The Blindboy Podcast - Piss Cloister

Episode Date: April 17, 2019

Transactional analysis Part 2. Part 1 is Creaking Ditch Pigeon Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Suck sour milk from the prince's tits you guilty Clintons. Marvel at his 12 foot long nipples which can bend around corners and even travel down burrows so that they may be sucked dry by a jackrabbit. The prince's milk is wilted and brackish. It is usually sweet with notes of lavender but not today. Because he was digging for Easter eggs and found a human skeleton. This alarmed him. So the milk from his incredibly long tits is sour. Thank you very much to Hollywood actor Gary Busey

for submitting this week's poem. God bless you, Gary Gary with your interesting face. Welcome to the Blind Boy Podcast. We're on episode number 80 lads. Holy moly, 80 fucking episodes for a podcast which I initially believed to be only four episodes long. it's April and there's a small bit of pollen in the air I think well it is

pollen time isn't it this is when the flowers are fucking each other so yeah there's a bit of pollen in the air

and it's making my nose quite sensitive and I have a little pop shield on the front of my microphone that's quite dusty

and it's irritating my nose so I just felt I should name that in case I sneeze into your ears I'm in a very I'm in a good mood this week because two reasons

I ended last week's podcast by telling you that I was getting my bloods checked. And I urge you to, men in particular, to be considerate of the same. Getting your bloods checked by a doctor is like, it's like an NCT. It's just like going to the doctor, they take a load of your blood. Well, not a load like fucking few tablespoons full

they send it off to a lab and then it kind of checks you for any major illnesses that you might have you know so if it's a great way to find out how your body's getting on

so my blood's come back and I'm incredibly healthy I've got great blood pressure my lungs are great my heart is great my came back and I'm incredibly healthy I've got great blood pressure my lungs are great my heart is great my liver is great I'm I got a full clean bill of health so that's it's nice to hear that's that's just lovely to hear you know um having good health I like good health is a real privilege and I treat it as a privilege. So because I have good health and there's nothing wrong with me, I really use this, I use it to motivate myself, you know.

I, as part of my own mental health regime, I just remind myself I've got a clean bill of fucking health. I can do what I want. I have the privilege of living my life to the fullest so I fucking will you know because some people don't

so I owe it to myself and to people that can't for me to live my life to the fullest also I there's this vape fluid that I enjoy in my vape okay and it's

there's two types that are my favourite there's Skittles flavoured vape fluid and there's Starburst flavoured vape fluid so when I'm vaping here in my studio it smells incredibly sweet you know I like those flavors but there was one company that made starburst and skittles flavored vapes a very very eccentric weird small

English company and they stopped making these two flavors about three years ago and it broke my fucking heart and I was for ages trying loads of different brands to go, you know, doing Skittles, and doing Starburst flavour, and trying to find one that tasted like this eccentric English company, and I couldn't get it, I couldn't get it, so finally these cunts started making the flavour again, after three years, and I ordered 60 pounds worth of it, again after three years and I ordered 60 pounds worth of it that's how much I love this flavor and that arrived that arrived so I'm very happy with that um I'm off to Spain next week for five days of incredibly intense writing I'm in the middle of writing my book you know which I have to have finished for a May 31st deadline so I'm lashing into that so

I'm heading off to Spain next week and what I will do is get up in the morning and travel to various cafes and bars and aim for about 5,000 words a day. But I will have my beautiful. Skittle flavoured vape with me. And. Yeah I'm just going to get shit faced for the week. That's what I'm going to do. I'm just going to go to cafes and bars. On my own. With my vape.

Maybe a small bit of Baldy. Because it's a little bit legal over there. And just write. I'm just going to fucking write. And I'm really really looking forward to that because as you'll know as well from a podcast this time last year I went to Spain last year at this time during fucking Easter week

to write and it was kind of a mistake because they take their Easter week very seriously, everyone dresses up as the Ku Klux Klan, and you can't move, because there's these crazy fucking Catholic religious processions, wandering all around the place, and I was practically locked into my apartment,

so I'm going after Easter Sunday this week, where it's going to be nice and quiet, and I can chill out and do tons of writing, yeah, I did some writing today, again, just ringing up the doctor, and then finding out that I have a clean bill of health, I wasn't worried or anything, I wasn't like, thinking there's anything wrong with me, it's like I said, said I just went for an NCT and it's nice to find out that I'm doing well so when I found that out I it it injected me with a spiritual vigor it made me reflect on fuck me I'm really healthy isn't this class let's go and live my life to the fullest so I went to a cafe and wrote an entire short story

that's a bit ironic actually most people if they found out they got a full clean bill of health and they want to live their life they'd go and climb a mountain I didn't, I went to a cafe and wrote a story wrote a story about someone someone who's getting followed by a lot of rats but it was fun nonetheless also I'm making my BBC series Someone who's getting followed by a lot of rats. But it was fun nonetheless.

Also. I'm making my BBC series. Which is called Blind by Understries. I didn't pick the name. Understries isn't even a word. These names get picked by the channel. But em. Yeah.

I've seen some. Like I've been making it now for about six months, it's all kind of shot, it's in the editing stages, still tipping away on that, but I'm really, really happy with it, I really, really like it, I don't know if you saw the pilot episode, it's on the, I wonder is it still up, it was on the BBC iPlayer for about six months anyway, it still up it was on the bbc iplayer for about six months anyway it was about housing and i forgot to tell you and one thing i'm very very happy with something i never ever thought would happen but the pilot of the series was nominated for sorry long listed for a bafta now long list means fuck all really you know the the short list is what matters, if you get short listed for a BAFTA, that means, you know, you're there with four other fucking TV shows,

and you might win a BAFTA, but I'm happy with long list, getting long listed for a fucking BAFTA, like out of a load of BBC shows, so was thrilled with that fucking long-listed long lists don't get mentioned or announced but it doesn't matter that's a million times more than I was expecting fucking long-listed for a BAFTA so class so really I don't know when it's gonna be out sometime in the next six months but sure I'll let you know and it'll definitely be on the BBC player so you can only see it if you're in

in the UK we'll say but I don't know if we're lucky they might throw it on TV and if they do that then everyone can see it but I don't know

but it will definitely be on the BBC player um yart um also this week if you've been looking at the news you'll see that I don't know. But it will definitely be on the BBC player. Yart. Also this week. If you've been looking at the news. You'll see that Notre Dame Cathedral went on fire.

