The Blindboy Podcast - Julian Foolery

Episode Date: March 4, 2020

Four simple tips that I use to improve my life when I find myself in a rut with poor mental health Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

masturbate onto a hot George Foreman grill you fun-sized Duncans welcome to the blind boy podcast I'm a silly foolish boy I had a full on day emotionally. I decided to have muesli for breakfast which I haven't done in many many years. I'd have muesli, see what the crack is and I was eating muesli now I don't know why the muesli is relevant to this, it's the only thing I can think of but while I was eating the muesli

like a repressed memory of childhood trauma surfaced and and I think the muesli triggered it it's all I can think of like I haven't eaten muesli in years

and something about the muesli it was nice something about the muesli triggered a childhood memory that was unpleasant and it just came upon me and I was like fuck jesus that happened and i'd managed to repress it into my unconscious mind and then it arrives now as an adult but it's

basically i think i was four or five years of age And excuse the audio now this week if it's a little bit poppy. Because I usually have a sock that I talk into. And I don't have the sock now. So I'm just speaking into bare microphone. But yeah, I was like five or six years of age. In a playground in Limerick. in a playground in Limerick, and I was,

I think I met another lad who would have also been five or six years of age, I don't know who he was, he was a stranger, strange young fella, and this was when I was a child obviously, and I just got chatting with him, and having crack, or whatever you do when you're six, and whatever way the conversation went i basically his mother was with him right he's his mother was beside him um and i said to the boy in front of the mother whatever triggered the conversation, I said that the sun would one day expand in

a few billion years and end the world basically, and I think the boy got really upset by it, Got really upset by it. But then the mother. She hit me into the head. Like really fucking hard. Like. Nearly knocked me out. Like a full proper punch.

And yeah. It just. It came up this morning. While I was eating muesli. It's like holy fuck remember that time the fucking grown adult boxed you into the fucking head for bringing up

the inevitability of the sun expanding and I know you're probably thinking you probably have that memory wrong blind boy what business have you at six years of age to be talking about an expanding sun? But I would have been,

because when I was that age, I had... Like, one of my older brothers was really into science, and we had a set of encyclopedias in the house, and this is the type of shit that we would have spoken about. I would have read. I would have been reading about the sun.

And I would have been asking my brother questions about stars. I used to look up at the stars. And ask him questions about the moon and the sun. And all of this shit. So he would have said to me. Yeah that sun one day. Is gonna. Yeah because in the encyclopedia, it had a diagram of stars, because the sun is a star, basically.

It had a diagram of stars and the different stages in their life, like a white dwarf or a red giant and all this. and so it would have been explained to me at five or six years of age that sun up there in the sky is one day going to expand into a red giant and consume everything in the solar system so i remember at a young age being confronted with the reality of fuck the world is actually going to end it'll be in a few billion years but yeah the sun is going to expand it's inevitable but when i said this to this young lad in the playground and he got upset his mad just fucking walloped me and and i don't know why it came back to me this morning i don't't know why, that I'd managed to go over two fucking decades, basically having forgotten it, and then, boom, this morning it just comes

back, and it was heavy, it was heavy coming back, I tell you that, because I'm now an adult, and I'm going, fuck, a strange woman boxed the living fuck out of me when I was a child and now as an adult I can now see like Jesus Christ that's that's grounds for going to prison like fully hitting another fucking fully hitting a child is grounds for going to prison and I suppose in my head I was trying to figure out what the fuck did I say or do that would cause someone to hit a child they don't know that hard and I think what it was is I crossed a boundary. I think what it was is that I crossed a boundary. It's like.

By me explaining. That the sun was going to expand and consume the earth. I crossed a boundary. I'd robbed. That. Mother. Of the innocence of the relationship with her child and she got so angry she hit me the way you'd hit an adult

if you get me now I'm not trying to justify her fucking behaviour you don't hit children but what I'm trying to do is empathise with what could be so upsetting about a six year old explaining the expanding sun that would make an adult

hit a child really hard but yeah basically what I'd done is I'd I'd overstepped the boundary of innocence like in my house growing up my brothers were explaining like, yeah, the sun's going to expand.

