The Blindboy Podcast - A Mental Health Plan for 2022

Episode Date: January 5, 2022

How I will be building my emotional resilience this year. I explain three psychology concepts through the fable of the Lion with the Thorn in its paw Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dog bless you gaping aimans. Welcome to the Blind Buy Podcast. This is the first proper podcast of 2022. I don't think last week counted because we were in the purgatory that exists between Christmas and New Year's Eve. I hope you had an enjoyable New Year's Eve. What did I do? I listened to fireworks with a deaf cat. Which was enjoyable. Because he hadn't a fucking clue that any fireworks were happening. Because fireworks usually terrify cats.

But Silken Thomas is deaf. So he didn't know. It wasn't a fireworks display. It was just community fireworks we'll call it. So for this week's podcast what I'd like to do. Because it's the first real week of 2022 and a lot of ye are back at work you're back at your routines

all that shit I'm gonna do a mental health podcast a little mental health a checking in podcast not only for ye but for myself, because I'm not really into, not hugely into New Year's resolutions, but you can't deny that when a new year comes upon you, there's a sense of pressure, there's a sense of expectation, there's a sense of expectation there's a healthy sense of expectation so I'm just going to check in going to check in with our collective feelings and how to manage them by going over some

quite simple and accessible tools that have to do with emotional literacy emotional regulation grounding things like that one thing I would like to flag before I get into a mental health podcast is whenever I post a mental health podcast I'll get not a lot of comments, usually one or two and unfortunately it's usually men where someone will say oh please don't do a mental health podcast, can you not do a hot take instead um no because like i like to do a mental health podcast once a month if i can because the positive feedback i get far far outweighs any negative feedback like far outweighs it but there's always one or two comments and the reason i'm mentioning it

i don't mind i don't mind that feedback it's not a problem it's just someone saying I prefer the hot takes but what I would say to those people is if me doing a mental health podcast kind of makes you so uncomfortable that you you need to take the extra step to actually tell me it means you actually have to go on to my instagram or send me a dm if you're that person what i'd say to you is that you've got a wonderful opportunity there for growth because the thing is right there would be people out there who are like i'm just not into the mental health episodes and those people generally they just flick on to another podcast they go back and listen to another podcast of mine or they go

and listen to someone else's podcast and that's it but if you're taking that extra step where you need to actually tell me you need to dm me and say oh I like the takes, but I don't like it when you do mental health podcasts. I would wager that something I said made you feel uncomfortable, but uncomfortable in a very constructive way. Something I spoke about, whether it be emotions or anxiety, actually hit home with you, but you're not ready for that yet, and it made you frightened, and instead you wanted to run away from that feeling. And the way you express that is by saying to me, can you just do hot take episodes instead? Like, when we don't understand our own emotions, we try to control other people's behaviour that's called resistance I'm not saying that this podcast is therapy or anything like that

but I'm saying within therapy if you were in therapy with a counsellor and you were like I don't want to talk about that no can we not talk about anxiety can we not talk about anger a good therapist will go, oh, brilliant. Okay, there's an area for constructive growth. There's something that the counseling session should move towards in a compassionate way.

So you don't have to listen to my podcast if it makes you feel uncomfortable. If I'm talking about mental health and it makes you feel uncomfortable, of course you don't have to listen to my podcast if it makes you feel uncomfortable. If I'm talking about mental health and it makes you feel uncomfortable, of course you don't have to listen to it. But what I would say, if you're making that extra step of needing to actually contact me and say, don't do mental health podcasts, ask yourself, what was it specifically that made you need to do that? And right there within that area within

that little fear or the anger that you felt or whatever right there is quite possibly a huge opportunity for you to grow and heal because like I said the people who are genuinely not interested they're just flicking onto something else and forgetting about it but if you need to contact me they're just flicking onto something else and forgetting about it. But if you need to contact me, that's your unconscious mind having a little cry for help right there. But having said that,

you're fully entitled to not listen to any of my podcasts about mental health if it makes you uncomfortable in any way. You're the architect of your own growth. Everyone's entitled to to grow and change at their own fucking pace. And there's no shame in that either

because personal growth or healing or becoming the best person that you deserve to be that journey is fucking hard and it's frightening and it's painful and it's supposed to be

like if you think of if you think of like why would we want to go to a counselor why would we want to engage in self-help why do we want to do these things usually it's you find yourself saying something like i'm anxious all the time and i don't know why i'm depressed and i don't know why i self-sabotage my life and i don't know why i want to be happier i don't know why. I self-sabotage my life and I don't know why. I want to be happier. I don't know why I'm like this

or where to start. Can you please help? And that journey can be fucking tough. Initially. I'll tell you a lovely metaphor for it. A fucking beautiful metaphor for either going to counselling or engaging in self-help yourself. A beautiful metaphor for it is there'sselling or engaging in self help yourself a beautiful metaphor

for it is there's this story from the second century and we all know it the lion with the thorn in its paw which is I think it's Greek it's one of the fables right Aesop's fables

and the basic story of the lion with the thorn in its paw is there's a slave, a runaway slave in ancient Rome by the name of Androculus, right? So Androculus is a runaway slave and while he runs away from his master, he hides in a cave. But while he's hiding in the fucking cave, he's like, oh oh fuck there's a lion in this cave as well and the lion's a prick the lion is just

like lions aren't sound anyway but this particular lion in the cave is very very angry there's no talking with him he's furious and he's snapping his teeth and lashing out his claws and all this shit and while the

lion is doing this and draculus notices oh fuck it the poor cunt's paw is bleeding and he looks closer at the lion's paw and he sees that there's this fucking huge thorn in the lion's paw now the lion meanwhile hasn't a clue he knows his paw paw is sore. He's angry because of this. He's a lion so he doesn't have hands. He can't take it out himself. So Androculus slowly moves towards the lion and reaches and grabs the big thorn and pulls it out. Now this is agonizing for the lion to pull it out but he does it. And then the lion goes, fuck it. I feel relief. I don't feel pain anymore.

