The Blindboy Podcast - My Mental Health Philosophy so far

Episode Date: June 24, 2020

An overview of my entire mental health maintenance regime and the psychology and philosophy behind it Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Coo Cullen's nutsack swung drunken in the widow's bungalow. How could my nutsack get drunk while I am sober? asked Coo Cullen. His nutsack was a messy drunk. It was loud. It was rude. It blurted out uncomfortable truths. Outside the widow's bungalow, Coo Cullen wrestled his own nutsack until the sideways orange glimmer of dawn sobered it up. Little poem there, written by Dickie Rock that I found under a tree while I was hiking in the barn in County Clare and Dickie Rock, Dickie Rock has written one poem for each

county of Ireland and he's hidden a poem in each county of Ireland and he's hidden a poem in each county of Ireland and he's been doing it for years and in the event of a united Ireland he released them all as an anthology so fair play there Dickie Rock

what's the crack lads welcome to the Blind By Podcast if you're a new listener to this podcast you can listen to this episode if you like. I would suggest going back to earlier episodes. Go to the start. See what type of crap.

Because these, they're not, the podcasts aren't really sequential. But if you're coming to this podcast new, definitely delve back into the past. Without a doubt. There's two years of stuff there. You can hit any episode you want. Alright, and it'll give you a better understanding rather than starting right now, you cunt so

I have been having obscene amounts of fun the past week live streaming alright, I've mentioned my live stream every single week, you're aware that it's been a tumultuous journey for me

but I have arrived at my destination I'm streaming I'm happy I'm getting good at it and I did three live streams last week on on Twitch and I'm after really I'm after finding my groove I'm after finding something which I'm really happy with doing and I don't think anyone else has done it before I think I'm the first person to do it so as you know on my live stream on twitch twitch.tv forward slash the blind boy podcast what I've been doing is is exploring a game called red dead redemption which is I'm not even playing it it's just a huge map of 19th century What I've been doing is exploring a game called Red Dead Redemption, which is, I'm not even playing it, it's just a huge map of 19th century America, and I walk around it live, and I discover things, I explore.

I explore it as a contemplative space. What I did this week is, so most people who live stream games what they'll do is they'll play the game and then they'll provide commentary about what's happening in the game and that's what people want to see they want to not only watch someone playing a game but they want the commentary that the person gives over the game so i thought instead of commenting over Red Dead Redemption why don't I make a soundtrack like a musical live so what I started doing was exploring Red Dead Redemption walking around the wilderness of the game but I had my instruments and my looping pedal and I was creating music like writing songs in the moment and then coming up with lyrics and singing them in the moment

about what's happening in the game essentially treating the environment of Red Dead Redemption like real life nature. Like if you're to write songs you can go out into the forest if you want in real life and you can write lyrics that are inspired by nature. Like Paddy Kavanaugh used to do or Keats used to do with the poet. used to do with the poet so what I'm doing is I'm treating the digital world of Red Dead Redemption as a source of inspiration to create music live and also creating a soundtrack for what's happening and it's like it's hyper real songwriting it's it's it's songwriting inspired by a source that is a copy of reality. It's hyper real songwriting. And I don't think anyone's ever done it before. I genuinely think it's a first.

People make music live and do that on live streaming. And people play video games live. But I've never seen anyone mix the two. And I think that's a first and I did it and I fucking loved it the rush of adrenaline the pressure it was fucking beautiful I was able to achieve a sense of pure flow where there's no once you get the song started there's no room for stopping or fucking up you just go with it so I was in in a state of pure flow writing songs about what's happening in the game and I was really happy with them and it also serves as for anyone who's watching it's like

a guide on how to write songs so I i loved it i fucking loved it and i'm gonna be doing more of it again this week i actually can't wait i cannot fucking wait to get back to red dead redemption and write songs live and because i was so in flow as well i was channeling singers that i didn't know i wanted to channel I did one song that was like it channeled an old Irish singer called John McCormack or a Canadian singer called Scott Walker

and there was a bit of Jefferson Airplane as well so I had great crack so if you want to see it, it's on my Twitch channel but also I'm going to be live streaming this week wednesday night at 9 30 thursday night at 9 30 and friday night at 9 30 twitch.com forward slash the blind boy podcast it's amazing crack and you when you're watching you can comment as well and one of your comments might end up inspiring something that I

create in the moment, I can't wait to get back to it it's it's so exciting, I fucking love it em what I'm considering too this week now this could be crazy, this might be a foolish decision

but I stream on Twitch my Twitch channel is new I've only got like 6,000 followers which is a small number and the community is really supportive and nice and they pride themselves on being respectful and being sound and negativity is shunned

and it's a lovely environment for me to create in but what I was thinking of doing is simultaneously live streaming not only on Twitch but on my YouTube channel which has got like 120,000 followers and on my Facebook which has got a half a million followers and I could have this audience of like000 to 700,000 people watching me live stream but also having the ability to comment and this dangerous part of me wants to do it, just like fuck it, why

not, what's the worst that can happen, the worst that can happen is absolute shitheads on Facebook will say a load of mean things, that's a guarantee Facebook will say a lot of mean things that's a guarantee will say a bunch of mean things and mean things are not it's hard to have a creative space when someone's calling you a cock you know if someone's typing who's this cock with a bag in his head it's hard for me to get into the flow and enjoy things whereas on Twitch people are really nice and friendly so they don't call me a cock they're quite supportive but fuck it why not man live stream to 700,000 people all of them calling me a cock while I'm singing in the style of Brian Ferry about a goat fuck it so catch it this week so last week's podcast lads I it was about coronavirus

it was about the goblin of strange and uncertain times which we are slowly but surely leaving em I know I'm always harping on about wearing masks right and it's really important because wearing cotton face coverings it's hugely important because the science is saying that

if everyone wears masks we can drastically reduce the spread of coronavirus but i had one thought this week people aren't wearing face masks glad i i'm going to the shop um a couple of times a week now people aren't't wearing face masks. It's just the Irish people aren't doing it. It's not being, the government really aren't pressuring us to do it and people are going, what's the fucking point? So when I go into Dunn's or I go into Aldi, it's usually me and two other people who are wearing face masks and I don't think that's good enough, right?

Here's a thought that you should think yourself and also say to somebody else if they're not wearing a mask. Because this broke my fucking heart. When I'm in the supermarket, I notice that mostly the people that are wearing masks are elderly people because they're quite at risk. If they catch coronavirus, they're much more at risk of succumbing to it and dying

than i am so i was just thinking these poor older people are terrified of going shopping but they have to do it if some people say ah they could stay at home and they could get it delivered they're entitled to want to go to the fucking supermarket and and exist in society so i'm seeing these elderly elderly people inside and dones or aldi or lidl and they have their face masks on and they're scared and they've gone through the effort of putting that mask on but if I don't wear mine. Then their effort is for nothing. Do you get me? And not just elderly people.