Our life is going to end. But it was presented to me as, isn't that interesting? Isn't that a really interesting fact about the universe? Isn't it amazing that the sun is actually a star? Isn't it incredible that outside the earth there's this huge fucking galaxy that's ever expanding but to this woman i had stolen innocence from her relationship with her

child it was like because he was upset by it you see and it's like I'd I'd do you know what I'd say it was too it's like I made her think about the the finality of her son's life I'd made her think about her son's death the uncomfortable deep dark feelings of we are everyone you know and everyone you love is going to die something you don't want to think about if you're a new mother with a child I'd just

plopped it into their lives there and then and I'd put her in the situation where I had it's like saying Santi isn't real but way worse it was like

how dare you introduce my child to the painful realisation that all life will end and now I can't soothe them

without lying it was like she'd been put in a position now where she either has to tell the child the truth that the sun will expand and the solar system will one day end or she has to lie to him and say

that little boy over there who talks about the expanding son, he's talking out of his arse. She probably should have done that. Instead of, and that's the crazy thing. Like, I understand she was upset or whatever, but like, she just boxed another child in front of her own child. That's the most harmful thing you could fucking do.

Whatever about him finding out about an expanding son it's like imagine seeing your ma all of a sudden hit another child a strange child full force so yeah that was my day a repressed traumatic memory just arrived into my fucking head and it was heavy it was kind of heavy because that's freaky it's freaky to go fuck how did i go my whole life forgetting that and then it just comes back and what's upsetting for me is like i know my psychology so if if as an adult you don't remember a childhood incident like that it means that it was so traumatic that my brain didn't want to fucking remember it that's that's what happens it goes right into the depth of your unconscious mind and if i didn't remember it it wasn't the physical pain of the slap if you know it wasn't it wasn't that it wasn't the physical pain it most likely was whatever emotion the woman had, the complexity and intimacy of her anger and the context of it was far too great for my childhood heart in it for my brain to click with it i wouldn't have gotten it i wouldn't have had the emotional maturity to empathize

with that blast of adult anger because it was wildly inappropriate that's the thing you know it was wildly inappropriate for a child to try and contextualise or understand, so right into the back of my fucking head is a memory that I won't remember, and shittily, that's, you know, that's the type of, you know, how many of my fucking panic attacks, how much of my social anxiety how much of of mental health issues in my life can be attributed to that woman's actions who were so painful for me my brain was like not not remembering that one gonna forget about that forever and let it bubble as a darkness in your unconscious which will inform uh irrational fucking behavior so it was a big day and i found something that's not the sock

but similar to it because i'm getting a few p sounds there postman so that was my day it kind of derailed it a little bit it I had an emotionally full day whereby I had to process that wasn't necessarily unpleasant it's just it's an existential realisation I wasn't one to be getting

hit by adults as a child I wasn't really to be getting hit by adults as a child I wasn't really getting hit at home and I suppose the freaky thing is that it wasn't getting hit by a strange adult, it was a strange adult losing their temper and dehumanising me

that was the emotion, actually yeah that, if I spent a while processing what's the emotion that's coming up for me when i think of that and i felt uh devalued and dehumanized that she's hitting me in a way that she wouldn't hit her own child and something snaky about it too because there was no one else in the playground so it's like you you're doing this you're you're hitting a child full force because you think you can get away with it which was it just pretty fucked up and not what i was used to in my own home so there you go lads so what do i want to talk about this week because

I've had what you'd call an introspective day I've had a day of introspection I've had a day of contemplative searching of my internal emotional world and sitting with emotions and mindfully sitting with a negative and positive emotions and searching for a sense of meaning because i've had one of those days i'll try and have a podcast that reflects this for the benefit of everybody who's listening

um so a question i get asked an awful lot I get asked this a lot usually by men is people want to know do I listen to or read or like Jordan Peterson I've answered it a lot of times before but I still get asked a lot not really Jordan Peterson is you know sometimes he's really interesting when he talks about things that have to do with uh

