Speaker 1: Hey everyone, welcome back to our purpose. I am so
Speaker 1: grateful to be your daily, weekly, monthly listen every time
Speaker 1: you join me, it means the world to me. And
Speaker 1: today I'm going to let you in on something really special.
Speaker 1: I'm excited for you to listen to this. This is
Speaker 1: a really rare, early pre on purpose interview with Russell Brand.
Speaker 1: And this conversation was when I was just testing out
Speaker 1: my interview skills. I was just connecting deeper. It's one
Speaker 1: of those conversations that's going to give you so many
Speaker 1: insights on some really really fascinating things. If you know Russell,
Speaker 1: he's funny, he's clever, he's smart, he's got great insight.
Speaker 1: And we talked about everything from consumerist culture, living in
Speaker 1: a perception of a perception of ourselves, and how opinions
Speaker 1: of others affect our self worth and image. This is
Speaker 1: genuinely one you don't want to miss. Make sure you
Speaker 1: listen to this. It's one of those rare fines I
Speaker 1: am so excited for you. Enjoy the episode. Hello everyone,
Speaker 1: welcome to this very special episode of Follow the Reader,
Speaker 1: the opportunity where I get to interview the great minds
Speaker 1: behind life changing books and ideas and today I'm genuinely humbled, grateful,
Speaker 1: honored to have with me in the studio someone who
Speaker 1: doesn't really need introduction, but I feel deserves one, and
Speaker 1: I'd like to give you one, Russell, if that's okay.
Speaker 1: But you know, award winning actor, comedian, director, presenter, and
Speaker 1: on top of all of that, one of the most
Speaker 1: loved and recognized performers on stage and someone that I
Speaker 1: think is a fellow meditator and a very dear spiritual friend.
Speaker 1: So Russell, I'm so genuinely, deeply grateful that you took
Speaker 1: the time out to be here with me. Thanks. I'm
Speaker 1: really glad that you did the introduction because that's really
Speaker 1: boosted me up. I'm really charged and positive now. Thanks
Speaker 1: Jaye good I'm glad where you definitely deserve it. And Russell,
Speaker 1: I wanted to start on something that you shared with
Speaker 1: everyone on a video recently, and these were these stats
Speaker 1: around addiction, yes, and they were quite alarming for me.
Speaker 1: I hadn't really come across them. I've got some of
Speaker 1: them here. You said that over twenty million Americans over
Speaker 1: the age of twelve have an addiction. One hundred and
Speaker 1: forty two people die every day from drug overdoses, which
Speaker 1: you rightly pointed out is like having nine to eleven
Speaker 1: every three weeks. On top of all of that, one
Speaker 1: million men think that they're addicted to pornography. And that's
Speaker 1: only the ones that think it. You're right, and then
Speaker 1: you have over ninety percent of those with an addiction
Speaker 1: began drinking or smoking before the age of eighteen. But
Speaker 1: what connected with me most is that with this book
Speaker 1: that we're talking about today, Recovery Freedom from Our Addictions.
Speaker 1: I've popped the link into the comment section on Facebook
Speaker 1: right now so you can order it. While we're having
Speaker 1: this conversation, is you expanded that definition of addiction out
Speaker 1: and you said that actually, in some form or another,
Speaker 1: we're all addicts, whether it's mobiles, whether it's food, whether
Speaker 1: it's money, whether it's power. Introduced us to that perspective
Speaker 1: because it really resonated with me. You've completely understood the
Speaker 1: resondet of the book, the reasoning behind it. Mate. I
Speaker 1: think it's inevitable in a capitalist consumer culture that addiction
Speaker 1: is a component because what consumerism is is that we
Speaker 1: acquire an external commodity in order to make us feel better.
Speaker 1: I've got these Nike trainers yesterday. These are sand I mean,
Speaker 1: I also like these, but these Nike ones up well yesterday,
Speaker 1: there was a moment before I purchased them where I
Speaker 1: thought I want them, and the guy in the store,
Speaker 1: Alexis he was called and the other guy I think
Speaker 1: he was called Mike. When I was getting these trainers, well, yes,
Speaker 1: these are the ones. These are the ones. Now I'm
Speaker 1: speaking to you as a recovering crack and heroin addict,
Speaker 1: so I know what addiction is. All substance addiction is
Speaker 1: it distills perfectly the phenomena of addiction, because if you
Speaker 1: withdraw from heroin, you know what it is you need.
Speaker 1: But I think a lot of us jay suffer from
Speaker 1: the notion that there is something missing from our lives,
Speaker 1: that there is something that is not whole about us,
Speaker 1: that we are in some way inadequate, and we can
Speaker 1: address this through consuming. Now our culture relies on us
Speaker 1: feeling like this. Mate. Marx's critique says like that capitalism
Speaker 1: operates on the basis of the perennial stimulation of desire.