In Paris. Obviously you know. Very sad. That's an awful awful shame. To lose a piece of history like that. That was built in the 11th century I believe. Yeah that's shit news for such a beautiful wonderful cathedral with all that history and you know architecture gone but i'll be honest when you know i went on to twitter i i get i get my when when there's breaking news i prefer to get it from twitter because you get it on the ground, I logged into Twitter, and I saw that Paris was trending,

and when I clicked on it, and saw that it was just the cathedral on fire, I was fucking relieved, I was nearly happy, I was like, oh fuck, Paris is trending, bollocks. Because I'm thinking back to 2015. I'm thinking to the Charlie Hebdo attacks. I'm thinking about the fucking Bataclan. You know those poor people at the Eagle of Death Metal. Fucking Eagles of Death Metal concert. Shot dead by a bunch of lunatics. Murdered at a concert. So that's what's in my head.

And I see Paris is trending. I'm shitting it. Going off for fuck's sake. Is this another massive loss of human life? Is there going to be more bombings in Syria as retaliation and all of this? And I clicked, and I saw that a cathedral was on fire, and I was relieved. You know, it's not nice to lose that, but it's like, I'm glad that's the reason Paris was trending and not a massive loss of human life. But one thing that struck me as so, just so odd is, it's like the internet. Like, my response seemed to be quite unique you know my response of i'm relieved to see that paris

is trending and it is not not because of the loss of human life that seemed to be quite a unique response on the internet because people were tweeting like pray for paris over a building you know there was people gathered around in a vigil singing songs this huge outpouring of performative grief all over the internet and it's like because a cathedral burnt down and I get it okay like I love art lads jesus i've done podcasts on fucking on art you know how much i love art and how i love history so of course i'm sad to see this happen but i'm an appropriate level of sad i'm not grieving twitter worldwide twitter appeared to be locked in a collective performative grief which was akin to a mass loss of human life and I don't think the the hive mind that is Twitter was fully emotionally engaging how do I

explain it it's it's like twitter as a whole couldn't tell the difference between a building going on fire and a lot of people actually dying the level of grief was equivalent to a mass murder and i found this really strange and it's one of these things i'm noticing recently with how emotions play out on a platform like Twitter, which is, Twitter's incredibly inauthentic. Like, the more and more I use Twitter, the more I realize that it's a video game. Twitter is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game,

like World of Warcraft, where we all create our little avatars, which are hyper-real real exaggerated aspects of our personality where we say and do and behave in ways that we simply wouldn't in real life and that's what twitter is it's a fucking video game and it's not an appropriate forum whatsoever for any type of discussion. About. Serious things that require. Nuance. And empathy. To discuss.

I'm realizing that more and more. But. I was so shocked. Yeah I was shocked. At just. Pray for fucking Paris. Being rolled out for a building. And then on the other side of the coin.

To show how bizarre it was a week ago this meme went viral it's called the tough guy meme you'd have seen it if you're on twitter or if you're on i'd say it was on facebook too and it's a meme of a guy in a black tracksuit with a kind of nervous hard man face on him and he walks from the left of camera to the center and he's kind of posturing himself in this hard way and then it zooms in on his face and his face has this slightly ridiculous expression where it's he looks angry but is also kind of frightened and this became the tough guy meme and it was shared everywhere, all over the gaff and who he actually is

is he's one of the people who sheltered the ISIS lads who carried out the Bataclan attack this was him in court because he had assisted

fucking murderers and still people were memeing him as if as as if he he was just a gas character it's like there was no empathic connection with hold on a second this this lad assisted isis what why are we making this into a funny meme some people didn't know some people hadn't a clue but others did know and they did it anyway and i wasn't offended by it i don't give a fuck i mean it's just a joke about a lad in a tracksuit who gives a shit but what interests me was it just showed me the complete emotional disconnect that exists on Twitter. How all emotional displays, most emotional displays on Twitter are highly bizarre and performative and not actually related to true human feeling and in the space of two weeks yeah you've got a hilarious meme about somebody who

harbored mass murderers and then an outpouring of grief and distress that's on a scale with a mass murder but about a burning cathedral i just found it insane and then you have all these people there were something like 300 million raised to rebuild the cathedral i found that really odd too because it's like can the church not pay for it now if they did not got loads of money or what about france france have loads of money why are you donating to a burning church not complaining about that happening it's just like that 300 million would be of much better use to people in need rather than a church that will have no issue whatsoever securing those funds. Either from the church organisation or from the French government.