I like his stuff about Carl Jung when he speaks about religion I find it interesting but in general Jordan Peterson not my vibe because i just think he's a gateway drug for conservative christianity um i strongly disagree with his views on socialism i think he's i don't know where the fuck he learned about socialism from. He's unable to detach social democracy from the worst atrocities of Soviet communism. He's very anti-feminist. He's anti-trans rights. Just not into him. Don't think he's a particularly helpful addition.

don't even think he's a particularly helpful addition and it's it's a shame that he has the the ears of a lot of young men in particular who are looking for meaning who are searching for a sense of meaning and he has their ear because he speaks about psychology but the one thing he always leaves out is compassion i've listened to hours and hours and hours of his stuff and i just don't hear compassion in there and that's always a bit of a red flag for me but i got asked um did i read his book his book was called what was it 10 rules for life or something but it was like a list book about he is a professor of psychology about his ten rules for how to live a happy life

or whatever I had a quick glance through it he started talking about lobsters I was a bit unimpressed so someone said did you read his book and would you consider what are blind boys

ten rules for life basically off the back of Jordan Peterson's what are blind boys ten rules for life so that's kind of what I want to speak about this week I don't know if there's going to be ten of them I don't have them numbered but what would

be my rules I don't want to say rules fuck rules what would be my suggestions for a meaningful life last week I explained I don't believe in

happiness as such I don't believe in in happiness as such I don't believe that there's no such thing as happiness there's such a thing as being happy but this idea that we have in our heads that there is this state known as happiness which we can attain it's bullshit doesn't exist there's no such thing as this continual state known as happiness where you will suddenly get to this place where you are now happy 100 and that's it not a chance you'll get an itchy arse something will happen there's no such thing as a state known as happiness unfortunately there is something known as a state known as happiness. Unfortunately, there is something known as a state known as happiness or sadness or depressiveness. Someone who's depressed can be sad all the time for a long period.

But the equivalent doesn't really exist for happiness. equivalent doesn't really exist for happiness the opposite of depression for me is not happiness but it's a meaning meaningfulness right and you know what what is the opposite of having meaning in your life is when, for me it would be, if you spend a good deal of your time, right, suffering, being, you know, if you spend a good deal of your day right and you're angry frustrated jealous or feeling ashamed about shit that actually isn't happening in that moment if a good portion of your day is spent seething with anger about someone about a friend of yours because you feel they're treating you wrong, or if a good portion of your day is assuming that other people don't like you, or a portion of your day is spending a lot of time

being jealous or envious of another person, that's the opposite of meaning. You're not living in the present moment. Instead you're in a lot of discomfort about shit that's already happened or shit that hasn't happened. So that's the opposite of meaning. Your space, your mental space is taken up with negative fantasies. That's what they are. If you're jealous of another person,

if you spend a lot of time thinking about what they have and what you don't have, or plotting about wanting to see them not do well, then that's a fantasy, that's a harmful fantasy that harms you. If you're angry with another person in your own head and a huge amount of your day is spent gritting your teeth or clenching your fists because of something someone said to you two weeks ago, that's an unhelpful fantasy that isn't real but it is but the pain of it and the discomfort and the waste of time that is real so to be free of that to not be living that way is to live a life of meaning right and meaning

can be good and bad but but the good and bad is stuff that's actually happening in the present moment so what I'm going to talk about is some guidelines right that I've learned over the years through just being alive

and also through psychology guidelines that I use to strive to have a life of meaning on a daily basis Being alive and also through psychology. Guidelines that I use. To strive to have a life of meaning on a daily basis. I've got an exceptionally itchy nose right now and I don't know what that's about. Do you know what that's about? Fucking coronavirus man. I'm trying to train myself.

To not touch my face. Here's the thing with the coronavirus. Wash your hands. Sneeze into your elbow when you can for other people. And then try and get out of the habit of touching your face entirely. If you can wash your hands and don't touch your face, that's the best thing you can do according to experts to not get the coronavirus. So I've been training myself the past few days to not touch your face. That's the best thing you can do. According to experts. To not get the coronavirus. So I've been.

Training myself the past few days. To not touch my face at all. And as a result. I'm getting an exceptionally itchy nose. There we go. So what would I recommend. Number one. To.