Vulnerable people. People who are immunocompromised. People who are really really scared. Of catching this thing. Are putting the effort in. And putting their mask on. And having their hands covered. And the science says. That even though they wear their mask on. And having their hands covered. And the science says.

That even though they wear their mask. They're not protected. Unless I wear one too. So my. Selfishness. Now I do wear a mask. But let's say I didn't. Let's just say.

I'm like fuck it man. I want to go to Duns and I don't want to wear a mask. Let's just say I'm that person. fuck it man, I want to go to Dunn's and I don't want to wear a mask. Let's just say I'm that person. I'm making very serious decisions about another person's well-being. And not only am I making very serious decisions about another person's well-being, I'm negating their efforts. And how selfish and unfair and mean is that? So wear a face covering. If you can't afford a mask, get a large sock, cut a hole, wear a scarf.

Any covering that will prevent spit from leaving your mouth. Okay? If you are wearing this covering and the other person is wearing it and one of ye is carrying coronavirus the chances go to about 15 percent if you're both wearing face coverings there's now a 15 percent risk with close contact of one of you catching it but if you wear no fucking mask it's like 90 percent wear a face covering when you're going outside. Don't be worried about people thinking you're strange or thinking you're weird. When you wear a face covering, you're a warrior for the cause.

I wear a face covering. I walk around Dunn's. I see no one else wearing them. And I kind of say to myself, no one else is wearing a face mask. Fuck it, man. It's kind of annoying. It's itchy. Maybe I'll get away with it. Maybe I won't wear it the next time and I say no because I'm here with

this face mask on and everyone looks at me and I'm the reminder to them that they should be taking more responsibility so when you wear a face mask you're a warrior for normalisation. You're out there as a pioneer, letting other people know, I'm not insecure, I'm not worried that I'm going to stand out, I'm wearing a fucking face mask because it's the right thing to do. And you continually remind everyone, it's like flying a fucking flag. So wear that face covering, okay? A disposable cotton face covering, be careful how you touch it, when you get home, wash it.

Fuck it into the microwave for a minute. Leave it dry. Reusable. It's jocks for your face. It's underpants for your face. That's all it is. It's underpants for your face. It's no more complicated than that.

You're holding in the piss of your spit. Okay. So I mentioned last week that I'm considering doing a mental health podcast this week and i got very positive feedback from you people were going please do a mental health podcast this week so i will that's what i'm gonna do what i'm gonna do is i want to i've done many mental health podcasts before so what I want this mental health podcast to be is like a refresher course

like I want to condense down almost my entire mental health model that I use for myself in a way that will benefit ye and it's even if you're even if you're one of the few people who've literally been listening to this podcast from the start and you've heard every single episode and you've even listened to the mental health episodes that I've done even though I'm going to be retracing a couple of things you'd have heard in those podcasts, it's still fresh.

This is still going to be fresh stuff. And, but sure, look, this is the, I'm going to be talking about the approach that I've been using for more than a decade. It's quite simple. Not much has changed. And I do it every single day. Every single day, it's the same process so and for new listeners too who haven't heard my mental health podcasts this is for you as well so the gist of what I want to cover is I want to break down

as you know I I have got a history of depression I've got a history of anxiety and I'm depression and anxiety free for more than 10 years now doesn't mean I'm not going to get depression and anxiety again I would never say that I'm cured what I would say is that my daily lived experience on a consistent basis

anxiety and depression are not a feature my daily lived experience on a consistent basis, anxiety and depression are not a feature. I'll get sad. I'll get worried. I'll get afraid of things, but they're not the same as anxiety and depression. When disappointment, when I experience loss, I'll get sad. When I get disappointed, I'm going to be sad.

When I receive bad news, I'm going to be sad. That's fine. Of course I'm going to be sad. Life contains sad things. But depression is different. Depression is when you're in a consistent and continual cycle of an incredibly low mood that's quite hard to escape from. Depression and sadness are different. I'm depression free. I get scared of stuff.

I might receive some news. You know, fuck it. All of us. Jesus Christ. Coronavirus, lads. It's threatened our livelihoods and all of us, Jesus Christ coronavirus lads it's threatened our livelihoods and all of this shit so that's scary that's scary stuff, worried about the economy

I have worries in my life now that I didn't have six months ago and these worries can make me feel afraid sometimes but that's fine why wouldn't I be afraid, that's a normal human reaction but I'm not anxious I'm not experiencing anxiety anxiety is when fear becomes utterly overwhelming and you can't really identify what the source of it is and it's mental mental health issues are when the intensity the emotion that you experience is such that it impacts your capacity

to function normally in life and your capacity to relate and develop relationships with other people okay when you've got bad anxiety bad depression that's what that's like bad enough depression you're not you're not even washing yourself you're not getting out of bed bad enough fucking anxiety you're not leaving the house so i just want to make make that distinction it's like when i say i'm i'm free of these things i'm still sad and afraid because that's the human condition and that's acceptable and that's what's that's a given of existence but i'm not sad or afraid to the point that it's completely irrational and it impacts my capacity to function as a healthy human being the reason i live my life free of these things is because of my mental health regime which comes under a three-part structure and that three-part structure is what I want to

synopsize for you today and the gist of this three-part from from the sheer mental health part of it the three-part structure is past present and existential so i'm going to speak about schools ways of understanding myself and schools of psychology that relate to my past that relate to my present and then that relate to existential issues truths about existence and that's kind of my holy trinity and that's what i want to talk about now aside from that that's that's the psychology part of it that's the self-talk the the language that i engage in with myself and the self-analysis that i do and the intrapersonal exploration that i do to understand my emotions okay that's the three-part model that's what that's going to cover but before i even get into that mental health isn't it's not all psychological exercise plays a hugely important part in my mental health regime

massively important part i run frequently i have at least 3 10km runs a week ok, now that might sound freaky fucking hell blind by 10km yeah I've been doing this for 6 years ok running is what I like if you want to get into running very quickly how do you do it

download an app called couch to 5k download an app called couch to 5k and Download an app called Couch to 5K. And begin doing that. In six weeks you will be someone who's able to run five kilometres. What Couch to 5K does. There's a lot of apps. Some of them are free.

I use the free one. It basically. You put it into your ears. You go for a walk. And you follow a little course. And then a voice in the headphones says to you, walk for 90 seconds, run for 60, and it trains you up, and after six weeks, you're running five kilometers.