Speaker 1: If you don't need nothing, you ain't gonna buy no
Speaker 1: sand Laurents or no Nikes as long as I feel
Speaker 1: like I need things, I am a good, obedient consumer,
Speaker 1: and consumerism is delivered some very good things. This is
Speaker 1: not necessarily an attack on consumerism, is just pointing out
Speaker 1: that addiction I see as really like the outlier force
Speaker 1: of consumerism. You know that when there's a tsunami, mate,
Speaker 1: and like Apocryphale, people tell you that some animals before
Speaker 1: the tsunami they go to the high lands. I think
Speaker 1: that the addicts are the people that are on the
Speaker 1: high lands. They know the storm is coming, they have
Speaker 1: one less layer of skin. They get addicted to the
Speaker 1: smack and to the food, and to the sex and
Speaker 1: to the pawn. But everyone, I believe, on some level,
Speaker 1: is suffering from this feeling of absence, this feeling of loss.
Speaker 1: I completely agree with you, and yeah, no, I genuinely
Speaker 1: agree with you, and I think that's why we're looking
Speaker 1: through in all these different places. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that's that to me is that you said your
Speaker 1: qualification for writing this book is that you're worse than everyone,
Speaker 1: and you're crazy than everyone. And I felt that that
Speaker 1: was one of the most refreshing approaches had ever read,
Speaker 1: because most of the time people are like quoting all
Speaker 1: their accolades and their achievements to say why they're an expert.
Speaker 1: How do you someone who's feels that way and reflect
Speaker 1: on yourself in that way? But then you adopted this
Speaker 1: system and this structure, and in your own words, you say,
Speaker 1: when you first heard about it, you thought that's not
Speaker 1: for me. That program seems too systematic, right, it seems
Speaker 1: to destructured. How were you able to do that? The
Speaker 1: reason that it was important to me to express that
Speaker 1: I'm not coming from a didactic position is because now
Speaker 1: that even when I come in this room here and
Speaker 1: now at Facebook, I meet young people that are competent, lucid,
Speaker 1: brilliant communicators, seemed like they were at ease and comfortable
Speaker 1: of themselves at ways that I wasn't when I was
Speaker 1: at that age. And I don't want to be writing
Speaker 1: a book that comes at you from the perspective of
Speaker 1: I've sorted myself out, I've been famous, I've had these
Speaker 1: various experiences conjugally and physically and sexually and anatomically. No,
Speaker 1: it comes from the position of me saying the reason
Speaker 1: I know this program works is because it has to
Speaker 1: work because I'm messed up that I get very attached
Speaker 1: to things. I get attached to other people's feelings about me. Fame, celebrity, money,
Speaker 1: those things really matter to me. But this helped me
Speaker 1: to unstitch it. And this is what I believe Jay Shitty,
Speaker 1: that we don't choose between working a pro like between
Speaker 1: having a program and not having a program. Everyone's working
Speaker 1: a program. You choose between your unconscious program and your
Speaker 1: conscious program. If you don't deliberately have a program, you
Speaker 1: are working an unconscious one. You're working the program of
Speaker 1: your family, you're working the program of your society, you're
Speaker 1: working the program of your culture, and a lot of
Speaker 1: that programming is very negative. And it's by this diagnosis
Speaker 1: that I say that we're all on the scale of addiction.
Speaker 1: We're all using external things to hold our lives together,
Speaker 1: and those things ultimately will not work definitely. And one
Speaker 1: of the biggest ones that stood out to me, and
Speaker 1: I think it was articulated really well by Charles Cooley.
Speaker 1: When I read this, I thought you may like it.
Speaker 1: It was Charles Coolie who said that today I'm not
Speaker 1: what I think I am. I'm not what you think
Speaker 1: I am. I am what I think you think I am. Wow,
Speaker 1: And so we live in this that's brilliant. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: you wrote this in the eighteen hundreds or something like that.
Speaker 1: And and it's like he's reflecting on the how today
Speaker 1: we're a perception of a perception of ourselves, perception of
Speaker 1: a perception. And I really thought that resonated with what
Speaker 1: you were talking about with how one of the things
Speaker 1: that the program helps with is dealing help people view
Speaker 1: us just make so many of us are wrapped up
Speaker 1: in we need to have this thing because it makes
Speaker 1: us look good this, so tell us a bit about that. Well,
Speaker 1: I think what that quote you just used there from
Speaker 1: Charles Coolly really well illustrates is the idea that we
Speaker 1: feel like we live in illusions all the time. When
Speaker 1: it say, oh it's an illusion, it's an illusion. Well,
Speaker 1: if you're living in what you think other people think
Speaker 1: of you, that's already an illusion. It's built on conjecture,
Speaker 1: it's built on speculation. You're not having a truthful and
Speaker 1: visceral experience of your own life. You're thinking, what does
Speaker 1: my life look like to other people? Do I belong?
