If I Speak - 93: I’m addicted to guilt. What’s wrong with me?

Episode Date: December 16, 2025

Join us at Crossed Wires festival in Sheffield on 4th July 2026 – tickets are available now from https://crossedwires.live/ now! Ash and Moya debate the pros and cons of feeling shame after Ash reveals that her own moral universe is governed by guilt. Plus: what to do about a best friend with a mean streak. Send […]

Hello and welcome to if I speak the podcast for overthinkers, gossips, narcissists, communists, communists, communists. tag yourself astrologers no astrologers anymore I've turned against my former people so much

you know when someone you know when someone converts and they turn they always always the most fundamentalist people are the people

who's convert like it's always because they've got something to prove I'm doing a reverse conversion and therefore now I want to burn

astrology to the ground I've turned deeply against it the zeal of the recently reverted how are you I'm not the worst I've been

and I'm not the best I've been I'm an easy middle How about you? I think that the middle segment which is my intrusive thought slash intrusive question will be the giveaway for where my head's been at recently

Okay well then we better hasten to the church But first On our way We have to go past 73 questions lane The Inquisition We have to stop in a lay-by and let you pee My mum

Did you, when you were going on long journeys Were you a lay-by kid Or did you have a potty? We had a travel potty. I don't really know what you mean. You know when you used to piss And you're long journeys as a small kid Did you just stop and pee in the lay-by

Or were you like, did you have a travel potty? No, stop it like a services. No, we didn't always have a service. There wasn't always our services. Neither of those options were what happened. When you're older, obviously, there's services and you can hold it a bit more. But when you're little kids, you're pissing everywhere. I can't recall being told to piss and a lay by or a travel potty.

My mom was very anti-potty, very, very anti-potty. I remember the travel potty like it was yesterday. Is this your first question for me? No, it's not. Is this why you're so... Because we're very different levels of neurotic about toilet. I'm very anti-toilet talk. Very pro-toilet talk.

I would say, the fictor is relaxed. Pro-body. Is this why? I don't know. I don't know what Freud would say. I think... My mom raised me with such a fear of like, or like aversion to toilet. I mean, I wasn't even allowed to go and like, you know the paddling pools in parks, which, like, get filled with

water in the summer. My mom was like, no, people piss in there. I would, I, I always knew people pissed in pools because I was one of them. I was like, I can't work with you anymore. There's pissing everything. Like, you just have to, you have to carry on. Like, I think it's because I grew up in a place where there was a lot of just like animal shit around, not in the house, obviously. My house was pristine. The cats peed and pissed outside. The dog also outside. We had none of that shit inside. But I mean, like I grew up surrounded by sheep shit. I mean, my sisters, I've said before, would get it on sticks and, like, throw at each other. So, what? I'm not so pissed. No.

Oh, I find that's so upsetting. My grandma used to, a very clear early memory I have is my grandma would have like big buckets and you'd take the lid of the bucket and it would just be full of sheep shit that she was using for fertilizer stir it around and make the best gloopy noise in the world

because it all like melded together oh that was great and yeah sometimes me and my sister like chucking each other would never hit us like God I don't remember it hitting us but you would always be there would always be like shit on your wellies

and you'd have to like get it off with a stick and you saw sheep pissing everywhere and you're just quite aware that animals go to the toilet and that you two are an animal and I also in relationships as well like people are going to shit and piss and far like those are things that are going to happen and you have to get over them but some people don't get over them my ex did not like the

fact that i occasionally would have to pass wind and would make me he didn't like your toad he didn't like the fact that i'd toot and i i'm a protein girl like i toot uh he would make me stand in the corner like the blur witch project He doubled over laughing when this was happening because it's like, I literally look like a wave of death, but all I'm doing is a fart. So he thought, he was like, we need some mystery in the relationship.

I'm like, yeah, but that's too much mystery. Like, I'm literally having to bung up. I'm completely, I'm completely with your ex on this matter. So obviously, you know, one makes it through the demilitarized zone and the electric fence, right? occasionally but you know

when that happens we have the good grace to be very embarrassed about it you know my partner my partner did a little accidental to the other day and he tried to blame it on our housemate but I knew it was him

because as soon as the sound was made his eyes went like this you're going to have to describe the face but his eyes went like this Ash's eyes have popped out of her skull like oh no it came through oh that makes me sad

and he tried to blame it on the houseway and I was like well you guys are like so entwined and married surely you can be like yeah that was me yeah that was me no no but this is part of being entwined and married is that like we've cultivated the same attitude to toilet I don't think he would have been this way were it not for me

like the same way he wouldn't have started washing his legs if it weren't for me see good that's a good thing I do think there should be the freedom to occasionally fart I don't think it should be all the time like I'm sure that my ex would say this woman would love to just be farting all day long you know she's just a machine I actually wasn't because he did make me much more like

no yeah hold this in but I think I think there should be the freedom that if it happens you're like ha ha ha ha he he he he because at some point there's gonna be I remember hearing about a couple who won holiday and one of them got food poisoning, the other one, like, held the bag while they had to shit into the bag because of food poisoning. This was in India

as well. And I was like, that is so romantic. That's really romantic. That's intimacy. I'd do it, but I'd want the, you know, the men in black neuraliser that can wipe your memory. That goes. I want to reiterate, I wouldn't, I would never have the door open

while I go to the bathroom. That's not a thing. Whether it's shit or piss, door stays closed. We use, like I, one of the greatest things that I have in my life is the, what is it called it's like the it's an odourizer it's like you burn it and it's like you get it I've got it from Amazon sorry but it's it's paper and you burn it

and it completely wipes any smells so I'm very big on like good smells I don't want there to be bad smells in the world the windows are open my you know the room is aired out all the time like those are things are important to me whether you are shitting or not but I do think there needs to be the freedom

that if someone farts it's not a world ending embarrassment that you have to sit through the rest of the day well look i mean we can we can get into this in the middle section but i think i am actually like anally retentive in psychological terms but also physical ones as well but it's funny because i don't like things on my bum so well it's one way traffic only to everyone who got onto this episode think you would just be i'm so sorry i was just like do you know what let's just put it all out there today we're near it's near christmas Right. Hit me some Christmas. Hit me with some questions.

