040
Speaker 1: getting told that, whether it was in my dreams or

656
00:34:03,080 --> 00:34:06,480
Speaker 1: just something subconsciously, life will start for you in your

657
00:34:06,520 --> 00:34:09,879
Speaker 1: mid thirties. Everything leading up to that would be experienced.

658
00:34:10,560 --> 00:34:13,600
Speaker 1: And that's literally what has happened. So I allowed myself

659
00:34:13,600 --> 00:34:17,400
Speaker 1: to make loads of mistakes and try and tell and fail,

660
00:34:17,440 --> 00:34:18,759
Speaker 1: and I did a lot of that. On a good

661
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:22,160
Speaker 1: quote with myself and it boosted me enough to make

662
00:34:22,200 --> 00:34:24,440
Speaker 1: me realize that I'm a good writer. You know, even

663
00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:26,120
Speaker 1: though I knew that I was kind of bred to

664
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:28,960
Speaker 1: become a writer. My mother loved literature, so sharing my

665
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:32,360
Speaker 1: work wasn't difficult after a while. But at first it

666
00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:35,759
Speaker 1: was so intense. The imposter syndrome was wild. You know,

667
00:34:36,280 --> 00:34:38,440
Speaker 1: some other writers would get one hundred thousand likes. I

668
00:34:38,440 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 1: would get fifty, and I'll be upset with that. It's

669
00:34:41,719 --> 00:34:46,640
Speaker 1: crazy because it's like, fifty thousand people is two two arenas.

670
00:34:47,000 --> 00:34:48,680
Speaker 1: If you ever stood in the two arena and you

671
00:34:48,760 --> 00:34:51,280
Speaker 1: look around, I think the capacity is twenty five thousand seats,

672
00:34:51,640 --> 00:34:55,200
Speaker 1: two of them full of people liked what I had

673
00:34:55,200 --> 00:34:58,239
Speaker 1: to say. But because this writer got one hundred k,

674
00:34:58,480 --> 00:35:01,200
Speaker 1: I don't feel I hate it that energy. It took

675
00:35:01,239 --> 00:35:04,000
Speaker 1: away from the creativity. It took away from my love.

676
00:35:04,080 --> 00:35:07,120
Speaker 1: It took away from the experience that I needed in

677
00:35:07,200 --> 00:35:11,960
Speaker 1: order to create that particular quote. So I posted myself

678
00:35:12,000 --> 00:35:13,719
Speaker 1: once or twice a week, and that's kind of the

679
00:35:13,719 --> 00:35:16,320
Speaker 1: habit that I've been doing over the over the years.

680
00:35:16,640 --> 00:35:20,279
Speaker 2: What I find fascinating about that is you had the

681
00:35:20,360 --> 00:35:23,400
Speaker 2: courage to listen to your intuition like this premonition part

682
00:35:23,440 --> 00:35:26,440
Speaker 2: where you're saying everything before thirty five is experienced, and

683
00:35:26,480 --> 00:35:29,080
Speaker 2: then thirty five is when I start living. What I'm

684
00:35:29,120 --> 00:35:32,359
Speaker 2: fascinated by is how did you build that courage? Because

685
00:35:32,360 --> 00:35:35,839
Speaker 2: what I find is so similar for me where when

686
00:35:35,880 --> 00:35:39,680
Speaker 2: I was fourteen, I felt my inner voice got really loud,

687
00:35:40,600 --> 00:35:43,160
Speaker 2: and so I remember my parents really wanted me to

688
00:35:43,160 --> 00:35:46,320
Speaker 2: do math and science and all this stuff at a

689
00:35:46,760 --> 00:35:49,640
Speaker 2: GCSE and a level and obviously you have to do

690
00:35:49,680 --> 00:35:51,480
Speaker 2: at GCSE you don't get to choose, but then at

691
00:35:51,480 --> 00:35:53,719
Speaker 2: a level in the UK you get to choose, so

692
00:35:53,800 --> 00:35:56,000
Speaker 2: you're around for anyone who's listening in the US or

693
00:35:56,040 --> 00:35:58,760
Speaker 2: outside of the UK. When you're between sixteen to eighteen,

694
00:35:58,800 --> 00:36:01,080
Speaker 2: you get to choose three to four subjects that you

695
00:36:01,120 --> 00:36:05,520
Speaker 2: study at a levels. And I remember from fourteen, when

696
00:36:05,520 --> 00:36:08,839
Speaker 2: you're starting to think about this, my inner voice was

697
00:36:08,880 --> 00:36:11,120
Speaker 2: just like, do what you love, do what you're good at,

698
00:36:11,160 --> 00:36:12,880
Speaker 2: do what you love, do what you're good at, do

699
00:36:12,920 --> 00:36:15,279
Speaker 2: what you love, and that just kept repeating itself. But

700
00:36:15,360 --> 00:36:16,840
Speaker 2: I grew up in an environment where it was like

701
00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:18,560
Speaker 2: it was all about getting a good job, and it

702
00:36:18,640 --> 00:36:21,440
Speaker 2: was all about doing things that other people valued. And

703
00:36:21,480 --> 00:36:23,640
Speaker 2: you have a chapter in the book called we follow

704
00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:26,880
Speaker 2: other people's visions for our lives instead of our own,

705
00:36:27,200 --> 00:36:29,040
Speaker 2: and that's how we break our own hearts. In that

706
00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:32,640
Speaker 2: section of your book, and for me, I made a

707
00:36:32,680 --> 00:36:36,960
Speaker 2: pact with myself that I would never follow my parents

708
00:36:37,040 --> 00:36:39,800
Speaker 2: or anyone extended family's vision for my life. I would

709
00:36:39,800 --> 00:36:42,799
Speaker 2: only study subjects that were true to me. Now that

710
00:36:42,840 --> 00:36:45,400
Speaker 2: sounds like a really small decision, but it was the

711
00:36:45,440 --> 00:36:49,120
Speaker 2: beginning of a pattern of decisions that gave me the

712
00:36:49,160 --> 00:36:52,239
Speaker 2: confidence to always back myself. So I said to my parents,

713
00:36:52,320 --> 00:36:53,720
Speaker 2: I was like, I'm going to do art and design.

714
00:36:54,200 --> 00:36:56,680
Speaker 2: I'm going to do economics, I'm going to do sociology.

715
00:36:56,719 --> 00:37:00,279
Speaker 2: I'm going to do things that I find interesting. And

716
00:37:00,360 --> 00:37:03,040
Speaker 2: obviously to my parents who'd work so hard and immigrants

717
00:37:03,080 --> 00:37:05,440
Speaker 2: who'd really worked hard for me to have a good

718
00:37:05,640 --> 00:37:08,799
Speaker 2: education and everything, they're like, what you're going to do

719
00:37:08,840 --> 00:37:10,600
Speaker 2: with art and design? Like, how's that going to help?

720
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:12,360
Speaker 2: And I was like, no, no, no, I just know it.

721
00:37:12,440 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 2: I just know it. And now I realized what I

722
00:37:15,440 --> 00:37:17,480
Speaker 2: was saying. I knew it is I knew it internally,

723
00:37:18,080 --> 00:37:20,360
Speaker 2: and since that day, every decision I made when I

724
00:37:20,360 --> 00:37:23,160
Speaker 2: decided to become a Monk. I knew internally that was

725
00:37:23,239 --> 00:37:25,919
Speaker 2: right for me. When I decided to leave, I knew

726
00:37:25,960 --> 00:37:28,960
Speaker 2: that was internally right for me. When I decided to

727
00:37:29,040 --> 00:37:31,680
Speaker 2: start creating stories and telling stories, I knew that was internal.

728
00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:35,319
Speaker 2: It wasn't ever someone something someone said to me, or

729
00:37:35,360 --> 00:37:37,960
Speaker 2: it wasn't like, oh this is a good strategy, or

730
00:37:38,400 --> 00:37:41,520
Speaker 2: it wasn't that. It was internally guided. And even till

731
00:37:41,560 --> 00:37:46,400
Speaker 2: this day, I find that when I abandoned that internal voice,

732
00:37:46,400 --> 00:37:49,440
Speaker 2: that's when I make mistakes. But when I listened closely

733
00:37:49,480 --> 00:37:52,040
Speaker 2: to that internal voice, that's when I make my best decisions.

734
00:37:52,520 --> 00:37:54,239
Speaker 2: But I find for a lot of people, when you've

735
00:37:54,360 --> 00:37:58,480
Speaker 2: ignored that voice for maybe five years, ten years, fifteen years,

736
00:37:58,560 --> 00:38:02,640
Speaker 2: it's so quiet now. But first, here's a quick word

737
00:38:02,719 --> 00:38:06,439
Speaker 2: from the brands that support the show. All right, thank

738
00:38:06,480 --> 00:38:09,680
Speaker 2: you to our sponsors. Now let's dive back in. So

739
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:13,480
Speaker 2: two questions. The first is how have you always trusted

740
00:38:13,600 --> 00:38:18,120
Speaker 2: your inner voice? And two, if someone's lost connection with it,

741
00:38:18,560 --> 00:38:20,560
Speaker 2: how do they get it to become louder again.

742
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:23,400
Speaker 1: So my mother was born in a board house in Trinidad.

743
00:38:24,239 --> 00:38:28,720
Speaker 1: It's a house that consists of boardlike material on wooden stilts.

744
00:38:28,800 --> 00:38:31,640
Speaker 1: Very basic, you know, two bedrooms of living in the kitchen,

745
00:38:31,760 --> 00:38:34,359
Speaker 1: a lot of people in the house, so you had

746
00:38:34,360 --> 00:38:36,399
Speaker 1: to stand up for yourself in that house, even if

747
00:38:36,400 --> 00:38:39,279
Speaker 1: it came to dinner time, the best meat is being

748
00:38:39,320 --> 00:38:41,759
Speaker 1: taken by your great uncle or your cousin. You have

749
00:38:41,800 --> 00:38:44,440
Speaker 1: to stand up for yourself. Then you take that person

750
00:38:44,719 --> 00:38:49,080
Speaker 1: bring them to England, very similar environment, a lot more damaging.

751
00:38:49,320 --> 00:38:51,880
Speaker 1: You know, still have to stick up for yourself. My

752
00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:54,200
Speaker 1: mother didn't stick up for herself there, so then it

753
00:38:54,239 --> 00:38:56,960
Speaker 1: came to her raising me. Like I said before, all

754
00:38:57,000 --> 00:38:59,120
Speaker 1: of the mistakes that she made, all the things that

755
00:38:59,160 --> 00:39:01,560
Speaker 1: she saw or witness growing up in her house in

756
00:39:01,600 --> 00:39:04,040
Speaker 1: London with her family, she was not bringing that into

757
00:39:04,239 --> 00:39:07,800
Speaker 1: our house. So my house was full of so many

758
00:39:08,239 --> 00:39:11,920
Speaker 1: different affirmations. Every day was just like a particular prayer

759
00:39:11,960 --> 00:39:13,880
Speaker 1: I had to say. Then it was followed by a

760
00:39:13,920 --> 00:39:16,080
Speaker 1: list of affirmations that I would say to myself. From

761
00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:19,680
Speaker 1: four these were the things. I am smart, I am beautiful,

762
00:39:19,920 --> 00:39:22,600
Speaker 1: I can do anything I put my mind to every day.

763
00:39:23,160 --> 00:39:26,719
Speaker 1: And then that went from affirmations to my mother affirming

764
00:39:26,719 --> 00:39:29,400
Speaker 1: my creativity. So you know, when you're a kid and

765
00:39:29,440 --> 00:39:32,399
Speaker 1: you create images and your parents might put it on

766
00:39:32,719 --> 00:39:34,319
Speaker 1: the fridge, or they might put it on the wall.