Improve your life. To improve your mental health. to achieve a sense of meaning any of these things to get out of a rut something if you just want something good to do for yourself if you want a little project

to challenge yourself and improve your mood I'm going to give you some tips based based on what I do look look, this is what I fucking do, and this is what works for me, alright, and if you want to listen, and you want to have a lash at it, then work away, but this is what works for me, so one thing that I try and do on a daily is I accept my fallibility as a human being, okay? I accept that I'm not perfect.

I accept and acknowledge that I'm going to make mistakes, I'm going to fuck things up, I'm going to embarrass myself, I'm going to hurt people that I love in my actions and my words, I'm going to embarrass myself. I'm going to hurt people that I love. In my actions and my words. And. I kind of.

I accept. I accept that this is. This is part of being human. This is part of fucking being human. Making mistakes. Embarrassing yourself. Disappointing other people. Letting other people down.

Losing the rag and hurting someone I love. In some way. This is part of being alive. And. I can. You can minimize it. You can work on minimizing it. But. I suppose what I'm saying is that. I can you can minimise it you can work on minimising it but I suppose what I'm saying is that

by taking ownership of these things as being an inevitable part of being human having that in your awareness means they happen less it's when you have strict rules around your fallibility that you tend to do it more or you tend to cover up for it

or the consequences of it are worse if you have personal rules that you know you must not make mistakes or you must not embarrass yourself in a social situation you have to be perfect and for you to embarrass yourself would be the worst thing possible or you know when I said there which is a weird one for me to accept that as a fallible human being I'm going to hurt someone that I love that's that's a big one to say but if you if you have a personal rule that says I must not hurt somebody I must not insult another person I must not get exceptionally angry with someone and hurt their feelings if you have that rule then you start to fetishize politeness and it turns into I must be polite I must be really really nice to people and when you do that then you can't deny anger you can't deny

losing the rag so it just sublimates itself into passive aggression which is fairly toxic all of a sudden though you're still angry with someone you care about but instead of voicing it you're refusing to talk to them or you're pretending there's no problem but they're still picking up the negative vibes so by acknowledging I am a fallible human being I'm not perfect I'm going to make mistakes

then everything kind of chills out a bit and it tends to happen less not perfect, and going to make mistakes, then everything kind of chills out a bit, and it tends to happen less. You're less uptight. Things are looser. And when things are looser, you can be flexible with them. But the other thing is,

as a fallible human being, who's going to make mistakes, embarrass themselves in front of people and fuck things up and hurt people another huge thing that goes alongside with that with the recognition of your innate human fallibility right to take ownership of it to truly take ownership of your fallibility means that you're going to fail failure is an inevitable part of being alive so if you're to take ownership of the fact that you are going to fail at certain things you then have to learn to accept responsibility for them when it happens right and this can be this can be really tough but there's tremendous meaning in growth in this right let's just say you get into an argument with your best friend or your girlfriend

or your boyfriend or a family member and during this argument you feel anger and emotions come up and you're gritting your teeth and then you blurt out something hurtful to that person and then afterwards you go oh for fuck's sake why did I say that that was really mean why did I say this hurtful thing to this person who cares about me and who I care about and it's embarrassing and we all do that Bob Diddon has a song about it called Idiot Wind um but one thing you can do if you do hurt like that right really learn to genuinely not apologize of course yes apologize but it's more than apologize learn to truly accept responsibility for. Apology is just like. I'm sorry for that thing. I said yesterday.

The thing with apologies. Is apologies. Sorry. The word sorry can be hollow. Sorry is one of those words. That. A fucking parent makes you say. To another child.

After you get pissed off at them. Sorry's great, but as an adult, you need more than sorry. And like saying to a person, that thing I said or did yesterday was really wrong and you didn't deserve to be treated that way. And I don't feel that way I that thing I said I don't feel that way I'll tell you what happened I felt really angry and insecure in that moment and because of that I just I I wasn't thinking and I think I just really wanted to hurt you and you deserve better than that and I'm really sorry for that and I'm gonna try not to do it again