Right. My questions seem really tame now in comparison. My first question was going to be a favourite Christmas film. I think you asked that. Did you ask that to me? No, you didn't. Favorite Christmas film? Or film to watch at Christmas. The borrowers. Oh. Talk to me more about those little people. I can't remember the names of any of the borrowers, by the way. But you know when the girl one? Yeah, and she has the crush on the sort of like bad boy borrower. I was like,

that's the man for me in the books I don't think she has the crush and then the movie obviously they have to sex it up sexualising borrowers whatever next sexualising these tiny

thumb-sized people which does everything about what we need for our movies but yeah I would also have a crush on the bad boy borrower hot

yeah that's a really unusual Christmas film I've never heard anyone say that before I really like that I've got taste you have got taste ash you have got taste

okay next question what beyond your deeply intimate and special marriage makes you believe in love oh um everything to be honest just everything is romantic like i just like we wouldn't be here as a species were it not for love is that true No, we wouldn't. Is that how Leanderthals? Yep, because like you couldn't raise children without it. Is that love though?

Yep, yep. Like, like, it literally makes the world go around. Like, it's central to who we are. I mean, why have we evolved, you know, why have we evolved it? Right. We've evolved it because it makes us more likely to make sacrifices for one another to spend time with one another to copulate, obviously, but also to, like, raise children who are long and annoying and sticky and volatile.

Love is essential to the continuation of the human race. And obviously, that makes me believe in love. And also, I'm a, you know, I'm a little romantic at heart. And I love all the different types of, like, courtship narrative. I mean, my favorite, my favorite kind of courtship. And I think you can tell a lot about whether someone is a Bronte girl or an Austin girl. And I'm an Austin girl. I love my point A's.

Fully paid up. Austin. Fully paid up till the end. Jane gang, bang, bang. Um, but like such a huge part of, of like, an Austinite courtship or seduction is intellectual sparring and intellectual play. And intellectual sparring as a form of foreplay. That's what's going on in all these conversations. Yes. Yes. The Bronte stuff is always like just, it's so tortured. They're having a horrible time the whole way through. It's what it's like in Yorkshire. Yeah, they're

really tortured. Very funny that you're saying that with a lovely Yorkshire spouse that you intellectually spar with. Yeah, I mean, he's not, he's not a, he's not a, he's not a Bronte love interest at all. Bronte love interest is always like half of the book they're in such anguish. And then if they do ever consummate it in any way, they die. um it's just up the first kiss the first kiss between jane a and mr rochester what happens the tree that they kiss under gets struck by lightning you're so bloody tortured whereas austin yeah there's torture but it's like oh i've made a mistake and then the mistake gets rectified as you say it's like they're all in rooms going at each other all the time like bickering

sexual tension oh it's great they're having these they're having sexy chats the whole time oh i love it They're having sex little shouts, but no, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a believer in the power of love. I think I always have been as well. I think, I think ultimately same. Everything is romantic. Okay. Last question. One has to go.

Christmas or New Year as an occasion. New Year. Pretty tall. So, um, I, I often find that when there is pressure to have a good night out, you often have the worst. night out so true that's that's the first thing second thing is that christmas isn't one thing christmas is many things so for me christmas is like you know there's the festive run-up but then if we're just taking you know the the three days right there's go to the pub with all your mates and the people who you grew up with on christmas eve and i've had some of the most fun of my entire life

on those nights. I mean, like, one Christmas, I had such a big one that I ended up like crawling back to my mom's house at like five and then got up at seven to like make the Christmas breakfast. And then like my brother has got a great photo of me holding a piece of bacon and crying because the come down was hitting. Like it was hitting right at that moment. But it was, it was fun. It was fun to be that like inappropriately like, like, wavy. Do you know what I mean? And then it's it is different now that my my stepdad's no longer with us because it was always me and him that made the Christmas dinner. It was always me and him who like took control of the whole thing and I really miss that big time. There's like the the

spectacle of cooking because I fucking love cooking and I like being praised for cooking and so the sort of the bringing out of like a big platter of something and like being being glazed with praise is like well love it. And then after the Christmas dinner itself, one of my best friends who have been best friends with since we were 11 because we lived next door to each other. And we still live very close to each other and we still see each other every Christmas day

is we play the traditional game of Articulate and me and her are always on a team and we humiliate everyone because we've got best friend telepathy. Articulate is really about team up with the person that you have that level of connection with. Like me and my ex fucking used to dominate, articulate. It was actually embarrassing for everyone else.

And the runners up would always be other couples as well. So it's like, go on. We did best friend Olympics, where it was me and her versus my partner and his best friend. And we obliterated them. That's so you guys to do that as well. Like, let's compete. Who has the best friendship?