And that's how I started. And the thing with running, running is horrible at the start. It's very unpleasant. Your body is saying to what the fuck are you doing your legs are saying what the fuck are you doing running isn't nice at the start okay so if you begin it and it feels disgusting and you get stitches you feel like getting sick you just have to understand it's supposed to be like this at the start but after about two weeks you start getting good at it and once you get to the point

where you can run 5k it doesn't even feel like effort anymore so when i run my 10 kilometers i don't even i don't even say to myself i'm exercising it's this it's i'm releasing very intense and beneficial chemicals from my brain into my body I'm I'm releasing incredibly pleasurable chemicals that keep me healthy that's what I'm doing when I run I'm releasing adrenaline I'm releasing endorphins I listen to music what does running feel like when I'm in the middle of a run lads it makes me feel really really alive it fills me with the vitality of being healthy and alive and i feel vigorous and i feel youthful i feel young i feel strong it's such a positive confident feeling which exercise can give you once you get good at it and that's

why it's hugely beneficial to my mental health so when i run the rest of the day it's just a solid start what am i like if i don't exercise if i go an entire week with no exercise i begin to feel lethargic and lethargy is it's not tiredness because tiredness has a purpose to it when you feel tired you want to rest you want to sleep but with lethargy it's different it's like I'm awake I've had a full sleep yet I don't feel like I want to be active I want to sit on this couch and I want to scroll through my phone and when you get lethargic right and this is how I get when I have no exercise when you get lethargic you're irritable you're grouchy you're angry everything is dull you filter things through a very negative lens if i am not exercising and i open my phone and i'm scrolling through twitter and i'm scrolling through the news

and i can really negatively internalize the stuff that i'm reading and i can feel quite shitty and i get irritated with things that people are saying online and I get irritated with news stories and all of these things lower my mood and it becomes a quite a negative loop and then by lunchtime I'm not happy I'm upset and I don't want to do anything and then I don't want to eat something nice I want to eat something shit but when I do a 10km fucking run and I'm out there breathing in air and seeing birds and I run down by a river and seeing the water and just getting out there with nature

and doing something as positive as that when I get back from a run and I open up my phone and I see the same comments and the same news stories they don't fucking irritate me because I've just lived in the present moment and experienced the vitality of existence and when you experience fully the vitality of existence you don't sweat the small stuff I've now I now have the the grounding and self-esteem to see something upsetting and go fuck it man I'm not going to let that affect my day

so that's and I think it's it's not only because you've done something very good for yourself but I've just given myself the brain chemicals when I experience lethargy and inactivity I think my brain chemicals it's

a stress hormone. Is a hormone called cortisol. Which can affect your tummy as well. When I'm out there. Getting that fucking adrenaline. And the endorphins. It's just non-stop positivity. And I'm.

It's class. So exercise is a huge part of my mental health regime. And I'd recommend exercise for fucking anyone. Alright. I run three times a week. I'll go to the gym and lift heavy weights two or three times a week as well again all of it's for my mental health I lift weights because when you get good at lifting weights there's something orgasmic about it when you're doing a good bench press and you feel that pain in your muscles there's a real uh rush of quite beneficial chemicals to the body and

it improves your appetite exercise as well the mental health is holistic when i say it's holistic you have to include all aspects of the body so exercise looks after one half of it but what exercise also does exercise informs the food that your body wants and needs okay eating well by which I mean whole foods and not necessarily processed foods eating well is also beneficial to your mental health on a nutritional level and the relationship between the gut and the brain on a nutritional level if you're eating lots of vegetables and have a nice varied diet and it's coming from fresh food that benefits the brain but also if i do a 10 kilometer run or i do a bunch of weights it gives your body this hunger where it's like give me some real nutrients now please because

i'm depleted whereas if i'm lethargic and i haven't exercised and I'm sitting on the couch getting irritated at Facebook and now my mood is down, right? I don't want wholesome foods with nutrients. I want quick, salty, fatty foods. I want to trick my brain into releasing easy endorphins. I want chips and battered sausages from The Takeaway. Do you know what I mean? Now, there's nothing wrong with chips and battered sausages from the takeaway do you know what I mean now there's nothing wrong with chips and battered sausages from the takeaway but if you're

doing it every day here's the thing you don't want to engage in any practice that has you doing what's known as cognitive dissonance cognitive dissonance is when we do something that's unhealthy and that we know when we do something that we know is bad for us but our brain plays a little trick whereby we do it anyway smoking cigarettes

everyone who smokes cigarettes knows that they're bad but yet we do it okay that's cognitive dissonance everyone who and I don't mean this now i don't want to shame anybody who is incredibly low income and as a result doesn't have can't afford or access fresh ingredients in ireland that's not as much of a problem that's very much an american thing

in ireland thank fuck you can go to places like Aldi and can buy fresh ingredients very very cheaply but I don't want to I don't want to be shaming people who are eating takeaways every single day if they don't have skills to cook or if they don't have the get up and go or if they're in depression and they don't want to cook I don't want to be shaming these people what i'm saying is most people know if you're gonna if you're eating if you're eating food that isn't nutritious and is overly fatty and overly salty or overly sugary if you're doing that every single day everyone knows that's bad for you and you're engaging in cognitive dissonance you're engaging in defence mechanisms whereby you're lying to yourself and that places you at a distance from emotional authenticity

okay cooking is a part of my mental health regime because it gives me a great sense of meaning it gives me a narrative and journey deciding what my meal is going to be. Purchasing the ingredients.

Preparing them. And then at the end eating a meal that I prepared from scratch. The narrative and story of that process. And the journey of it. Is beneficial to my mental health. It gives me a sense of meaning. So that's just the the non-spiritual side of my mental health regime so what i want to get into now is like i said the three-part

element of the psychological maintenance of my mental health The psychological maintenance of my mental health. Past, present and future. So what do I mean when I say past? What I mean is. In order to understand how I feel right now. I need to process my behaviour through the lens of my childhood so that I'm not repeating faulty or unhelpful behaviours that I might have learned as a child.