I'm not angry. So the lion goes, this Androculus fella is sound. Thanks for that, man. And they become friends. And the lion becomes tame. And he starts to share food with Androculus. And Androculus is allowed to have shelter for a few days in the lion's cave and they're friends with each other

and then Androculus says right I'm a runaway slave I can't stick around here for too long thank you so much for letting me use your cave Mr. Lion I gotta fuck off and get the fuck away from here because they're looking for me so after Androculus leaves the lion's cave he's caught by the romans the romans

catch him and being a runaway slave back then the punishment for that is quite harsh so the romans catch him they bring him back into town and the emperor says fucking runaway slave you prick I sentence you to death so they bring Androculus to a pit where he's to be eaten by lions as his execution so what happens the fucking lion that turns up to eat him

the Romans had just caught him after they caught Androculus and it's the lion that he tore the thorn out of his paw. So now the Romans are watching. They're rubbing their hands together going, well hey, can't wait to see this slave get eaten by this lion.

But then the lion is like, fuck that, I'm not eating him. That's Androculus, he's my pal. He helped me out. I'm not eating him. No way. Not a chance. Now the Romans are going,

what the fuck, it's a lion. The lion won't eat the slave. We've never seen this before. So they're so impressed. They're just like, look, this just must be divine intervention. The lion wouldn't eat him. They're cuddling with each other. Look, leave him go.

Leave him go. Some higher power has intervened here. So the Romans just say to Androculus, Look, fuck off. You're free. Here's a leash. Take the lion with you now. He's your pet. And Androculus and the lion just walk off into the distance as friends forever. And here's what I love about that story

and why it's such a beautiful, beautiful metaphor for the therapeutic process. So the lion... The lion is your own emotions and your own pain and your own heart. And when you have mental health difficulties, when you're going through anxiety, you're going through depression, you know what that's like. anxiety you're going through depression you know what that's like it's you trapped in your own head and your internal dialogue which means that when you're just chilling out at home and the things you're thinking about so you're worrying about something that happened last week or you're worrying about something that might happen and you think about the way you're speaking to yourself. I'm such a fuck up. I'm a piece of shit. I'll never be anything. I'm useless.

And then what happens to your emotions? You start to feel terrible. You start to feel angry. You start to feel useless. And then your behaviours. You start snapping at people that you love around you. You start withdrawing from society. You start to not want to achieveours. You start snapping at people that you love around you. You start withdrawing from society. You start to not want to achieve goals. You start self-sabotaging. So the inside of your head now is this angry, out of control lion that knows it's in pain but can't identify that pain so it just lashes out either at yourself or other people.

But when you engage in the process of saying to yourself I don't like this, I want to change, I want to find out why I'm like this and to make me better. Now when you do that, you've now found the thorn. You now know that there's a thorn in your paw, you can see it. Now you have to begin the process of removing it, which is frightening and terrifying and not fucking easy at all. And you catch it and you pull it out.

And when you're pulling out the thorn it's agonizing. It's very very painful. But once you do you feel relief. Now pulling out the thorn is confronting the parts of yourself that you're fucking terrified of. The parts of yourself that are insecure, that are jealous of other people. Confronting those things is really, really difficult. It's painful. We don't want to do it. But when you do do it, it's initially incredibly painful and then you have relief. If your issues are rooted in childhood, you might have to confront the fact that someone who was

supposed to love you put that thorn in there, whether intentionally or because they were battling with their own lion. So then you say to yourself, alright, so we are Androculus, and the lion is our pain and our negative emotions and the things we don't want to face, and this is what's causing us to be so angry and so upset. Then what's the slavery bit well the slavery is that to exist as a human you're effectively a slave to the suffering of existence suffering is a guaranteed part of being heart to being alive by which I mean there's no way to avoid bad news disappointment rejection bad things happen to us all the time in very in varying extremities you can't avoid suffering bad things will happen to you all the time so by being alive you're a slave to the inevitability of suffering. But then you think, what does becoming friends with the lion, what's the metaphor there?

That's emotional resilience. Like think of it, in second century fucking Rome, when this story was written, a lion would be a very powerful friend to have. It's gonna catch food for you, which means you don't have to worry about hunting. And you're safe because you've got a fucking lion that will fight off anyone who tries to attack you. So when your emotions and your sense of self and your self-esteem, when they become your friend, when they're tamed, when they're in control. It's not this angry lion, it's this friendly lion now that you have control over who can defend you and stand beside you and fight for you. That's having tools and emotional resilience when it comes to the inevitable suffering of life

because extreme pain, extreme mental health issues, they're not necessarily caused by what's happening to you. They're caused by how you react to what's happening to you. If you receive a disappointment, if you receive bad news, if you perceive someone to reject you, if you don't achieve a goal. These things are painful. But how painful they are depends on how you react to that activating event. If your lion is tame and fighting alongside you and adding to your strength, then you can respond to these things with flexibility and rationality and calm, and you can think of solutions.

But if the lion isn't your friend, instead the lion is this out of control, angry, snapping thing. Then when disappointment happens, when rejection happens, you won't be able to cope. You won't be able to cope. You will focus on the worst case scenario. You won't let any good information in. You won't think about the situation rationally. Your pain will be multiplied tenfold. But identifying that thorn and pulling it out.

That's the hardest fucking part. That's the hardest part. And sometimes we don't want to see the thorn. And we're not ready to pull it out. Because it's frightening to do it. Like in the olden days when someone had a fucking a gammy tooth in their head and there was no dentists

so their tooth is causing them agony all the time and they know that they have to fucking attach it to a door and kick it that's fucking terrifying but you know what has to be done if you want to be free from pain and to live a happy life

just another little thing about that lion right let's just say the lion is in the cave and androculus never shows up so the lion is there on its own agonizing with this paw and the lion figures out for itself right the paw is the issue but I don't know how to take the thorn out but what I can do is I can lick the wound if I lick the wound for about a minute it stops hurting but then it starts to hurt again so I have to keep licking it and I'm licking it so much that now now I've got blisters on my tongue now my mouth is dry because I can't stop licking this this fucking thorn. I can't take it out, but I can keep licking and licking for momentary relief.