767
00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:38,280
Speaker 1: My kitchen was my gallery, right, So I was raised

768
00:39:38,320 --> 00:39:40,799
Speaker 1: in an environment where it was just like anything that

769
00:39:40,960 --> 00:39:45,280
Speaker 1: I want to do creatively, creatively, I have the freedom

770
00:39:45,320 --> 00:39:47,759
Speaker 1: to do that. Communication was a huge thing with my

771
00:39:47,800 --> 00:39:51,120
Speaker 1: mother and myself. We barely watched TV. Was always books

772
00:39:51,200 --> 00:39:53,560
Speaker 1: or just lying in bed and talking. And my mother

773
00:39:53,600 --> 00:39:57,640
Speaker 1: would feed and entertain me through life stories of her own.

774
00:39:58,080 --> 00:40:01,240
Speaker 1: And it's quite common in the res andds tell stories,

775
00:40:01,280 --> 00:40:04,960
Speaker 1: you know, And I learn a lot of the importance

776
00:40:05,000 --> 00:40:07,880
Speaker 1: of standing up for yourself by watching my mum struggle

777
00:40:07,920 --> 00:40:10,360
Speaker 1: to do that with her family. And I would see

778
00:40:10,960 --> 00:40:13,360
Speaker 1: her face light up when she was telling me certain

779
00:40:13,400 --> 00:40:15,840
Speaker 1: stories of where she did have the confidence to do that,

780
00:40:16,400 --> 00:40:20,040
Speaker 1: and those were the things that encouraged me growing up. Again,

781
00:40:20,080 --> 00:40:21,680
Speaker 1: I used to have a lot of premonition, so I

782
00:40:21,719 --> 00:40:24,399
Speaker 1: was a bit nervous of what to express, and when

783
00:40:24,440 --> 00:40:27,480
Speaker 1: I started to speak about them with my mother, she

784
00:40:27,520 --> 00:40:31,160
Speaker 1: put me in touch with an elder who encouraged that, right,

785
00:40:32,000 --> 00:40:34,520
Speaker 1: and that's how come she ended up going back to church.

786
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:37,120
Speaker 1: And that elder is mentioned in my book. A woman

787
00:40:37,160 --> 00:40:41,640
Speaker 1: called Millie. I love her to pieces, and she enforced

788
00:40:43,120 --> 00:40:46,560
Speaker 1: pride into me, pried for the way I think, because

789
00:40:47,160 --> 00:40:50,399
Speaker 1: I think out of the box, you know, pried for

790
00:40:50,560 --> 00:40:54,480
Speaker 1: so many different things. So again, as I was getting older,

791
00:40:54,520 --> 00:40:56,400
Speaker 1: I had a lot of elders abound me, people who

792
00:40:56,480 --> 00:40:59,960
Speaker 1: are not only older, but you expect someone who's fifty

793
00:41:00,160 --> 00:41:02,839
Speaker 1: sixty to know about themselves or know about the world.

794
00:41:02,920 --> 00:41:05,960
Speaker 1: So when these people are pouring into me, it's boosting

795
00:41:06,000 --> 00:41:09,680
Speaker 1: my confidence. And it just came to a point where

796
00:41:10,320 --> 00:41:13,400
Speaker 1: my mother and really started to encourage me to listen

797
00:41:13,400 --> 00:41:15,759
Speaker 1: to my intuition because there were certain things that I

798
00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:18,080
Speaker 1: just wouldn't do because something can tell it. Something inside

799
00:41:18,120 --> 00:41:19,719
Speaker 1: was telling me not to do it. And my mother

800
00:41:19,800 --> 00:41:21,319
Speaker 1: was like, Okay, well, it seems to be telling you

801
00:41:21,320 --> 00:41:23,480
Speaker 1: the right things, so honor it. And the best way

802
00:41:23,520 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 1: to honor that is to just listen. You have to

803
00:41:27,080 --> 00:41:31,280
Speaker 1: develop a relationship with it, right, So your intuition's funny

804
00:41:31,320 --> 00:41:33,600
Speaker 1: because it has to develop trust with you. You have

805
00:41:33,680 --> 00:41:36,160
Speaker 1: to develop trust of it, and it will test you

806
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:39,719
Speaker 1: like when you were dating and courting your wife, you

807
00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:42,719
Speaker 1: guys subtly probably tested each other in certain things or

808
00:41:42,760 --> 00:41:46,400
Speaker 1: even just to see what this person's deep reaction is

809
00:41:46,440 --> 00:41:49,359
Speaker 1: to certain things. So, for example, my intuition would say,

810
00:41:49,680 --> 00:41:52,480
Speaker 1: don't walk straight onto the station today, take a left.

811
00:41:52,800 --> 00:41:55,040
Speaker 1: Take this left. It's quicker. I will take the left

812
00:41:55,040 --> 00:41:57,920
Speaker 1: and there's roadworks or there's somewhere on a pavement that

813
00:41:57,960 --> 00:41:59,839
Speaker 1: I can't and I'll be like, why the hell did

814
00:41:59,880 --> 00:42:02,719
Speaker 1: I to my fols? And every time I went against it,

815
00:42:02,760 --> 00:42:05,279
Speaker 1: even if it was wrong, I noticed the relationship was

816
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:09,680
Speaker 1: just further in apart. So what I decided to do

817
00:42:09,760 --> 00:42:12,960
Speaker 1: was respond differently. I noticed that my intuition was testing

818
00:42:12,960 --> 00:42:15,040
Speaker 1: me and tricking me. So every time it was like,

819
00:42:15,239 --> 00:42:17,600
Speaker 1: don't eat that, eat this, and it would be horrible.

820
00:42:17,760 --> 00:42:20,400
Speaker 1: Don't do you know. I'm just trying to give some examples.

821
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:23,120
Speaker 1: So what I started to do was say to myself,

822
00:42:23,360 --> 00:42:25,520
Speaker 1: I'm actually going to have to depend on you for

823
00:42:25,600 --> 00:42:28,279
Speaker 1: my life one day, and I'm listening to you, so

824
00:42:28,360 --> 00:42:30,920
Speaker 1: I need you to start giving me some proper instructions.

825
00:42:31,480 --> 00:42:34,840
Speaker 1: And it just developed after that, you know, And it

826
00:42:34,880 --> 00:42:37,760
Speaker 1: gets down to the point Jay where I it's almost

827
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:40,719
Speaker 1: like I have two I listen to my intuition for everything.

828
00:42:41,160 --> 00:42:43,680
Speaker 1: Should I do this today? Yeah, let me do that

829
00:42:43,719 --> 00:42:45,880
Speaker 1: today because that's what I've been told within to do.

830
00:42:46,480 --> 00:42:50,280
Speaker 1: It's like I trust it with everything, and it's gotten

831
00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:53,240
Speaker 1: to the point where it's almost right all the time.

832
00:42:53,480 --> 00:42:55,720
Speaker 1: And I know that it's a good sense of energy

833
00:42:55,800 --> 00:42:58,200
Speaker 1: because it tells me not to do things that could

834
00:42:58,239 --> 00:43:01,400
Speaker 1: be harmful for me. So don't interact with that person,

835
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:04,719
Speaker 1: don't drink that drink. Don't and you know, and I

836
00:43:04,760 --> 00:43:09,560
Speaker 1: feel like through more I encourage the relationship between me

837
00:43:09,600 --> 00:43:12,040
Speaker 1: and my intuition, the stronger it got, and so now

838
00:43:12,080 --> 00:43:14,440
Speaker 1: it's just something that I honor. It could be a

839
00:43:14,480 --> 00:43:17,239
Speaker 1: gut feeling, don't go down there, don't go to that

840
00:43:17,320 --> 00:43:21,000
Speaker 1: place tonight, I don't go something happened. And when that happens,

841
00:43:21,000 --> 00:43:24,719
Speaker 1: I just think to myself, Wow, this is really powerful,

842
00:43:25,239 --> 00:43:28,720
Speaker 1: you know. And it definitely got stronger with me through fasting.

843
00:43:29,400 --> 00:43:32,200
Speaker 1: Fasting is something that I love to do. I watched

844
00:43:32,239 --> 00:43:34,839
Speaker 1: my mother do it a lot with the church. I've

845
00:43:34,880 --> 00:43:38,799
Speaker 1: watched a lot of doctor Mindy's interviews and docu and

846
00:43:39,120 --> 00:43:42,640
Speaker 1: I've read her book. And you know, the power behind

847
00:43:42,719 --> 00:43:46,239
Speaker 1: Faster than Itself is just the negative voice in your

848
00:43:46,239 --> 00:43:49,760
Speaker 1: head disappears three days after you start a water fast.

849
00:43:49,960 --> 00:43:53,120
Speaker 1: So on your third day, the negative voice goes, I

850
00:43:53,160 --> 00:43:55,680
Speaker 1: do water fast all the time, right, I might not

851
00:43:55,719 --> 00:43:57,759
Speaker 1: look like it because I love food. But at the

852
00:43:57,760 --> 00:44:00,360
Speaker 1: same time, water fast is something that I go to

853
00:44:00,400 --> 00:44:06,200
Speaker 1: you anytime I feel unbalanced in order to re define

854
00:44:06,400 --> 00:44:09,320
Speaker 1: my inner voice. I do it through fasting. I strengthen

855
00:44:09,360 --> 00:44:12,480
Speaker 1: my relationship with my intuition through fasting. It's almost much

856
00:44:12,600 --> 00:44:15,240
Speaker 1: louder like kind of what you explained when you were fourteen.

857
00:44:15,840 --> 00:44:19,120
Speaker 1: These are practices that I do on a daily basis.

858
00:44:19,200 --> 00:44:24,080
Speaker 1: I pray, I meditate. I write down for things that

859
00:44:24,120 --> 00:44:26,359
Speaker 1: my subconscious tells me that I should be doing, Like

860
00:44:26,560 --> 00:44:28,879
Speaker 1: why don't you start a podcast doing this? I would

861
00:44:28,920 --> 00:44:31,920
Speaker 1: write it down. An elder once told me everything your

862
00:44:31,960 --> 00:44:35,680
Speaker 1: body give, everything, your intuition or your gart gives to you.

863
00:44:35,680 --> 00:44:38,799
Speaker 1: You're subconscious, you write it down, you acknowledge it, and

864
00:44:38,840 --> 00:44:40,759
Speaker 1: you say, I don't have the time to do that

865
00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:42,719
Speaker 1: right now, but I'm going to write that down. Thank you.

866
00:44:43,080 --> 00:44:46,960
Speaker 1: Because imagine if as you're subconscious, I'm your subconscious. I

867
00:44:47,040 --> 00:44:49,920
Speaker 1: keep giving you these great ideas and you keep ignoring me. Eventually,

868
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:52,200
Speaker 1: one day I'm going to stop communicating with you, And

869
00:44:52,239 --> 00:44:55,440
Speaker 1: the day your subconscious stops communicating with you, it's over.

870
00:44:55,960 --> 00:44:59,000
Speaker 1: I genuinely believe that's what creative blocks are. I believe

871
00:44:59,040 --> 00:45:02,239
Speaker 1: that's what hindus are from doing so many things. You know,

872
00:45:02,800 --> 00:45:05,319
Speaker 1: you have to find the time to develop a relationship

873
00:45:05,360 --> 00:45:11,040
Speaker 1: within your life improves drastically when you do. Life is

874
00:45:11,120 --> 00:45:14,040
Speaker 1: like on ten on the Victor scale when you have

875
00:45:14,160 --> 00:45:17,240
Speaker 1: full harmony between these things compared to not being aware

876
00:45:17,239 --> 00:45:20,400
Speaker 1: of it. So for me, it's that every day investments

877
00:45:20,440 --> 00:45:24,000
Speaker 1: at every day devotion. You know, even today, as I

878
00:45:24,120 --> 00:45:26,759
Speaker 1: was saying, I was driving and I'm thinking, oh my gosh,

879
00:45:26,800 --> 00:45:28,759
Speaker 1: I'm running late, where am I going to park? And

880
00:45:28,840 --> 00:45:31,120
Speaker 1: something inside of me was just like, relax, I got you.