Yeah. yeah i don't want to play that game but it sounds really good i might introduce it to people but i just wouldn't partake into in case i lost that's really good game it's so so great and then after articulate you have what me and my brother would call the sort of um ritual um scanning of the back of the booze cupboard so that's where you get the amarula the lemmicellos you got from people's holidays etc etc and my brother in particular would start making concoctions

which if they don't make you ill will be the best thing that you ever drink but you can never recreate it it's just a product of the back of the cupboard Christmas magic and then on Boxing Day obviously leftover sandwich ha ha ha

yeah I need to get some crusty rolls in for the leftover sandwich this year what would you get rid of Christmas or New Year hard it's actually hard because Christmas I really like as a season

New Year I love I think I like on Christmas I love don't you I love don't you yeah I love I love the other day I was hanging out with someone and it turned up they were worse accents than me

and that's the first of my life that's ever happened. So I was doing like some accents. And they were trying to do it too. And I was like, oh my God, you're actually worse accents than me. That's actually, that's, that's, that's, I feel great. So that was just like doing scouts all over the shop. I haven't did a bit. I did, I did a herrifford accent.

It was fucking great. I was going crazy. What is a her accent? Oh, herford accent is like flat. It's like that. It's not like West Country. West country is like, all right. My lover.

Like it keeps a much all rounder like that. Whereas heriff is just like flat. It's like, let's get the trar out. Tratter. You know? Tratter. Like, her first like,

going down and pub. Whereas West Country's a lot more like comedy like, where's all garbage kind of vibes. So my accent should be like, sometimes when I say things like work, you'll hear it come out like a little bear, little bear. Yeah,

so I think actually I maybe get New Year. And the reason for that is New Year doesn't keep or get rid. Sorry. I would keep New Year. And the reason is, I've had some really tough new years. Last year, we went out in the city.

that I lived at a time. That was a fucking terrible night out. One of the worst New Year's nights I've ever had. The preview to that was an amazing time. Me and the girls burning things, doing our resolutions, love that, doing our list of stuff that happened this year.

That's the time I really hold so dear. We get together and we go through sort of like the top highs of the year, the lows of the year, our favourite moments, talk about what we then burn the stuff. We want to leave in the year that's just gone and sage it.

Like that is very special to me. The night out was shit. So bad. this year we are going to Leeds so excited we're going to Lourdes and the thing I'm excited about is not even the night out it's the big walk

we've got a big walk planned in before the night out we're going to have a lovely dinner and the night out will be fun but the night out is not the thing about New Year's I like it's the bit before and after and it's because it's maybe the only part of the year that I really kind of get I've got no work

it's not like I'm taking holiday holidays like there's no work on and I'm totally free to do what I want and often that's choosing my friends but then you like in the new year's past it's like the second is such a good day for me because on the first you're usually recovering from a hangover the second it's like the new year is here

it's full of promise and I'm usually doing a big walk or I might be away with a partner doing another big walk and there's something about that's so like I'm out of time I'm out of context no one can get me on email no one's emailing me

it's not like July when I'm on holiday and people are still emailing you because they are still around. No one's fucking, no one wants me to do anything. That's why I like New Year. Whereas Christmas, I am now required to do things. I'm required to cook. I'm hosting Christmas this year.

There's like, you know, there's family stuff. There's just things that make it special, but also a bit draining. Whereas New Year's I feel like that is my time. Tell me about it. But before we move on, you've got something to share with the people. Do you not? People, people, people, listen up. listen close

in the new year we're going to be doing another live show but it's in summer this is so exciting you know that we said we went to Manchester because the demand was there

that was true but now we've got another demand we have been asked to come to Sheffield for the crossed wires podcast festival on the 4th of July at Sheffield Playhouse

and there are tickets on sale now so you can get them well in advance. We are so excited because this festival is quite a recent thing. It's run by, well, it was set up by James O'Hara, who is a big name in Sheffield. He's got his fingers and so many exciting pies. I think he launched trams. Exciting pies. I think he was one of the names behind tram lines. And I know a bit about Sheffield because obviously we've got in my day job. We have a publication that is based there. And the first wave of name for Crosswires has been announced. So we will be appearing alongside the likes of Elizabeth

Day, aka the author of How to Fail. Blind Boy is going to be there. I love Blind Boy. Yeah, you and Blind Boy, you're always hanging out. Like this. Maybe Blind Boy can come make an appearance. We've got Joe Wiley and Zoe Ball. We are so gassed to be doing our first ever, like,

I think, no, we did the podcast festival, but this is our first outside of London podcast festival. And I fucking love Sheffield, right? Gracie. Me and Manchester have had like a difficult relationship. Like, you know, we are now in a sort of detente. But me and Sheffield Like this

Like this Fucking love Sheffield Multiple reasons why I love Sheffield Obviously my partner grew up Not too far from Sheffield I've got lots of friends there Steel What a useful, useful material

Our last industry Arctic monkeys When they When Alex Turner sounded like he was from Sheffield Rather than when he sounded like Josh Holm Yeah, yes. The loss of Alex Turner's Sheffield accent,

one of the greatest tragedies of the 21st century, I feel. I know. I know. And now he's like, but also I think that there are some some lines that he would like write specifically because it was like

fun to say in the accent. So like in Brian Stormer it's like she'll be saying, use me. She'll be the jacuzzi. I was like, you just want to say jacuzzi because it sounds fun.