That's what addiction is. I take a trauma-informed view of addiction, which kind of takes the view that addiction is a form of self-medication. So when we engage in addictive behaviors what we're doing is soothing a wound so than a wound where we're the lion licking that thorn we don't know how to take it out but we know that if we lick it and keep licking it it provides momentary relief but never goes away and continually licking it actually makes things worse it makes more problems and that's what an addictive behavior is and that might be a good one to start off this

podcast with for you know what i what i said was i was going to give some pretty basic tips that i'm going to be applying to my own life as we start the new year and things that might be beneficial for ye so what i would say there is bring into your awareness your relationship with substances or external things so when we think of addiction we tend to think of a roaring fucking alcoholic or someone who's powerless to drugs and has destroyed their entire life that's like late stage addiction but all of us every day engage in addictive behaviors and they might not be completely taking our lives over but they're still causing discomfort so we'll take the simple one fucking alcohol right so for me i always try and evaluate what my relationship is with alcohol i love having a few cans i love the odd drink but i always ask

myself why am i drinking what is it doing for me? Now, over the pandemic, the past two years, I did not have a healthy relationship with alcohol. I haven't drank that much, to be honest, in the past year because I wasn't enjoying drinking. When I was having my little cans on the weekend to chill out and relax, because previously, before the pandemic pandemic my relationship with alcohol was this is my reward to unwind and have a bit of fun but because of the pandemic stuck inside all day not doing much not achieving as many goals as I'd like and I found myself drinking on a Friday out of habit so I'd get myself six cans and drink to alleviate boredom. And it wasn't making me happy. And it was making me dull and sad. And then the next day,

the hangovers I'd have, I'd get bad anxiety and a sense of shame. And not only that now, as I get further into my thirties, my hangovers have gotten worse. So if I have six cans now, the next day is kind of a write-off. Like if I have six cans or maybe seven cans and I get drunk, then no matter how much water I drink before I go to sleep, I'm guaranteed a hangover the next day. So if I have that hangover, I'm not going to be doing what I want to do. I'm not going to exercise. I'm not going to eat the way I want to eat.

I'm probably just going to get a takeaway. So now, if I drink and have a hangover, it's creating more problems. The act of drinking causes me to behave the next day in a way that I'm not too happy with I don't want to be feeling the fear from alcohol I don't want to have anxiety the next day because I drank a lot of cans the night before I don't like that I don't want to get a pizza and not go for a run or go to the gym because I don't have the energy to do it I don't like these things it creates problems it takes a day out of my week so like the day off that I have like the day where I'm not working I'm not researching this podcast the day off that I have that I could be using for playing video games watching shit shit on Netflix. I'm not doing it meaningfully now because

I've got this anxiety hangover. Now again I'm not demonizing fucking alcohol. Alcohol can be great crack and if you enjoy a bit of wine you enjoy a few cans. Absolutely. Enjoy it responsibly. Course. But what I'm saying is when we do these things we should also bring into our awareness is it creating extra pain in our lives? Like some people might drink and they don't have to worry about a hangover the next day because they might be younger but like some people drink

and then when they drink what happens is they get angry so when they drink they might start an argument with someone and then the next day have to have to apologize they wake up with shame going oh fuck i rang up my buddy and spoke about something that happened six years ago when i was pissed and i shouldn't have done that at all i just done it when it because i was drunk and now i have to ring him up when i'm sober and say I'm sorry or some people might like get drunk and start fucking texting their ex or something

and the next day they wake up and they're cringing the entire day so if that's something that alcohol does to you then you should evaluate your relationship with alcohol like addictive behaviors can take many forms as well it doesn't necessarily have to be substances addictive behaviors can be fucking social media or the news like a big addictive behavior over the pandemic is people continually checking the news in the hopes that there might be one piece of good

news good good information that they receive from the news but every time they do it they just bombard themselves with more and more bad news but you keep going back to it you keep going back to it like i had addictive behaviors recently with tiktok you go how the fuck do you have addictive behaviors with tiktok well like t like TikTok is designed like a fruit machine. So the thing with TikTok and what makes TikTok unique to other social media apps is it's a fruit machine. You know those gambling machines where you pull the lever and it's the fruit and you're hoping for the three fruits to line up and you get a prize. TikTok is that exactly. You scroll, you scroll, you scroll, you scroll, it's non-stop and then you

might land on the one video that makes you laugh really loudly and it's great because TikTok is a load of fun but recently I found myself using TikTok because it was so much fun and then I'm like fuck it's four o'clock in the morning, I'm supposed to be asleep three hours ago. And then I'm tired the next day, and I feel like a dickhead, because I said to myself, you promised yourself you were going to start going to bed at like 11 o'clock, so that you could get up early the next day,

and do what you needed to do. But now instead you're waking up at fucking 11 o'clock, you're tired, you're not doing the things you said you were going to do you're you're behind on your schedule why because you're scrolling scrolling tiktok hoping for that funny video hoping for the good thing that makes you laugh amongst all the shit that you have to scroll through so i said to myself right okay i've got addictive behaviors now with tiktok and they're addictive because I'm doing something continually to look for a hit and it's actually causing other parts of my life to be negative so I just took it off my phone so I don't have TikTok on my phone anymore and if I

want to use it in the daytime I just reinstall it have crack with it for an hour or whatever and then delete it off my phone but I don't use it in bed. Problem solved and now I've got a healthy relationship with TikTok again and I don't feel like shit and I actually feel really good for having taken out that thorn instead of medicating the wound. Another common social media addiction, you see this on Twitter a lot, is arguing with people online. There's people on Twitter all day long fighting with people. And there's no way that the person who's on Twitter all day long fighting and getting themselves upset and getting angry, there's no way that person is also happy. So they have an addictive relationship with the dopamine hit of fighting with people on Twitter who they disagree with. That's an addictive behaviour.