I just found it all mad. Really strange. It's shit and it's tragic to lose such a significant historical building. But it's in no way equivalent to even one human life. It just isn't. You know and I'm really glad that no one was hurt in it. And then the takes, all the bad takes about it on Twitter. First off, you've got the racist assholes who were just searching for reasons to see how it wasn't a natural fire,

but rather a deliberate attack by by muslims you know they even is people even doctored footage of the church burning and superimposed audio of people saying allahu akbar over it just to rile up some good good old racism and islamophobia so there's these awful takes of people going it was burnt down by the muslims who were being told to burn it down by the jews and the jews are actually interdimensional shape-shifting lizards and the reason the jews would ask the muslims to burn it down is because the jews are obsessed with ritual because they're actually shape-shifting lizards from another dimension

who want to control the world through ritual. You know, and you had people making those type of bizarre takes about it, claiming that, you know, why would, when I say the Jews, I'm saying it in inverted commas, I'm not going to refer to Jewish people as the Jews, that's just what racists call them, but, you know, why do they think that the Jews,

inverted commas, or the interdimensional shape-shifting lizards want this, it's like, because they are, because they're a lizardic people, lizardic, is that a word? Because they're a reptilian aliens they're obsessed with ritual so they need to have broad symbolism such as this iconic Christian church burning down and the reason

they want this is that it's an overall symbol to Europe that Christianity is finally falling and we can now get ready for the forced migration of Islamic people and people from Africa into Europe. And that's why the interdimensional shape-shifting lizards had the Muslims burn down the church as a symbol to let us all know

Christianity is over and mass immigration is actually a giant scam to less I don't even know and I think then we all end up as slaves to lizards that come from another dimension so there was a lot of people on with that shit that's

there's people who believe that lads holy fuck and then you had other less extreme opinions, but equally, not equally, but in the same ballpark of batshit terrible. You had pro-Brexit lunatics saying that it was like a sign from God that the Notre Dame Cathedral burning down,

what it actually is, was like a sign from God that the Notre Dame Cathedral burning down, what it actually is was like a sign from God that shows how mighty and powerful Britain leaving the EU is. And that Britain leaving the EU is so powerful that God decided to burn down the church for almighty Britain in the face of her colonial enemy france like fuck off you silly silly people and then what else was it other less batshit but still unsavory opinions were the gargoyles had recently been removed from the church apparently and because these gargoyles had been removed that then the church went on fire because gargoyles are traditionally placed on churches to protect protect them so a mad week a mad week that had me very confused once again at internet culture and how it is so at times

completely inhuman when the collective minds of millions of people get together on an internet platform it doesn't resemble anything human or rational now the other thing too is that you know a platform like twitter it definitely tends to favor the the loudest and most contrarian voices so the loudest the most contrarian voices, so the loudest and most contrarian voices tend to rise to the top. But having said that, you know, online spaces like that are, they're also incredibly useful,

they give, they give voices to people who previously had marginalised voices, there's many, many huge positives, but occasionally, it can just get really confusing and nasty bad opinions rise to the top one of the episodes on my BBC series

will deal with this specifically the chaos and irrationality that the internet brings to human life so what I'd like to deal with this week what I'd like to deal with this week, what I'd like to speak about is, there is a podcast I did on the, around back in July, and it's a very, very popular podcast.

It's called Creaking Ditch Pigeon. If you haven't heard it, go back and listen to it. During the summer, for some reason, the podcast listenership goes down a lot. I think it happens for all podcasts. We seem to just not want to listen to podcasts as much when the days are longer and when it's sunny. Which is fair enough because podcasts, I think, there's a degree of escapism in it you know a podcast is lovely when you're on a packed train and the weather is shit but if you're walking to work and it's lovely and sunny fair play to you if you just want to fucking enjoy it in the here and now fair play and this does

seem to reflect in podcast figures over the summer I lose about 25 percent of listeners and then they start to come back around september but if you didn't hear creaking ditch pigeon go back and listen to it because it is it's a mental health themed podcast that deals with a school of psychology called transactional analysis and i think this week i'd like to do kind of I'd like to expand upon it or do a little bit of a part two about transaction analysis um because I think I ended that podcast with saying I was going to do a part two and I didn't um so after the ocarina pause I'll give you a very basic simple introduction to what, transaction analysis is,

and then expand upon it, but if you really, want to learn properly, go back to the podcast, Creaking Ditch Pigeon, okay, so we're, what do we know,

23 minutes, so I think it's time, for an ocarina pause, I was given, I've several, fucking ocarinas, in front of me, I keep getting given, ocarinas at gigs, I was given, I've several fucking ocarinas in front of me, I keep getting given ocarinas at gigs, I was in, oh lads, oh for fuck's sake, I was in Belfast this weekend, had a wonderful live podcast, it was great crack, and I got handed an ocarina by a member

of the audience, and as you'll know from recent podcasts, the original ocarina is lost. I think I left it in London. So I've been having trouble recently with various ocarinas. I have one that's very bassy. It doesn't have melody, but I was given an ocarina at the weekend in Belfast. And this is the closest to the original ocarina, the Spanish Clay Whistle, and it's a beautiful blue ceramic ocarina,

it's got four holes, and it has a lovely woven leather lanyard, it's a really good high quality ocarina, thank you to whoever gave me this so let's do the ocarina pause the ocarina pause is occasionally there's adverts inserted into this podcast digital adverts that are placed there by a cast when they come out of nowhere it can be shocking or frightening so i play a spanish or sorry a south american clay whistle So I play a Spanish, or sorry, a South American clay whistle to act as a little peaceful warning.

So this is the Belfast Ocarina, lads. Hola. 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. On April 5th, you must be very careful, Margaret. It's a 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 girl is to be the mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six. It's the mark of the devil. Hey!