881
00:45:31,920 --> 00:45:34,520
Speaker 1: And there's a park right outside of this office, and

882
00:45:35,400 --> 00:45:38,440
Speaker 1: that's it. And I kind of knew as I was

883
00:45:38,520 --> 00:45:40,040
Speaker 1: driving on the road, I kind of knew I didn't

884
00:45:40,040 --> 00:45:42,520
Speaker 1: have to worry. And it happens all the time. And

885
00:45:42,640 --> 00:45:46,800
Speaker 1: people see that as nonchalant, or you might have like

886
00:45:47,320 --> 00:45:51,480
Speaker 1: a less urgent response to things, but living in the flow,

887
00:45:52,800 --> 00:45:55,880
Speaker 1: you end up at your destination less stressful, you know,

888
00:45:56,400 --> 00:46:00,720
Speaker 1: also with more intention. I love the relationship of my intuition.

889
00:46:00,880 --> 00:46:03,120
Speaker 1: It saved me when I was looking after my mother,

890
00:46:03,239 --> 00:46:06,000
Speaker 1: It saved me when I was stranded in the West Indies.

891
00:46:06,080 --> 00:46:09,120
Speaker 1: It saved me when I was writing my book, every

892
00:46:09,239 --> 00:46:11,920
Speaker 1: aspect of my life, my intuition is their guide in me.

893
00:46:12,520 --> 00:46:15,080
Speaker 1: I generally believe our intuition is is almost, if I

894
00:46:15,160 --> 00:46:19,080
Speaker 1: say it, an ancestor of some sort, somebody, somebody you know,

895
00:46:19,719 --> 00:46:23,839
Speaker 1: and it's just it just goes into the phenomenon of life, really,

896
00:46:23,960 --> 00:46:25,560
Speaker 1: isn't it? Like? What are these things? What is the

897
00:46:25,640 --> 00:46:27,840
Speaker 1: gut feeling? What is the subconscious? What is the intuition?

898
00:46:28,160 --> 00:46:30,640
Speaker 1: Why are these things conspiring together? What are they trying

899
00:46:30,680 --> 00:46:32,520
Speaker 1: to get me to do? They're trying to get you

900
00:46:32,600 --> 00:46:34,799
Speaker 1: to live the best life that you possibly can.

901
00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:38,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, so well said. I mean so wonderful to

902
00:46:38,719 --> 00:46:40,879
Speaker 2: hear your experience with it, and I love hearing about

903
00:46:40,920 --> 00:46:44,720
Speaker 2: other people's experiences with that. The bugger Geta talks about

904
00:46:44,840 --> 00:46:47,360
Speaker 2: the soul and the super soul, and so were the

905
00:46:47,480 --> 00:46:49,520
Speaker 2: soul and the super soul is the all knowing, the

906
00:46:49,920 --> 00:46:52,719
Speaker 2: you know, the all powerful. And it's almost like when

907
00:46:52,800 --> 00:46:55,479
Speaker 2: the conversation starts between the soul and the super soul,

908
00:46:56,040 --> 00:46:58,440
Speaker 2: the soul gets all of this inner wisdom and knowledge

909
00:46:58,480 --> 00:47:01,480
Speaker 2: and now is able to make decisions. And I can

910
00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:03,279
Speaker 2: resonate with so much of what you're saying. But the

911
00:47:03,360 --> 00:47:06,680
Speaker 2: thing that I loved that. I think you put so well.

912
00:47:07,560 --> 00:47:12,400
Speaker 2: Was this idea of sometimes your intuition is testing whether

913
00:47:12,680 --> 00:47:16,200
Speaker 2: it can trust you. Yeah, and it may even misguide

914
00:47:16,239 --> 00:47:19,719
Speaker 2: you in little, little ways, not huge ways, and most

915
00:47:19,760 --> 00:47:21,960
Speaker 2: people give up there they got. I listened and it

916
00:47:22,040 --> 00:47:25,480
Speaker 2: was just stupid. I'm not listening again. And that's exactly

917
00:47:25,560 --> 00:47:28,239
Speaker 2: what you need to break through because that little test,

918
00:47:28,400 --> 00:47:32,839
Speaker 2: that mini understanding of creating a collaboration, like you said,

919
00:47:33,080 --> 00:47:36,560
Speaker 2: happens in friendship, happens in business, happens in romantic relationships.

920
00:47:37,080 --> 00:47:39,239
Speaker 2: You just checking, You're just checking are we on the

921
00:47:39,320 --> 00:47:41,960
Speaker 2: same page? Are we with each other? Because I'm going

922
00:47:42,000 --> 00:47:43,759
Speaker 2: to say something crazy one day and it's like are

923
00:47:43,800 --> 00:47:45,840
Speaker 2: you going to hear it? And I can relate to

924
00:47:45,920 --> 00:47:49,040
Speaker 2: so much of that because I feel the same way

925
00:47:49,080 --> 00:47:52,960
Speaker 2: as You're very clear energetically when I meet someone. Are

926
00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:54,520
Speaker 2: we're going to vibe? But we're going to connection? We

927
00:47:54,600 --> 00:47:57,800
Speaker 2: spend time there? Should we not? And it's so easy

928
00:47:57,920 --> 00:48:00,320
Speaker 2: to think, oh, I'm just mad I should have that,

929
00:48:00,400 --> 00:48:01,880
Speaker 2: and to have an elder that's.

930
00:48:01,760 --> 00:48:04,480
Speaker 1: Where my intuition comes in the songs. Yeah, It's like

931
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:06,400
Speaker 1: when I was a kid, I used to see orders

932
00:48:06,960 --> 00:48:09,759
Speaker 1: and I used to feel people before they spoke, and

933
00:48:09,920 --> 00:48:14,839
Speaker 1: now with my intuition, my relationship with my intuition, it's

934
00:48:14,840 --> 00:48:17,719
Speaker 1: almost like it protects me. So just off the bat,

935
00:48:17,800 --> 00:48:20,680
Speaker 1: I know, don't say too much to this person, you know,

936
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:23,960
Speaker 1: or this person needs a little bit more of a

937
00:48:24,040 --> 00:48:26,560
Speaker 1: listening here, don't talk about yourself as much. These are

938
00:48:26,600 --> 00:48:29,480
Speaker 1: the things that I would feel inside. You know. Yeah,

939
00:48:29,520 --> 00:48:31,240
Speaker 1: I think it's amazing.

940
00:48:31,520 --> 00:48:33,600
Speaker 2: So if someone's lost touch with it, like if someone's

941
00:48:33,640 --> 00:48:36,319
Speaker 2: listening right now and they're like, jee, Meghan, thanks a lot,

942
00:48:36,480 --> 00:48:38,200
Speaker 2: like you know, I wish I listened to at forty

943
00:48:38,880 --> 00:48:41,440
Speaker 2: or four and they're thinking, I'm just so disc I

944
00:48:41,520 --> 00:48:43,720
Speaker 2: never hear that at all, Like I don't feel anything.

945
00:48:43,760 --> 00:48:46,040
Speaker 2: I just don't know what to do enough. Because I

946
00:48:46,120 --> 00:48:48,960
Speaker 2: also find that we outsource it, right, Like I have

947
00:48:49,040 --> 00:48:51,680
Speaker 2: so many friends who will have like thirty people on

948
00:48:51,800 --> 00:48:53,160
Speaker 2: a chat and they'll be like, what do I do

949
00:48:53,239 --> 00:48:55,640
Speaker 2: in this situation? And then they'll go on their private

950
00:48:55,719 --> 00:48:57,920
Speaker 2: stories on Instagram and be like, guys, what do I

951
00:48:58,000 --> 00:49:01,120
Speaker 2: do in this situation? It's like we're constantly outsourcing advice,

952
00:49:01,280 --> 00:49:03,160
Speaker 2: so we don't find it weird to go to like

953
00:49:03,239 --> 00:49:05,719
Speaker 2: ten twenty thirty people who know us, but they don't

954
00:49:05,760 --> 00:49:08,520
Speaker 2: know us that well, but we find it scary to

955
00:49:08,680 --> 00:49:10,960
Speaker 2: sit in silence. And you talk about the power of

956
00:49:11,000 --> 00:49:13,480
Speaker 2: solitude in the book in the second section and this

957
00:49:13,640 --> 00:49:16,720
Speaker 2: ability to spend time with ourselves, but we don't usually

958
00:49:16,840 --> 00:49:19,719
Speaker 2: go there. So if someone's struggling and saying, yeah, Jay,

959
00:49:19,760 --> 00:49:22,240
Speaker 2: I'm that person. I'm the one texting all my mates.

960
00:49:22,719 --> 00:49:25,239
Speaker 2: I'm not constantly asking my family to make decisions for me,

961
00:49:25,719 --> 00:49:28,880
Speaker 2: constantly asking everyone's opinion, but it never works. How do

962
00:49:29,000 --> 00:49:31,040
Speaker 2: I start doing this? How would you guide them?

963
00:49:31,360 --> 00:49:34,840
Speaker 1: The first thing I would say is to start removing

964
00:49:35,239 --> 00:49:41,640
Speaker 1: your distractions. Start removing the distractions, because the more we're distracted, obviously,

965
00:49:41,880 --> 00:49:44,960
Speaker 1: the less we are going in within And for me,

966
00:49:45,239 --> 00:49:49,840
Speaker 1: if I'm constantly distracted with TV, friends, work, when do

967
00:49:49,960 --> 00:49:52,520
Speaker 1: I actually get to spend time with myself. So the

968
00:49:52,560 --> 00:49:55,160
Speaker 1: best way that I spend time with myself is every morning,

969
00:49:55,200 --> 00:49:57,120
Speaker 1: before my day, before my day starts, as soon as

970
00:49:57,160 --> 00:49:59,239
Speaker 1: the sun rises, I go for a walk in my

971
00:49:59,320 --> 00:50:01,919
Speaker 1: local park, and or I might just go for a walk,

972
00:50:02,520 --> 00:50:06,120
Speaker 1: just walk straight for an hour, no headphones. No, I

973
00:50:06,239 --> 00:50:08,600
Speaker 1: do carry my phone for safety, but no headphones, nothing

974
00:50:09,160 --> 00:50:12,120
Speaker 1: and any thought that comes into my head I write

975
00:50:12,200 --> 00:50:15,520
Speaker 1: down any thought that comes into my head, I write down.

976
00:50:15,640 --> 00:50:20,200
Speaker 1: It could be Ah, this is shit, isn't it? Or

977
00:50:20,840 --> 00:50:22,200
Speaker 1: this is so long? Why am I going for this

978
00:50:22,280 --> 00:50:24,239
Speaker 1: walk this morning? I write that down and then I

979
00:50:24,320 --> 00:50:29,120
Speaker 1: ask it why, And I get used to communicating with myself. Everybody,

980
00:50:29,440 --> 00:50:33,680
Speaker 1: in my opinion, has something internal that communicates with them.

981
00:50:33,880 --> 00:50:37,120
Speaker 1: I only recently realized that not everybody has an internal dialogue,

982
00:50:37,320 --> 00:50:40,200
Speaker 1: which I found so strange because I definitely do. But

983
00:50:40,880 --> 00:50:44,200
Speaker 1: there is something within our guard that is there and

984
00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:49,400
Speaker 1: it's worth seeking because it could potentially be your best friend. So,

985
00:50:49,640 --> 00:50:53,760
Speaker 1: as I was saying, communicate with yourself, start asking yourself

986
00:50:53,960 --> 00:50:56,560
Speaker 1: the same questions that you would ask somebody else. If

987
00:50:56,600 --> 00:50:59,879
Speaker 1: you find that the voice in your head is you're

988
00:51:00,000 --> 00:51:03,719
Speaker 1: intuition is negative, you know, takes some time to really

989
00:51:05,320 --> 00:51:07,879
Speaker 1: why do I think like that? There's been so many

990
00:51:07,960 --> 00:51:10,000
Speaker 1: times I've gone for walks. I'm just like, today's a day.