and when you do that when you not only apologize but put a language it's it's not just sorry it's fucking laying bare laying bare your vulnerability that's what it is when you're when you're fighting with someone you love and during that fight you say something to deliberately hurt them that's you being insecure in that moment that's your raw insecurity you're feeling small and you're lashing out at someone who you know won't lash back because they love you so to fully take ownership of it and kind of lay out a map of your own bad behavior in a genuine way not only is it a heartfelt decent meaningful apology to the other person right it strengthens

the bond and relationship that you have with that person it's difficult to fucking do it's really difficult because you're laying bare your vulnerable insecure emotions and putting them out there in front of another person so you end up growing as a human being and connecting meaningfully with authentic emotions and it makes you more assertive i spoke about assertiveness before but with assertiveness which is separate to confidence if you're to truly be able to stand up for yourself with calm authority then if you're to be able to do that

you have to also truly know when you're wrong and to, in a non-defensive and confident way, admit completely how and why you are wrong and how you truly understand how the other person didn't deserve to be treated that way so so that's one that's one thing that i would uh have as a guideline for finding meaning and joy in your life which might lead to happiness what else um try something new right

just as an exercise as an exercise to introduce meaning into your life try something new by which I mean and this can be small make it a little project

do it at the weekend alright watch a film that you wouldn't normally watch do you know do you like a certain type of film, well go into your head and figure out

what are the films that you think you don't like, go and watch a film you don't think you'd like go and watch a film that you say, that's not for me that's for a different type of person do that go to a pub or a restaurant that you wouldn't normally go to if you're an introverted person like i would be try having a chat with a stranger when you're out

ask ask them about their day note one little interjection if you're a lad if you're a man try and make that other person a man because just fucking walking up to strange women as a man and initiating conversations that happens an awful lot in a woman's day and just do it just do it to another man you don't want to turn it into fucking you could could have been the 10th lad that day that tried to initiate a conversation and she could be tired from it so if you're doing this for your own mental health and you're an introvert and you want to try something new spark up a conversation with another man i just advise that you don't fucking have to if you want to talk to a fucking woman work away um if you're an extroverted person

go for a long walk on your own you know if you're a person who you feel anxious on your own and you like being around people then the new thing you should try is fuck off on your own for two or three hours complete solitude, don't talk to another person

spend time with you and I know that can be quite frightening for a lot of people that can actually be kind of scary and and can sound quite boring to some people who are highly extroverted the idea of spending time in your own but give that a go listen to a type of music that you wouldn't normally listen to and i don't dismiss it and it doesn't mean you have to be like i'm gonna sit down and listen to this music

that i don't think i'd like or watch this film i don't like you don't have to force yourself to like it just give it your fucking time just truly give it your time make space for this thing that's outside of your comfort zone ultimately that's what i'm talking about safely stepping outside of your emotional comfort zone because it's the psychological equivalent to jumping into a cold bath of water and you know you might go to that new fucking restaurant, like I did it once, look, I don't like seafood, I just don't like seafood, alright, especially shellfish, and one day I went to a sushi restaurant, and decided to try and eat fucking sushi, and I did it, I fucking hated it, And I did it.

I fucking hated it. I hated it. I really really disliked it. But I got great meaning. In the discomfort of it. I got great meaning from that discomfort. I got. I had very strong emotions and opinions. Trying to understand.

How the fuck anyone could like raw fish and seaweed. And people love it. People truly, really love it. And that's the whole point of meaning. It's by sitting down and eating a plate of sushi always I'm almost embracing the inevitable suffering of human existence because eating the sushi it was it was suffering it wasn't intense suffering but it was unpleasant but there was great meaning and how unpleasant it was so you know it was a good experience I it's like I said

it's jumping into the fucking cold it's jumping into the cold water no one likes jumping into the cold water it's not pleasant but there's something there there's something about it there's like if you've ever dived into freezing cold water and you've

you know you've lost your breath it's not pleasant but there's something about it that gives you life it almost reminds you of what it is you do like so that's why stepping outside your comfort zone and doing something you wouldn't normally do is a good guide to finding a sense of meaning and shaking things up. So before I continue on to more of this stuff, just a quick plug of some upcoming live podcasts that I have. So as you know, I'm just about to go on my UK tour. Glasgow, Birmingham, Liverpool and London

