Begin Again with Davina McCall - Begin Again Moments: Family Relationships

Episode Date: June 1, 2026

In this Begin Again moment, Seann Walsh reflects on his childhood, his relationship with his dad, and the small family rituals he missed growing up, from sitting around a table to having clear boundaries at home. Alain de Botton then explains how childhood instability can shape the way we see ourselves, our relationships and our sense of worth, and why adulthood is about learning to stop giving other people power over who we are. This is a 'moments' episode, taking some of the best moments rom the show so far; for the full episode search ‘Begin Again’ followed by Seann or Alain wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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I did this show and it touched on mine and my dad's relationship. This is true. I met him to, what is it now? I met him to almost like a journalist, really. I met him to ask him some questions that would maybe help my story in the show. Just his story, his story with the drug. and it was there that I discovered that he didn't, hadn't taken it in a couple of years.

But that's mad that you didn't know that. No, we weren't really communicating at that point. So this brought you back together? Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It did, yeah. I mean, we're still quite distant, me my dad, but we do talk, he texts me after the QPR game,

but it's, yeah, we're just not that kind of family. We're not, you know, we never had, And I think this goes with something, we never had a table at home. You know, the thing of, one of the things that... No, Michelle. I get, you know, can I just say something? That is so, that tells me so much. Right, right.

Like, a table is a basic family need. Right. What are you going to sit round? Absolutely. To play Uno. Exactly. Right? And do you know,

one of my first girlfriends, I, she went, I remember having dinner around their house and we had to sit around the table and it was this mortifying thing. What, I've got to look at you? Yeah, we've got to sit around the table with your parents.

We're going to sit around. Why the parent? I don't want to sit with your parents. It was so scary because I wasn't used to this. And the reason they did it and she used to hate it. She was wonderful. She used to hate it.

And I remember I used to say to her, no, this is so important because her dad would ask everyone, should have brother, and ask everyone how their day had been. And at first, at first I found it mortifying, I hated the concept. And then I grew to love it. And obviously, that's what we do at home. Obviously, we have the table, the kids now, me and grace with the kids, we have it around the table. It's so important, the table to family. I think there's a book in that.

You know, the table. Yeah, yeah, yeah. When I talk about teenagers, yeah. I always, my girlfriend told me to never say no to a teenager. And I was like, I don't get that. Like, what? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's impossible.

How can you not say no to a teenager? She said, they're teenagers. They're coming into adulthood. Yeah. They need a negotiation. And you take them to the negotiating table. That's fantastic. And you sit down and you go, okay, tell me what you want.

okay, the reason why I'm having a problem that is because of this. I've got to get up really early in the morning. I don't want to come and pick you up at 3 o'clock in the morning. Can we negotiate on the time? You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, that's fantastic. I'm having that. They negotiate a bit.

I negotiate a bit. They feel heard. I feel heard. No argument. Yes. No leaving the room and going, I hate you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've got that to come, but I'm using that.

That's why you've got a table now as well. Yeah, absolutely. For later, negotiating. Exactly, yeah. So, like, how do you, create a safe environment for you in relationships when you're growing up. Like that's really hard. Well, I think, you know, that no boundaries is something that I've kind of had to, I mean, that, you know, and we'll get to that, I'm sure, but not, you know, not drinking was

so important into, you know, in creating boundaries and kind of pathways of of, of, of existing. This episode is brought to you by Activia. You might already be eating yogurt, but not all yogurts are created equal. Activia contains over one billion probiotics per serving to survive and reach the gut alive. When it comes to gut health, Activia is the number one family doctor-recommended probiotic yogurt brand. Choose Activia. Feel good from the inside out. Visit Activia.ca for more details.

And I'm with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit Wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. Childhood is a very difficult period. And I think we all need to understand that children are born into the world utterly dependent on those around them, the few people around them who are randomly chosen and who will be suffering from various distortions of their own minds. I mean, it's very rare that you are born into a sane family. Most of us are born into, you know, it's a lopsided sort of proposition. So

we have to understand that this is, this is the way we're born. How long are we going to let that lopsided entry into the world determine our lives? Ideally, a minimal amount of time. What you need to do is to realize the nature of the lopsidedness, accept the lopsidiness, and start to correct it as early as possible. How do we find out what our lopsidedness is? Is it that we sit and ask ourselves questions? I mean, you know, it depends in which area. Love and work, the two great areas of life.

This is Freud said, you know, happiness means getting love and work right. And most of us get love and work dramatically wrong with things that are probably related to early childhood. Or, you know, we pick up, what happens in childhood is that we don't, only learn language and social skills. We learn a whole emotional vocabulary about who we are, how we function, what's expected of us, what it takes to be good, what it means to be a boy, a girl, gender, roles, etc. All of this is encoded in us unconsciously. And we need to understand the language we've learned in order to become self-aware and question, because bits of

it are going to be balmy, really, really strange, really distorted. There will be an excessive focus on some areas and not on others. And ultimately, the goal of adulthood is to become your own arbiter of your own value and of your own mission and of your own joys, etc. It used to belong in other people. A child looks up at its parent and goes, who am I? What am I worth? And the answer comes back from the parents' face.