Speaker 1: Am I good enough? You're living in a projected image
Speaker 1: of the self. That other great trope of mystical traditions
Speaker 1: is stay present in the moment, stay connected in the moment.
Speaker 1: This program is a system that delivers you to that
Speaker 1: point where you can be present in the moment, and
Speaker 1: then once you're there, there's a strong moral and effical
Speaker 1: aspect to it. It's not just like let's bliss out
Speaker 1: and sit in a cave or sit on the top
Speaker 1: of some mountain or lose yourself in a loft. Is
Speaker 1: connect and once you are connected, to be of service
Speaker 1: to others, because that is where true connection and happiness
Speaker 1: is found. Amazing. I'm addicted to hearing from you. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've been following you for the last week, watching you
Speaker 1: talk about the book, and I get addicted to your
Speaker 1: articulation of how you've been through this transformation and this journey.
Speaker 1: Well possibly, Jay, It's worth pointing out that I always
Speaker 1: believe that the drive behind addiction isn't itself negative. It's
Speaker 1: the yearning to come back home. Like I think on
Speaker 1: some level we all are aware this isn't real. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm defining my life by stuff that doesn't matter. I
Speaker 1: think of the problems you had five years ago, where
Speaker 1: are they now? They've all gone. All of the things
Speaker 1: we cared about all of the cultural artifacts that fascinated us.
Speaker 1: Where are they gone? Where are even the great leaders
Speaker 1: that this country produced sixty years ago? Your civil rights geniuses,
Speaker 1: they too lie dead, but their ethics, their morals, and
Speaker 1: the things that are permanent and universal live on. So
Speaker 1: we all have to find our own way to making
Speaker 1: those kind of connections. If I'm not very careful, if
Speaker 1: I'm not deliberate, if I'm not focused, this culture, along
Speaker 1: with my biochemistry, will pull me towards being a passive consumer, possible,
Speaker 1: a commodifier of all things, looking at human beings, it's
Speaker 1: just commodities to be consumed. No, I'm going to be
Speaker 1: thinking some of your questions, and I've seen a great
Speaker 1: one come through just a moment ago from Kevin, and
Speaker 1: he says, Russell, can you recall any specific moments in
Speaker 1: your life that shifted your perspective from the everyday norms
Speaker 1: to who you are now? Well? Yes, I can't recall many.
Speaker 1: When it comes to addiction. There are moments where I
Speaker 1: was brought so low by addiction that it seemed apparent
Speaker 1: that it couldn't go on. Like I got scars on
Speaker 1: my body and scars on my mind from getting like
Speaker 1: arrested and into situations that made me realize that that
Speaker 1: level of reality won't work for you anymore. I sugget
Speaker 1: I suspect from the way that that question is positive,
Speaker 1: that you're talking about my relationship with reality and consciousness.
Speaker 1: I suppose, mate, because I've been in positions where I've
Speaker 1: been like a super super face amos and well ensconced
Speaker 1: in celebrity. There's been these odd eerie they say, the
Speaker 1: word epiphany means the revelation of essence. Do you know
Speaker 1: what I mean by that? The revelation of truth? There
Speaker 1: have been moments where I've been surrounded by a lot
Speaker 1: of glamor and a lot of power, and I felt
Speaker 1: sort of oddly brittle and disconnected from it, like it's
Speaker 1: not real, Like it's not real. So I suppose, like
Speaker 1: various times around possibly Golly, that when I came home
Speaker 1: from the MTV VMA Awards the first time after I
Speaker 1: hosted it, I got back to my house and have
Speaker 1: been all these celebratory helium balloons put in my bedroom,
Speaker 1: and they were half full by now and floating at
Speaker 1: an eerie height, like sub aquatic creatures their way down
Speaker 1: in the deep deep mind. And I got back to
Speaker 1: my room and like I was getting all this hate
Speaker 1: mouth and all these messages of hatred were coming, and
Speaker 1: I felt, Ah, this is never going to work for you, Russell.
Speaker 1: Plus I met this swami in India who says, Russell,
Speaker 1: the material world has got nothing else to give you.
Speaker 1: It can only take from you. Now made me feel
Speaker 1: a bit sick. I didn't like it because I want
Speaker 1: the material world to give me things. I wanted to
Speaker 1: give me sex. I want it to give me money.