991
00:51:10,000 --> 00:51:11,560
Speaker 1: I'm going to put myself out there. Today's dy I'm

992
00:51:11,560 --> 00:51:12,960
Speaker 1: gona put myself out there. I'm going to post this

993
00:51:13,040 --> 00:51:15,160
Speaker 1: video and then something would be like no, we're not.

994
00:51:16,719 --> 00:51:19,800
Speaker 1: I'd be like, okay, but why, and it will go

995
00:51:19,920 --> 00:51:21,560
Speaker 1: silent and I might walk for a little bit more

996
00:51:21,560 --> 00:51:23,239
Speaker 1: and I'd be like, no, why am I not doing that?

997
00:51:24,280 --> 00:51:26,000
Speaker 1: And it'll be silent and I'll be like, okay, but

998
00:51:26,080 --> 00:51:27,800
Speaker 1: why do I think I'm not doing that? It's because

999
00:51:28,120 --> 00:51:29,800
Speaker 1: and before you know it, I'm coming up with my

1000
00:51:29,880 --> 00:51:32,600
Speaker 1: own answers. The more you do that, you're going to

1001
00:51:32,719 --> 00:51:36,080
Speaker 1: get some sort of response one day, you know, energetically

1002
00:51:36,160 --> 00:51:38,279
Speaker 1: from your stomach or whatever it is that you feel

1003
00:51:38,360 --> 00:51:42,719
Speaker 1: that sensation and it's going to give you the answers

1004
00:51:42,920 --> 00:51:45,760
Speaker 1: that you didn't even know was there. Jay, the amount

1005
00:51:45,760 --> 00:51:49,080
Speaker 1: of times I've done that, and sometimes I baffle myself

1006
00:51:49,160 --> 00:51:50,959
Speaker 1: with what it is my self conscious gives back.

1007
00:51:50,880 --> 00:51:52,040
Speaker 2: To yes, yes, I agree.

1008
00:51:52,080 --> 00:51:55,480
Speaker 1: It's like wow, is that that's really sad? Or oh

1009
00:51:55,520 --> 00:51:57,560
Speaker 1: my gosh, that's cool. I didn't know I thought of

1010
00:51:57,719 --> 00:51:58,640
Speaker 1: that of myself.

1011
00:51:58,800 --> 00:51:58,960
Speaker 2: You know.

1012
00:51:59,640 --> 00:52:04,280
Speaker 1: But as you were saying before, these things need nurturing, nourishit.

1013
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:06,239
Speaker 1: If you want to have a healthy body, you're going

1014
00:52:06,280 --> 00:52:07,719
Speaker 1: to fit it with the best foods. You're going to

1015
00:52:07,840 --> 00:52:09,480
Speaker 1: make sure you're moving, You're going to make sure your

1016
00:52:09,520 --> 00:52:11,759
Speaker 1: mind is right. With the mind, how do you have

1017
00:52:11,880 --> 00:52:14,360
Speaker 1: a healthy mind? Obviously there's professionals and stuff that you

1018
00:52:14,400 --> 00:52:20,760
Speaker 1: would go to, but the holistic ways. Definitely journaling, writing, exercising, fasting.

1019
00:52:21,040 --> 00:52:22,719
Speaker 1: Those are the first four things I would say to

1020
00:52:22,719 --> 00:52:25,680
Speaker 1: anybody who says they don't have a relationship. You're going

1021
00:52:25,760 --> 00:52:28,480
Speaker 1: to hear that voice as loud as hell when you

1022
00:52:28,600 --> 00:52:31,880
Speaker 1: are two days in through and water fast. That voice

1023
00:52:31,960 --> 00:52:33,800
Speaker 1: is going to be loud and you're going to have

1024
00:52:33,880 --> 00:52:36,120
Speaker 1: no other option but to communicate with it. So put

1025
00:52:36,160 --> 00:52:38,520
Speaker 1: yourself to a challenge if you want to find it.

1026
00:52:38,560 --> 00:52:42,680
Speaker 1: It's there, it's been hidden because it hasn't been communicated with.

1027
00:52:43,360 --> 00:52:45,120
Speaker 1: If you have this urge to write, you have this

1028
00:52:45,280 --> 00:52:47,759
Speaker 1: urge to draw, but you're playing games instead, or you're

1029
00:52:47,800 --> 00:52:50,520
Speaker 1: watching this. Eventually, like we said that, it's going to

1030
00:52:50,640 --> 00:52:53,800
Speaker 1: fade away so it doesn't exist anymore. It's your responsibility

1031
00:52:53,880 --> 00:52:56,480
Speaker 1: to go and seek it. So you actively have to

1032
00:52:56,560 --> 00:53:00,120
Speaker 1: do things by yourself that are going to cause you

1033
00:53:00,239 --> 00:53:03,000
Speaker 1: to end up speaking to yourself internally or outwardly. I

1034
00:53:03,040 --> 00:53:06,640
Speaker 1: don't mind and communicate with that. That's my honest opinion.

1035
00:53:06,680 --> 00:53:08,960
Speaker 1: That's what works for me for sure. Any time I'm

1036
00:53:08,960 --> 00:53:11,480
Speaker 1: feeling disconnected, I go for a walk, I write down

1037
00:53:11,520 --> 00:53:15,399
Speaker 1: what my feelings are, and I always come back feeling lighter,

1038
00:53:15,560 --> 00:53:18,520
Speaker 1: with some sort of answer. Whatever answer I get, I

1039
00:53:18,640 --> 00:53:20,480
Speaker 1: might google it, put it in chact me to you,

1040
00:53:20,600 --> 00:53:22,480
Speaker 1: or might go back to my therapy notes, or even

1041
00:53:22,520 --> 00:53:24,920
Speaker 1: call a friend and be like, this is what's happening,

1042
00:53:25,160 --> 00:53:27,560
Speaker 1: you know, and then it gives me something to work on.

1043
00:53:28,239 --> 00:53:30,880
Speaker 1: Then I will look online. Okay, I'm feeling sad about this,

1044
00:53:31,400 --> 00:53:33,479
Speaker 1: all these podcasts will come up. Let me start listening

1045
00:53:33,520 --> 00:53:36,960
Speaker 1: to other people's experiences. Okay, all the things that they've mentioned.

1046
00:53:37,000 --> 00:53:39,040
Speaker 1: How do I bring that back into my life? How

1047
00:53:39,120 --> 00:53:41,840
Speaker 1: do I use their practices to gain a deeper relationship

1048
00:53:41,920 --> 00:53:45,279
Speaker 1: with myself? People think that self love and all of

1049
00:53:45,360 --> 00:53:49,080
Speaker 1: these things is just surface. It's a lot of dedication

1050
00:53:49,239 --> 00:53:52,000
Speaker 1: and devotion to oneself, and you've really got to believe

1051
00:53:52,040 --> 00:53:54,400
Speaker 1: that you're worth it. It starts from there. It starts

1052
00:53:54,440 --> 00:53:58,400
Speaker 1: from your intention. What are you intentionally trying to receive

1053
00:53:58,600 --> 00:54:00,880
Speaker 1: from your inner self as to why you want to

1054
00:54:00,920 --> 00:54:03,440
Speaker 1: have these conversations? And then you were build up on that.

1055
00:54:03,880 --> 00:54:06,160
Speaker 2: Yeah, so true. Most of us, I feel like only

1056
00:54:06,320 --> 00:54:10,480
Speaker 2: having a conversation with fear. Yeah, we're not really having

1057
00:54:10,520 --> 00:54:14,240
Speaker 2: a conversation with any other part of ourselves or anxiety. Yeah, exactly,

1058
00:54:14,360 --> 00:54:16,759
Speaker 2: so in a voice, we think in a voice is

1059
00:54:16,920 --> 00:54:21,280
Speaker 2: fear or anxiety. But what we're referring to is something

1060
00:54:21,360 --> 00:54:23,640
Speaker 2: deeper than that, and something so much more you than that.

1061
00:54:24,480 --> 00:54:26,680
Speaker 2: And that's why I think we're scared of having that

1062
00:54:27,560 --> 00:54:31,880
Speaker 2: time out, that internal dialogue, the solitude, because all we

1063
00:54:32,080 --> 00:54:35,200
Speaker 2: hear in that time is fear and anxiety. And like

1064
00:54:35,320 --> 00:54:37,680
Speaker 2: you said, with the fast thing, it's the same. It's

1065
00:54:37,719 --> 00:54:40,880
Speaker 2: true for fear and anxiety and meditation. I remember the

1066
00:54:40,920 --> 00:54:43,080
Speaker 2: first time I sat down to meditate for two hours,

1067
00:54:43,840 --> 00:54:46,840
Speaker 2: my whole body was rejecting it and there was just

1068
00:54:47,000 --> 00:54:49,400
Speaker 2: fear and anxiety. Am I doing this right? This is

1069
00:54:49,400 --> 00:54:52,120
Speaker 2: are uncomfortable? I hate this. This is the worst. And

1070
00:54:52,200 --> 00:54:54,600
Speaker 2: then after you get through that first two hours, four hours,

1071
00:54:54,719 --> 00:54:57,360
Speaker 2: six hours, eight hours, it starts to go quiet to

1072
00:54:57,480 --> 00:55:00,480
Speaker 2: just naturally yeah, and you go, oh, now now there's

1073
00:55:00,560 --> 00:55:03,719
Speaker 2: space to actually listen. And I think so many of

1074
00:55:03,800 --> 00:55:05,920
Speaker 2: us give up just before that. Yeah. So I love

1075
00:55:06,000 --> 00:55:07,799
Speaker 2: that you used fasting as an example, and.

1076
00:55:08,080 --> 00:55:10,800
Speaker 1: I definitely struggle with meditation. That's why I find a

1077
00:55:10,840 --> 00:55:13,600
Speaker 1: lot more power and fasting. Yeah, I find it quicker

1078
00:55:13,880 --> 00:55:18,359
Speaker 1: and more intense. I can't switch off my thoughts of meditation. Well,

1079
00:55:18,480 --> 00:55:20,719
Speaker 1: I couldn't until I had to practice and I did

1080
00:55:20,800 --> 00:55:22,960
Speaker 1: exactly what you just said. I had to get through

1081
00:55:23,000 --> 00:55:26,400
Speaker 1: those loud moments and just tell my brain, tell myself,

1082
00:55:26,760 --> 00:55:30,800
Speaker 1: we're not moving until everyone is quiet, you know. And

1083
00:55:30,920 --> 00:55:34,279
Speaker 1: then again, what is it that I'm saying, write it

1084
00:55:34,400 --> 00:55:38,520
Speaker 1: down or store it. But meditation, I find it was

1085
00:55:38,600 --> 00:55:40,880
Speaker 1: more of a physical experience. I don't know if you

1086
00:55:40,960 --> 00:55:45,280
Speaker 1: ever feel like a buzzy feel the circumference of your body,

1087
00:55:46,200 --> 00:55:48,920
Speaker 1: That to me is a completely different level. I'm very

1088
00:55:49,000 --> 00:55:51,480
Speaker 1: basic in meditating. I've really just started to pick it

1089
00:55:51,560 --> 00:55:54,440
Speaker 1: up properly, and I do about ten to fifteen minutes

1090
00:55:54,480 --> 00:55:57,439
Speaker 1: a day in the morning, and it accepts my day

1091
00:55:57,960 --> 00:56:00,440
Speaker 1: because any fears I have for that day able to

1092
00:56:00,680 --> 00:56:04,800
Speaker 1: just calmly go through it. Breathing help so much. You know,

1093
00:56:04,840 --> 00:56:07,160
Speaker 1: when you're having anxiety and your thoughts are racing and

1094
00:56:07,280 --> 00:56:10,560
Speaker 1: you just deep breathe for about six or seven times

1095
00:56:10,640 --> 00:56:14,799
Speaker 1: and you can actually feel the pressure coming down. Yeah.