Like, I had to just... Like, Twitter's my job, unfortunately. A huge part of my job is using Twitter. I have to use it for my job. But I identified addictive behaviours with that a year ago. I was like, holy fuck, this place is causing me to be miserable all the fucking time so what I just do is I get two three posts

out a day and Twitter's not on my phone it's on a laptop and now I've got a healthy relationship with Twitter again online shopping that's another big one

over the pandemic I know someone who got addicted to an app called Zalando which is it's an app where you buy clothes and they use a kind of a fruit machine logic again

because I think you don't know when the deals are going to be so they were checking their phone all the time to see if there's deals on a pair of pants or a hat

then they see the deal they get the dopamine hitting their brain they're going fuck me there's the deal I knew it I knew those pants would be 50% off

if I just waited and then they buy them and they don't even fucking want them they just need to complete that dopamine hit now they have a lot of clothes they don't need

and they're after spending a fuck load of their money so what did they do they got the fuck away from Zalando so that's a good that's something that I'm going to be doing

for the year coming I'm going to be doing for the year coming I'm going to be looking all around me in aspects of my behavior and saying where are my addictive behaviors what repetitive thing am I doing that's essentially soothing a wound is creating problems for me and when you when you stop when you actually decide no fuck it I'm not licking this thorn anymore now I want to have a think about pulling it out when you do that and you stop the addictive behaviour it feels fucking amazing

your self esteem grows from that act because one of the shitty things about addictive behaviours especially we'll say online addictive behaviours or checking the news all the time, you really feel like shit when you keep doing it. When you keep doing that thing,

when you keep checking TikTok, or you keep arguing with someone online, you end up feeling like shit because you're powerless to it. It gains a power over you. And when you set a boundary and say no no more get the fuck off my phone or no i'm not having cans tonight because i know if i have cans i'm going to be miserable tomorrow and it's not worth it it's not worth it at all so i'm not doing it and when you make that decision it feels amazing your. Your self-esteem grows. It's a wonderful thing to do for your overall mental health.

So another thing we can do in 2022 to improve our mental health, to become happier people, to live more meaningful lives, is to identify our attachment styles. Now, I did a full podcast on attachment styles about six months ago. The podcast is called Attachment Theory. But I'm going to go over a real basic model of attachment styles and what it means. And attachment styles are actually kind of closely related to

the addiction that I mentioned previously. So let's use the lion in the cave metaphor again. When we talk about attachment styles, what you're asking is, who put the thorn in the lion's paw? How did it get there and who put it in there? Attachment theory would say that one of the lion's own parents put the thorn into that lion's paw when it was a little

cub and it's been growing up with that thorn in its paw its whole life. That thorn is a wound. It's a trauma wound. So there's three types of attachment styles. There's anxious attachment, secure attachment and avoidant attachment. Now here's what I mean by this. So I'm talking about the attachments that we now as adults have towards other adults that we have relationships, whether they're your romantic partner or close friends. So are you the type of person who just simply needs to be in a relationship if you're not in an intimate relationship with someone you're upset and you feel that like you're single and you feel that in order to be happy you will find happiness if you just simply have a boyfriend or a girlfriend

and once you have that you will achieve happiness and then when you're with this person and you get yourself a boyfriend or a girlfriend so now you're in the relationship or the close friendship that you wanted but now that you're there and you have it you're actually not happy you're anxious you're you spend a lot of time not being happy in the relationship instead you're continually monitoring to see are they going to leave you are they are can i keep them are they actually going to leave and can i put a huge amount of effort into trying to keep them happy all the time and does your partner's happiness like if they're happy and content you're happy but if they seem even a little bit pissed off or annoyed or their day isn't going well you immediately then assume that like

fuck it it must be me they're gonna leave me or you refer to your partner as the better half in the relationship they're the one who keeps it together or you're continually asking them do you love me do you love me are you happy all the time and no matter how much they tell you that they love you or that they're happy you as far as you're concerned deep inside they're not as invested in the relationship as you are so you're not enjoying the relationship at all basically what's happening is you're just continually working towards look if if they appear to be happy and they appear to be approving of me it doesn't make me feel happy it just means i'm less anxious so that's known as an anxious attachment style and how do we get anxious attachment styles when as young children like really young

from when you're born till you're about three if your caregiver your parent right your mother your father whoever the fuck

if your caregiver they might have been really really busy quite busy there might have been a bunch of other kids in the house a lot of siblings, or your mother or father was working a lot. So when you were a little baby and you cried

because you wanted attention, you wanted love, or you wanted food, your ma or da, for whatever reason, couldn't respond all the time so every time you cried every time you looked for the attention of mammy and daddy sometimes they could come to soothe you because a little baby needs to be soothed a little baby baby can't autonomously emotionally regulate and look after its own emotions little baby depends upon its parents for everything so when you cried as a child sometimes your caregiver was able to come to you and respond and then other times they weren't they were busy they had something else to do and you were left to cry for a little bit too long well that can result in an anxious attachment so as as a child, you basically learn,

when I cry, when I seek love, I don't know whether I'm going to get it back or not. And that can result in an adult, when they're in adult relationships, they simply can't trust that their partner actually loves them and they don't believe that their partner loves them. And deep down, they kind of think the partner at all times is ready to abandon them. So that's an anxious attachment style.

Now, what's the opposite of that? What's an avoidant attachment style? Are you the type of person who, when it comes to relationships or close friendships, right, you kind of don't really want them? When it comes to the concept or idea of do i want a boyfriend or a girlfriend or a best friend you find yourself fleeting from relationship to relationship having lots of boyfriends or girlfriends and continually hopping and never really connecting with someone and having long-term intimacy that grows and then when you are in

a relationship and you have a bit of an argument you don't really want to fix it you just want to go grand that's it i'm gone right fuck you i'm gone i'm out the door i don't care i don't need you here's a classic avoidant attachment behavior have you seen that trend on social media recently called the ick? Where you'll see people saying, what gives you the ick in a relationship? And the ick is basically someone finds a boyfriend or a girlfriend, they're happy

in the relationship or in the friendship and then the other person does something tiny. They chew too loud. They make a joke that isn't funny they do something that's insecure and then all of a sudden you're like oh yuck yuck I'm no longer attracted to him oh my god get the fuck away from me you get the ick you can't bring yourself to look past this person's minor flaw and accept it you just simply all attraction is gone and you need

to move on to the next person and ultimately you view yourself as very independent you don't need other people but you still don't feel fulfilled you still don't feel that happiness that's an avoidant attachment style and an avoidant attachment style happens when when you're a little baby and your caregiver is around your ma your da whatever when you're a tiny little baby and your caregiver is around your ma your da whatever when you're a tiny little baby and you're crying for food or love or attention or whatever it is that little babies need your parent comes to you your caregiver comes to you and they give you the food they give you the attention they might play with you they give you the food. They give you the attention. They might play with you. They give you their physical presence. But they don't give you an emotional comfort.