Speaker 1: I wanted to give me power, but I kind of
Speaker 1: know now that it can't. The only thing that's useful
Speaker 1: to me is true connection. But the reason this book
Speaker 1: is written from the perspective of me say I'm worse
Speaker 1: than you, is I'm capable of making a mess of
Speaker 1: this on the way home in the car. Someone can
Speaker 1: affect me in traffic, someone can say something I don't like,
Speaker 1: and I'll be affected by it. It's important that we
Speaker 1: acknowledge that we are flawed, we are not perfect. So
Speaker 1: awakening is a continual process. We must awaken unto ourselves
Speaker 1: moment a moment. Try to recognize the patterns we have,
Speaker 1: Recognize the things that chain is to our habits, bad relationships,
Speaker 1: bad beliefs, bad eating. Recognize them, and you can slowly
Speaker 1: become liberated using various systems, one of which I've outlined
Speaker 1: in that book. Step for it in the book is
Speaker 1: you take a personal inventory of all the things that
Speaker 1: have ever messed you up. So it might be things
Speaker 1: in your childhood. It might be saying that your mum
Speaker 1: did It could be something serious like maybe you didn't
Speaker 1: grow up around your dad, or someone died that you needed,
Speaker 1: or somebody abused you, or it could be something quite trivial.
Speaker 1: You put it all down in a system. You use
Speaker 1: these columns to a diagnose and analyze what happened to
Speaker 1: you. You You do it yourself, but then you share it
Speaker 1: with another person. It's important you don't do this stuff alone,
Speaker 1: particularly if you're dealing with deep stuff. Now, it took
Speaker 1: me five years and two days to do this, five
Speaker 1: years not to do it, and then two days to
Speaker 1: do it because I procrastinate and I didn't want to
Speaker 1: do it, and I avoided it. I avoided it like
Speaker 1: I owed it money. But once I've done it, it it
Speaker 1: revealed to me a lot of unconscious patterns. It revealed
Speaker 1: to me that I get in trouble a lot in
Speaker 1: the same way, because, as I keep saying to you,
Speaker 1: you don't choose between having a program and not having
Speaker 1: a program. You choose to having a conscious program or
Speaker 1: an unconscious program. That revealed to me that I care
Speaker 1: too much about what other people think of me, that
Speaker 1: I let fear govern me, that I don't feel like
Speaker 1: I'm good enough, I'm looking for other people's approval, I
Speaker 1: don't trust people, and yet I don't want to be alone.
Speaker 1: And once you recognize these things in yourself, you can
Speaker 1: begin a journey of recovery, a journey of healing, and
Speaker 1: get back on your intended path, become the person you
Speaker 1: were meant to be. This feeling of frustration you have,
Speaker 1: it'scause something in you knows that you can be something else,
Speaker 1: but that your culture and your circumstances are preventing you
Speaker 1: from real life. Saying, this is what it's meant by transcendence,
Speaker 1: an opportunity to connect to what is true, what is real,
Speaker 1: what is trying to be realized in you. You know
Speaker 1: your culture, you know your life. You know the forces
Speaker 1: that are in your life that are stopping you being
Speaker 1: who you are. You have God is not in the
Speaker 1: constellations of the stars. God is in your belly. God
Speaker 1: is telling you when you're doing something you didn't want
Speaker 1: to do. No, does anybody feel good after looking at pornography?
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't. Immediately afterwards, when I slam that
Speaker 1: live down or that was a good job, I feel
Speaker 1: like let myself down? What have I just participated in?
Speaker 1: So it's not that I'm trying to live my life
Speaker 1: in accordance with an external morality. It's the morality is innate, inherent,
Speaker 1: is present within already. And how did you recognize that
Speaker 1: it was that that it was internal? I suppose because
Speaker 1: after this, what these steps do, mate is they reveal
Speaker 1: the truth of who you are, but they also acknowledge
Speaker 1: that you're a flawed person, and it's very easy to
Speaker 1: drift back to your own habits. It made me realize
Speaker 1: that I'm better when I'm in relationship with another person,
Speaker 1: when I speak openly with people that I can trust,
Speaker 1: when I accept help from others, and when I offer
Speaker 1: help to people as well. So I suppose it came
Speaker 1: like you know, getting rid of heroin crack. That was
Speaker 1: one level recognizing that promiscuity wasn't working. For me. That
Speaker 1: was another level acknowledging the fame and materialism weren't working
Speaker 1: for me. There's another level. Now. I still participate in
Speaker 1: the world to still eat food and wear trainers and stuff,
Speaker 1: but what I no longer have is the expectation that
Speaker 1: these things are going to fill me up or make
Speaker 1: me better. Yeah, And I think I love that balance
Speaker 1: because I think sometimes it's really easy for people to
Speaker 1: go totally the other way and say, actually, I don't
Speaker 1: need any of it, and none of it has any purpose,
Speaker 1: and it's all false, it's all fake, and it's not
Speaker 1: going to do anything. But you're coming out from the
Speaker 1: point of view of I get it. I like these trainers.