Glasgow and London sold out Glasgow I think I released about 10 tickets from the guest list there in Glasgow I'm going to be interviewing the comedian Limmy who is someone I have greatly admired

for many fucking years and I got on to Limmy and I said Limmy will you be my guest in Glasgow and he said yes I can't fucking wait that's going to be so much crack I'm not going to tell you who my other guests are for that tour but I want to just put out a big push for liverpool and birmingham because there are still tickets left for liverpool and birmingham please come along to those gigs all right you'll get the tickets online then drada i'm in the tlt concert hall on saturday the 29th of March then I've three Vicar Street gigs first

second and third of April I think second and third are nearly sold out but there's some tickets left for the first for April Fool's Day bizarrely why the fuck aren't people buying tickets on April Fool's Day what are you doing on April Fool's Day Flann O'Brien's birthday and then Belfast Why the fuck aren't people buying tickets on April Fool's Day? What are you doing on April Fool's Day?

Flann O'Brien's birthday. And then Belfast. I think Belfast is sold out. So there you go. There you go, lads. What have I got there? Nah, fuck, that's too much. That's May. Fuck that.

Okay, so those are my gigs. UK tour, lads. Please come along to that. Oh, shit, yeah. Fuck it. Spain in June. I'm just going to say this because I don't. Oh shit yeah. Fuck it. Spain. In June. I'm just going to say this. Because I don't know how many people.

I have listening in Spain. So I want to. Make sure I plug it well in advance. I'm gigging in Madrid and Barcelona. In June. The 12th and 13th lads. So look those up online. If I have any Spanish people.

Who are fans of the podcast. This podcast as you know is sponsored by you the listener every so often I might get an actual sponsor like an advertiser on it the odd time but generally they're not that interested so my income and what keeps the podcast going

it comes from you the the listener, via the Patreon page, patreon.com forward slash the blind buy podcast. If you met me in real life, would you buy me a pint or would you buy me a cup of coffee? If the answer is yes, you can do it on the patreon page once a month please do because people come and go and i really gotta keep pushing the patreon so that it gives me a steady source of income this podcast is for free i put it out for free my labor is for free so if you can afford to be a patron of the podcast it it goes a long fucking way. And it means too that you're paying for someone else who can't afford it. Alright?

Yart. Also, suggest the podcast to a friend. If you know someone who isn't listening to this podcast and you think they'd like it, just suggest it to them. Alright? Subscribe, leave a review on fucking apple podcasts all that carry on did i forget to do the ocarina pause oh shit now i'll do the

ocarina pause okay on april 5th you must be very careful marg. It's the girl. Witness the birth. Bad things will start to happen. Evil things of evil. It's all for you. No, no, don't. The first omen. I believe the 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. It'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. There you go. Okay, what other guidelines would I give for someone who's trying to find a little bit more meaning in their life? Learn to take the piss out of yourself. Learn to use humour,

in a self-deprecating fashion, when it comes to things that are upsetting you, and, I don't necessarily mean, because self-deprecating humour as well can be, when you use self-deprecating humor in a social situation with other people sometimes we can use self-deprecating humor in a toxic way because what it does is if you're if you're quite insecure if you're insecure and you're afraid of other people judging you or you're afraid of other people judging you or you're afraid of other people hurting you,

sometimes we can just make jokes about ourself because it's like saying, it's sending a signal out that don't make fun of me, I'm already making fun of myself so there's no need for you to try. I don't mean laugh at yourself in that way because if you are a person who uses self-deprecating humour a lot

in a social situation it might be worth looking at and investigating why you're doing that but learn to laugh at yourself privately just you on your own if I don't know

it's part of the acknowledging your fallibility I spoke about this before when I used to have bad anxiety I used to laugh at the absurdity of my own anxiety sometimes our mental health issues

right even though they're deeply painful, they're also very irrational. And within that irrationality can often be hilarity. And I used to laugh at my own panic attacks. When the panic attack had passed, I would laugh at the absurdity of what I'd managed to work myself up into such a tizzy over. In fact, in my early career when I used to do prank phone calls, some of my prank phone calls were actually me trying to process my anxiety. Like, I've got a prank phone call called The Bank where I rang up, you'll find it on Spotify, I rang up a bank claiming to have, I rang up, what