So in order to process that properly, I need to have an understanding of how I was raised what was my place in my family what did I learn from the adults when I was a kid so the school of psychology that I use to gain an understanding of how my childhood has influenced my personality the school of psychology is called transactional analysis and i try and use transactional analysis in in my my relationships with other people right i i've got two full transactional analysis podcasts that you can go i can't remember the names of them but you can go back and scroll and find them or google blind by transaction analysis i'm sure they'll come up right but just

a brief overview of what transactional analysis is and why it's beneficial to me so the two most important facets of transaction analysis i think is there's what's known as the ego state model and life scripts okay the ego state model is a theory of human communication which states that we as right now even if no matter what fucking age you are you're legally an adult okay that how you interact with other people you switch between three states parent child or adult and so does the person that you're communicating with okay this tends to present in situations that are challenging or stressful now if if you're if if in your life you consistently find yourself

repeating mistakes or having repeating repeatable repeating negative behavior regarding another person or regarding relationships okay if you consistently say to yourself why do i why do i keep doing this why does this keep happening chances are it's because of a lack of awareness around your ego states and you're communicating with other people in a predetermined way that's been determined since childhood and it's completely outside of your awareness. Not just how you interact with other people, but ways that you think about situations.

So in the past day, the past 24 hours of your life, there's been times in past day, the past 24 hours of your life, okay, there's been times in your day, and this is most likely outside of your awareness, but there's been times in your day when you have thought and reacted to a situation exactly as you would have, as if you, when you were a child, okay, something might have come on the news that was scary, and your response to it was like it would have been if you were four years of age, or, okay, classic example, most people are social, are fucking quarantined right now, but you're late for work, let's just say you're late for work let's just say you're late for work this morning or you're late for your zoom call but you're a full-grown fucking adult you're in your

20s or your 30s you're late for your zoom call which means that you fucked up you might disappoint your boss or whoever else is on it but because you're late you suddenly get this feeling like oh no I'm in trouble I've been bold I'm in trouble and now you're behaving to your boss on the zoom call you're not being honest you might be making up excuses you might even be lying oh I'm so sorry for missing the zoom call I know it was supposed to be 20 minutes ago but uh i i don't know what happened it was just i was so i was so busy out the back garden and then then someone rang and all of a sudden now you're you're lying to your boss or your colleague because you're scared of getting in trouble okay scared of being you're you're in your you're an adult and you're

scared of being in trouble and you're lying to your boss about being late for a call, right there you have shifted to an ego state known as child, you feel exactly as you felt when you were four and you got in trouble and you're now as an adult trying to behave as if you're four years of age and relating to a situation as if you're four and you're not aware you're doing it you're just doing it and that's known as the child ego state okay and we drift in and out of these ego states throughout the day so to take it to transaction analysis let's just say say to your boss i'm half an hour late i'm so sorry the dog fucking ate my homework whatever happened there was the doorbell rang because you've entered the child ego state your boss or your colleague without even knowing it they're not conscious either they have unconsciously noticed that this adult is now behaving like a child and what you're doing there is you're engaging in a

transaction a transaction is when when you go to the shop and you give someone money and then they give you a box of fags it's an exchange but you're not exchanging goods here or money you're exchanging units of communication and ways of communicating so you feel like you're in trouble right adults don't get in trouble unless you've done something seriously fucking wrong an adult shouldn't feel in trouble for missing a zoom call it's it's trouble being in trouble or being bad or bold that's not appropriate for an adult it's it's not realistic so you've presented as a child. Your voice as you speak as a child might even raise higher. Your body language could possibly change and contort to ways that you would have behaved when you were four.

You could suck your fucking thumb without even knowing or play with your hair in a way that you used to do since you were a child. Your boss or colleague unconsciously notices this and now you've invited them unconsciously to engage in a transaction with you whereby they now have a choice about how to respond. They now can respond from their place of childhood or as a parent or an adult so the parent ego state and you also spend some of your day

in the parent ego state is that when you're not reacting to something as a child you could be reacting to something the way your parent did when you were a child so you're late for the zoom call say to your boss uh i'm late i'm so sorry i had to answer a phone call then the boss

responds as parent and the parent now is chastising you and the parent is giving you what you're asking for that was oh that's so disappointing. Why are you always doing that? That's such a shame that you're late for this call. And now they're behaving and speaking the way their parents spoke when they were a child and they might take on the body language and tone and even use phrases or terms that their da or ma or teacher used when

they were six and now what you have here is inauthentic communication you're not aware of it your colleague or boss isn't aware of it you're you're in a play you're in you're now in a fucking play, playing out a script from your past. You are speaking, behaving, thinking and relating to another adult like the way you did when you were four. They're now thinking, relating and speaking to you the way their teacher or mother or father was when they were four, and you have inauthentic communication where no real contact is made. By real contact, what I mean is that the actual rational needs of the situation are not met. What are the rational needs of this situation? You're late for a zoom call that's disappointing okay you should have been on time you're late but so fucking what okay the rational uh situation

here is to go i'm sorry i'm late for this i genuinely fucked up i forgot about it i actually forgot about this and i just want to apologise. I want to hold myself accountable for apologising. That's now the adult state. The adult ego state. Like I said, there's three. Parent, child, adult. Adult is the only one that is genuinely authentic

and is based in the here and now. It's not informed by your childhood. It's not informed by your parent or a teacher that you saw when you were a kid. It's based on the right now. So the adult says, I'm so sorry for being late for this Zoom call. I put my hands up. I fucked up. When you present as adult to your boss, now they won't respond as their parent or as their child

they will respond as an adult and go yeah that's a bit of a fuck up look we'll get over it what can we do going forward that will how can i help you to not miss another zoom call and now you're having authentic contact you're having a communication now where neither of you because when you present this child you feel anxious you feel afraid and you feel the feeling of i'm in trouble adults don't get in trouble i've said it before and adults should never feel like they're in trouble. They should never feel that power dynamic where they can be punished or chastised by a parent. Adults shouldn't feel like that because once you become an adult you have this autonomous sense of freedom and security. Adults get held to account. They don't get into trouble. So when you enter the child state, when you're in a situation of of conflict you feel small and you feel bold and you want to lie and then the parent when when your boss

then goes into the parent state where they're going bad boy bad girl you shouldn't have missed that you shouldn't have done that they now feel this sense of power like they're slapping your bum but it's still inauthentic they're not they're not connecting with the real moment and it's emotionally driven it's emotionally high and it's an unpleasant and awkward situation to be in it's known as a complimentary transaction and it's a bad thing a complimentary transaction is when you present as child and then the other person compliments that by presenting as parent. Two inauthentic ways of communicating and they feel awkward, uncomfortable and you want to get the fuck out of the situation because they're inauthentic. Both of you are going, why the fuck am I giving out to another adult like they're six?

why the fuck am I giving out to another adult like they're six? And then you're going, why the fuck am I behaving like a six-year-old to someone who's either the same age as me or might even be younger? And it feels kind of shameful and awkward. And then you walk away from it. Your self-esteem is a bit lowered because later on you feel like a prick for acting like a six-year-old. You're not really aware of it.