Speaker 1: I bought them. Yeah, I know that they're not going
Speaker 1: to meet eternal transcendental happiness, but I know that they're
Speaker 1: going to make me feel good for a day. So
Speaker 1: it's almost like a realistic expectation. I believe. So, Jay,
Speaker 1: I mean, we know people who have a stronger path
Speaker 1: than us. Some people's path is they're not going to
Speaker 1: participate at all in that thing, and I think our
Speaker 1: culture needs that. Traditionally, in smaller societies, on the periphery
Speaker 1: of the village would be the shaman, the wild man,
Speaker 1: the priest, the people that were not quite in keeping
Speaker 1: the society. So I think it's just it's difficult because
Speaker 1: we live in an economic culture that's based upon productivity
Speaker 1: that if you're not a productive member of that society,
Speaker 1: and I mean economically productive, then you aren't given a role.
Speaker 1: We need people that can't wear trainers, that can't look
Speaker 1: at TV, that just want to spend all time meditating,
Speaker 1: blissing out, bringing down radiant new dreams, imagining new realms
Speaker 1: for us. There's a place in a utopia for those people.
Speaker 1: It's just it's difficult to find a role for them
Speaker 1: in a system of capitalist consumerism. You've touched it a
Speaker 1: few times where so you've talked about not doing this
Speaker 1: on your own, having people around that you trust. To
Speaker 1: talk about in the book needing mentors. How useful is
Speaker 1: that for you in the process of having worked with
Speaker 1: people who've been through this steps and these program with
Speaker 1: before you. It's absolutely vital for me, Jay to have
Speaker 1: mentors because I'm still crazy. I still have bad ideas
Speaker 1: every single day. Now I have the opportunity if I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of doing something crazy, I ring some up before
Speaker 1: I do it. That's the keep it before I do it,
Speaker 1: and go, hey, I'm thinking of doing this crazy thing.
Speaker 1: Shall I do it? Don't do the crazy thing? And
Speaker 1: then I have a moment and I don't do the
Speaker 1: crazy thing. Because when you're emotional, you were emotionally involved
Speaker 1: in your own life, and your emotions stop you being
Speaker 1: rational and clear headed. But other people you know this.
Speaker 1: But when I give advice to other people, I give
Speaker 1: good advice. If Jay, you were to ask me, oh, listen,
Speaker 1: this is happening in my life, I go, oh no,
Speaker 1: don't do that. Moment life, I'm like an idiot. I'm
Speaker 1: making stupid mistakes, I'm knocking stuff over, I'm being sick
Speaker 1: down my own top. I'm a fool. Then Jay's life,
Speaker 1: I'm very wise. So it's important to have the counsel
Speaker 1: of other people. Collectively and in community, we are powerful.
Speaker 1: It's only as individuals we're very, very stupid. And how
Speaker 1: long did it take you to go from calling someone
Speaker 1: after you messed up to before? That's a key part
Speaker 1: of the journey, because like it's very easy to bring
Speaker 1: someone when you're smacked up off your head, or if
Speaker 1: you're drunk, or if you've just made yourself puke up
Speaker 1: in a toilet, or you've bought some dumb stuff, or
Speaker 1: we've looked at some pornography, we've spent too much time
Speaker 1: staring at your phone. Go oh, I've done it. I
Speaker 1: feel filthy, I don't feel good anymore. If you bring
Speaker 1: them in advance of it, then get an opportunity to
Speaker 1: do something else. Here are the simple things you do.
Speaker 1: You speak with someone who's further down the path than
Speaker 1: you are, You speak to someone who's not so far
Speaker 1: down the path, and you help them, and you just
Speaker 1: think about what they're doing for a change. And then
Speaker 1: also in addition to this, you seek the collective company,
Speaker 1: so that you recognize your identity as a member of
Speaker 1: a community however you identify and importantly prayer and meditation
Speaker 1: for me, a recognition of the transcendence and people that
Speaker 1: can help you in those areas that are further down
Speaker 1: that particular path. Now, how much of you seen that
Speaker 1: help other people that were on the journey with you.
Speaker 1: Has that been a strong part of their journey? Is
Speaker 1: that very unique to yours? Or I think it is universal.