Movie of the year. It's not real, it's not real. What's not real? Who said that? The first omen. Only in theaters April 5th Yeah, that is some good tack, lads. That is a lovely sounding ocarina it has the same pitch as the original ocarina that i got from spain my original spanish ocarina was made of

pure clay it was red and it was that dry handmade clay and i think because of that there was a dullness in its frequency but this ocarina it is made of clay but it's ceramic it's been in a kiln it has a glaze on it it's shiny and I think what this has done to the acoustics of the ocarina is that it's giving it a brightness in a certain there's there's a frequency what is the fucking name of the bastard and frequency i can't think of the name of the frequency but it's it's the run if you look at an equalizer i'm gone too fucking nerdy now with sound there's a brightness to this ocarina because of its ceramic glazed killing fired body that gives it a vibrancy that the original ocarina didn't have and i think i'm happy with that all right so thank you to the person who gave me this ocarina so this podcast is supported by you

the listener via the patreon page if you like the podcast if you're listening regularly um please consider becoming a patron it's it's how i earn money off the podcast it helps me to earn a living it's changing my life i'm so fucking grateful for every single person that is a patron of this podcast thank you so much if you're listening you can listen to it for free if you want that's fine there's no perks for being a patron other than you know that you're

supporting the podcast some people can afford it some people can't what I would suggest is if you can afford to give me the price of a pint or the price of a cup of coffee

once a month please do patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast please become a patron i really appreciate it thank you um also if you're on itunes don't forget to subscribe to the podcast rate the podcast leave a review of the podcast if you're listening on spotify follow the podcast all right and as always tell a friend tell especially if you're living if you're not in ireland tell a friend about this podcast that you enjoy it um i haven't advertised any live gigs because i don't have my list of gigs

in front of me so if you're a promoter sorry i don't have the list of gigs off the top of my head cork opera house 27th of april that's the next one very small and maybe 50 tickets left for that and then i think at the very start of may i'm in letter kenny in the is it the glen eagle hotel i could be wrong with the hotel i think that is the venue but i'm in letter kenny live blind by podcast type it into google at the start of May looking forward to that all right right so transaction and analysis I'm going to give you just a really brief kind of refresher in transaction analysis um just to remind you if you want it in big detail go back to creaking ditch pigeon that podcast i speak at length about transaction analysis and the basics of it so transaction analysis is it's a school of psychology it's a school of psychotherapy it's it's a theory about human personality and it's a also a form

of psychotherapy based on the theory that theory of human personality that allows us to to grow and to change as humans transaction analysis would be something that i would have used on myself quite a bit in my own mental health journey. It's a psychodynamic theory, which when you hear the word psychodynamic, what that means is that it's rooted in psychoanalysis, which is essentially the theories of Sigmund Freud. Now, Freud was knocking around more than 100 years ago. 90% of what Sigmund Freud spoke about is now considered utter bullshit. He got it wrong.

He comes from a time that was quite misogynistic. A huge amount of Freud's work is now completely discredited but 10% of what Freud did contribute has become the backbone of modern psychology as such in particular how the personality develops from childhood so transaction analysis is a psychodynamic kind of way of looking at how our personalities develop and how we interact with other humans it analyzes transactions a transaction within psychology is when two people speak to each other how they communicate verbally and through body language that is a transaction hello i am okay or how are you getting on i'm grand those are transactions specifically what transactional analysis posits is how we interact with one another depends on we shift between what are known as three different ego

states so within us at all times we have the child ego state the parent ego state and the adult ego state and we carry these around with us all day in how we communicate with other people the child ego state and the parent ego state are somewhat unhelpful these ego states when we behave from these ego states that can land us in trouble or it can land us in personal discomfort or stress what is the child ego state well quite simply it's a way of dealing with other human beings that is rooted in our childhood so children you know a child is not an emotionally developed adult so children wouldn't have a huge amount of empathy children require approval children need to be told that they're good when a child experiences an uncomfortable emotion they may throw a tantrum or they may cry so if we interact with another human and we're in a child ego state or if you are in a

child ego state a lot of your day that's not going to work very well for you as a grown as a grown adult is it um but yet we do it if if in situations of distress we find ourselves throwing a tantrum. Or having an emotional outburst. Or crying. There's nothing wrong with tears. But crying as a weapon or as a way to receive attention. These are unhelpful ways to live our lives that can cause us discomfort similarly and your child ego state is actually rooted in childhood experiences and can be triggered by

things that remind you of childhood there's also the parent ego state the parent ego state. The parent ego state is. It's ways of. Communicating with another person. Or behaving. That are rooted in. A parental figure. That you saw as a child. Doesn't have to be your actual parent. It can be an older sibling.

It can be a teacher. It can be whoever. But if you. You know how a parent is a parent is authoritative a parent is very corrective of other people a parent can be nurturing of another person as well but not necessarily in a good way so when we enter our parent state that's when if someone does something that we disapprove of we start tutting at them or telling them what to do or being very judgmental of them you know not necessarily empathic but being quite judgmental of someone similarly in a toxic way you could be

nurturing in the parent in the way a parent is so if you are in a relationship with someone and i don't know if if their thing is you know the parent and child ego states are complementary they complement each other so if someone enters the child ego state and they decide to throw a tantrum, the other person they're communicating with can either respond as a child and also throw a tantrum, but most often what they'll do is the other person will respond from their parent. So person A throws a tantrum, then person B responds by either tutting at the child throwing a tantrum or they will nurture and go oh don't cry poor you and in an adult relationship that's an unhealthy dynamic because now you're trying to have an adult relationship and you've one person

throwing a tantrum and another person rubbing their head and saying everything's going to be okay that in terms of conflict resolution that's unhelpful and can lead to stress and anxiety and these things so the one ego state that i haven't mentioned yet in this podcast it's the adult ego state transaction analysis the aim of it is to understand ourselves when we behave like children and when we behave like parents and to try and steer away from that and instead behave as much as possible as adults an adult is somebody who lives in the present moment in the here and now a child cares about winning an argument a child doesn't care about the facts of the argument doesn't care about the

other person's emotions they simply care about winning the parent quite similarly cares about winning because a parent has authority an adult doesn't care about winning an adult cares about things like compromise things like de-escalating conflict things like what is the best outcome for both of us here a parent or an adult doesn't get excessively emotional um by which i mean unhealthily emotional throwing a tantrum is an unhealthy expression of is an unhealthy emotion passive aggression is an unhealthy type of way a conflict resolution adults don't do this so with transaction analysis we understand where we're coming from and we try and shift everything in the here and now to being an adult. Adults are flexible. Adults don't hold rigid demands over the situation or the outcome.