You might walk away from it most likely thinking, My boss is so mean to me. They have such power and control over me. I don't know what it is. But whenever I speak to my boss, I just get so frightened and scared like a little child. And I can't express what I truly need to my boss. Most likely it's because you're engaged in a complementary transaction. You're presenting as a six-year-old, you're thinking and behaving like a six-year-old,

and they then, in a complementary way, are presenting as a parent, and that can never be resolved because it's so inauthentic. So what you strive for is how can you live as much of your day as possible in the adult ego state which isn't informed by your past and is based on the actual facts at hand of the here and now moment and your true authentic feelings and you'll know you're having an adult interaction because it doesn't feel scary it doesn't feel threatening and the concept of being completely honest feels good and it feels cathartic it feels good to go to your boss and say like it really does feel good when you say i'm so sorry for missing the zoom call

i can i put my hands up and I hold myself accountable. I fucked up. I don't want this to happen again. Can we communicate about what we can do so I'm not fucking this up again? And then your boss doesn't perceive that as a complimentary transaction. You've just met them on the level and then they appreciate the honesty and they're impressed by not only your honesty but your ability to take ownership of your own fallibility because humans are allowed to be fallible you're a human you are fallible

failure is is a part of the human condition so when you put your hand up and say what's the crack i just failed because i'm human and that's what i do and so do you and i'm going to admit this your boss then gets this sense of respect going wow this person's confident they've got very high self-esteem they just quite confidently and effort effortlessly admitted that they missed the zoom call they're apologizing and they're trying to accept responsibility and improve the situation going forward the boss then goes this feels really comfortable i now don't feel competitive i now i don't want to punish this person because you don't punish adults and the boss goes ah fuck it man yeah you missed the zoom call i'll be honest it's disappointing

and but fuck it it's in the past what can we do yeah let's have a dialogue about how we can better schedule these calls so that neither of us miss these calls what can we do there can we have a look at the calendar maybe you can set a reminder in your phone and now you're having this non-threatening conversation and the problem is getting solved and it actually it's straight it's authentic communication and then you once it's finished you actually walk away from it feeling better that builds your self-esteem your your sense of self-worth grows from those type of authentic interactions but if you go about your day presenting as a child and all the frustrations and powerlessness of being a child or instead if like the other complimentary transaction too with the boss and this is where things can get really toxic

you're late for the zoom call you present as child I'm so sorry for missing the zoom call the doorbell was ringing and I got a phone call and I don't know how it happened and I'm so sorry

and you're lying and making up excuses and you've invited your boss for a complimentary transaction maybe they don't go for their parent's state and instead they go for child as well because that can also happen when you present as child the other person can present in their ego state as child as well and now two children are talking and what do children do they throw tantrums so your boss has not decided to go bald boy bald girl you should not have done that which is the parent instead they're going wow wow wow you missed the phone

call it's fucked it's finished now i don't want any phone calls and they slam down the laptop and they've had a tantrum and now you have a tantrum as well and again that's an inauthentic way of communicating with another human being now you've got two adults having a tantrum highly emotive hurting each other and that also lowers self-esteem so that right there is transaction analysis that's a brief synopsis and transaction analysis we go about our days relating to other people informed highly by how you were as a child or how parent figures were around you and we ape these behaviors when we're in stressful situations so what you need to do is to understand what your

childhood was like what was your relationship with your parents what type of child were you how can you bring that into your awareness and know when you're entering a child or a parent state and instead make the choice to go no no no i need to behave in the here and now i am an adult adults don't throw tantrums and adults can't get in trouble. What are the facts at hand? How can I take accountability if I'm actually... Because an adult, someone in the adult state, they 100% know when they are wrong and they 100% know when they are being wronged.

Because if you're in the child state as well, you can think that someone's being mean to you and they're actually not you can be like this is so unfair like a child but when you're in the adult state you actually know when someone is crossing your boundaries and you know when you've crossed someone else's boundaries and you have no problem going hold on a second buddy that's unacceptable or saying i behaved unacceptably and I'd like to hold myself accountable and apologize that's transaction analysis that's what I try and use when I can that's one part of my mental health model another part of transaction analysis that

again I have other podcasts where I go into this shit in detail but like fucking life scripts we can form scripts for ourselves at a young age about the type of people we are and how our lives are going to be so very simple let's just say at a young age you decide that you're a loser who can't succeed and at a young age by whatever interactions you have in school and your peers around you you simply decide I'm not meant to be successful and you decide upon this at four years of age

and this is your entire view you look at other people being successful or other people following their dreams and a little voice comes up every time that says no no other people that's dreams and a little voice comes up every time that says no no other people that's them they're successful not me no no that's not meant for me that's known as a life script

and all of us have these there's loads of them these different scripts that are often negative and we follow these like clockwork they're like scripts in a movie and when something comes in that challenges our script we don't go with it so if your life script is i'm not meant to be successful that's other people who are successful when when situations present themselves to you where you

have an opportunity to for success you will self-sabotage and fuck it up for yourself so our responsibility is to become aware of what our life scripts are and then write a new one right because you're a fucking adult and once you become an adult no aspect of your childhood can define your fucking life you you can you have complete freedom as an adult nothing that happened in your childhood defines who you are as a person so that's transaction analysis want to hear more about that there's two or three podcasts about it i'm gonna do my little ocarina pause holy fuck 50 minutes i didn't that was a good rant if i'm at 50 minutes jesus

so i'm gonna do the ocarina pause which means a digital advert will be inserted um i don't know what the advert would be for i don't put the adverts in a cast put the adverts in i do a little musical interlude so that you don't get shocked by an advert one thing i want to currently right now if you're listening to this podcast right now as it came out i made a little advert so what a cast do is that i'll make an advert for a cast for my own podcast and this will play on other podcasts and it'll be like how are you getting on i'm blind by listen to my cool podcast like that right but for some reason it's been playing on my podcast i don't know why which i kind of like i think that's cool an advert for my own podcast on my podcast but i didn't think it was going to play on this podcast and a cast asked me can you synopsize who you are and what your podcast is very briefly so i did one thing i

want to address just in case only one person said it to me only one person said it to me but if one person said it that means several others are thinking of it in the advert i refer to myself as i can't remember the other things but i refer to myself as an academic and one person said how are you how are you to be calling yourself an academic i i have a master's degree in a critical theory, basically, around art history, right? And I've also done, in times when I've been stuck for money, I've done the odd bit of lecturing work, working in academia, so it's okay for me to call myself an academic. However, I do not consider this podcast to be academic.