Speaker 1: I think it's for all of us. But how we
Speaker 1: conceive of a higher power changes. You know, there's nine
Speaker 1: or whatever people in this room, and we all have
Speaker 1: a different idea of what God or higher power might be.
Speaker 1: Some of us will be atheist. We don't. We believe
Speaker 1: that everything has come from material. My sense is that
Speaker 1: there must have been consciousness prior to material, that material
Speaker 1: cannot produce consciousness. But other people think that no, no
Speaker 1: material can produce consciousness. It's a big debate. It's been
Speaker 1: going on forever, it'll probably go on forever. The important
Speaker 1: thing is that we recognize that, however it got here,
Speaker 1: his spirit is a part of who we are now.
Speaker 1: So I know people that are atheists that stay clean
Speaker 1: and improve their lives. I know people that are sick
Speaker 1: or Buddhist or Christian or Muslim that get clean. The
Speaker 1: important thing is that we have a sense of connection
Speaker 1: to one another and a connection to a higher self,
Speaker 1: rather than just thinking I'm just me and what I
Speaker 1: want is important because if I think like that, I'm
Speaker 1: going to spend all my time hitting up the pipe,
Speaker 1: watching porn, making bad choices. Yeah, definitely, And how incredible
Speaker 1: would it be if we had a planet where everyone
Speaker 1: was thinking about everyone else, because then everyone would have
Speaker 1: seven people thinking about them as opposed to one, which
Speaker 1: is quite an incredible thing to think about. I just
Speaker 1: want to comment on how much I love the book,
Speaker 1: at how step orientated it and how structured it is.
Speaker 1: So when you flick through this book, there's loads of
Speaker 1: little activities that you can actually do, and I love
Speaker 1: that because I love being able to put your thoughts
Speaker 1: down on paper. Just getting out of your head. It's
Speaker 1: such an important thing. And I think if you don't
Speaker 1: have frameworks and structures to get them down, we just
Speaker 1: kind of live up, going around and around around, which
Speaker 1: I'm sure you've experienced a lot of I love. Yeah, Jay,
Speaker 1: it's funny you bring that up because I heard a
Speaker 1: thing from a neurologist the other day. It was on
Speaker 1: a podcast. I'm not hanging out with neurologists, right, And
Speaker 1: there goes that when you engage your rational mind, it
Speaker 1: takes you out of your emotion. It's very curious if
Speaker 1: the Step ten thing in this program is if something's
Speaker 1: bothering you say, like like if Jay, when we're outside
Speaker 1: when Russell, who look terribly overweight, which Jay would never
Speaker 1: say because he's too enlightened, as I've already mentioned, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, instead of thinking about that and worrying about it.
Speaker 1: I'd go Jay, because he said that thing about me
Speaker 1: being overweight. This affects my pride, It affects my self esteem,
Speaker 1: It affects my personal relations. That's not the script i'd
Speaker 1: give Jay. I want Jay to say the other stuff.
Speaker 1: Does it affect my sexual relations? No? Jay and I
Speaker 1: both married. And then my ambitions, yem, my ambition to
Speaker 1: be like in control of my own life. There's a
Speaker 1: whole system now when you go into the fourth column,
Speaker 1: and you should check this stuff out on my website,
Speaker 1: Russell brand dot com. You can see it. Who's that
Speaker 1: lovely guy? Like? It asks you various questions. Did I
Speaker 1: make any mistakes? Yeah? I care too much about what
Speaker 1: other people think of me. What are your fears? My
Speaker 1: fears are that if other people don't love me, I'm
Speaker 1: not good enough. Now when so, it puts you in
Speaker 1: a national part of your mind, and it also starts
Speaker 1: to help you to understand what patterns are at play
Speaker 1: when you feel bad about yourself. What are the patterns
Speaker 1: you know? Like, why is it so if people let
Speaker 1: me down? I'm really strongly affected by it because it
Speaker 1: reaches back into my past at times when I was
Speaker 1: let down, when I was small and fragile, I guess,
Speaker 1: and I think everybody's got their own version of that.
Speaker 1: This helps you to unpick the tapestry of your broken
Speaker 1: consciousness and restore to you a screen of pure mind
Speaker 1: through which a new radiant light can emerge and self
Speaker 1: realization can take place. I wanted to read a bit
Speaker 1: of a bout. If you don't mind, I'm sure your
Speaker 1: audio version is is far better that this married lady.
Speaker 1: There's this beautiful, beautiful piece in the book which you
Speaker 1: call here is a postcard from the other side. Here
Speaker 1: is a postcard from the other side. Fame, luxury items,
Speaker 1: and glamor are not real and cannot solve you. Whether
Speaker 1: it's a pair of shoes, a stream of orgies, a
Speaker 1: movie career, or global adulation, they're all just passing clouds
Speaker 1: of imagine every pleasure. It's true, you know, although I've
Speaker 1: still got those shoes. There's very well read that Jay,
Speaker 1: and it is no. You did it more than justice.