They don't give you the hugs or the kisses or the eye contact or the love that you need. You get everything else except the love. So the anxious person might get the love. Or they might not and they don't know. But the avoidant person, they get the physical presence but not the love or they might not and they don't know but the avoidant person they get the physical presence but not the love so as a little baby you experience that as rejection so then as an adult in your relationships and friendships you won't even risk the part that means genuine intimacy and love and

contact you won't even go there because you've learned that rejection is inevitable so why even chance that wound again anyway and that's a complex one because you're wondering why would someone's parent do that why would why would a parent you know care about their child to meet their needs and be present but not give them love and kisses and connection and like that can come down to if your caregiver if your ma or your da had like very low self-esteem sometimes parents

can have low self-esteem and not love themselves so when they have this little baby that just looks at them with sheer adoration and love, the parent doesn't feel deserving of it, which is a mad concept. But the parent can be like, what the fuck? This little baby is looking at me like I'm amazing, but I'm a piece of shit. I'm terrible. I'm awful. So the parent can't meet that child with love and intimacy but then the little baby interprets that as rejection so that's that baby then grows up to be an adult with an avoidant

attachment style but then what happens if you grew up and you had parents who whenever you cried whenever you wanted something they came whenever you. They came and they gave you your food and they gave you the playtime and they gave you attention. And they also gave you plenty of love so that you never had to worry. Then you grow up with a secure attachment style. So let's take it back to the lion in the cave. Androcles arrives into the cave. He finds the lion. The lion is screaming and bawling and crying and being angry

and thrashing and Androcles is going fuck what's up with this lion I don't feel safe well if that lion's thorn was was inserted into its paw by its mother as a result of an anxious attachment what that lion would do would be Androcles would say can i take this thorn out of your paw and the lion would say no why why can't i take out the thorn because if you do you're gonna leave me i'm not gonna leave you i promise you look you're in agony can i just take out this thorn from your paw no because this thorn is all we have this thorn is the only reason you're here you don't give a fuck about me if I let you take this thorn

you're going to leave and you'll be gone out of this cave and I'll be here on my own so no the thorn is staying so that's what would happen if the lion had an anxious attachment I think the lion in the cave had an avoidant attachment style

because Androccolies that the lion is trying to attack androccolies the lion is saying get the fuck away from me i'm furious rah rah rah rah what the fuck are you doing in this cave anyway this is my fucking cave who said you could come in here and then androccolies goes look i'm here but you've got a thorn in your paw there and I want to take it out and the lion is resisting and resisting but what happens the moment that lion allowed Androcles and trusted Androcles to safely come over. And remove that fucking thorn from its paw. That lion. Went from having a.

A voiding detachment. To secure attachment. The lion at that moment was like. This isn't working for me. You know. Staying in this cave. Being in agony. Pushing everyone away who comes in.

I'm going to trust this person. i'm gonna let androccles take out this thorn relieve my wound and once that's done we're gonna be friends forever fucking chilled out we're gonna be buddies so that's the other beauty of that that story it works for attachment theory too like when i'm describing anxious attachment and avoiding attachment there and you're listening and you're going oh fuck that's me that's me oh fuck oh that's awful that's me that's why I'm not happy that's why that's why I keep leaving relationships or that's why I keep thinking I want a relationship and I'm never happy when I'm in it. That's me. Oh, fuck. The beauty of attachment theory and psychology is that you're never defined by your childhood.

So whether you're anxiously attached or avoidant attached, as adults, we can learn about the thorn in our paw and how it got there and who put it there. And we can take it out or allow another person in to help us take it out and move towards a secure attachment where we live happy, meaningful lives. Where we don't have to deal with this shit. That's the beauty of growth. So how do we move towards a secure attachment? You bring into your awareness your attachment triggers. So if you're avoiding detachment and you have an argument with your partner

and this argument is terrifying because you feel that you're fighting over the dishwasher but your fear has nothing to do with the dishes. You think, oh fuck, they're going to leave me. They're going to abandon me. And you simply say to yourself, no, this is about the dishwasher. This is about dishes. We're adults. We can argue about these dishes and it's just about the dishes.

And the part of me that feels that I'm going to be abandoned, that they're going to leave me. That's not me now. That's not the adult now. That's my little child. So you learn to love and soothe and comfort and hug your own inner child. And you don't rely on someone else to do it. And similarly, if you're avoiding detachment and you get into an argument about the dishwasher and you're thinking,

well, fuck that, I'm leaving. I'm not even sticking around for this argument or this conflict because I don't need this person. I'm gone. I want to find someone else because I'm independent. You realize that, like, no, an argument about the dishes is not going to result in you being rejected because you're an adult and adults don't get rejected you can't be rejected when you love

yourself when you're comfortable with who you are when you have a decent sense of self-esteem and you accept who you are then you can't be rejected it's not possible the feeling of rejection is that's a childhood wound it's your little child it's you as a little child it's nothing to do it right now and that's what the lion did when the lion allowed androcles to take out that thorn from its paw the lion wasn't thinking about childhood wounds it's like no there's a thorn in my paw right now and this person wants to help me and i'm gonna let him and it's not gonna result in me feeling rejected so those are the two things we've covered so far is have a look at your relationship with addictive behaviors and have a think about your attachment style because we all have an

attachment style you might be lucky you might have a secure attachment most of us don't we're avoidant or anxious and also on the subject of addiction addiction can be quite related to our attachment styles we can find ourselves soothing an attachment wound through various types of addiction like pornography addiction people get addicted to porn porn addiction can go hand in hand with an insecure attachment because sex is an act of emotional intimacy so if we say the person has an avoidant attachment style they can use looking at porn over and over again to get something that's the brain registers as close to intimacy but without actually taking the risk of becoming emotionally close with another person it's a safe way to experience a hit of intimacy in the brain

and then if someone has an anxious attachment the intimacy of sex can be a way to feel close to another person or to feel reassured by them but that carries the terrifying risk of being abandoned so then you can become addicted to pornography to achieve something that's similar to intimacy but without the risk of abandonment there's a brilliant kind of addiction specialist called Dr. Gabor Mate who speaks about this and I would

fucking love to have Gabor Mate on the podcast to speak about attachment and addiction because if you're interested in what I'm talking about here around attachment and addiction check out anything by Dr. Gabor Mate. He's incredible. So we're going to do the ocarina pause now.