1096
00:56:15,200 --> 00:56:18,480
Speaker 1: I think breath work, meditation fast and these are all

1097
00:56:18,560 --> 00:56:19,680
Speaker 1: really great practices.

1098
00:56:19,840 --> 00:56:21,279
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you talk about them in the book and

1099
00:56:21,760 --> 00:56:24,720
Speaker 2: some of your tools. Before we dive into the next moment,

1100
00:56:25,160 --> 00:56:29,200
Speaker 2: let's hear from our sponsors and back to our episode.

1101
00:56:29,520 --> 00:56:32,160
Speaker 2: We're talking about fears, Megan, I wanted to end on

1102
00:56:32,239 --> 00:56:33,840
Speaker 2: this because I wanted to talk about it with you.

1103
00:56:34,040 --> 00:56:37,440
Speaker 2: This idea of we learn about how much you love

1104
00:56:37,480 --> 00:56:39,280
Speaker 2: your mum in the book, even today, in this conversation,

1105
00:56:39,400 --> 00:56:41,520
Speaker 2: you learn about what a pivotal role she's played, like

1106
00:56:41,880 --> 00:56:45,719
Speaker 2: introducing you to elders, like the affirmations, giving you the

1107
00:56:45,840 --> 00:56:48,520
Speaker 2: gift of learning forgiveness at a time in your life,

1108
00:56:48,680 --> 00:56:53,160
Speaker 2: like so many things, but walk us through the healing

1109
00:56:53,560 --> 00:56:57,239
Speaker 2: of that process, like what are all the things that

1110
00:56:57,320 --> 00:56:59,880
Speaker 2: are going on inside when you're in the process of

1111
00:57:00,440 --> 00:57:02,120
Speaker 2: losing the person you love most in the world.

1112
00:57:03,080 --> 00:57:06,439
Speaker 1: It wasn't just my mother I lost. So I lost

1113
00:57:06,480 --> 00:57:10,320
Speaker 1: my mother in twenty twenty one in March. I started

1114
00:57:10,400 --> 00:57:15,160
Speaker 1: to lose people around August twenty twenty well, I lost

1115
00:57:15,160 --> 00:57:18,400
Speaker 1: sixteen people to COVID. Right, I lost sixteen people to COVID,

1116
00:57:19,120 --> 00:57:24,840
Speaker 1: and I lost three friends, one to cocaine, one to murder,

1117
00:57:25,480 --> 00:57:28,800
Speaker 1: and one to illness. I lost both my parents. My

1118
00:57:28,920 --> 00:57:32,320
Speaker 1: mother passed in March, my dad passed in August, and

1119
00:57:32,520 --> 00:57:37,280
Speaker 1: then I lost an uncle later on that year. So

1120
00:57:38,280 --> 00:57:40,240
Speaker 1: that all happened in the space of twenty twenty to

1121
00:57:40,320 --> 00:57:44,120
Speaker 1: twenty twenty one. So it wasn't just losing my mom,

1122
00:57:45,240 --> 00:57:47,480
Speaker 1: never met my dad, never knew my dad, not interested.

1123
00:57:48,480 --> 00:57:52,520
Speaker 1: It was actually losing my entire community. All my elders

1124
00:57:52,560 --> 00:57:55,440
Speaker 1: weren't Millie's actually the only elder I have left, and

1125
00:57:55,520 --> 00:57:57,200
Speaker 1: it was very important for me to get her name

1126
00:57:57,280 --> 00:57:59,840
Speaker 1: in print and share her story as well as my mom.

1127
00:58:00,400 --> 00:58:03,360
Speaker 1: The journey of my mother's transition started in July twenty

1128
00:58:03,440 --> 00:58:06,520
Speaker 1: twenty when she got diagnosed with stage four cancer. And

1129
00:58:06,760 --> 00:58:09,800
Speaker 1: at that moment, Jay I was in the position of

1130
00:58:09,880 --> 00:58:13,280
Speaker 1: putting my faith in my brand, like actually doing it,

1131
00:58:13,880 --> 00:58:16,040
Speaker 1: sat down with my business partner, like, this is what

1132
00:58:16,120 --> 00:58:19,680
Speaker 1: we're doing. I'm ready, you know, And that happened and

1133
00:58:19,720 --> 00:58:22,080
Speaker 1: I thought, oh my gosh, this is happening again. This

1134
00:58:22,200 --> 00:58:25,400
Speaker 1: happened with tumbling out. Okay, well maybe it's not time,

1135
00:58:26,080 --> 00:58:29,040
Speaker 1: you know. So I just saw that as a huge

1136
00:58:29,120 --> 00:58:32,800
Speaker 1: step back for me to take because this is more

1137
00:58:32,840 --> 00:58:36,640
Speaker 1: important and this is where my life is heading towards.

1138
00:58:38,040 --> 00:58:43,480
Speaker 1: I then had to become a carer, and there were

1139
00:58:43,520 --> 00:58:47,120
Speaker 1: many times I had to parent my mom immediately as

1140
00:58:47,160 --> 00:58:50,600
Speaker 1: she got diagnosed. I then had to put my feelings

1141
00:58:50,640 --> 00:58:54,280
Speaker 1: aside and comfort her and then become very optimistic for

1142
00:58:54,400 --> 00:58:58,440
Speaker 1: our journey moving forward. And it was heartbreaking because all

1143
00:58:58,520 --> 00:59:01,960
Speaker 1: while that was happening, I was what, you know, the

1144
00:59:02,160 --> 00:59:04,640
Speaker 1: energy deplete from somebody who's being told that in a

1145
00:59:04,680 --> 00:59:07,280
Speaker 1: couple of years time they might not be here. Then

1146
00:59:07,280 --> 00:59:09,479
Speaker 1: I'm thinking, okay, wow, in a couple of my mom's

1147
00:59:09,520 --> 00:59:12,520
Speaker 1: going to die. And in my thirties, I thought she was.

1148
00:59:13,240 --> 00:59:16,360
Speaker 1: I thought I had a pact with God that Mummy's

1149
00:59:16,400 --> 00:59:19,080
Speaker 1: not going until she's a hundred, you know, like, what

1150
00:59:19,200 --> 00:59:21,400
Speaker 1: are we doing? What are we talking about? Okay, so

1151
00:59:22,320 --> 00:59:24,440
Speaker 1: stage four cancer, these are all the things that was

1152
00:59:24,480 --> 00:59:26,760
Speaker 1: in my head. Okay, let me research them, and I'm

1153
00:59:26,800 --> 00:59:31,520
Speaker 1: seeing there's not many. There's there's it's terminal, you know,

1154
00:59:31,640 --> 00:59:34,200
Speaker 1: and that's literally what the doctor told my mother. So

1155
00:59:34,400 --> 00:59:37,120
Speaker 1: it was it was really hard. I knew that I

1156
00:59:37,200 --> 00:59:39,640
Speaker 1: didn't have time to be defressed, you know, because depression

1157
00:59:39,720 --> 00:59:41,520
Speaker 1: is the first thing that comes to me when emotions

1158
00:59:41,840 --> 00:59:44,560
Speaker 1: are too heavy. I just I stop, I pause, I

1159
00:59:44,800 --> 00:59:47,200
Speaker 1: bed what And you know, I didn't have time for

1160
00:59:47,280 --> 00:59:48,960
Speaker 1: that because I have to go back to caring now.

1161
00:59:49,200 --> 00:59:51,600
Speaker 1: Every night I would clib myself to sleep and then

1162
00:59:51,840 --> 00:59:56,040
Speaker 1: I would watch some people on TikTok who talk about grief.

1163
00:59:56,720 --> 00:59:58,920
Speaker 1: There's a lady who talks about working in a hospice,

1164
00:59:59,000 --> 01:00:04,240
Speaker 1: and I just really, okay, I'm being called to help

1165
01:00:04,320 --> 01:00:08,200
Speaker 1: my mother transition, so I actually need to put myself second.

1166
01:00:08,360 --> 01:00:11,760
Speaker 1: And I did the entire time. It's hard operating of

1167
01:00:11,840 --> 01:00:15,720
Speaker 1: a broken heart. It's hard watching the person that you

1168
01:00:15,880 --> 01:00:20,720
Speaker 1: love crumble and lose their power, eventually losing their life.

1169
01:00:21,720 --> 01:00:25,640
Speaker 1: You lose yourself. The moment my mother took her last breath,

1170
01:00:25,800 --> 01:00:28,960
Speaker 1: I also took my last breath, and I felt, you

1171
01:00:29,000 --> 01:00:30,960
Speaker 1: see that same feeling that I spoke about in the

1172
01:00:31,000 --> 01:00:34,240
Speaker 1: beginning of the book, with the heartbreak. I felt something

1173
01:00:34,440 --> 01:00:40,840
Speaker 1: leave me. I felt so cold and hollow. That's the

1174
01:00:40,920 --> 01:00:45,640
Speaker 1: best way. Everything within me that was fun and brought

1175
01:00:45,760 --> 01:00:49,880
Speaker 1: lights and the things that everybody loved it went. My

1176
01:00:50,080 --> 01:00:53,080
Speaker 1: entire essence left with my mother. It's only till I

1177
01:00:53,160 --> 01:00:57,000
Speaker 1: got older along the last couple of years I've realized

1178
01:00:57,080 --> 01:01:00,960
Speaker 1: actually I just evolved, and the best inheritance I received

1179
01:01:01,120 --> 01:01:04,320
Speaker 1: was my mother's love, her and her essence. But that

1180
01:01:04,480 --> 01:01:08,200
Speaker 1: feeling was awful. I didn't want to be here, went

1181
01:01:08,280 --> 01:01:13,000
Speaker 1: through so many different things, so many different emotions. You know,

1182
01:01:13,480 --> 01:01:17,280
Speaker 1: my mother got ill just as COVID started to happen,

1183
01:01:17,320 --> 01:01:19,200
Speaker 1: and it got really cold, and she was like, I

1184
01:01:19,280 --> 01:01:21,640
Speaker 1: want to go home, and home for us is Trinidad,

1185
01:01:22,040 --> 01:01:24,480
Speaker 1: but Trinidad's borders were closed, so I ended up going

1186
01:01:24,480 --> 01:01:26,560
Speaker 1: to Saint Lucia and it was just supposed to be

1187
01:01:26,600 --> 01:01:30,000
Speaker 1: a quick break and maybe a month or so, you know,

1188
01:01:30,640 --> 01:01:32,360
Speaker 1: And it was crazy because COVID out there was so

1189
01:01:32,480 --> 01:01:34,120
Speaker 1: different to the UK, like you can still go to

1190
01:01:34,160 --> 01:01:36,840
Speaker 1: the beach, you can still do things. So my mum

1191
01:01:37,080 --> 01:01:42,919
Speaker 1: was she was really happy. You know, it's hot, sunshine,

1192
01:01:43,000 --> 01:01:45,520
Speaker 1: you can eat the best foods, you know. It was.