It is not an academic podcast. When I speak about art, I'm not speaking about it academically. However, you're listening to somebody with a fucking master's degree in what they're talking about, but I'm not speaking about it. I don't speak about art with academic rigor. If I was to do it academic paper,

it's going to be, the tone of it would be quite different to me speaking the way I speak about art, all right? So just to clear that up. So here's the ocarina pause. I'm not going to use an ocarina this week. I'm going to use a shaker. Very peaceful sounding instrument. Listen to that. It's a rice shake guys 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 hosts the rochester nighthawks at first

ontario center in hamilton at 7 30 p.m you can also lock in your playoff pack right now to guarantee the same seats for every post-season game. And you'll only pay as we play, come along for the ride and punch your ticket to rock city at Toronto rock.com. Will you rise with the sun to help change mental health care forever? Join the sunrise challenge to raise funds for CAMH, the center 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 that's sunrisechallenge.ca does that go from left to right or is that mono? I like that

that's hot stuff that was the shaker break there would have been an advert for some shit there maybe my own podcast I don't know so this podcast is supported by you the listener via the patreon page patreon.com forward slash the blind by podcast um i am living in the shadow of the coronavirus as are you

even though things are slowly returning to normal it's going to be a long long time before i can do a gig again i don't know how long all right i'm not going to say how long i don't have gigs were a huge part of my income it's now gone i can't do fucking gigs anymore i can't do television anymore massive part of my income is gone so i rely solely upon this podcast for my fucking income this is my full-time job so all i'm asking if you listen to this podcast and you get something for it please pay me for the work that i'm doing the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month is all i'm asking for pay me for the work i'm doing please if you can afford it and you're getting enjoyment from it another reason is

i love making this podcast if you're coming to this podcast to listen to it it means that there's something unique about this podcast that you enjoy that you're seeking out the reason this podcast is the way it is and that i have so much creative freedom is because i'm not beholden to any advertisers i get the odd advertiser but I can absolutely tell them to go fuck themselves I might get a sponsorship

for like two weeks so they have no an advertiser on this podcast when they are present cannot tell me what to speak about at all

they have no right but if I had no Patreon and I was looking for long-term sponsorship like a year sponsorship so like i could have a guaranteed income they'd be telling me what to make podcasts about and what they do and don't like and then the podcast is dead so by supporting the patreon you keep this 100% fucking independent. I get to speak about what I want to speak about. We are not beholden to any advertiser.

What makes the podcast good is the freedom to be what it is and for me to do it as my job. So patreon.com forward slash the blind buy podcast. If you can afford it, please give me the price of a pint

or a cup of coffee once a month. Pay me for the work I'm doing. If you can't afford it please give me the price of a pint or a cup of coffee once a month pay me for the work i'm doing if you can't afford it you don't have to because somebody else is paying for you to listen it's a beautiful model based on kindness and soundness where some people who can afford it pay the patreon then others who can't don't and they're you're being paid for and then one day, you might be able to pay, and someone else might not, and it's this complimentary thing, and I'm not fucking greedy,

all I want to do, is earn a living from this, so it's grand, works brilliantly, it's a fantastic model, you can also support me, by leaving a positive review, on iTunes or whatever,

following the podcast, and most importantly, just telling a friend about it sharing it on social media goes a long way sharing it and especially well i don't have to say this anymore because most of the listeners now are outside of ireland but those early listeners lads in like fucking spain or in australia or, Canada, who went out of their way to tell their friends about this podcast. You've paid me back 10 times over. The majority listenership of this podcast is now outside of Ireland because of word of mouth and just thank you so much to the international

listeners for that. You beautiful cunts. so the second part of my mental health model like i said there's three parts past which is informed by transaction analysis which i mentioned before the little break there now present what do i mean by present present for me is cognitive psychology okay i'm going to try and give the briefest possible overview of this that I can. So, cognitive behavioural therapy is like the applied manifestation of cognitive psychology. And what it is, CBT for short, not to be confused with cock and ball torture. Because when you Google CBT you'll get photographs of dicks in leather parachutes. But there you go now. I've just ruined that

lovely little mental health podcast there which could have been shown to a child i threw in a bit of fucking balls and cocks fair play blind by so anyway look cbt posits that the how we feel is determined by how we think so the emotions that to have to experience anxiety or to experience depression now there's many more things the reason i'm focusing on anxiety and depression is because this is what I have lived experience of I don't have lived experience of eating disorders I don't have lived experience of trauma I don't have lived experience of OCD or any of the other myriad mental health issues I have lived experience of depression and anxiety so CBT states that the intensity of negative emotions that we feel when we experience bad mental health is caused by our thoughts our way of thinking

how we think about ourselves how we think about other people and how we think about the world or the future those three things if you have a negative view of self so if your view of yourself is negative if your view of other people is negative if your view of the future and the world is also negative those three things most likely you will experience what's known as depression that's not That there is known as the cognitive triad of depression. If your feelings about yourself are incredibly insecure, if you don't have a lot of confidence in your ability to cope, if you believe that you are a weak person who is unable to cope,

if you believe that other people are better than you are out to hurt you and if you believe that the future is futile and terrifying then you will present with what we call anxiety okay so that's cbt how we feel is determined by how we think about ourselves, how we think about other people and how we think about the world and the future. So CBT also then states that if you can change how you think about yourself, about other people and about the world, then you'll change how you feel. So what you do is you learn to live your life like a scientist negative emotions discomfort unhappiness, emotional pain

is not caused by what's actually happening to you but rather your attitude towards what's happening okay bad shit happens in life that's a given but if your view of the bad thing that's happening is excessively negative or excessively anxious then you'll experience a lot of unnecessary pain whereas if you view a bad thing that happens and view it flexibly and rationally and you correctly evaluate how bad it is and correctly evaluate how much of a threat it is and you you like a scientist rationally then the intensity of negative emotions that you experience as a result of it are going to be minimized and you're less likely to experience depression or anxiety.