A continual, fluid, flexible, calm way of dealing with all situations in an ever-changing dynamic fashion. And if we can live our lives in this adult state as much as possible, then we will have better relationships with people around us, we will command more respect from other people, we'll find ourselves in less conflict, and we'll have a significantly lower level of stress. And what it will also do is make us quite confident. Confident and it will improve our self-esteem.

If you're interacting with people from a child point of view if you're talking to your best friend and you have an argument and you stamp up and down or you start crying or you hit the wall or you get so angry and emotional that you call them names and say mean things that you don't really mean but it feels right in the moment because you're so angry when we behave like this once the emotion leaves once you're no longer trapped in the triggering anger or shame or whatever it is later on that day when you're in your adult, you can feel embarrassed, you kind of go, ah fuck it, I shouldn't have said all that mean stuff to my friend earlier, or I wish I didn't start bawling crying and slam the door, or I wish I didn't punch that wall,

that was, that's kind of cringy now that I look back on it so if you're in the child state a lot later on you experience a degree of regret and shame around it and this regret and shame around the behaviour that you don't know why you did it this can contribute to a lowered sense of self-esteem

it means that you can you you can lose confidence because in the morning you had the argument in the evening you're going that was really mean now I'm dead embarrassed I want to apologize to him but I can't really apologize to him because I'm still hanging on to some of that anger so I'm just going to avoid them for a week and hope they forget. All of this stuff gradually lowers our self-worth. When you behave like an adult and you truly resolve conflict in a flexible, compromising way, a flexible compromising way you can

you walk away from a situation with another person where there was conflict or where there was a disagreement you walk away from it with a sense of

holding your head high with a sense of having had a genuine emotional like if you're arguing with someone and all of a sudden

you step up and actually genuinely try and compromise, genuinely put yourself in the other person's shoes, compassionately ask them, you know, I hear what you're saying here. I hear your disagreement. What's the outcome here where we can both get something good? When you do that with another person and you make that genuine connection which is based on empathy listening to your own emotions listening to their emotions diffusing conflict making a real connection with someone when you

do that that's compassion even if you're arguing even even if it's a disagreement, when you do that, that's an expression of compassion. You're making a connection with another person. That causes us to, our internal locus of evaluation, how we evaluate ourselves and how we feel about ourselves. When you behave like that as an adult, you walk away from the situation feeling quite good and feeling strong and feeling what's the word invincible is wrong because there's a defensiveness to invincible impervious you feel impervious a child can be hurt a parent can have their rules broken but adults can't have any of these things happen to them because an adult is fluid and an adult deals in the here and now you can't you can't really hurt an adult's feelings you can't hurt the child's feelings and

you can break a parent's rules is this making sense to you that was a potential ramble so that's the bones of transaction analysis we interact with people in either a child state or a parent state both of those states are unhealthy and can lead to stress and unhealthy relationships so we're trying to figure out when do you enter parent what what is your parent state what is your child state when do you enter it and how can we shift it at all times towards adult okay find your adult and each of our parent states and child states are unique to us alone when you enter that child state you're actually going right back to when you were a child if you bit your nails when you were a fucking child you might be 30 fucking six years

of age now you might be 23 but when you enter the child state you you will actually adopt some of the body language that you had when you were four similarly if you enter the parent state you will pull facial expressions or shift your body in a way that your parent did or your teacher or whoever their role plays you you the word script is a huge part of transaction analysis scripts when you're triggered into one of these emotional states you enter a scripted role play that you unconsciously wrote for yourself based on how you behaved as a child or what you observed from the parent figures around you um so that hopefully i that was 15 minutes there of a recap on transaction analysis if you want the full compliment go back to creaking ditch pigeon so this week what i'd

like to do is to pick up kind of where we left off on creaking ditch pigeon and explore another area of transaction and analysis so we covered the ego states parent child adult and we also covered scripts and trying to discover what script have i written for myself how can I rewrite it and in that episode it was simple stuff such as whether you know it or not unconsciously you know you could have a script that says I will not be successful you're not aware of it they're not words that are in your head but it bubbles underneath unconsciously so that's one example so a person whose script is i will not be successful how does this manifest it can manifest itself as people who have this particular script they get offered a job the job interview shows up instead of attending the job interview and trying their best they don't show up and the mind rationalizes it as i had a pain in my stomach i couldn't get there i wouldn't get the job anyway but essentially it manifests itself as i will not even try

because unconsciously there's a script in there that says, I'm not meant to be successful. I am not meant to succeed. And you can learn that in early childhood. And there's loads of different scripts. And it's up to us to figure out what our script is and then go, fucking great, I have this script. It's been fucking my shit up all along. Guess what?

I'm now an adult. And because I am an adult i have the power and autonomy to write myself a new fucking script okay i've done that over and over if i didn't lads if i didn't find transaction analysis and other aspects of psychology to help me with my mental health i would be and i mean this a very very bitter angry person in a bedroom and i'd be writing nasty things on the internet about other artists that that's what i would be doing because in me I have a very strong desire to create and to express myself. But I also as a teenager suffered from quite low self-esteem, a lack of self-belief and I didn't have a belief that I could make it as an artist. I really, really didn't.