the fuck, I rang up a bank and accused them of bursting a balloon in my ear and then told them that the balloon bursting in my ear caused me to have a panic attack and that was directly me trying to find a humour in the irrational absurdity of the anxiety that I was suffering at time so laugh at yourself laugh at your mistakes if you did something to embarrass yourself laugh at it to yourself afterwards laugh at the tragedy of your existence because when you do that you just introduce these new emotions these new hormones and chemicals into a situation

when you're the opposite of laughing at yourself is to be solemn and solemnity serves no fucking purpose if you're too solemn about shit that's falling apart in your life then you'll never find a solution to it just fucking learn to laugh at it About shit that's falling apart in your life.

Then you'll never find a solution to it. Just fucking learn to laugh at it. And let that in. And you can still take it seriously. But still allow a bit of humour in as well. It can be very healing and you can grow from it. Another suggestion off the back of that. And it's quite, it's like a B-side. To learn and to laugh at yourself

keep an eye on how offended you're getting at stuff alright if you're if you're very easily offended by how another person is treating you chances are

that you have a very strict rule about how you must be treated by other people and having a strict rule that everyone has to show you respect that's a lot of stress you're bringing on yourself because that's not life people aren't gonna people don't know they can't read your mind and know your own personal rule

book for how you must be treated and other people are different and if your personal rule book over how you must be treated and must be respected is very strict then you're going to walk around spending a good portion of your day with those rules getting broken and when those rules get broken you experience that as being offended and if you're offended a lot then your experience of being alive is going to be quite painful and frustrating and filled with anger and a desire for retaliation so like I'm not saying let people walk over you or let people disrespect you change your strict rule book from a set of rules to a set of flexible preferences.

It'd be nice if every single person you met was polite to you. That'd be lovely, but it's not going to happen. It's not going to happen. So, learn to let some shit slide. You know, the next time, a good way to cut off being offended is if someone says or does something that deeply offends you then maybe for two seconds put yourself into their shoes and figure out what's going on for that person that they are not noticing my boundaries there because the thing is if if you have a lot going on it ties back to that very first fucking guideline i gave you

if you're to acknowledge that you're a fallible human being who makes mistakes and who's going to hurt people then you have to make that allowance for other fucking human beings too. You have to make that allowance that another human being is fallible and might not understand your rules about how you're to be treated and might do something that you consider to be offended. You can still be assertive, you can still call the person out, but what I'm trying to get at is to be carrying around a deep level of pain and hurt and anger

because of another person's behaviour towards you. That just fucks up you at the end of the day. You know? So, recognise the other person's fallibility, fucks up you at the end of the day, you know, so, recognise the other person's fallibility, try and have empathy from where, for where they might be, and,

have a more flexible attitude, and then you won't experience, the deep hurt and pain, and rejection, that can often go alongside, being offended all the time. Like if you, sometimes a good way to lead your life is just expect nothing from no one. If you don't expect anything from anyone, you will never be disappointed.

I'll give you one more this is one that for me was hugely powerful and it took a long time for me to develop and it took a lot of work and skill and a lot of work on my own mental health to be able to get to the point that I was doing it but this one really represented for me a real signifier of nearly the end of my depression and anxiety.

Right? Learn to embrace uncomfortable emotions. Okay? And it doesn't just mean learn to accept them learn to tolerate them right obviously do those things but

there was a point in when I had started conquering my anxiety where I started to feel so confident around it that I'd actually fucking embrace it. So when a situation would present itself, which normally would trigger anxiety in me, which for me was being in a public setting, being in a pub, being at a gig, these things that normally might send me into a panic attack,

when I'd gotten to a stage where I could cope, and I'd gotten this confidence, I would start to kind of playfully embrace anxiety. And I'm struggling to find the fucking words. I would acknowledge that the vast majority of things that were making me anxious, there was no actual real threat. Going into a situation that gives you anxiety,