1193
01:01:45,760 --> 01:01:48,840
Speaker 1: We had her on a really holistic whole foods dye

1194
01:01:48,920 --> 01:01:51,280
Speaker 1: and all of the stuff came from Saint Lucia's was

1195
01:01:51,360 --> 01:01:53,720
Speaker 1: just literally eating from the ground. And at one stage

1196
01:01:53,720 --> 01:01:56,439
Speaker 1: I thought she was getting better, and then her health

1197
01:01:56,520 --> 01:01:59,400
Speaker 1: just plummeted. And next thing you know, I'm in Saint

1198
01:01:59,440 --> 01:02:02,640
Speaker 1: Lucia for six months and my mother passes away and

1199
01:02:03,880 --> 01:02:08,760
Speaker 1: I then had to Okay, she wants to be buried

1200
01:02:08,760 --> 01:02:12,240
Speaker 1: in Trinidad. What do I do now? So my grandfather

1201
01:02:12,320 --> 01:02:16,160
Speaker 1: sent me ten thousand pounds and all the planes were stationary,

1202
01:02:16,200 --> 01:02:18,680
Speaker 1: all the airports were closed. I had to spend about

1203
01:02:18,720 --> 01:02:22,280
Speaker 1: two weeks begging the Ministry in Trinidad to let me in,

1204
01:02:22,520 --> 01:02:24,120
Speaker 1: and when I was able to send them all of

1205
01:02:24,160 --> 01:02:27,520
Speaker 1: my mum's documentations she was a national, they brought her

1206
01:02:27,600 --> 01:02:29,400
Speaker 1: home and they were at one stage they were like,

1207
01:02:29,640 --> 01:02:31,320
Speaker 1: we can't bring you into the country because you're not

1208
01:02:31,320 --> 01:02:34,120
Speaker 1: a national. And I was just like, Okay, well, I'm

1209
01:02:34,160 --> 01:02:36,720
Speaker 1: going to go on the good quote and talk about this.

1210
01:02:36,920 --> 01:02:41,760
Speaker 1: And literally the next day I woke up to access

1211
01:02:41,800 --> 01:02:44,720
Speaker 1: into Trinidad, put my mother on this private plane that

1212
01:02:44,800 --> 01:02:49,640
Speaker 1: my grandfather played for got over to Trinidad, had to quarantine,

1213
01:02:50,200 --> 01:02:53,520
Speaker 1: didn't bury her until a month later. Family switched up

1214
01:02:53,560 --> 01:02:57,720
Speaker 1: on me by myself in a foreign country. Trinidad is

1215
01:02:57,800 --> 01:03:00,000
Speaker 1: not an easy pace to be on the rest of days.

1216
01:03:00,360 --> 01:03:03,440
Speaker 1: I love Trinidad. I love it. I was raised to

1217
01:03:03,480 --> 01:03:05,400
Speaker 1: love Trinidad. It's part of it's meat.

1218
01:03:05,560 --> 01:03:05,720
Speaker 2: You know.

1219
01:03:06,280 --> 01:03:08,320
Speaker 1: Been going to Trinidad since I was seven years old,

1220
01:03:08,400 --> 01:03:11,280
Speaker 1: so I kind of know the area. No when you're

1221
01:03:11,320 --> 01:03:15,120
Speaker 1: there by yourself, no family, no money, your mother's in

1222
01:03:15,240 --> 01:03:19,560
Speaker 1: a morgue, you know. I had a breakdown. I completely

1223
01:03:19,680 --> 01:03:22,640
Speaker 1: broke down to the point where I think I landed

1224
01:03:22,680 --> 01:03:25,880
Speaker 1: in Saint Lucia maybe one hundred and ten kg. Because

1225
01:03:25,880 --> 01:03:28,320
Speaker 1: I was when I'm stressed, as you can see, just

1226
01:03:28,360 --> 01:03:30,040
Speaker 1: finished righting the book. But when I'm stressed, I put

1227
01:03:30,040 --> 01:03:32,560
Speaker 1: on a lot of weight. I left and landed in

1228
01:03:32,600 --> 01:03:35,680
Speaker 1: Trinidad's seventy four kg. I lost so much weight due

1229
01:03:35,680 --> 01:03:39,680
Speaker 1: to stress. It depleted me completely. But I did it

1230
01:03:39,760 --> 01:03:42,560
Speaker 1: all with honor because I was my best friend. She

1231
01:03:42,720 --> 01:03:46,720
Speaker 1: was scared and I was scared, and I needed to

1232
01:03:46,880 --> 01:03:49,600
Speaker 1: ensure that she had everything that she needed because at

1233
01:03:49,640 --> 01:03:51,720
Speaker 1: one stage that's what she did for me. You know,

1234
01:03:51,920 --> 01:03:54,440
Speaker 1: I slept in the hospital the entire time. I actually

1235
01:03:54,480 --> 01:03:57,240
Speaker 1: got all the nurses to sign off their responsibilities. I

1236
01:03:57,480 --> 01:04:00,320
Speaker 1: washed my mum, I fed her, I creamed her, helped

1237
01:04:00,320 --> 01:04:03,120
Speaker 1: her move, I changed her bed. I did everything because

1238
01:04:03,160 --> 01:04:04,320
Speaker 1: for me, it was the last time I was ever

1239
01:04:04,360 --> 01:04:05,880
Speaker 1: going to be able to do it. So I had

1240
01:04:05,920 --> 01:04:08,560
Speaker 1: all this energy to do it. And honor is such

1241
01:04:08,560 --> 01:04:10,600
Speaker 1: a big thing for me, and so is loyalty. And

1242
01:04:10,720 --> 01:04:13,120
Speaker 1: because of my mother's story and the amount of sacrifices

1243
01:04:13,160 --> 01:04:15,560
Speaker 1: she made for me, it was important for me to

1244
01:04:15,680 --> 01:04:18,120
Speaker 1: reciprocate in the only way that I knew how at

1245
01:04:18,160 --> 01:04:20,280
Speaker 1: the time, which was to ensure that she had a

1246
01:04:20,400 --> 01:04:24,600
Speaker 1: peaceful transition. And it was so hard, you know, I

1247
01:04:24,680 --> 01:04:26,120
Speaker 1: slept in the same bed as my mum for the

1248
01:04:26,320 --> 01:04:28,720
Speaker 1: entire time for a year and a half. I've got

1249
01:04:28,800 --> 01:04:31,240
Speaker 1: so many recordings of her. We have our own podcast

1250
01:04:31,320 --> 01:04:33,760
Speaker 1: that I can go to. There's certain things I asked her,

1251
01:04:33,880 --> 01:04:35,800
Speaker 1: like when I get married and I want to run away,

1252
01:04:36,600 --> 01:04:39,400
Speaker 1: you know, what advice would you give me? And she

1253
01:04:39,520 --> 01:04:41,520
Speaker 1: gave me all these advices. When I become a mother,

1254
01:04:41,720 --> 01:04:43,880
Speaker 1: what advice would you give me? And we had these

1255
01:04:43,960 --> 01:04:47,160
Speaker 1: really beautiful conversations. I've got all of it recorded. She

1256
01:04:47,240 --> 01:04:49,880
Speaker 1: even recorded me a birthday message so that every year

1257
01:04:50,440 --> 01:04:52,120
Speaker 1: for my birthday, I wake up and I play it

1258
01:04:52,440 --> 01:04:55,640
Speaker 1: because it's just significant for any year. It's not specific,

1259
01:04:55,760 --> 01:05:00,320
Speaker 1: you know. And so we prepared and we I did

1260
01:05:00,400 --> 01:05:01,919
Speaker 1: as much as we could. And that's why I don't

1261
01:05:01,960 --> 01:05:05,440
Speaker 1: have any regrets with losing my mother or well, I

1262
01:05:05,480 --> 01:05:08,120
Speaker 1: don't have any regrets of how it all panned out.

1263
01:05:08,520 --> 01:05:11,520
Speaker 1: But I lost myself completely, and I think, to be

1264
01:05:11,600 --> 01:05:13,960
Speaker 1: honest with you, I really only got it back recently,

1265
01:05:14,360 --> 01:05:16,400
Speaker 1: and I got it back through the process of writing

1266
01:05:16,440 --> 01:05:18,880
Speaker 1: this book because it gave me something to do. I

1267
01:05:19,000 --> 01:05:23,400
Speaker 1: got really low, I got really strong dependency on marijuana.

1268
01:05:24,520 --> 01:05:28,720
Speaker 1: I became very suicidal, made various attempts. I was by

1269
01:05:28,800 --> 01:05:34,080
Speaker 1: myself for a long time in Trinidad. I started off

1270
01:05:34,160 --> 01:05:37,680
Speaker 1: in the hoods and I met some really great people

1271
01:05:37,960 --> 01:05:41,000
Speaker 1: in some of the areas where you know, rumors and

1272
01:05:41,080 --> 01:05:43,120
Speaker 1: the government and just culture would tell you that you

1273
01:05:43,120 --> 01:05:45,360
Speaker 1: shouldn't be I met some of the kindest people there,

1274
01:05:45,840 --> 01:05:48,840
Speaker 1: and these people elevated me enough to believe, or to

1275
01:05:48,960 --> 01:05:53,360
Speaker 1: generate self belief that I'm Meghan. I built something really great,

1276
01:05:53,680 --> 01:05:55,400
Speaker 1: I have a great story to tell and I can

1277
01:05:55,440 --> 01:05:58,240
Speaker 1: actually still try again. And I started off in the

1278
01:05:58,320 --> 01:06:00,480
Speaker 1: hood in Trinidad and ended up in one of the

1279
01:06:00,560 --> 01:06:03,840
Speaker 1: best places in a villa that cost me four and

1280
01:06:03,880 --> 01:06:06,920
Speaker 1: a half grand a month. Because I started to do podcasts,

1281
01:06:06,960 --> 01:06:10,400
Speaker 1: I started to start again. You know, I was filming people,

1282
01:06:10,440 --> 01:06:12,520
Speaker 1: I was interviewing people, I was traveling the island. I

1283
01:06:12,680 --> 01:06:16,120
Speaker 1: was trying to find who Megan was without Janet, without

1284
01:06:16,160 --> 01:06:19,240
Speaker 1: my mum, and I'm still trying to find that. It's

1285
01:06:19,360 --> 01:06:22,760
Speaker 1: really hard. It's really hard. She wasn't just my mother.

1286
01:06:22,920 --> 01:06:26,560
Speaker 1: She was my best friend, my sister, my homie, you know,

1287
01:06:26,800 --> 01:06:29,800
Speaker 1: the person I would talk to about everything that's gone.

1288
01:06:30,680 --> 01:06:32,439
Speaker 1: And then not only that, but all of the people

1289
01:06:32,520 --> 01:06:36,120
Speaker 1: that raised her they're gone too. I lost my great aunt,

1290
01:06:36,400 --> 01:06:38,880
Speaker 1: you know, I lost great uncles, I lost cousins. I

1291
01:06:38,920 --> 01:06:41,680
Speaker 1: lost a lot of people, and all I really have

1292
01:06:41,880 --> 01:06:45,600
Speaker 1: now is just their memory, what's up, conversations, voice notes

1293
01:06:45,960 --> 01:06:49,000
Speaker 1: and their essence, and that is what I use now

1294
01:06:49,120 --> 01:06:52,480
Speaker 1: to drive me. You know. There were times I still

1295
01:06:52,480 --> 01:06:54,520
Speaker 1: live in my mother's house. When I took her to

1296
01:06:54,600 --> 01:06:58,160
Speaker 1: Saint Lucia, stayed in Trinidad for a year. When I

1297
01:06:58,200 --> 01:07:01,360
Speaker 1: got back, I had an apartment in Docklands, a penthouse,

1298
01:07:01,800 --> 01:07:03,360
Speaker 1: and I remember my mum came to see it with

1299
01:07:03,480 --> 01:07:06,520
Speaker 1: me and she was like, I can't believe this is you.

1300
01:07:07,200 --> 01:07:09,760
Speaker 1: Because she started off in the board house, her daughter's

1301
01:07:10,160 --> 01:07:13,160
Speaker 1: twenty four floors up, you know, own business. It was

1302
01:07:13,200 --> 01:07:14,440
Speaker 1: starting to happen for me.

1303
01:07:14,600 --> 01:07:14,760
Speaker 2: You know.

1304
01:07:15,840 --> 01:07:18,520
Speaker 1: Now I'm back at home, back in Watford, you know,

1305
01:07:18,800 --> 01:07:25,840
Speaker 1: in my mum's place, and it's humbling. It's hard. The memories.