Mardi Bum wouldn't work unless it was done in that accent. The whole point is that it's the thing you say up there. It's like, no, come on, Mardi-Bom. I made my partner sing Mardi-Bom with me at the karaoke because I was like, look, people are going to call me out for appropriation if I do this by myself, but you're allowed. That's such a cute duet as well, though.

I think it's just such a, it's a funny song because it's such a teenage, like you guys will break up, but when you're in it, it's really nice. You know? I actually, because it's, because it's, it, could be about anything, it could be about a relationship, it could be about friendship, it could be about a family member. I always thought of and still think of my stepdad with that one, because he could be a right fucking grumpy bastard he wanted to be. Oh, that's so nice. Yeah, great song. Anyway, so we'll be going to Sheffield. We will be

touching down in Steal Town and maybe we'll get to do a big walk while we're there because there's some great walks on Sheffield. There are, and Penniston Craggs. Peniston Craggs, which is mentioned in Wuthering High. It's not too far. Not too far. Not bloody Bronte. Hope Valley. Also, love Hope Valley. Anyway, cross wires, 4th of July. Tickets on sale. Now, I think there'll be a link in description. Click it if you know what's good for you. Right. Right. You have a really big topic that I don't even know if I'm equipped. I don't have the facilities for this one, Big Man. I have such a big topic. I've got the weightiest topic this week and it's an intrusive question and I'm going to frame the question

and then get into it. So the question is this and what I want to find out from Moja is what actually governs your moral system. So not the abstract principles and like you know not the politics but what are the actual calculations and thoughts and feelings that go into your moral decision making and I'm asking you this because I had a realization the other week. I had a realisation and my realization is that I'm a Catholic. Not theologically, not religiously, but morally, I'm just addicted to guilt, right? Deep down, I feel like I'm a sinful little worm that has to go through their life trying to compensate for their inherent badness. That's genuinely how I feel. That's genuinely how I feel. And my partner, he doesn't feel that way.

at all. He is spectacularly unencumbered by guilt or shame. Like, he can feel remorse and he can feel sorry for things, but he literally never lies awake at night, ruminating and all the things that he has or might have done wrong. And I do. I'll wake up in the night and I'll have like heart palpitations because I'm just thinking about all the things that I think I've ever gotten wrong. So I envy him. I envy him for his lack of shame. And that is another sin for me to add to my never-ending list of things that I do wrong. So for my partner, his moral universe is founded on absurdist principles, that there is no purpose or moral meaning to the world that we live in

other than the one that we choose. Whereas despite not being a Catholic, and not even being at all sure that I actually believe in God, my moral universe, the thing which governs what I do, is based on the idea of meritorious works. So in my head and in my heart, I'm going, oh please, oh please, Sky, Mummy, give me the little treat of eternal salvation. If I can prove to you what a good little bean I am. And that is so different from my politics.

I don't believe in a politics that's based on guilt. I believe in a politics based on human flourishing and mutual connection. It's really different from the religious culture that I was raised in. I wasn't raised in a particularly religious culture. You know, I am Muslim, but half my family are Muslim, the other half of Hindu, most people are sort of atheist agnostic, really. So there's not a big well of Catholic that I'm drawing on, and yet here I am. Here I am a Muslim Catholic, feeling guilty and feeling like I was born in sin. So I want to ask you, you know, what are the actual principles and assumptions which underpin your moral

system? What are the things you think and feel? And how does that determine how you make a moral decision in your actual life? Um, I don't fucking know. All right, how guilty are you on a scale of one to me? Okay. The reason this is difficult for me to answer. Let me just let me. Let me just Let me just get comfy. The reason that this is difficult to me to answer is because when I think about like Protestant Catholic, I'm kind of like these are two sides of the same fucking coin. When you read about their actual understanding of stuff, it's all about guilt.

I don't know why we don't attach guilt to Protestantism either because there's this idea that you constantly exist in sin and that you have to just do good works all the time and it won't lead to your salvation because you're predestined to be saved or not. But like you're born from sin. you're seeped in sin you've got to live this really aesthetic life and that should be like

you shouldn't be going out and frivolously enjoying yourself and Catholicism is different but there's still that sense of like meritor's works as you talk about the sense of like there's a guilt unless you are engaging in something constructive

and doing good in some way and that's how you get saved those are both born from guilt are they not? I think that maybe Protestantism is more about duty for its own sake and Catholicism it's the sort of like

Catholicism has got that idea of like you're constantly on like a treadmill of compensating for something whereas Protestantism isn't quite that no it's not but you're still they're still acting from guilt because it's like you're born in sin you won't get saved and you just have to in your life do good for good sake and it's like you should never let up from the treadmill of doing good for good sake so you're still on a treadmill

you're still on this constant conveyor belt of you must do good how much am I governed by guilt I think quite a lot and when I don't when I act out of self-interest I do feel an overwhelming sense of you're a bad selfish person

you're a bad selfish person doing bad selfish things and then I do them anyway but I feel terrible and I don't know if I gleaned that much pleasure from not being a bad selfish person, regardless. So it's a constant,

a constant sense of guilt overriding me, a constant sense of guilt, an idea that I'm a burden on everyone, and that the only way to prove my value is to give, give, give, give, give. And, but that even my giving is this really selfish act

because I'm doing it to try and make myself feel better. So, yeah, I think I'm, I think I'm wrought by a, sense of you must prove your value in this world by being as useful as possible to others. And if I'm not providing use in some way, whether that is spiritual or literally financial, I feel very bad. Recently, like, a friend was organising something that normally I'd organise, and I was like, I don't have any purpose in this world anymore.