make it as an artist I really really didn't so my script was you will not succeed and it would manifest itself as severe procrastination a fear of not even trying to create and luckily when I was 19 20 went through you know dealing with depression anxiety and everything that can come out of it and discovering something like transaction analysis, I found out what my fucking script was, and I rewrote it, and now, when a challenge presents to me, and it never really goes away, that's the thing, so when I get offered something like a new book, or I get offered a TV series, or a fucking, some challenge, some some creative challenge a little voice bubbles up in my head every time when the offer comes in and the little voice says to me you're not able for this try and find an excuse to get out of it that's what the voice says but

because I've identified my script because I know what my script is when that voice comes in I go I know what you are you cunt you're my script telling me that I can't but you know what I've written a new one and my new script says that I don't have a script that says my rewritten script doesn't say that I'm going to succeed okay because that's unrealistic you can't guarantee it what my script for me as an adult now says is I can try my best and I can cope okay so when I get offered to write a new book or when I get offered any anything that scares me or frightens me or a big challenge I don't say to myself I'm gonna win I'm gonna this is gonna be brilliant because I can't predict that what I say is no I wouldn't 100% resist the urge

to turn this down what I'm going to do is I can try my best and I can and anyone can do that everyone has the ability to cope and try their best and it still might fail and that's okay I also reappraise my script around failure I had a script that said if you fail you are a piece of shit if you fail you are the worst type of cunt and you deserve to be ridiculed that was a script that I had so I rewrote it and I said no failure is an inevitable outcome of trying if you try you might fail and that's okay because there will be no success without multiple failures and that's my new script and the skill that I have tried to develop over the years is identifying when the negative script

comes in spotting it and going fuck you and then I go I can see you over there negative script you're not relevant to me you come from a place of deep irrationality fuck off here's the new script let's open it up and the new script simply says you can cope and you can try your best and you know what if you fail grand that can happen and what it's proven to me over the years too any success i've had is because of multiple failures i've got a BBC series now, I'm very happy with that, but I also have a fucking, you know, I made an entire MTV USA series that was so shit it got cancelled in the first episode, I made a Channel 4 pilot that didn't get commissioned into a series, I have multiple, multiple things that didn't work out and didn't go the way they should, but from all of

those failures. Come lessons that I learned. That I can now use. To turn into successes. And I'm going to have a load of other fucking failures as well. And it's fine. That's part of the process. But most importantly.

I'm using my new script. I can try. I can cope. So. That's what I want to. Again. Creak and ditch pigeon. I dealt with that.

A lot of it. But. Identifying your script. What is it. Writing yourself a new one. what I want to again creak and ditch pigeon I dealt with that a lot of it but identifying your script what is it writing yourself a new one so you can become the best version of yourself as adult here's the beauty of fucking psychology lads we are not defined by what happened to us as children we are not defined by the rules we learned as children because once you become an adult you can you can learn you can identify everything negative that you learned as a child and as an adult you can go that's no longer relevant to me i'm gonna write a new path for myself we can all do that that's within our power and it's a beautiful thing once you realize it because it opens up freedom freedom can also be

kind of frightening but when you embrace it when you embrace the uncertainty and you go i have no real control over what happens to me anything can happen i could get a slap of a car tomorrow i cannot predict the future it's chaos it's irrational but what I do have control over is no matter what happens to me I can control how I react to it and there's a that's a real beautiful tenet to hold no matter what happens i can't control what happens but i can control how i react to it and there's a great liberation in that freedom in the freedom of that you know what i mean i sound like a fucking cult leader when i get when i go on a mental health ramble christ and there's another thing i do it's it's kind of something I've just developed myself, probably based on the years of, you

know, self-development and self-improvement, but it's a way of operating that I call the rollercoaster feeling. It's something I just notice in myself that I try and do. And what the rollercoaster feeling is, it's... You know when you get on a rollercoaster, right? So you're on the fucking rollercoaster, you're locked in, and then it starts moving. And with a rollercoaster, there's two types of people. There's the person who gets on the rollercoaster, there's two types of people there's the person who gets on the roller coaster spends the entire time flailing their arms

screaming, terrified wanting to get off and can't wait until it finishes and then there's the person who just goes fuck it, this is mad, I'm going to go with it and that's what I try and do with with any high stress situation whether it you know a large body of work or whatever I treat it like I'm on a roller coaster which is basically I'm strapped in it's moving and I accept that I accept this roller coaster is moving I can't get off because if I was to try and get off it would be quite harmful okay so I this roller coaster is moving it's really

fucking fast it's kind of scary so there's no point in resisting it and also when you're on a roller coaster you you're on it in the full confidence that you're actually safe no matter how scary a roller coaster is you know you're going loop the loops upside down fucking 100 miles an hour even though your body and mind is telling you this is fucking terrifying you shouldn't be doing this you can actually say to yourself it's a roller coaster it's grand there's health and safety i'm actually really fucking safe even though it feels scary so i do that with large projects i do that with a giant book i have to write myself or whatever i just say to myself this this is a roller coaster and it feels terrifying and it looks massive and it looks terrifying but really I'm actually quite fucking safe and

if I just let go if I just let go and go with this roller coaster and enjoy it it's actually not bad at all. And you know what? At the end, it will be calm. But if I fight this roller coaster, if I flail and panic, all that will do is make me more stressed and unhappy. And Jesus, if I try and get off the roller coaster, that will actually bring me harm.

And by get off the roller coaster, what I mean is, for me to get off the roller coaster what i mean is for me to get off the roller coaster means given into my script my negative script that says you've been given a challenging project or some type of challenge for me to cop out and hide and to not do it because of fear. That will bring me harm. If I do that. The problem is with these scripts. When you give in to your negative script. That's what lowers your self esteem.