1306
01:07:25,880 --> 01:07:27,760
Speaker 1: When people say, oh, I have to leave this environment,

1307
01:07:27,760 --> 01:07:29,880
Speaker 1: there's too many memories. I never understood what that meant.

1308
01:07:31,320 --> 01:07:33,800
Speaker 1: It means that when you're in bed and somebody's walking

1309
01:07:33,800 --> 01:07:37,320
Speaker 1: in your hallway, you get a quick oh that's not no,

1310
01:07:37,440 --> 01:07:40,440
Speaker 1: it's not it's just your friend or if like I

1311
01:07:40,480 --> 01:07:42,160
Speaker 1: don't know, you're cooking and you sit in the living

1312
01:07:42,240 --> 01:07:44,520
Speaker 1: room while your food's cooking, and you can smell the

1313
01:07:44,560 --> 01:07:46,560
Speaker 1: food and it reminds you of when your mum used

1314
01:07:46,560 --> 01:07:49,280
Speaker 1: to cook on Sundays. There's memories everywhere. So my main

1315
01:07:49,360 --> 01:07:51,040
Speaker 1: intention now is to try and do as much work

1316
01:07:51,080 --> 01:07:54,480
Speaker 1: as I can to leave. But the entire journey of

1317
01:07:56,240 --> 01:07:59,080
Speaker 1: losing your parents up until now, you lose yourself. You

1318
01:07:59,240 --> 01:08:01,440
Speaker 1: have to rebuild your you have to parent yourself, you

1319
01:08:01,560 --> 01:08:03,520
Speaker 1: have to love yourself. You have to give yourself a

1320
01:08:03,600 --> 01:08:06,160
Speaker 1: reason as to why you're being alight, why you're here,

1321
01:08:07,800 --> 01:08:10,640
Speaker 1: why you're going to even work towards anything. Releasing this

1322
01:08:10,720 --> 01:08:12,320
Speaker 1: book was the hardest thing I've ever had to do

1323
01:08:12,440 --> 01:08:14,240
Speaker 1: since my mom passed away, because it was one of

1324
01:08:14,320 --> 01:08:17,760
Speaker 1: my biggest accomplishments and my cheerleader wasn't there, so you

1325
01:08:17,960 --> 01:08:20,439
Speaker 1: learn how to be your own cheerleader. It's a complete

1326
01:08:20,520 --> 01:08:24,400
Speaker 1: reset and it has been the worst journey that I've

1327
01:08:24,479 --> 01:08:28,120
Speaker 1: ever encountered, but also the best I met, the love

1328
01:08:28,160 --> 01:08:31,400
Speaker 1: of my life. I've been able to filter through my circle.

1329
01:08:31,560 --> 01:08:33,720
Speaker 1: So with the boundaries that I put in place, there

1330
01:08:33,760 --> 01:08:36,000
Speaker 1: were people I was able to get rid of asap

1331
01:08:36,080 --> 01:08:38,400
Speaker 1: because it wasn't good for me. Like everything that I'm

1332
01:08:38,439 --> 01:08:41,599
Speaker 1: doing now is for the benefit and the safety of myself,

1333
01:08:42,280 --> 01:08:44,280
Speaker 1: and I would have never gotten to this point if

1334
01:08:44,640 --> 01:08:48,240
Speaker 1: none of this stuff happened, you know. So I'm just

1335
01:08:48,360 --> 01:08:51,240
Speaker 1: learning that my mother was just a little girl who

1336
01:08:51,360 --> 01:08:54,639
Speaker 1: tried her best, and she left behind some really great

1337
01:08:54,680 --> 01:08:57,679
Speaker 1: lessons that I'm taking forth with me. Now. I look

1338
01:08:57,800 --> 01:09:01,000
Speaker 1: exactly like her, so it's really hard not to, you know,

1339
01:09:02,640 --> 01:09:07,479
Speaker 1: have that energy where I'm still somebody. Still, I'm still

1340
01:09:07,479 --> 01:09:11,080
Speaker 1: responsible for how it is I portray myself. I'm still

1341
01:09:11,160 --> 01:09:15,080
Speaker 1: somebody's responsibility. I still belong to somebody. So these are

1342
01:09:15,080 --> 01:09:17,720
Speaker 1: all the things that you know, I had to learn

1343
01:09:17,760 --> 01:09:22,519
Speaker 1: along the way. It is a journey that I don't

1344
01:09:22,560 --> 01:09:25,599
Speaker 1: think everybody is prepared for. I don't think there's any

1345
01:09:25,600 --> 01:09:28,160
Speaker 1: way you can prepare to lose your parents. I don't

1346
01:09:28,160 --> 01:09:31,320
Speaker 1: think three weeks is enough time for you for work

1347
01:09:31,439 --> 01:09:34,240
Speaker 1: to give you time off for you to mourn. And

1348
01:09:35,880 --> 01:09:38,240
Speaker 1: I don't think people understand how much it actually takes

1349
01:09:38,360 --> 01:09:42,200
Speaker 1: you lose everything. You lose everything. I've never lost a sibling,

1350
01:09:42,320 --> 01:09:44,120
Speaker 1: and I don't have a child yet, so I wouldn't

1351
01:09:44,160 --> 01:09:45,880
Speaker 1: know what it's like to lose a child. I hope

1352
01:09:45,920 --> 01:09:48,479
Speaker 1: I never do. But I don't think there's anything is

1353
01:09:48,520 --> 01:09:51,960
Speaker 1: painful as losing your mother. If I'm being honest with you,

1354
01:09:52,040 --> 01:09:54,360
Speaker 1: you don't know you're left to your right. You don't

1355
01:09:54,400 --> 01:09:57,120
Speaker 1: know you have to start all over again. And then

1356
01:09:57,160 --> 01:09:59,280
Speaker 1: you have to parent yourself. So when you're having a

1357
01:09:59,360 --> 01:10:01,800
Speaker 1: bad day, you got figure out how to You've got

1358
01:10:01,920 --> 01:10:04,240
Speaker 1: to figure out how to calm yourself down, how to

1359
01:10:04,360 --> 01:10:07,120
Speaker 1: encourage yourself, how to celebrate yourself. These are all things

1360
01:10:07,160 --> 01:10:10,519
Speaker 1: I'm learning how to do by myself. Never had to

1361
01:10:10,600 --> 01:10:13,519
Speaker 1: do that thirty two years. I never had to do

1362
01:10:13,640 --> 01:10:17,519
Speaker 1: that last two years. That's what I'm now having to

1363
01:10:17,600 --> 01:10:19,280
Speaker 1: do in order to give me some sort of peace

1364
01:10:19,320 --> 01:10:23,040
Speaker 1: and happiness. I don't think anything prepares you to lose

1365
01:10:23,080 --> 01:10:24,800
Speaker 1: a parent. And this is why I talk about it

1366
01:10:24,920 --> 01:10:26,840
Speaker 1: so much, because I keep saying to people, if you've

1367
01:10:26,880 --> 01:10:33,479
Speaker 1: got good relationships of your family, start recording content. If

1368
01:10:33,560 --> 01:10:36,360
Speaker 1: your parent is about to pass away because they're dying

1369
01:10:36,400 --> 01:10:40,799
Speaker 1: from a disease, record content because there are random days

1370
01:10:41,000 --> 01:10:42,920
Speaker 1: where I just want to hear my mum's voice and

1371
01:10:43,040 --> 01:10:45,920
Speaker 1: I can have a list of videos and I could

1372
01:10:45,960 --> 01:10:48,000
Speaker 1: hear her laugh and joke about things, and it's almost

1373
01:10:48,040 --> 01:10:50,439
Speaker 1: like she's still here. If you are listening to this

1374
01:10:50,600 --> 01:10:53,679
Speaker 1: and you are dealing with a parent who is passing away,

1375
01:10:54,120 --> 01:10:57,280
Speaker 1: preserve as much of the memories you can because that's

1376
01:10:57,320 --> 01:11:01,639
Speaker 1: the only thing that keeps you going. I didn't have that, Jay,

1377
01:11:01,720 --> 01:11:04,000
Speaker 1: I don't know, I wouldn't be here, that's for damn sure.

1378
01:11:05,120 --> 01:11:08,840
Speaker 1: So it's the most life change in transformational experience you

1379
01:11:08,840 --> 01:11:11,439
Speaker 1: would ever have, and it really does show you who

1380
01:11:11,520 --> 01:11:14,720
Speaker 1: you are and your life can either become something great

1381
01:11:14,840 --> 01:11:17,040
Speaker 1: or you can fall and never get back up again.

1382
01:11:17,520 --> 01:11:22,240
Speaker 1: And I've been straddling both, you know, and the depression

1383
01:11:22,280 --> 01:11:25,719
Speaker 1: that hits after you lose your parent. There's an aimless,

1384
01:11:26,600 --> 01:11:29,719
Speaker 1: hollow feeling in your entire life and it doesn't matter

1385
01:11:29,880 --> 01:11:33,439
Speaker 1: what or who comes into it again with the people

1386
01:11:33,520 --> 01:11:36,400
Speaker 1: pleasing it doesn't matter. You're not going to take that

1387
01:11:36,520 --> 01:11:39,840
Speaker 1: from me. I have to do something with it. And

1388
01:11:39,960 --> 01:11:42,080
Speaker 1: my therapist always said, you know, the relationship that you

1389
01:11:42,160 --> 01:11:44,719
Speaker 1: had with your mother would make it ten times harder

1390
01:11:44,800 --> 01:11:47,799
Speaker 1: to deal with the grief because you were very close.

1391
01:11:48,680 --> 01:11:51,800
Speaker 1: And I love that. I love the fact that I

1392
01:11:52,080 --> 01:11:56,439
Speaker 1: was loved and I loved something so powerful enough that

1393
01:11:56,600 --> 01:12:01,120
Speaker 1: without it, my life is shit, and I love the

1394
01:12:01,240 --> 01:12:04,440
Speaker 1: fact that with the essence of that love, I'm reminded

1395
01:12:04,520 --> 01:12:07,479
Speaker 1: as to why I need to make a better life

1396
01:12:07,520 --> 01:12:10,800
Speaker 1: for myself. I think that is the best lesson I've

1397
01:12:10,800 --> 01:12:14,320
Speaker 1: gotten out all of this. My mother would be telling everybody,

1398
01:12:14,920 --> 01:12:17,160
Speaker 1: even down to the man at the newsagents, that I

1399
01:12:17,240 --> 01:12:19,160
Speaker 1: have a book, you know, So it's for me to

1400
01:12:19,240 --> 01:12:21,679
Speaker 1: start doing that now. You know, I used to see

1401
01:12:21,760 --> 01:12:23,800
Speaker 1: her leave the house all the time. Anytime she got

1402
01:12:23,880 --> 01:12:25,760
Speaker 1: changed from a ten pound note or five pound note,

1403
01:12:26,000 --> 01:12:28,559
Speaker 1: she'll put it in her pocket, and any time there

1404
01:12:28,680 --> 01:12:30,320
Speaker 1: was someone who needed it, she'll give it to them.

1405
01:12:30,760 --> 01:12:33,040
Speaker 1: There were so many people within our community and what

1406
01:12:33,160 --> 01:12:35,519
Speaker 1: for that knew my mother. I get discount at so

1407
01:12:35,640 --> 01:12:37,880
Speaker 1: many different stores because of her up to this day.

1408
01:12:38,360 --> 01:12:39,960
Speaker 1: So I want to be that person.

1409
01:12:40,080 --> 01:12:40,200
Speaker 2: Now.