That's CBT, Cognitive Behavioural Therapy. And CBT teaches us to retrain how we think about ourselves, how we think about situations cbt follows a simple abc model so a is is an activating event a is the actual thing that happens in the real world b is the belief that you have about that event, your attitudes, your rules, your demands, the meaning you give to that event. C is then like the consequences of your belief about A. So C is the consequence of your belief about the event. so let's just say A

activating event you you have a job interview coming up and you imagine that you're going to fail it so that's the activating event the job interview is there B

what's your belief about the job interview I got to make sure that I don't mess up this interview otherwise I'll prove to myself that I'm a failure so then see what happens so you've looked at the job interview instead of you've looked at the job interview and you've immediately gone for I'm gonna fuck this up I'm gonna fail and I have to make sure that I don't fail it and now it's become this massive thing. Not only have you told yourself you're going to fail

but you've said that you absolutely must and can't fail it and if you do fail it you're definitely a failure as a human being. A big load of pressure. Your belief about the activating event is highly irrational. So then what's the consequences? What's C? You experience intense anxiety the job interview is no longer simply about getting a job or not getting a job it

becomes you failing as an entire human being which is terrifying and then rightfully so you experience terror you become incredibly fucking anxious and then how does that what does that do to your behaviour you get an anxiety attack or it might fuel addiction you might start drinking to try and get rid of the anxiety attack

so what happens instead the thing with the ABC model is that A is always the same the activating event is always the same but B and C are in. The activating event. Is always the same. But B and C. Are in your control. Activating event. You have a job interview. Coming up.

So if. B. Your belief about the job interview. Is. I'm definitely going to fail this. But if. If I fail it. It means I'm a failure.

I'm such a piece of shit. If that's B. What you got to do. Is you got to challenge B. And you've got to say, hold on, where's the evidence? The interview hasn't happened yet, so where's the evidence that I'm going to fail? And even if I do fail, yeah, it'd be disappointing. I don't want it to fail, but so what?

There'll be other job interviews. That's the rational. A, deactivate an event. What you tackle is B, the beliefs about A. So if your belief is irrational, it is irrational to believe that you are definitely going to fail it. And if you do fail, it means you're a failure as a human being. That's irrational.

It's bullshit. If your friend said that to you about themselves, you'd laugh. You'd say, what the fuck do you mean it means you're a fail? It's a job in Centra, who gives a shit? Apply again next year, go over to Spar, who gives a fuck? If your friend said it to you, you'd be able to see how irrational and foolish it is, but when it's ourselves about ourselves in our own internal world, our internal monologue we end up entertaining quite absurd concepts as if they're real but when someone else says it you can see the absurdity so often with abc the abc model as well you write it out so if it if it's a job interview or an exam or whatever, you write A, activating event, there's a job interview. Then you go B, what are my beliefs about this event? You be as honest as possible and you write down your fucking beliefs. You write down, I am a piece of shit and I'm going to fail the job interview and I'm worthless and I'm useless and I'm a fucking failure and this

is just going to prove that I'm a failure if that's how horrible you're being to yourself write it down on the page because your anxiety is a bully that's the thing with anxiety anxiety is this bully that knows your biggest insecurities and it will lash them out at you so write it down on the page you can burn it afterwards no one has to read it and you would look at your beliefs about the activating event and you challenge each one using rationality where is the evidence that i am a piece of shit well i've got friends so people like me yesterday i rubbed the dog am i really a piece of shit sometimes i'm not nice to people if I'm pissed off but does that make me a piece of shit

I'm a failure where's the evidence that I'm a failure sometimes I've failed at things other times I've succeeded does that mean that globally I'm a failure I will definitely fail where's the evidence for that do you have a fucking time machine

can you predict the future and you write down an alternative rational belief for each extreme faulty belief that you have and you look at them on the piece of paper and you go yeah i think i'm being a bit silly then what happens to c instead of it turning into this giant panic attack because the stakes no longer become about you your worth as a human being if b the belief is i am a piece of shit who's going to fail and if i fail it means that i'm a failure then the stakes are high the stakes are about your worth as a human being but if b is is rational um i might i might not get the job but then again i might get it even if i don't get it who cares even failing it is is an experience in itself i'll pick up some

interview skills there'll be other job interviews i can go for that's the rational way to look at it if that's how you go at it you're not going to get anxiety your c is going to be much more flexible and you're going to go i i feel an appropriate amount of apprehension about going for the job interview i feel an appropriate amount of caution and i'm going to use this appropriate amount of caution to prepare i'm going to prepare and i'm going to try my best i'm going to try my best to get the job. And even if I don't get it still. I'll be disappointed. But it's not the end of the world. And you're behaving rationally.

So that's CBT. That's the most basic description of CBT. That I could give you. CBT is massive. I have about three podcasts on it. That's the most basic description. The goal with CBT is. Like I said in the early stages of it you're

literally writing down on paper abc what's happening what is my belief about what's happening what are the consequences after time you don't need the sheet of paper anymore your the neuras plasticity of your brain will retrain how you react to situations and then you start to live a life that's free of anxiety or free of depression another big thing in all of this lads is uh self-worth self-esteem how how you evaluate and view yourself okay so in general what you need to understand is no aspect of your behavior can define your worth as a human being okay your behavior and that can mean you know if you're mean to someone or if you're brilliant at soccer or you're brilliant at art how good or bad your behavior is it doesn't it it doesn't impact your value as a human being

all human beings have equal intrinsic value which cannot be taken away regardless of how they behave you have an intrinsic value as a human that is no greater or lesser than anyone else and self-esteem which means your self-worth should come from there it's known as an internal locus of evaluation so if you are determining your self-worth how you feel about yourself by measuring yourself against other people if if you look to other people and go oh look at where they are in their life they're the same age as me and they have a car. Wow, they're so much better. You're going to feel like shit.

You're going to feel like shit because you're now evaluating your self-worth based on the behavior of another human being. Similarly, if you do have a car and you look at another person and you go, they're the same age as me and they don't have a car. Fucking loser. That also will fuck up your self-esteem because you're still evaluating yourself work based on another person's behavior and your own behavior but you're looking downwards so the key is i am no greater than anybody else and nobody is greater than me because i'm a unique human being, and I'm intrinsically me, and all I can do is be the best version of myself.

Try and be the best version of you. That has nothing to do with other people. To sum up CBT, you have no control over what happens to you in life. You have no control over the events of life. None. Okay? Life is chaos you have 100 control over how you react to what happens okay the activating event the job interview the car crash the

coronavirus outside of your control you have to sit with that anxiety the universe is chaotic and anything can happen but you have full 100% control about your attitude towards it when it does happen and when you fully realize that it's it's liberational it's it's personally freeing that there is is that's existentialism you have the freedom the universe is chaos but you have the freedom to create personal meaning which brings me on to my final thing

so we had past in my three part model of mental health for me we had past present and then the third is the existential and spiritual when i say spiritual i don't mean religious spiritual is just consciousness it's just that like what what the fuck is what is all this what the fuck is this

what is life what the fuck is this that's spiritual for me it's it's the awareness of what the fuck is going on here this is mad and existential is the same thing it's it's existential is how you think about existence and my general existential philosophy that I use as part of my mental health regime to, because you can experience existential anxiety and existential anxiety is the anxiety of being aware that you're alive and you live in this mad thing called life and you can't comprehend what the fuck it is