No one's going to want to be friends with me. There's no point. Like, I have nothing to give anymore. It was, and so I think there is, like, a massive amount of guilt there. There's guilt, but funny enough with some things, I think, because there's two types of guilt, right? It's constructive and then there's destructive, which I'm sure you've read about. Well, because I was going to say, what is the difference between guilt, shame and remorse? Hmm.

Well, they're kind of a little wrapped up, but the constructive one is that your guilt, as far as I remember. And apparently Catholic has a higher amount, show a higher amount of constructive guilt than other groups. but it means that your guilt motivates you to act in a positive way and grow. And apparently this is from Google, so sorry, but it promotes self-reflection, accountability and involves acknowledging wrong, seeking forgiveness moving forward, whereas destructive guilt is self-loathing, it's being paralysed by it, you feel unworthy, and you remain stuck and stagnated,

and you focus on the shame you feel rather than putting it towards good use. so maybe my guilt is constructive in some ways because it is you know it's an outcome of like if i get some free thing i try and pay that forward by buying someone else if i i'm not saying i'm a moral i'm a good or moral person this comes from a very unhealthy place but it's like i will pay for someone's food or pay for drinks or whatever even when i don't need to if because i feel like i should or i will try and support someone this is codependent at my own expense but and it's not it's not coming from a place where i'm a good person but it is more constructive than perhaps destructive, because I don't think I loathe myself.

I think it's more that I'm just very aware you've got to do stuff for other people all the time. Or they won't like you. You go, you go. You've got more to say on this. Well, I was talking to Tarak Bacconi. So Tarak Bacconi is a writer who has written two wildly different books. So the first book was called Hamas contained, and it's a history of Hamas.

And the second book is called Fire in Every Direction. And so I thought, when I read the title, oh, this is going to be a book about Hamas post-October 7th, right? So fire in every direction. That sort of makes sense as a description of Hamas post-containment. And it wasn't. It was actually this really beautiful memoir about Tach Bakoni's own upbringing. and one of the things that really features in the book is the notion of shame, right? Aib in Arabic, A-Y-B.

And in the interview that I did with him, which will be coming out for downstream, one of the things that I asked was, does he feel that the kind of shame that he was raised in, that it gave him the power of social observation and social attunement because I feel that the kind of shame I was raised with and the particular ways in which shame worked, it was all about social attunement. And like one of the things that I really had to unlearn was, you know, I was raised to think that asking for,

what you want and waiting to be asked for what you want was a selfish white thing, right? That's, you know, these backwards Europeans with their strange ways. They're the people who ask for what they want. And so your job, if you are not part of that culture and you're part of, you know, our South Asian culture, is to intuit what people want before they ask for it. Because if they have to ask for what they want, it means you've failed to, be in tune with them and to anticipate their needs. So you can see how fucked up that is, right?

Because if you end up in a situation of like, you know, healthy and direct and articulate communication is that I interpret that as a form of personal failure. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I do that too, but I'm not South Asian. South Asian is a state of mind. It's truly a state of mind.

I think that's... I've met Italians and Irish people who are more South Asian than me. It's a state of mind. Well, there's so many different ways to look at... This is also the issue with when we're talking about things like guilt and shame and remorse. There's so many different ways you can look now and pathologize different responses in the way of going about the world,

so many different frameworks. It's like, how do you choose the one you want to talk about as a moral framing? It was something, you know, you were saying what you should just shame happen. I'm always like, shame has no use. I was talking to someone the other day who's like, we need shame back. They were like, shame has a great social use. People used to be ashamed of being landlords. People used to be ashamed of, I don't know, filming TikToks in the street.

People would be ashamed of causing a fuss. We were discussing the difference between how loud English people are in public versus some other nations. They were like, English people just love to articulate so loudly when they're in a restaurant. and like other places mumble respectfully. This was a specific country. This is where I'm with the English. This is where I'm with the English. I like talking loud and arrestment.

You are English, Ash. I'm sorry to say. You are English. No, no, no. I mean, look, I, you know, when I'm in Scandinavian countries, everyone's like, lo, lo, I'm like, come on. Mumbling respectfully, whereas we're articulating disrespectfully was the phrase used. But yeah, when they were talking about shame, and I was thinking about it.

I'm like, sometimes you do. actually were a bit of social shaming and the element of social shaming. It's just the way we've redirected. The way that capitalism has managed and the pursuit of money and this scarcity mindset that you have, you know, you have to do whatever it takes just to stay comfortable has redirected our ideas of what you should be ashamed of and what you shouldn't be ashamed of is where I think we've gone wrong. Because, go on. Go on. I was talking about this in the last episode, which is the extent to which you feel. feel yourself as being in a network of obligation with other people.

And sometimes that can be way too intrusive, right? So the power of shame, particularly to do with things like sexuality, but not just sexuality, right? It can become oppressive. So me feeling like if you say, oh, Ash, can I have a cup of tea? I'm like, oh, I'm the worst person because I should have made it for you, blah, blah, blah. It's like, that's obviously a really intrusive and oppressive form of shame. But a form of shame where it's like, don't scroll through TikToks without headphones.

on the bus like feel ashamed of of disrupting other people you know I'd say that's probably quite positive yeah I agree but somehow we've made that into

a negotiable rather than a non-negotiable it's something that actually oh well you don't have phones it's only four minutes out of your debt no two minutes it's like 10 second video it's fine there's another 10 second video it's fine somehow people have

managed to score it into their minds that this is not something, an act they should be ashamed of. Whereas, I don't know, say like conversations around sex is something we should be ashamed of. Or I guess it comes back down to that, like the neoliberal choice

framework where it's like, well, if you choose it and it's not harming it. Well, guess what? If you playing your fucking TikToks is harming me. It's irritating me to fuck. It's harming me. But also like landlordism. That's now, well, you've got to do what you've got to do.