And I don't have the ocarina. About eight weeks in a row now. I don't have the ocarina. Another thing before I get into this. So I mentioned a few weeks back that. So a lot of listeners to this podcast. Who are neurodivergent or who are diagnosed with autism or adhd quite a lot of people have contacted me and said uh

you should get tested for that blind bite because certain things you say and do remind me of me and i have autism or i have adhd so I've actually begun the process of getting tested for this and the reason I bring it up is that like forgetting my ocarina eight weeks in a row and leaving it upstairs and not bringing it down even though it's important is very much something that is conducive with ADHD because I know the fucking ocarina is important I know it's upstairs I know I should have done the ocarina pause 20 minutes ago as well instead of fucking 47 minutes into the podcast but instead I got massively distracted so that's something that I'd be flagging when I get my ADHD or autism assessment so here we go here's the here's the shaker pause because the

ocarina's upstairs. You're going to hear an advert for something. I don't know what the advert is for but I'm going to play this shaker momentarily to create a bit of evil. It's all for you. No, no, don't. The first omen. I believe, girl, is to be the mother.

Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six. It's the mark of the devil. Hey! Movie of the year. It's not real. It's not real. What's not real?

Who said that? The first omen. Only in theaters April 5th. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the Sunrise Challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, to support life-saving progress in mental health care. From May 27th to 31st, people across Canada will rise together and show those living with mental illness and addiction that they're not alone.

Help CAMH build a future where no one is left behind. So, who will you rise for? Register today at sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. So you would have heard an advert there again I don't really mind the shaker because the ocarina was good fun but then a lot of people were saying to me

they couldn't listen to their podcast if their dog was in the room whenever I'd play the ocarina because it used to drive their dogs mad and the shaker doesn't seem to do it so support for this podcast comes from you the listener via the Patreon page. Patreon.com forward slash TheBlindBoyPodcast

This podcast is my full-time job. This podcast is how I earn a living. This podcast is... It's the reason... The Patreon is the reason I'm able to make this podcast every week. It's the reason I'm able to put research into it. Able to focus on it. To be passionate about it.

The Patreon also. It just allows me to live. As an artist. Doing what I love doing. What I'm meant to be doing. I can live as an artist. And not have to worry about. How I pay my fucking bills.

Because of the Patreon page. And. That's a wonderful wonderful thing that I've had in my life since I started this podcast so thank you to everyone who's a patron of this podcast all I'm looking for is the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month that's it all right and for that you get four podcasts a month so please just consider paying me for the work that i'm doing because it's it's i can only do this work when it's my full-time job but if you can't afford that if you're out of work whatever that's fine you can listen for free and if you can't afford it you're paying for the person who can't afford it to listen for free everyone gets a podcast i

earn a living it's a beautiful model. And just another thing as well. The past two years of this fucking pandemic. Like it's 2022 now. And. Like Jesus Christ. I've only had about three gigs. Since 2019. Because the live industry got shut down.

So thank you to all my fucking patrons. Because. That didn't devastate me that didn't destroy me I was still able to earn a living so thank you and please if you are taking something from this podcast and it's helping you and you're enjoying it

and you can afford that cup of coffee or a pint once a month please do, it makes a massive difference like the podcast, share it follow me on Instagram, Blind Boy Bo Club support all independent podcasts keep the podcast environment

the way it should be small independent creators making things because they're passionate about it that's what makes a good podcast not some company fucking a load of money at a celebrity to make a podcast they don't give a shit about. Podcasting is an independent medium.

Podcasting is beautiful because it's everything TV and radio isn't. And we have to keep that space alive by supporting independent podcasters. Financially or just simply by telling a friend, about a podcast you're enjoying, so another thing we can do in 2022, to improve our mental health, I kind of should have started off with this one,

but I didn't, because I was quite happy with that lion metaphor, I like the way that went, so, the metaphor of the lion with the thorn in its paw like I said it's a nice metaphor for the therapeutic process

like aroccles or what's his fucking name broccoli androccles he can be a nice metaphor for a therapist if you're the lion with the thorn in its paw a therapist can be the person metaphor for a therapist. If you're the lion with the thorn in its paw,

a therapist can be the person who helps you to identify that thorn and to remove it and to begin to feel a sense of relief. But not everybody has access to therapy. Therapy can be quite expensive. In Ireland, there's structural issues with the public mental health service. And I say structural because I don't want to shit upon... There's tons of people working in public mental health in Ireland, lads, who care deeply about their job, who want to help as many people as they possibly can. But there's an overall structural issue which prevents this

and creates long waiting lists and when I critique the public mental health services in Ireland I want it to be known to anyone who's working in it I'm not fucking critiquing ye the people on the ground are working as hard as they can

but there's a structural issue going on so if you don't have access to therapy how do you begin to identify that there's a thorn in your paw and how do you identify it and then successfully remove it yourself? Well, the first step to that is always mindfulness. That's why I say I should have began this podcast talking about mindfulness. Daily mindfulness practice. Like if you were to even begin to have a good think about your relationship with

substances or addiction or if you were to sit down and have a think about your attachment styles and to get calm enough to do it. Like think of it like going to the gym. So if you were to go to the gym to lift some weights or whatever you need to stretch first. First off, you need to warm up, you need to stretch,

and you need to make sure you're wearing the right clothes. You're not going to go to the gym and just run straight in wearing your work clothes. You're not going to arrive into the gym in a suit and then hop onto a machine and expect to have a good effective workout. You're not. You're going to go in, you're going to change, you might have a shower, you're going to stretch, you're going to get into the headspace and then you begin to exercise. Self-help, emotional evaluation, emotional literacy, it first begins with mindfulness. Mindfulness, unfortunately, has become a buzzword now you hear it all over the radio all over the media mindfulness

mindfulness it's also a word that is now stigmatized because people with bad mental health issues are just told oh practice mindfulness practice mindfulness, go for a run. So it can actually be quite insulting to some people. But if you're not in the utter throes of mental health issues and you don't need immediate help, and you're just someone who is doing okay, but would like to improve themselves, then mindfulness is fucking fantastic. Not only fantastic, no then mindfulness is fucking fantastic not not only fantastic no mindfulness is essential so the lion who had that thorn in his paw he's the opposite of being mindful