let's just say, okay a public speaking is a big one for people public speaking for me it was uh being in we'll say being in in a a crowded room and i don't know where the exits are that for me would have been a huge fucking anxiety trigger literally like a game saying to myself I'm going to go into this fucking room and I'm going to stand there and I'm not going to know where the exits are and I'm going to have fun with that anxiety. It's like you're finally stepping up to the bully. It's like because your anxiety is a bully. Your depression is a bully. It's the part of yourself that knows the most vulnerable parts of you and it's that side of yourself using it against you like your anxiety is is a

it's a nasty bully like it really is if you took your anxiety outside of your body some of the things that your anxiety says to you and if that was a human being the level of fucking nasty harassment that that person would be enacting against you would be something else. Like think of what goes around inside your head when you're experiencing anxiety. You're fucking useless. You're a piece of shit. You can't even do this. You can't even do what normal people are doing.

You're pathetic. That's the inside of your head when you're experiencing anxiety or experiencing depression. So it's a bully so when you learn to embrace it it's like you're finally stepping up to the bully and saying no you're not as tough as you think you are not at all you can't you can't hurt me do you know what i mean so i would nearly make a game out of my anxiety and I would put myself into situations that would normally trigger panic attacks, like being in a really crowded place and I'd stand there and sit with it. And I'd say to myself, even if I tried, I can't get to that exit door because there's about 70, 80, 200 people in front of me and that exit door is ages away

so if I was to get a panic attack right now I'd have to just get a panic attack right now and cause a big scene and I'd really confront it and acknowledge it and I would sit in the pit of hell and when you do that in a playful way and I would sit in the pit of hell, and when you do that in a playful way, it utterly diminishes how threatening those thoughts used to be,

similarly, you do it with public speaking, if public speaking is a big fear that you have, or giving a public speaking is a big fear that you have or giving a presentation is a big fear that you have and you're working towards sorting it out and you've gradually exposed yourself to situations where you're now speaking publicly and you're giving your presentation in college or in work or whatever it is and you're starting to get okay with it but there's still a bit of anxiety, when you're at that advanced stage, then start fucking playing with it. Start finding out what your biggest fears are with public speaking.

Leave long, uncomfortable silences. Long pauses. Start making eye contact with people sitting in the fucking room as you give a presentation. Speak directly to people. Play with the fear. Play with it, toss it around, have fun with it.

Embrace it. That's, that's like advanced level standing up to your mental health issues. That's. That's like advanced level. Standing up to your mental health issues. And it takes a while to do. But. Similarly with fucking depression.

You know if you had. You know negative thoughts. Of. About yourself. Or about the the world or about other people, like, sit with them or do something creative with them. You know, do something. Your darkest, deepest, most negative thoughts that you might get with depression, okay? Which can get very fucking dark and can veer upon self-destructive thoughts, right? When you feel that you're in a safe place where you're dealing with it,

a good way to embrace that is to turn it into art. Write a fucking poem about it. Bring your dark, deep thoughts into a poem and poke fun at them feel the catharsis of doing that that's what it is ultimately what i'm talking about it's catharsis when you embrace anxiety embrace fear of public speaking embrace a phobia embrace depression it's catharsis it's um you're releasing the energy in this really fucking healthy way where you're dominating it and showing that you're truly in control of it and that it's not ultimately what you're doing is you're exposing the the fallacy of them anxious thoughts aren't real depious thoughts aren't real. Depressive thoughts aren't real.

They're irrational thoughts. They're faulty ways of looking at yourself, looking at other people, and looking at the universe that are irrational and dysfunctional and that are causing a lot of pain, but they're not objectively real. They're illusions. So when you embrace them and poke fun

at them and let them exist there you're just you're stripping all the power from them it's it's you're you're looking at the puppet strings and you're playing with the puppets but the puppets are your anxiety or your depression

I've gone about fucking nine metaphors deep there now. Okay, that's one hour. And I have to go to bed. You goals. Okay, I'll be back next week. What will I be doing next week? I think I'll be in England.

I'll be in England on my tour. Yes, I will. So, having a clue what the podcast will be. But I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully coronavirus doesn't fuck it up. 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. city at torontorock.com got seven days between now and my uk tour so hopefully nothing crazy happens where all public gatherings are cancelled or whatever i doubt it though i doubt it please buy tickets to my uk tour yart i'll talk to you next week Thank you.