and what the point of it and why it exists and what the hell is going on. Am I living in a giant computer?'s going on you get existential anxiety and for me what i do is i try and live as as much as possible in the present moment that's the only reality that i can be certain of is what's happening right now in the here and now reality that I can be certain of is what's happening right now in the here and now and I try and live in the here and now I try as best I can I try and do it by having emotional awareness and being mindful what is mindfulness you hear mindfulness and that a lot it gets thrown around the place mindfulness is important a lot of our lived experience on a day-to-day is worrying about shit that has already happened

or worrying about stuff that hasn't happened yet and a huge amount of our the experience of being alive is you it's it's it's kind of an autopilot it's like when you get into a car and drive and you could be an hour in the car and all of a sudden you're at your destination but you've forgotten the journey. Life can sometimes be like that and it fucks with your perception of time because you're on autopilot with other people,

with yourself walking around and you're just in this continual motion of negative thoughts that are centered mainly around worry regretting what you've done or worrying about what's going to happen and none of it experientially happening in the here and now the right now and the thing with that is that can create um suffering and sadness and confusion so for mindfulness i haven't meditated in a while i'm going to be honest i haven't meditated in a while i need to get back to it i'm i meditate i try to i i fell off but i used to meditate every day for 10 minutes meditation is fucking fantastic unless if you if you have experienced body trauma at any

point in your life that could either be through abuse or even a car crash you have to be cautious around meditation if you have experience of body trauma by which i mean psychological trauma that could be rooted in in a physical symptom. If it was a car crash for instance, car crashes are frightening, terrifying experiences. If you had an injury to your fucking knee, when you meditate and you do a body scan and you're really, meditation is all about going deeply internal and closing your eyes and thinking about your shoulders and thinking about your knees and visiting parts of your body that you just don't think about on a day-to-day.

You forget about them. Meditation asks you to do that, to ground yourself. If you have trauma rooted in a body part, it can come up and it can be unhelpful, we'll say. So meditation isn't for everybody. But I meditate. I went through a period of a lot of meditation because it allows me to check in at my emotions For everybody. But I meditate. I went through a period of a lot of meditation.

Because it allows me to check in at my emotions. Deeply. In the here and now. To understand. What the fuck am I feeling right now. And I could be carrying around. Resentment. Anger.

Jealousy. Harbouring them in my body. As a tension in my shoulders. Or a grit in my teeth. Or a clench in my fist and being completely unaware of them and holding on to this negative energy and that then informs how I relate to other people that means I'm snapping at people that I love I'm being rude to them I'm being aggressive to them because I have an unowned anger in my body that i'm not consciously aware of and i'm the lion with a thorn in its fucking paw lashing out at people but i don't know the thorn

is there and meditation allows us to find the thorn it allows us to explore what the fuck you genuinely feeling right now can you take a very deep space to go inwards and see what's going on for me is there a little bit of anxiety in my belly is there fear in my in in my forehead that's meditation simplest way to do meditation there's an app called headspace i know you have to pay for it a couple of the meditations are. I wish they'd fucking sponsor me the cunts. Because the amount of times I've mentioned them. You greedy cunts. Headspace.

Give me a sponsor you pricks. Headspace. Is a. It's. It's just a very good meditation app. Alright. I find it to be the best. There's a lot of meditations on YouTube.

Some of them. Before you know it. They start talking about fucking angels. And goblins. You know. You have to be the best there's a lot of meditations on youtube some of them before you know it to start talking about fucking angels and goblins you know you have to be careful headspace is good solid mindfulness meditation that's influenced by buddhism but it doesn't get religious so i do recommend headspace um so another way to practice mindfulness is you don't have to be meditating. Next time you're eating your dinner, next time you're washing the dishes, do it mindfully, by which I mean don't allow yourself into autopilot where you're thinking about the future or thinking about the past. If you're washing the dishes, really notice the warm sudsy bubbles on your fingers.

Listen to the clank of the ceramic dish. Listen and feel as you rub the dishcloth and dry the fucking plate. What does it feel like, the weight of the plate in your hand as you gently drop it into the fucking the drying rack and every movement of your body the smells the sounds the tastes of washing the dishes you're aware of every single bit of it and you're living in the here and now that's how you practice this practice mindfulness on a day-to-day basis and it'll prove your mental health and the final part, lads, of the existential slash spiritual part of mental health that I use is I acknowledge and accept that pain, suffering, disappointment are parts of being alive that can't be avoided okay

because we spend a huge amount of our lives trying to avoid suffering to pretend it doesn't exist to resist it and the fact of the matter is bad shit happens hurtful things happen you will be rejected

someone you love won't love you back someone you care about deeply is gonna die a pet is gonna die you might be a huge tragedy might fall upon you i hope it doesn't but it might fall upon you tomorrow this is life we don't know what life is we don't know what the fuck it is but it contains guaranteed pain and suffering but it also contains it's mostly unnecessary suffering okay the universe will throw tragedy at you and will throw disappointment at you but if we're being really honest the vast majority of the actual pain we experience it's not caused by anything that's actually happening it's caused by our

view and belief about it most of the sadness that you feel it's it's not because something happened it's because your thoughts are fucking negative. You're worrying or angry. You're dedicating entire days to an imaginary argument with a friend. You've got a friend who, take it back to the start of transaction analysis, you have a friend, whenever you're around them, you feel small, you can't express yourself because possibly you're behaving as a child and they're behaving as a parent, and every time you leave a conversation or have an argument, you feel disempowered, and then you're spending days on your own fantasizing about winning arguments,

or fantasizing about punishing them. That is, that's unnecessary suffering. That suffering doesn't have to exist that's not the inevitable suffering of human existence that's not it that's the shit that you can avoid through mindfulness but the inevitable suffering

pain, disappointment, rejection those are the price grief, loss that are the price grief loss that's the price you pay for things like love and beauty and the fucking sound of a river and the smell of leaves and the hug from someone you love

these are all creating and appreciating art and beautiful songs and all the lovely fucking dinner, a nice restaurant the first sip of a fucking freezing cold pint do you know what I mean

that's the beauty of human existence and it's the price you pay for disappointment and pain and there's some type of weird balance going on, I don't know what it is,

but accept that pain, that pain and disappointment will happen, but most, but understand when it's unnecessary suffering, that's all I can say, that's 80 minutes, catch me on Twitch, alright,

catch me on Twitch, and watch me writing songs, hyper real songs in a digital cowboy environment as an act of art. All right, I'll catch you next week. 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 hosts 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. Thank you.