if you are in a state of worry right so most poor mental health as i mentioned earlier presents itself as you're not living in the present moment you're driving your car you're washing the dishes you're pacing up and down your house and inside your head you're focusing a lot of negative attention a lot of worry a lot of anxiety regret, regret, sadness, all these painful emotions. Inside your head, you're focusing on something that happened in the past that you'd like to change or worrying about something that might happen in the future. And this is the inside of your head. And it's very unpleasant. And I know myself, like I had a horrendous mental health issues in 2021 I didn't disclose the the full scale of what I was going through because it's just like everyone's going

through shit there was a fucking pandemic but for about four months of 2021 the last lockdown. I was in a really bad way. I was waking up every morning in February, March, April, May of last year. I wasn't able to go to the gym because they were closed. I couldn't exercise and run because I'd given myself an injury. I was waking up every single morning with an intense feeling of dread. Fucking dread. And that's the first thing when my eyes opened in the morning. Utter dread. Something terrible is going to happen and I don't know what this terrible thing is.

And then I get up out of bed and I'm pacing. And I'm not thinking about what terrible thing might happen. Because I've woken up with a feeling of dread. And there's no theme to this dread. I just wake up and it's like awfulness is happening and something awful is going to happen. So because I woke up with that intense emotion, my brain then would try and think of all the multiple terrible things that might happen and then I think about it more and more and they now stop being things that might happen and become things that I believe definitely will happen so it's nine o'clock

in the morning I wake up dread and then I look at my watch and it's three o'clock in the morning, I wake up, dread, and then I look at my watch and it's three o'clock in the day and I've done nothing but pace around my kitchen with intense dread and worry and trying to find all these possible scenarios that confirm the horrendous emotion that I'm feeling. the horrendous emotion that I'm feeling and I'm thinking all about my career is going to end I'm going to be fucked my future is over everything is terrible

and I lived like that for months during the last pandemic and it was hell and I distract myself with work and I used to come and do this podcast and put on a fucking brave face

and say look this is my job this is how I can forget this shit I'll do this fucking podcast my Twitch stream was a huge help to me every Thursday night I'd go onto Twitch and have a lovely community of people there and make some songs and that was a lovely escape

but my mental health was in tatters for a few months of last year and not one moment of that was mindful none of it was in the present moment like I said I'm waking up at fucking nine o'clock looking at my watch at three and I don't even know where the day has went because I've done nothing but live with that lion screaming in my head with a thorn in its paw. Now I'd eventually gotten to a point where mindfulness wouldn't have even worked to be perfectly honest. Like mindfulness is fantastic but mindfulness you tend to have to kind of be in an alright place to even begin doing it. I'd allowed anxiety and worry to go on for too long for something like mindfulness to simply fix it.

What sorted all this shit out was the gyms opening again. Gyms opening again, being able to lift a couple of weights, getting that energy out, feeling better about myself, feeling a bit of hope that improved it but mindfulness if I'd have used mindfulness correctly at the start of the last lockdown if I'd have been disciplined about it I still would have been upset and I still would have been frustrated but I wouldn't have gotten to the point where my life was a fucking living hell for a couple of months. So let me run you through a very basic mindfulness.

Let me run you through what I should have done. Like if you wake up first thing in the morning and you feel dread or you feel sadness or whatever, what I should have done is I'd wake up I'd feel that feeling of dread and I'd have made a decision right there and then I'd have said to myself this feels awful I'm noticing it I noticed that this feels awful there's an intense feeling of dread running through my body and now I'm taking ownership of that so what I need to do right now is take my attention away from my head

and not allow it going to not allow all that energy going to worry and I need to bring myself into my body the first thing I should have done straight out of bed and now I'm noticing my feet are on the floor and that's all I'm thinking about and I'm feeling the connection of my feet on the floor and my eyes are closed and I'm imagining just an imaginary light moving from my feet now I'm thinking about my kneecaps and I'm imagining this light and this warmth on my kneecaps and I'm scanning all the way up through my body noticing my fingers, my shoulders noticing the top of my head

checking in, doing a full body scan that's called directing every bit of my conscious attention towards my body and its presence in the fucking room. Because when you go immediately into worry and dread and panic, you're not physically present in your body, you're up in your head. Because then I'd go down the stairs,

I wouldn't even notice I'm going down the stairs because I'm entertaining the feeling of dread. And what the first thing I do I make my breakfast I must have had a hundred cups of coffee over the period of three months last year like I love getting up in the morning I love having my first cup of coffee in the morning is a beautiful experience. I adore it. I didn't enjoy one cup of coffee last year during that period. I would have gotten up. I'd have made the coffee. I'd have drank it. I wouldn't have noticed one bit of it.

I'm still doing it autonomously. Making the coffee. Making my cereal. But I'm not thinking about any of it. Because all I'm doing is living up here in my head. Entertaining. a feeling of dread and trying to come up with scenarios that justify it and worrying about my career and worrying about the future what I should have done like I said I've done a full body scan now that I've done the body scan the feeling of dread would have been lessened I'd still be a bit worried there's still still, you know, I'm suffering.

I'm in lockdown. I'd have gone to my cup of coffee and I'd have made the conscious decision of now I'm literally going to, I'm going to wake up and smell the fucking coffee to use an apt cliche. I would, I would notice the beautiful

complex aroma of this wonderful cup of coffee. And I'd smell it. And I'd look at it. And I'd notice how warm it makes my hands feel when I wrap my hands around this cup of coffee. And I'd feel thankful that I have the cup of coffee. And I'd be thankful that I'm here, healthy, have the cup of coffee and I'd be thankful that I'm here healthy enjoying this cup of coffee and I'd do the same thing for my muesli and what that's called is that's called being mindful everything I'm doing I'm presently noticing every bit of it it's all about noticing and being thankful as you're noticing it

and noticing my muesli and all the different constituents of it and the taste of the milk and the bowl that it's in and eating my breakfast now becomes something that i'm 100% aware of and invested in and when i'm doing that my brain isn't allowed to be worrying about the fucking future or worrying about the past because all my energy is absorbed now in what I'm actually doing and it's the exact opposite of if I was ferociously worried and I've just eaten a bowl of cereal and I didn't even know I did it I'd finish my coffee, I'd finished my cereal, I'd have eaten them nice and slowly, noticed how I'm chewing, I'd have recognised and appreciated that now I don't feel hungry anymore because I've just had my breakfast.