And that answer is loaded with prejudice and bizarre stuff, right? And after a certain age, you think that happened to me in the past. I can't let that continue. At some point, I've got to become. And by the way, we do this in love. I mean, in love, you know, most of us spend a good portion of our lives thinking I'm not complete until I meet somebody else who's able to mirror for me a good picture of who I am. I won't tolerate myself until someone else can say, you're okay. And until then, I'm not okay.

Can I quickly ask you something about that? So, because I think what you're saying is I want to find somebody where. I like myself. Okay, so you're showing me a version of I become a nice person when I'm with you. I give you power of attorney over my worth. I give you the power to decide whether I'm a good person or a bad person. Think about lonely. But shouldn't we know if we're a good person or a course. But of course, that's not the history. So let's get a passionate towards the history because we've come from a place where we take our school grades to our parents and go, what am I worth? Am I a good person? And maybe there are good evolutionary reasons why that's the case. But the

point is how long do we want to let that continue? At some point, we have to seize the reins and go, now I'm an adult. And part of adulthood means not surrendering my power to decide my worth always to random external authorities. I mean, you know, again, in relationships, people, people get into terrible trouble because they stick around people who beam back a terribly negative image of them. And they go, I've got to spend another decade persuading this person that I'm a worthwhile human being. And you think, no, you don't. If you are not getting back an image, that you like and that broadly, you know, agrees with your sensible reasons for your own assessment and sense of worth. Get out. Don't be around such a situation.

We do so much of giving up to others something that should be self-generated. And we get into terrible trouble because of that. Something that I'm really interested in, which kind of plays into what you're talking about. I mean, we've kind of touched on a bit that life is suffering, you know, this idea that we've all got to try and be happy all the time. it's inachievable, it's untenable, and it's not realistic. And I do worry about people trying to achieve something that they're never going to be able to achieve because life is difficult. And getting through those difficult times a bit like going through a crisis or doing something you're frightened of means that when you get through it, you're like, yes, I got through it.

But also I feel like, do you know what, I've completely loved. off my chance. No, no, no. Give me two minutes because I'm actually going to come back to it. We were just talking, what we were just talking about? Well, it's about whether you allow somebody else

to determine what you're worth is. We might as sort of childhood and the way that children will sort of look to their parents or those around them to decide whether they're a good person or a bad person. Yes. And so I think, I think basically what I was saying was that as we get to the point where we start believing ourselves,

there is like a time in your life where you have to cleanse your life of people that are toxic. I've remembered it. Oh my God, thank you so much. That was like doing the best poo ever. I love you. This has never happened to me before, but can I just say something? Thank you for being patient and letting me find it. No, it makes me feel emotional.

I'm so grateful to you. Anyway, I feel fucking great. So what I hear about quite often is people that can't take responsibility for themselves. And I'm really interested because I've had some experience of addiction and treatment centers. I didn't personally go into treatment center. I went to a fellowship. But it is said in a treatment center that an addict that is stuck in victim mode is almost impossible to treat. Because they can't recover because they don't believe that.

they can help themselves, they've lost power. What creates, are we born victims or do we become victims? And if someone is in victim mode, they often don't want to get out because it's easier. But how can we, can we help a victim? Do we have to just leave them be? What do we do? I mean, look, I'm inclined to be quite generous towards that word victim. You know, people go, oh, that person feels, you know, victimise, etc.

And I want to start by going, let's not put them. Let's not label them. Let's not label them. You know, let's not treat them as bad people, et cetera. I think all of us, I mean, what do we mean by victimhood? Let's say, I go outside and it's the third time I've left the house. And every time I leave the house, it looks sunny. But then every time I've spent five minutes walking down the road, it starts to rain.

And I get completely drenched and I've forgotten my umbrella. By the third time this happens, I start to feel. the world's getting at me, right? I feel like I'm being victimized by the weather, right? Or I go into a restaurant and I say, can I have a nice table? And they go, yeah, over there. And you realize the table's wobbly and there's a strange smell and they've given you the worst table.

And you think, I'm being victimized in the pizza restaurant or whatever it is. So it's quite possible to feel that you're being got at by the world. Often it has to do with a deep sense that you're unworthy and that you're not a good person. The more you feel, I'm not good, I'm unaware, there's something wrong. with me, the more you'll constantly be reading insult everywhere. Everyone's laughing at people at getting at me, etc. So again, huge compassion. This comes from not really having been seen, loved, honoured, et cetera. And then you make it worse for yourself because you're permanently seeing yourself as a good, a fitting, plausible candidate for victimisation and then you feel

victimised by things that go wrong. The tube train left the station in order to hurt me. My date didn't show up because they loathe me. You know, everything is connected up with something wrong with you. And of course, what we really realize is that the world's much more random. The weather wasn't interested in you. The tube is not trying to humiliate you. The date that was late, they had

some problem with their own family, whatever it is. You know, there's often a lot more going on than the victimized person feels. And so that's why, by the way, it's really useful to get out on a starry night and look at the stars. Because suddenly you're aware of the vastness in which we all live. And you think,

you know what, it's not all about me. And that's a beautiful thought. Because normally we think it's not all about me and that's a bad thing. It should be more about me. And then sometimes you look at something vast like the ocean, like the stars. And you think, thank goodness that I'm not the center of this show. This show's been going on a lot longer. It's a lot bigger. I am a grain of sand. Thank God. And so that's a sort of anti-victimization strategy to realize that, you know, it started long before you. It'll go on long after you. It's not about you. And thank God, it's not about you.