Speaker 1: You brought it to life. It's wonderful. But like so,
Speaker 1: I suppose, yeah, I like that. You know, it's a
Speaker 1: very common metaphor, the idea of passing clouds. We all
Speaker 1: recognize that clouds are impermanent and the result of precipitation,
Speaker 1: and similarly, the vapors of consciousness form into clouds, but
Speaker 1: they will pass. What we attached to is what's important,
Speaker 1: particularly if you want to create a sort of a
Speaker 1: positive ecology in our own consciousness. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: touch on this before we're gonna go. We're gonna do
Speaker 1: a quick fire round with Russell, which, as you know,
Speaker 1: is the on the spot questions. Nice rapid fire you're so,
Speaker 1: But before we do that, I did want to touch
Speaker 1: on something which I thought was pretty incredible you say
Speaker 1: in the book. I believe it's in the seventh step
Speaker 1: where you say that you're careful not to judge your parents,
Speaker 1: and I when I was reading that bit, I was
Speaker 1: just thinking, even judging or shifting blame is an addiction
Speaker 1: in our lives. We always trying to find to fob
Speaker 1: it off onto someone else. So yeah, it's actually that
Speaker 1: person's fault that I never got there, or it's because
Speaker 1: of that person that I have these difficulties. And I'm thinking,
Speaker 1: how did you stop yourself or grow to the point
Speaker 1: where you didn't want to judge your parents? Or judge
Speaker 1: anyone who'd yes, mate, Well, what it is is. Of
Speaker 1: course people make mistakes, but I've learned to recognize as
Speaker 1: I've got older. The older I get, the more easy
Speaker 1: my childhood was, the more I recognize that my parents
Speaker 1: just ordinary people like me making their way through life.
Speaker 1: By justifying your pain and by blaming, we recommit to
Speaker 1: the pain. Well, of course I feel like this, this
Speaker 1: happened to me, That happened to me. You're signing another
Speaker 1: contract to continue with the pain. If you say, Okay,
Speaker 1: those things happened, but I want to let go of
Speaker 1: them now, and I want to move forward. You have
Speaker 1: an opportunity to reimagine your world and reimagine your place
Speaker 1: within it. So I'm sure terrible things happened to people.
Speaker 1: People are abused, people are let down, people don't do
Speaker 1: what they should do as parents. People make all sorts
Speaker 1: of mistakes, But by holding onto that pain, you recommit
Speaker 1: to reliving it. Of course, it's wrong that you're abused,
Speaker 1: if you were abused, but what's even more wrong than
Speaker 1: that is that you continue to allow it to affect
Speaker 1: your consciousness now, in this moment when you could be free. Definitely, So, guys,
Speaker 1: if you're ready for the quick player on the spot
Speaker 1: around with Russell Brand pressor likes, I'm gonna press that
Speaker 1: share button. I'm going to ask him these questions. They're
Speaker 1: going to evolve from what may seem quite inferior and insignificant,
Speaker 1: but then walking into depth, deeper depths of yourself. A right,
Speaker 1: So we can start in very shallow, yeah, like a
Speaker 1: paddle in a stream, and then we're leaping into the
Speaker 1: deep blue exactly. I'll follow you there with or without trunks.
Speaker 1: Thank you us. So here we go. Are you a
Speaker 1: morning person or a night Sometimes I wake up in
Speaker 1: the morning for an pretty depressed actually, but I can't
Speaker 1: go to bed late no more because I've got a baby.
Speaker 1: So you have to become a morning person because that
Speaker 1: baby determines it. So has that been becoming a father
Speaker 1: obviously very recently? Congratulations? Thanks man, and a lot of love.
Speaker 1: I've beautiful child you have and yeah, how's that be? Well,
Speaker 1: what it's done is it's unraveled my narcissism and puked
Speaker 1: and spat on it and done a pool on it
Speaker 1: because I now know I'm not the most important person
Speaker 1: in the world. Because there's a little baby who just
Speaker 1: thinks I'm an absolute idiot and punches me in the
Speaker 1: face pretty regularly, and she just thinks I'm the guy
Speaker 1: that holds the screen that in the night gardens on.
Speaker 1: So that's put me really in my place. You know.
Speaker 1: It really funny. Someone said to me recently that when
Speaker 1: they had a child, that was the first time they
Speaker 1: realized that life was about service. And I was thinking
Speaker 1: that often we wait so long to figure that out.