That's what can result in feelings of shame. And feelings of depression. Because you feel weakened by this negative script. That is. What's the word I'm looking for. When you give in by this negative script that is... What's the word I'm looking for? When you give in to the negative script, it's the path of least resistance. When that job interview comes up and you've butterflies in your tummy and you just... The easiest thing to do in the moment, the easiest thing to do

is to ring up and say, sorry, I can't make it to the interview or sorry, I'm feeling sick. That's really, really easy in the short term, but in the long term will actually bring a lot of pain. So that for me is, that's what getting off the roller coaster is. It's jumping off the roller coaster and falling 20 feet to the ground and ending up with a pair of broken legs. So I don't get off the roller coaster and falling 20 feet to the ground and ending up with a pair of broken legs so i don't get off the roller coaster i sit with it and i accept this is frightening and exciting but i know i'm safe and i know if i just change my attitude i can actually make it exhilarating and enjoying and at the end it'll be grand um so that's I suppose the roller coaster is a new type of script I've written for myself

around stressful situations and I'm not I'm not sucking my own dick what I'm trying to say is lads as I've mentioned before I used to have full-blown agoraphobia. I used to not be able to leave my house with crippling fucking anxiety. And the idea of being in a crowd would cause me to have a very intense anxiety attack. And just last weekend, I was able to do a live podcast in Belfast with nearly 2,000 people in the audience and genuinely I fucking loved every minute of it and I was as at ease as I would have been at home on my couch so I've gone from two extremes simply by using psychology and rewriting my scripts and the thing the thing with using self-help in psychology too

when you do these things like use cbt or use transaction analysis when you do them and and they're like not just think about them but actually put them in action in your life in little ways every time you do it and it works that's where growth comes from it doesn't come from reading about it it's like like with exercise you know we can read about lifting weights all day but unless you actually go to the fucking gym and lift the weights you're not gonna improve your physical health it's the same with mental health you have to enact these things you have to do them in little steps and each time you do it you grow and you get stronger until you reach a point where that is the new you and that's within within everyone's capability in the realm of mental

health i'm not talking about mental illness i never speak about mental illness in this podcast i don't have any authority or experience to speak about that still people with mental mental illness can use like techniques like ta are often given as psychotherapy for people with mental illnesses as a way of coping but i don't speak on mental illness i don't have any frame of reference for it i speak on mental health which is a very different thing so what i want to cover this week in transaction analysis is because transaction analysis is massive i've looked at ego states we've spoken about scripts so one other aspect of transaction analysis is known as games or pastimes which are a script they can be how scripts manifest themselves. So a script is like an overarching narrative, unconscious negative narrative that we have about how our lives must turn out. So these are played out in what are called games or pastimes.

The inventor of transaction analysis, Eric Byrne, his first book on transaction analysis from the 1960s or late 50s was called games people play so here's an example we say of a game the game is called yes but and it happens it's it's a child parent transaction two adults talking could be fucking best friends they could be romantic partners there could be a boss whatever the fuck but essentially one person presents in the child ego state with a problem and they go to we say person a has a problem and they go to person B with the problem. So person A presents as a child, I have a problem.

Then person B presents as a parent, I'm willing to listen to it and I will solve it for you. And the name of the game is Yes But. So person A says, I've got this issue. They're in their child person B in the parent says have you tried this then person A goes yeah but that wouldn't work because then person B goes what about this then person A goes yeah but that wouldn't work because and this is a complementary transaction which means it can go on and on and on until it eventually leads to

stress or an argument or the elevation of the child or parent ego state so you know that's very frustrating I have an issue have you tried this yeah but that won't work because you keep going and going and going until it eventually gets more heated and then the parent usually goes ah for fuck's sake I'm trying to help you piss off then person A, who is the child, throws a big tantrum. Person A then, in their anger and childishness, can leave the conversation with some of the advice and suggestions that person B gave them, knowing that they won't work. They will then go and try these things, aware that they're going to fail, but with an anger in them where they actually want them to

fail so that they can go back to person b and say see i told you that fucking thing you told me to do it didn't work i told you it wasn't going to work and then person b goes well i was only trying to help you and that can go on and on and on and there's people in fucking marriages lads and for 40 years of their marriage that that's that's their life that's their every day one person is child one person is parent and it's a continual i have a problem have you tried this yes but and then a, and it goes over and over again in this toxic cycle, and at no point is anyone dealing with the problem like a fucking adult, do you know what I mean, and it can be stressful for both sides,

for both sides it can be very stressful for both sides and it can affect the confidence the person who's saying yes boss essentially they're just avoid and trying you know it's here's a solution well what I'm gonna do instead is look at only the potential negative outcomes of that solution and then the person who's given the suggestion feels as if they're either not being listened to or the person even though they're coming for advice thinks that they're a fucking idiot what really needs to happen is probably person a who's in their child state needs to approach it like a fucking adult and ask themselves do i really need to go for advice and what's the most flexible rational way that i can deal with the solution or when the other person has given them advice to truly take it on board and listen and

maybe not retort immediately with yes but and you know why why like what i've just described there sounds insane. It sounds torturous. Why do we do this? We do it because, like I said, in transaction analysis, it's known as a payoff. When our negative script is written, and like I said, the negative script is always the path of of least resistance even though it results in long-term pain to obey your script is the easiest thing to do when it's the path of path of least least resistance so if we're not aware of our script we will we're looking for

the conclusion that that script says so the yes but person probably has a script of i don't actually want to solve my problem what i really want is to perpetually fail and be upset because that's what my script says and that's the payoff so i must stick to that script because to deviate from it is a level of emotional maturity that i haven't really reached yet that's too adult so I'm going to stick to this continually negative script and wonder why I'm stressed and upset all the time another game that people can play is called see what you made me do this is an odd one and it can happen when when someone's ego state is in what's known as controlling parent so each ego state has two variants so with parent you've got controlling parent and nurturing parent controlling parent

is often negative it's trying to control other people it's been very judgmental nurturing parent can can actually be useful that's's when, when appropriate, you can be compassionate and caring for another person. Similarly with child, you have adaptive child. The adaptive child is insecure, throws tantrums and needs approval, but then you have free child, and free child is very useful for artists. Free child is playful, fun,