I'd have gone outdoors and fed my two cats. Again when I had these severe mental health issues last year, yes I was feeding my cats, was I stopping to give them little slow blinky eyes, was I looking at these two beautiful fucking creatures, was I empathising with how happy they must feel to get up out of bed and have someone give them food, how satiated they feel did I smell the lovely morning air as I went outside to feed the cats I did none of this shit yes I was feeding them yes I was meeting their needs but I wasn't emotionally present in any of it so these are all things I could have done each morning to make sure this is all i'm thinking about this is all i'm doing and then once that's done and i've checked in with my body and i've mindfully checked in with my environment

and my body and sensations then that's that's called grounding i've now grounded myself it's worth nothing to that throughout all of this, I forgot to mention, throughout every bit of this, I'm breathing mindfully throughout. I'm making sure that I'm breathing in through my nose, expanding the bottom of my stomach and bringing in lovely slow amounts of oxygen into my fucking body. Because that's a huge part of mindfulness. because that's a huge part of mindfulness and I had a neuroscientist Dr Ian Robertson on a couple of weeks back who was speaking about what happens to the human brain when you engage in mindfulness and when you engage in correct breathing and the chemicals that are released in the brain that actually reduce the stress chemicals and the anxiety chemicals. So having grounded myself sufficiently, having met my needs of feeding myself, having engaged in the empathy of feeding my cats

and thinking about what it must be like for them, now I'm in a situation where I can safely explore my emotions. So I'd have sat down, and this isn't even meditation, it's a cousin to meditation but it's not I'd have sat down and I'd have noticed the feeling of dread wouldn't really be there anymore now now it would just be a little hum of worry and I'd ask myself

what are you worried about? that feeling of horrible dread you woke up with this morning what's that about where in my body did I feel it and I go I felt it there just underneath my heart and why do you think that is what are the worries here well I'm angry about this pandemic I'm angry that I can't exercise because of this pandemic. I'm angry that I have an injury because of the pandemic. And I'm worried about my career because the pandemic is stopping me from working. The pandemic has not only taken gigs away from me,

but the much bigger worry of gigs are one thing but not working in television is another that was a deep worry and continues to be a bit of a worry because just before this pandemic I had a TV series on BBC and throughout the pandemic the type of TV that i make documentary stuff that i make you can't make that during the pandemic you can make stuff that's in a studio you can make scripted tv stuff where you have a tight cast and everyone is antigen tested but the type of stuff that i make where it involves going out into the public and moving around a lot. You can't make that during a pandemic. So I've had two years now where I'm not on television. And that, in my line of work, that's actually really, really bad. Because what that can do, it can end your mainstream career permanently.

Basically, that's what that can do. In order to be on TV and to be within, we call it mainstream media, it needs to be like a ball that keeps rolling. And if you're not on TV for more than two fucking years, they're just not going to let you back on again. You have to keep that ball rolling. So that was grounds for utter terror for me because I'd spent so many years doing it

but realistically the dread that I was waking up with was it was the level of dread like literally soldiers might as well have been outside my door and were ready to kick it in and execute me

that was the scale of dread I was experiencing I was experiencing dread that was existential dread I'm going to die I'm going to be killed it was that level of fear and extremity not get not working in TV is not grounds for that level of fear and extremity if you get me it is when anxiety is around it because anxiety will make so that's a legitimate thing for me to be worried about I'm genuinely allowed to be worried about that

I'm off TV for two years I might never get on it again that's an okay thing for me to be worried about considering I've been doing this for so long. But it's not death. It's not like I'm going to be fucking executed. It's just very disappointing. Some mindfulness would have allowed me to mindfully notice and experience that disappointment. I'm not making the problem go away. The problem still exists. It's a real problem. I'm not making it go away. But through the mindful exploration of my emotions,

I would perceive that threat for what it is, which is, I'm noticing that this is really fucking disappointing and concerning, but I'm not going to die I'm actually going to be absolutely grand and fine if I never work in TV again I'll just be disappointed and it'll be a bit of a shame and what would have happened if I'd have done that I wouldn't have had 3 or 4 months with intense mental health issues

I was very anxious and very sad and very upset a lot of the time and this severely reduced the quality of my life and every bit of that was avoidable if I'd have used more mindfulness in that moment and that is something I'm doing I've been practicing that for a couple of months now. When I get up in the morning, the first thing I do is I practice mindfulness. And I don't eat my breakfast unless I notice my fucking breakfast. And I don't feed my cats unless I notice they're getting fed. And I have a bit of empathy with them.

And I still have worries. I still have negative things that are happening in my life. They're not causing me mental health issues. They're simply existing as the inevitable suffering that happens. The pandemic has been awful for a lot of people. And I'm sure there's a load of ye who are waking up in the morning with a sense of dread. Because the pandemic has taken something from ye. But be mindful around it is it really grounds for

terror dread anxiety depression it's not what happens that matters it's how you think about what happens that matters

and only through mindfulness will you get to that place where you can live like that. Okay, so that's this week's podcast. 72 minutes. I haven't done a 72 minute podcast in a while.

I think I covered a lot there. Yeah, I was happy with that. Addiction, attachment, mindfulness. I hope you took something from that, again if you're one of these people who feels bothered by my mental health podcasts, I hope you stuck around and listened and there's no need to feel threatened by that, but if you do that's fine as well, no one's forcing you to take that thorn out of your fucking paw. You get to decide when that happens.

And if having it in there, and it being sore for a while, is what's working for you right now, you have the autonomy and you're entitled to do that as well. I'll catch you next week. I don't have a song for the end of this week's podcast because I didn't have time to edit one like I was on Twitch last week

writing songs but actually pulling down the video and editing a song into three minutes that takes quite a huge amount of time and I didn't have that so there's no Twitch song this week there will be one next week

I bid you farewell, you glorious cunts. Rock City, you're the best fans in the league, bar none. Tickets are on sale now for Fan Appreciation Night on Saturday, April 13th, when the Toronto Rock host the Rochester Nighthawks at First Ontario Centre in Hamilton at 7.30pm. You can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game. And you'll only pay as we play.

Come along for the ride and punch your ticket to Rock City at torontorock.com. you