Speaker 1: It's like what you're saying in this book is just
Speaker 1: like get on with it. Like wherever you are, whatever
Speaker 1: stage you're out, whatever challenges you've had, it's like the
Speaker 1: quicker you can get to that, Like why wait that long? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was just someone shared that with me. So favorite
Speaker 1: word or quote, okay, quote a lot of great people.
Speaker 1: All right, here's this Herman Melville quote that I like
Speaker 1: all of humans science are but passing fables. I like
Speaker 1: this because when we think of how advanced we are scientifically,
Speaker 1: here we sit in this great hub of technology. One
Speaker 1: day it's hard to think, isn't it that we will
Speaker 1: look back at this and it will be like some
Speaker 1: whirring steampunk, daft old engine of silly old pistons and
Speaker 1: buckles and cogs. Similarly, with our understanding of quantum physics
Speaker 1: and entanglement ideas that are so baffling. Now it will
Speaker 1: be revealed to us new, true, deeper truths. So what
Speaker 1: we understand as reality on the physical and mechanical level
Speaker 1: is constantly evolving. Therefore, we have to find a transcendent
Speaker 1: perennial truth, and this I believe is available to you
Speaker 1: in some of the ancient scriptures, possibly all of them.
Speaker 1: It's usually to do with oneness and love. As you
Speaker 1: can tell, this is not going very rapid fire. But
Speaker 1: it's good. Oh yeah, it's fine, it's good. It's good.
Speaker 1: Last book you read, I'm reading maybe Dick at the moment.
Speaker 1: I like that book by Herman Melville. Awesome. If you
Speaker 1: could have a superpower, what would it be? Oh no, okay,
Speaker 1: I want to have to subdivide myself into loads of
Speaker 1: people like clone Mesa, be inside people I not think
Speaker 1: like they are. But oh now that's quite a good one.
Speaker 1: What I leap into other people's conscious Yes, I didn't
Speaker 1: know that was available. Yeah, having your okay, if you
Speaker 1: are not what you are today, what would you be?
Speaker 1: God knows? Man? I mean, like like I probably want
Speaker 1: to work with children, because the only thing other than
Speaker 1: like shoving off is hanging out with kids. What job
Speaker 1: would you be terrible at? Like anything where I had
Speaker 1: to be involved in rational for and organizing stuff. I'd
Speaker 1: be like when I used to be a male man.
Speaker 1: For example, I stole the letters and didn't deliver them.
Speaker 1: Because that's quite bad, isn't it. Why do you meditate?
Speaker 1: Because none of this is real and I need to
Speaker 1: attach to truth. Best thing about being a dad That
Speaker 1: kid has opened new continents of love in my heart,
Speaker 1: like Columbus. Best thing about being a husband, constancy, permanent love.
Speaker 1: The best thing about knowing you're more than the body
Speaker 1: and the mind. Freedom, amazing. Best lesson from Hollywood. Don't
Speaker 1: determine your self worth on what other people think of you.
Speaker 1: Best advice you've ever received? Oh no, like from our
Speaker 1: shared friend and teacher, rather Naswami. He goes, goes, what
Speaker 1: if I become a monk? He laughed in my face, said,
Speaker 1: I do not think it's your dama to become a monk.
Speaker 1: The monks don't want me, so not becoming a monk.
Speaker 1: Good advice and best advice you've ever given. M. I
Speaker 1: don't know really because I don't know the effects of it,
Speaker 1: but like hopefully it's something like you have everything you need,
Speaker 1: you are enough, You are enough, you are beautiful. That's amazing. Guys.
Speaker 1: That's it. You've been watching Recovery with Russell Brand, follow
Speaker 1: the Reader. I hope that you're going to go and
Speaker 1: click and order this book today. It's there in the comments.
Speaker 1: If anything we said connected with you resonated with you,
Speaker 1: please please please go through. I know that reading this
Speaker 1: for me has made me find new ways of reflecting
Speaker 1: on flaws that I thought had overcome. Wow, And I
Speaker 1: thought that was really quite incredible. There were things that
Speaker 1: I thought maybe I've overcome this, maybe and maybe this
Speaker 1: is done now, and then when I read this, I
Speaker 1: was like, no, it's not. I've not made that list
Speaker 1: and gone through every single part of it. So I've
Speaker 1: got loads from this, and I really hope you will too.
Speaker 1: But thank you, Russell Way, thank you, thank you so much,
Speaker 1: Harry Chrishna, Chrishna, thank you very good. Thank you so
Speaker 1: much for listening to this episode. Please leave a review.
Speaker 1: It means the world to me, and I can't wait
Speaker 1: to see you next week. I am so excited. I've
Speaker 1: got some big announcements coming up. You'll hear about them soon.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for listening.