And no, there's, there should be shame in building a portfolio of like nine houses. I think there's nuances within it. But I think if you're building up like, you know, your portfolio and you're using that to extract profit from multiple people, there should be some shame in that. That should be some shame. This is about responsibility, right? And I know the phrase social responsibility is usually like corporate social responsibility. I don't mean that. What I'm talking about is the responsibility we all have for creating a kind of society.

that we want to live in ourselves and that we want others to live in as well because we all have that as a responsibility. Like every single person who draws breath has that kind of responsibility. How that looks from person to person is different, but like we have it. And, you know, that kind of like, well, I'm all right, Jack

or like, well, I've got to look after myself first and foremost and that's why I'm going to be a landlord with a portfolio of nine properties as like an abdication of that responsibility. But then we get into this thing and I think this is like, this reflects political conversations that we've had is like where does that responsibility begin and end? Because flying, eating meat, consumerism, you could say, well, that's an abdication of your social responsibility

and your duty and your obligation to other people, and you should be shamed for it. And like there are parts of the climate movement, which certainly within their own circle, or say like, no, we will shame people for not being vegetarian because it's the least you could do. And so I wonder what I think of that. Well, do you know what I think is going on here?

I think I've brought this concept to the podcast before, comes via my therapist. It's called the fuck it button. It's when you spend so much time ruminating and fretting over things that eventually just go, fuck it. I don't care about it at all. And it can apply to anything from, you know, a problem when

say I'm thinking about money and I ruminate about money to the point of my match fuck it I'm just going to spend like 500 pounds on Vinted I actually haven't done that but like you know what I mean you start being like

I'm just going to spend whatever or ruminating about a person that you might be romantic interest into you go fuck I don't care because you've literally blown out your little neurons ruminating too much and I think the same sort of thing is going on with shame and guilt

I think we have so much that we could be ashamed about and guilty about in this modern world that asks us to compromise morally on so many things that a lot of people just gone, fuck it. Fuck it. I don't need to have a moral compass anymore.

Let's just go hell for leather. You see it, I think I actually wrote about this a bit when you see it with, you know, we're going to the dogs anyway as well. You see it with like Mark Zuckerberg. Mark Zuckerberg was a liberal for like a long period. He's always been someone who's like,

I think fought with the need to dominate inside him. He's an emperor at his core. He loves Rome, ancient Rome. he's obsessed with ancient Rome. The portrayal of him as like this retiring, nerdy guy isn't completely accurate. It's very much like he's actually very like dominating as a person. But for a good chunk of his life, he has been a liberal who's aligned himself with sort of like democratic causes and philanthropy. And he's been attacked a lot.

And I'm not saying we shouldn't have attacked Facebook because Facebook is an evil thing. But he's been attacked a lot. for the way he ran Facebook the things that Facebook allowed us to do and then suddenly he got into MNA and went down this like right wing pipeline and just went fuck it fuck it I can't win

you can't beat him join them and that now he was like literally took the safeguards off Facebook literally was like I'm going to take all of the tampons out of the men's bathrooms as a fuck you to trans people

in his offices that's like that's petty petty shit but that is like pressing the fuck it but I really think that he thought I'm not going to win I get criticised for all things

and his narcissistic complexes kicked in he was like fuck it why should I try why should I try I think that is an interesting thing right which is that the the consequence

of a moral system which runs on guilt and shaming is that people start smashing the fuck it button like yeah i think that that's that's an interesting thing and i think that brings me on to i guess like maybe a question that we could we could end on which is is it possible to shift the like foundational coordinates of your moral system because i would i don't think it's good that i'm so consumed by guilt i think it in other ways can make me a really difficult person to be around

and like it's I mean not just like oh it's not fun and all the rest of it but like you know if I'm cultivating an environment where you asking for something means that I go off in a guilt spiral that's obviously not good right and so I'm working really hard to try and change that about myself but like particularly times where I'm feeling like overworked or under pressure or like you know the the guilt muscle comes storming back in and I would like to be able to have a sense of moral purpose and a moral perspective without guilt being the place that I start and end I actually think there's so many things a solution the solutions of this log off I think we need to disconnect from the stimuli that tell us all the ways that the world is wrong

and we are wrong. That doesn't mean switching off from news or reading things. That means you have to disconnect from the circuit for a bit. I think it's get outside and touch grass. As soon as you start talking to other people, there is a reconnection. And my guilt alleviates as soon as I've had chat at the bus stop for some reason. Because I'm like, oh yeah, I'm connecting with real people rather than all the imagined people in my head that I should be helping. I should be doing this. I'm like, I am just one person. And then three, Look at the concrete things you actually do. And the gap may be between the guilt, what's possible and what you actually do.

And see where there are really big chunks. It's like you can't heal the world. We're not Bill Gates. We don't have the financial cash to heal the world. Do you do sort of like basic stuff where you're in touch with other people? Do you talk to other people? Do you, if you can volunteer and you have a space to volunteer, volunteer. But if not, there's a reason that donating is a part of the social fabric of life.