1410
01:12:40,640 --> 01:12:43,320
Speaker 1: I'm really trying to like get rid of this sadness

1411
01:12:43,360 --> 01:12:46,640
Speaker 1: so I can spread more light because my plan now

1412
01:12:46,720 --> 01:12:49,320
Speaker 1: with the good quote is like ten times more intentional

1413
01:12:49,439 --> 01:12:53,160
Speaker 1: now because at first it was something that I needed

1414
01:12:53,360 --> 01:12:55,600
Speaker 1: and needed the community, but now it's something that I

1415
01:12:55,880 --> 01:12:58,639
Speaker 1: want for others to be able to have that same

1416
01:12:59,240 --> 01:13:02,200
Speaker 1: feeling of life security that I had when I was

1417
01:13:02,240 --> 01:13:06,000
Speaker 1: building it. Because you know, when you're losing a parent.

1418
01:13:06,040 --> 01:13:07,880
Speaker 1: Every time I speak about my mother online, I get

1419
01:13:07,920 --> 01:13:10,960
Speaker 1: a wave of DMS from people telling me like, this

1420
01:13:11,120 --> 01:13:13,760
Speaker 1: speaks to me, this is how I felt, and Jay,

1421
01:13:13,800 --> 01:13:18,440
Speaker 1: It's something that almost everybody is starting to experience because millennials,

1422
01:13:18,479 --> 01:13:22,559
Speaker 1: we're getting old, our parents are getting old, and there

1423
01:13:22,680 --> 01:13:25,400
Speaker 1: just needs to be a lot more transparency and openness

1424
01:13:25,479 --> 01:13:29,040
Speaker 1: around the topic of death and grieving. It's not taboo.

1425
01:13:29,080 --> 01:13:33,680
Speaker 1: It's every day we deal with it. But it's hell

1426
01:13:33,760 --> 01:13:36,880
Speaker 1: on earth and I'm trying to do everything I can

1427
01:13:37,000 --> 01:13:39,840
Speaker 1: in my power to not make it that way. But

1428
01:13:40,080 --> 01:13:42,280
Speaker 1: some days take over, and when they do, I give

1429
01:13:42,320 --> 01:13:45,360
Speaker 1: myself the grace to, like just from having a bad

1430
01:13:45,439 --> 01:13:48,320
Speaker 1: day when it comes to grief. I'll let everyone around

1431
01:13:48,400 --> 01:13:50,160
Speaker 1: me know and then I'll just switch off because I

1432
01:13:50,240 --> 01:13:52,960
Speaker 1: can't I can't function. And then there are other days

1433
01:13:52,960 --> 01:13:54,960
Speaker 1: where I'm just like, oh my gosh, this is amazing.

1434
01:13:55,040 --> 01:13:58,400
Speaker 1: I'm happy to be alive. It's like this, but it's

1435
01:13:58,640 --> 01:14:02,400
Speaker 1: not as heavy as it was three years ago. I

1436
01:14:02,520 --> 01:14:06,320
Speaker 1: have a great therapist, a man called Michael Adams. He

1437
01:14:06,680 --> 01:14:08,920
Speaker 1: is somebody who's been working with me for the last

1438
01:14:08,960 --> 01:14:11,400
Speaker 1: two and a half years now, and I had intense

1439
01:14:11,479 --> 01:14:14,720
Speaker 1: therapy two hours twice a week, and now I only

1440
01:14:14,760 --> 01:14:17,439
Speaker 1: do one hour a week. We've gone through it all.

1441
01:14:17,600 --> 01:14:22,400
Speaker 1: I've got so many notes that I'm writing for my

1442
01:14:22,560 --> 01:14:25,719
Speaker 1: next book when it comes to grief, But I can't

1443
01:14:26,280 --> 01:14:30,519
Speaker 1: stress how hard it is to lose your mother. If

1444
01:14:30,560 --> 01:14:32,760
Speaker 1: you have a love and relationship, it's going to be

1445
01:14:32,880 --> 01:14:36,400
Speaker 1: ten times harder. If you're distant, you most likely might

1446
01:14:36,439 --> 01:14:38,320
Speaker 1: have a lot of regret. I didn't have any regret.

1447
01:14:38,880 --> 01:14:41,439
Speaker 1: I didn't have any when my mother passed away. I

1448
01:14:41,520 --> 01:14:44,600
Speaker 1: knew exactly what was happening. She was transitioning. You know,

1449
01:14:44,720 --> 01:14:48,200
Speaker 1: there's a whole, a whole story about that in itself

1450
01:14:48,280 --> 01:14:50,439
Speaker 1: that will always have to talk about another time. But

1451
01:14:51,680 --> 01:14:54,880
Speaker 1: you see the glory of God when somebody's passing away.

1452
01:14:55,040 --> 01:14:58,640
Speaker 1: You see the impact of the different realms. You know

1453
01:14:58,840 --> 01:15:01,160
Speaker 1: that we're in riven this realm right now, but there's

1454
01:15:01,200 --> 01:15:03,680
Speaker 1: a spiritual realm. There's all types of different realms that

1455
01:15:03,840 --> 01:15:06,760
Speaker 1: open up when somebody is transitioning. It is probably one

1456
01:15:06,800 --> 01:15:09,840
Speaker 1: of the most beautiful journeys you would ever see. And

1457
01:15:09,880 --> 01:15:12,200
Speaker 1: you start to think to yourself, when we became babies,

1458
01:15:12,320 --> 01:15:14,080
Speaker 1: what were they doing on the other side. Were they

1459
01:15:14,920 --> 01:15:17,840
Speaker 1: giving us some sort of celebrationary leaving Doo for us

1460
01:15:17,880 --> 01:15:21,839
Speaker 1: to come to earth, because when you're transitioning, it's important

1461
01:15:21,880 --> 01:15:25,160
Speaker 1: that people celebrate rather than more so I learned that

1462
01:15:25,320 --> 01:15:28,439
Speaker 1: as well. You know, I mourned three days after my

1463
01:15:28,520 --> 01:15:31,679
Speaker 1: mother passed away because I knew the fragility of her spirit.

1464
01:15:32,000 --> 01:15:34,880
Speaker 1: She's just become a spirit, so she's probably going to

1465
01:15:34,920 --> 01:15:37,640
Speaker 1: be just as scared as me. I don't need her

1466
01:15:37,760 --> 01:15:40,160
Speaker 1: to come back and see me screaming and crying down

1467
01:15:40,200 --> 01:15:43,280
Speaker 1: the place. I need her to see that I'm functioning

1468
01:15:43,400 --> 01:15:46,679
Speaker 1: fine after three days. Some people believe that the spirit

1469
01:15:46,800 --> 01:15:49,040
Speaker 1: then passes on and that's when you could do all

1470
01:15:49,120 --> 01:15:51,040
Speaker 1: of your morning, and that's what I did, And I

1471
01:15:51,160 --> 01:15:53,160
Speaker 1: just started to listen to the elders and start to

1472
01:15:53,240 --> 01:15:56,800
Speaker 1: incorporate more traditional practices, you know that come from the

1473
01:15:56,920 --> 01:15:59,439
Speaker 1: West Indies or within Trinidad or things that I've been

1474
01:15:59,520 --> 01:16:01,800
Speaker 1: raised to and that's kind of what's been helping me

1475
01:16:02,080 --> 01:16:05,439
Speaker 1: that during that time. But when you do lose a pairent,

1476
01:16:05,560 --> 01:16:08,639
Speaker 1: you need community more than anything, because you're not even

1477
01:16:08,680 --> 01:16:11,320
Speaker 1: going to be able to make yourself a drink. You're

1478
01:16:11,320 --> 01:16:14,080
Speaker 1: not going to eat, You're not you're not going to

1479
01:16:14,160 --> 01:16:16,160
Speaker 1: bathe you're not going to do anything, You're just going

1480
01:16:16,240 --> 01:16:20,360
Speaker 1: to be very stark, and so it's really important that

1481
01:16:20,520 --> 01:16:24,759
Speaker 1: we invest wholeheartedly into the relationships that we have because

1482
01:16:25,080 --> 01:16:27,400
Speaker 1: those are the only things that are going to sustain

1483
01:16:27,479 --> 01:16:29,800
Speaker 1: you when you go through the hardest times of your life.

1484
01:16:30,600 --> 01:16:31,040
Speaker 1: For sure.

1485
01:16:32,000 --> 01:16:36,000
Speaker 2: Megan, thank you for being so vulnerable, so open. Thank

1486
01:16:36,000 --> 01:16:39,519
Speaker 2: you for pouring your heart into this book. I'm hoping

1487
01:16:39,600 --> 01:16:42,040
Speaker 2: that everyone's been listening and watching as moved as I am.

1488
01:16:42,120 --> 01:16:45,160
Speaker 2: And genuinely, if you pick up a copy of How

1489
01:16:45,200 --> 01:16:48,720
Speaker 2: to Stop Breaking Your Heart, I feel that you'll be

1490
01:16:48,760 --> 01:16:51,519
Speaker 2: able to walk through life with grace. You'll be able

1491
01:16:51,600 --> 01:16:55,599
Speaker 2: to deal with the discomfort that comes along your way,

1492
01:16:55,640 --> 01:16:57,920
Speaker 2: and you'll be able to find your way even when

1493
01:16:57,960 --> 01:17:02,839
Speaker 2: it feels completely foggy, fuzzy and uncertain about your future.

1494
01:17:03,240 --> 01:17:05,280
Speaker 2: I want to give a big theck thanks to Megan

1495
01:17:05,360 --> 01:17:07,360
Speaker 2: for putting yourself out there, for having the courage and

1496
01:17:07,439 --> 01:17:10,360
Speaker 2: the bravery for taking that step. I know how that

1497
01:17:10,560 --> 01:17:13,680
Speaker 2: was for you, and I really believe that you doing

1498
01:17:13,760 --> 01:17:16,040
Speaker 2: that is going to help so many people. So thank

1499
01:17:16,080 --> 01:17:18,280
Speaker 2: you so much for coming on and sharing your story today.

1500
01:17:18,760 --> 01:17:20,400
Speaker 2: Thank you to your story, and I want everyone to

1501
01:17:20,439 --> 01:17:22,560
Speaker 2: read the book to find the rest of it and

1502
01:17:22,640 --> 01:17:23,519
Speaker 2: how it all connects.

1503
01:17:24,439 --> 01:17:26,960
Speaker 1: Thank you, Sam, thanks so much, and also thank you

1504
01:17:27,120 --> 01:17:29,760
Speaker 1: for adapting your outfit with the kind of my.

1505
01:17:30,200 --> 01:17:35,400
Speaker 2: Appreciate I was like, yeah, I have to thank you.

1506
01:17:35,560 --> 01:17:38,000
Speaker 1: Glad you noticed. I saw that when I came in

1507
01:17:38,040 --> 01:17:39,080
Speaker 1: and I thought, Okay, I see you.

1508
01:17:39,200 --> 01:17:40,639
Speaker 2: I appreciate you. Yeah.

1509
01:17:40,880 --> 01:17:43,519
Speaker 1: No, thank you Jay. Thank you sharing your community and

1510
01:17:43,560 --> 01:17:45,640
Speaker 1: your platform with me. I appreciate that. And thank you

1511
01:17:45,760 --> 01:17:48,599
Speaker 1: for such a beautiful conversation. Thank you, Thank you beautiful.

1512
01:17:48,920 --> 01:17:51,880
Speaker 2: If you love this episode, you'll love my interview with

1513
01:17:52,160 --> 01:17:56,280
Speaker 2: Dr Gabor Matte on understanding your trauma and how to

1514
01:17:56,400 --> 01:17:59,880
Speaker 2: heal emotional wounds. To start moving on from the part

1515
01:18:00,360 --> 01:18:02,400
Speaker 2: everything in nature grows only where it's vulnerable.

1516
01:18:02,479 --> 01:18:05,080
Speaker 1: So a tree doesn't grow where it's hard and thick,

1517
01:18:05,160 --> 01:18:07,200
Speaker 1: does it. It goes where it's soft and green and

1518
01:18:07,360 --> 01:18:07,799
Speaker 1: vulnerable