Like you can do smaller things that alleviate guilt in some ways. But I do think mainly it comes down to actually just getting back in contact with other people, whether that's through religion or whether that's through politics or whether it's just through going to a community group. And I think that alleviates guilt because then you're not dealing with the imagined anymore. You're dealing with real people. And it's not, it comes less about your individual contribution and more about you being in working in tandem with other people. And that group might not necessarily even be at first a, like a social good.

It could just be like a book group. But I think it's taken away from things where you're constantly being made to consume and it's just you as an individual who's buying stuff all the time existing in a void and instead you, in a book group, talking about something that feeds you, for some reason I think that will really alleviate guilt

because you're going back into society and then it's just not like, everything I do is for like this selfish purpose. It's like I'm now actually existing in tandem with other people. I mean, look, it does help. And I was having like a real, on Saturday just gone I was a real like

you feel the white noise turning up that's how it feels for me with like anxiety and guilt that's just like white noise turning up and I feel like there are thousands and thousands of little mice gnawing at the corners of my brain like that's how it feels

and it's just like this overwhelming feeling of like failure and like I don't do enough and I'm shit everything and I'm letting everyone down and it's like building up and then I talk to like one of my best friends

for an hour on the phone I felt fucking great afterwards. Sometimes it is literally touching ass. Not grass, touching ass. Anyway, that's my first thing. And also how to build morals up again. It's like if your moral compass or morals are so scrambled by all the things you think you should have as your like guiding star, you need to go away. And like, you need to separate for.

the matrix. You need to pull yourself back from this overwhelming stream of things you've got to care about and you've got to have your compass and just pick like three fucking guiding principles, I think. Mine, you start at all my guiding principles. Kindness, I don't always meet them, but kindness. Discipline, that's another one, and paying it forward. And the world I want to see is one of equality or equity and where everyone has dignity. I think those are things that guide me oh also love love is love is the thing that underpins everything for me but those are like those are my guiding things and whether that's that's not necessarily moral but those are those are when I think of the words that make up my worldview and the things I'm like

that's what I want to aim to be it's like the kindness the dignity uh the discipline the love and then you have yeah yeah I think that's that's why I come from are you sure you wouldn't like a little side portion of shame with that little shame little guilt a little I have a lot I have a large alacart main of guilt, but the guilt is something that we've got to work on. Anyway, that was a, I want people to write in. Tell us about your experiences of guilt. Come on special ones. Yeah, tell us about your experiences of guilt.

And also tell us about how your moral system really works. Because it's not how would you like it to work. I would like mine to not be based in guilt. It actually works with a lot of guilt. Shall we answer a dilemma? Let's answer dilemma Come on Okay, this is called

I'm in big trouble If You're in Big Trouble Email us at if I speak at Navaramedia.com That's if I speak at navaramedia.com I'm going to read this one because I actually think you're going to have really good advice and I might even be surplus to requirements.

No, no, don't say that because honestly ash at the moment the way when when I talk I feel like I say things and it's not even gone through my like I don't have cognitive functioning right now it actually I'm actually for like I want to cry saying that like I can't think at the moment so please you need one one things I found really restorative in the last few weeks and last few weeks have been fucking insane um is reading novels it's been no I know but I don't have time to read this is this is what I'm saying like I've I think I said this at the start which is I actually have not had time to sit down and read it's I actually have not had time to sit down and read it's not I book and that's why my brain is so depleted um at the moment so when you're like you'll be able to give advice i haven't been able to give advice for weeks i feel i feel totally it actually does make me want to cry so please start reading all right let's see how this goes let's see how this goes okay okay hello wonderful ashen moya gonna start with the necessary gratitudes you two make me laugh and ponder every tuesday i come with a medium-sized dilemma one of my best friends who

have known since we were 20 we're now both 27 both women has a mean streak. This comes out particularly when she is drunk, which thankfully doesn't happen too often. Interestingly, this meanness is never directed at me. She continuously expresses to me that she feels I am her closest and wisest friend and that we are soul-tied. The feeling is reciprocated, in that I can tell she really hears and sees me and we have the most nourishing conversations. However, this does mean that she will often her express her dislike of others to me, which can be completely poisonous. I know that what she wants in that moment is for me to valise. I know that what she wants in that moments for me to validate these feelings, but I find them rude and damaging and have

no respect for her dragging others down with venom, often to their face. While these feelings and actions quickly leave her conscience the next day, and she tends to offhandedly acknowledge that she was being dramatic, they leave a really sour taste in my mouth, and I find it difficult to return back to our normal relationship for a while. So I just pretend nothing has changed particularly. But as we get older, I'm realizing she's unlikely to change, and I don't know how to address this gap that I feel growing. This has always been the way she is and I also know that she is extremely

averse to confrontation as a means of conflict revolution. I'm therefore at a complete loss and I'm scared this will make me start resenting her. Special one. I don't have any good advice. Okay, my first thought is this, you already resent her. You already resent her.

You wouldn't be sending this in if this issue wasn't already at that you felt was untenable for the continuation of your friendship in my opinion um 27 is a time of huge change and i worry that if you continue to sit on this you will press the fuck it button and eventually just like disappear from her life because what's happening here is you're putting all her needs above both yours and what's actually healthy for her you are so you're upholding her own coping mechanisms you know you're like you're saying well she doesn't like confrontation as a

form of resolving conflict. But she likes confrontation when it means being a dickhead to someone. So why can't she deal with it? Why do you have to do it in a confronting manner? Why can't, like, what way is there to resolve conflict unless you can address something? Otherwise, there is no way to resolve this conflict. She isn't even aware there is a conflict because you can't talk about it. That, to me, is not a friendship.

That is a dynamic, an unhealthy dynamic. when I look at this I don't know you just have to talk to her sometimes it's sometimes you know what it's not a feeling that fucking deep you have to talk to her and say

the way that you speak about people I think is unhealthy for you what's going on there like why do you feel the need to do this why do you feel the need to confront them where does it come from you need to ask her these questions because there's clearly a very raw part of herself

that I would say feels insecure otherwise she wouldn't be so horrible to others I think unkindness comes from insecurity. Everyone I know who's kind, there is a sense of security there. Everyone I know who's very unkind, there was an insecurity that comes out as a venom, as you say, whether it's because they feel slighted, whether they need to feel dominant, that comes from insecurity.

So I think there was an insecurity here. And there's something about this friendship, which means that you aren't willing to tell your friend the truth, even when it would help preserve the friendship. So either the friend, either you don't talk to her and the friendship's gone or you talk to in the friendship might be gone but it also might need to change for both of you but you have to just talk to her that is my advice anyway sorry ash i couldn't be more helpful no that was really good advice

oh i was a really good advice and that is actually exactly what i was going to say like i think that there is a difference between having a little bitch an event which i think is something which can enable you to be more kind and more patient because we are not saints right we are not saints. And the fact that I can, you know, say to my loved ones, you know, here's how I hate this person, let me count the ways. It means that I can be patient or tolerant or whatever when I encounter them in person. All right. So no one is saying that you have to be Pollyanna. But I think being cruel to people is a different thing entirely. Like it's a different thing. It's a different thing. And it's, you know, we've all encountered people like that.

Like there is someone who, there's someone who I met once, like one time. And it was kind of incredible. Like she was, she was so addicted to bringing people down. It's that she couldn't let a compliment pass by, like someone complimenting another person without trying to undercut it. And she's just like this all the fucking time, right? She's not part of my group of friends at all. But like another very good friend.

of mine has to encounter her a bit. Like, she just can't let a compliment of someone else go at all. And she has a lot going for her, like, you know, intelligent, beautiful woman or the rest of it. But the world is not kind to women as they get older. Like, it's not. And as soon as you stop fulfilling someone. of those other norms and aspirations because you get older. And if all you are is a really fucking mean person, people will drop you like that.

Like the cruelty that you've been putting out into the world is going to come back to you. And it's not from a good place. Like it comes from like the ridiculously high social costs that exist for women, particularly as they age. Like if you've got no kindness to offer the world, like the world is going to drop you. absolutely going to drop you. So I think that it can be kind of an act of kindness to intervene when someone is being you know, a fucking malevolent, horrid, cruel person because it's like you might be getting

away with this now when you're 27 or 30 something or whatever, but like you are going to be so lonely later in life. like so, so lonely. And again, it's not saying don't have a bitch, don't have a vent, don't have a moan, you know, don't express your most creative insults, you know, in the safety of your own home. But it's saying that that face-to-face cruelty is going to damage you, immeasurably, one day. It's going to come back to you. Yeah, I know someone like that.

And it's just like the way they see the world is so poisonous. And the older they've got, the more that people are like, I met this person, God, what a slog. And you're just like, God. And it becomes a self-fulfilling, a self-fulfilling prophecy because they see the one in Poison's Way and then people react to them. Like, I don't want to be around you because you're so bad mind about everything and people and you're so rude. And then they're like, well, everything's terrible. Yeah, because you're creating a storm cloud that you take everywhere with you. you're the terror

you're the terror you're rude in a way that's just horrible all the time God they've said some shit to me they've said some shit to me don't talk to me like I'm a con that vibe

I remember when somebody now I'm old enough and I can look back on it and be like oh it's because there was something about me that was making you feel insecure or whatever but she told me she told me had a squinty eye

she looked at me and she was like you know that one of your eyes is really squinty I spent ages trying to work out which one it was I think it might be this one I don't think it's either one no the person I'm thinking it was more like they'll try and humiliate you in a place or humiliate other people

and I'm not the only person they've done it to but they moan about everything and now it's got to a point where everyone's like God Almighty the moaning the rudeness and they can't understand why life feels hard for them whereas I was talking to someone else the other day and we were discussing someone who just like floats through life described as like one of life's favourites

and it's I do think demeanour plays a huge part in that like I was oh yeah I was also I was in shop the other day and someone was like you know everyone's really nice to you when you go places and like I was like yeah because I'm smart I smile so much like yeah I just like a child when I go in places I'm like and not always it doesn't always always work, but it works a lot more than you'd think.

The thing is, is that, like, I'm not a saint. Like, I know what my thoughts are like. Yeah, I'm a horrible person. It's like a Hieronymus Bosch painting in there. Yeah, literally. It is hideous. It's not nice. It's not nice at all.

And I also know that I act on those thoughts sometimes and I express those thoughts. But I do, I do really try. Where's the discernment with this person? to like have a divide between my cruel thoughts, my cruel words which you're in private, and my words which I will say to people about them. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so you need to talk to this friend.

You need to talk to this friend. Okay, we've stopped talking to you at home, listeners. No more cruel words. No more cruel words. Thank you. Get your tickets for crossed wires via the link in description. Otherwise, feel shame. Shame and eternal damnation.

Shame. thank i'm sure by now we've done our live show so uh we've had a great time there and we'll definitely talk about at a point where we've definitely definitely done it in real life um okay thanks listeners see you next week bye bye Thank you. Thank you.