doesn't care about rules but not in a destructive way. It wants to explore. That's free child. But, you know, it's encouraging to be looking for a natural parent and free child. These are okay things, but not adaptive child and not controlling parent. So someone who has issues with the ego state of controlling parent let's just say it is i don't know a relationship and it's so the lad in the relationship is controlling parent

so what the controlling parent will want is they will under the guise of another game which is i'm only trying to help the person who is controlling parent will consistently delegate themselves for tasks to the point that they might even take too much on board so a lad who's controlling parent in a relationship he might decide that he's doing all the cooking he might decide that he's gonna look after all the bills he might decide that he's going to anything that breaks he's gonna fix it but he's not really being asked by the other person to do this rather the type of person i'm only trying to help who has themselves convinced that what they're doing is taking all these things on and all these responsibilities on but really it's a controlling

parent thing it's a form of control and they take all these things on and because now there's too many of them it plays into this other script where shit inevitably goes wrong so if they've taken on the delegation of doing all the cooking and then all the repairing and they're now overwhelmed what happens is when shit goes wrong they say look what you made me do i do everything around here. Look what you made me do. I've burnt the dinner because I was also fixing the door hinge. Look what you made me do. And then person A then, they can end up throwing a fucking tantrum,

going, well, I never fucking asked you to do any of this and then person b goes i do everything around here again it's a complimentary transaction where person person a who has taken everything on board that they weren't asked to do they simply decided i'm going to do all the work around here and then what they are looking for is the ability to use even though they're helping right and they have themselves convinced that they're doing a good thing

what they really want is to be able to beat other people with their misery and hardship I have so much to do around here you do nothing i'm fucking everything up because you won't do anything and what needed to happen was a true adult conversation around delegation of tasks and what's appropriate and whether person a is actually capable of taking all this on board but it's not about flexible reality it's

not about dishes getting cleaned dinners getting cooked cupboards being fixed it has nothing to do with that it has to do with person A reenacting probably what one of their own parents did their own parent in that situation the person becomes a martyr the person becomes I do everything and ye don't appreciate it and I'm ignored and you're ungrateful and this script

is then a very negative that they get that payoff they'll burn dinners and they'll break cupboards so they get the payoff of being able to say to everyone i do everything around here you don't appreciate it look what you made me do and that's no crack for anyone and it's not a great way to be living and it's not an adult flexible

realistic way of dealing with household chores or anything which would be best dealt with with flexibility and rationality and if that was the case everyone in the house would be much less stressed and a lot more confident and there'd be a lot less burnt dinners again this is just there's many many games those are two examples and the interesting thing with games is they're quite covert games always present themselves as adult interactions they look like adult interactions a husband or a wife saying i'm gonna do the cooking i'm gonna do i'm gonna i'm gonna look after the bills that looks like an adult conversation but the unconscious motivation is in fact

one rooted in childhood either them being in the child ego state or looking at a parent that they had another common game is called now I got you you son of a bitch these are all American

themes, you know, Eric Byrne invented the names of these games but they still kind of ring true, so Now I Got You, You Son of a Bitch is a game where somebody initially starts off as adaptive child and ends with controlling parent, so here's the scenario two best friends

best friend A approaches the conversation as the adaptive child which means they want they're looking for approval and they're looking for a pat on the head and they're quite insecure and they need to place their self-esteem in another person so person a says to person b have i put on weight person b goes no, no, you have not, no, no, no, you're absolutely fantastic, you're, you're looking great, and person A goes, no, I have, haven't I, I have, just say it, just say it, I, I know I've put on weight, I can see it, I can see that I've, I've put on a little bit of weight, and I'm feeling really shit about it, person B, no, no no you look fucking great don't be worrying about that stuff you look

fine honestly you're being paranoid person a no come on i looked in the mirror yesterday i've definitely put on weight okay i i just i need it to tell me and then person b finally kind of wanting to get out of the conversation and to end it person b says okay um i looked at you yesterday i noticed a little bit of weight uh around your legs and then person a switches immediately from do i have i put on weight right they've switched from needing the approval to immediately the rage of corrective parent and they say now i got you you son of a bitch and they go i fucking knew you thought i was fat you fucking prick your any opportunity you get you use it to put me down you're using it to hurt me how could you say that about me how could you say that i was fat you know how hard that I try to keep off the weight, you absolute prick, you're always like

this, and that's really common, and it's really, fuck, that's a really odd one, where essentially what the person's doing there is, it doesn't have have to be like the reason i'm saying put on weight is that it's that's a really simple example that's a really really simple example to understand but there's many different different complexities to it it's when the person is aware themselves that there's something about themselves or their own behavior that they're not particularly proud of or that they'd like to change but they're not taking ownership of it and they know this unconsciously so they think they're going to their friend to receive kind of approval or to receive a pat on the head but ultimately what they're looking for is a way to express their anger at

themselves so let's just say this person has been trying to lose weight but they haven't been sticking to their exercise regime they've been eating twixes at night time and all these scripty behaviors whereby they're not sticking to the goal when someone does that consistently and consistently disappoints themselves and doesn't stick to the plans that they set out for themselves when you do that consistently you can end up with a ball of anger towards yourself do you know um and that ball of anger doesn't get they don't take ownership of it they don't actually acknowledge or recognize the anger instead they carry it around with themselves and they want to go unconsciously they're saying this anger that i have towards

myself because i haven't been sticking to the diet that i planned and i haven't been sticking to the exercise regime that i planned this self-anger that I have I don't have the emotional maturity right now to take ownership of it and I don't know what to do with this anger so I'm going to set up a situation where I can give this anger to my friend so when the they've set they've used a script to set the friend up to actually say yeah you've put a bit of weight on and then all that anger they have towards themselves person a has towards themselves they get to unleash that on person b they get to release the anger put it out there but not actually take ownership of it and that's another game that a lot of people pay like i've just used weight as one example because it's really fucking simple

and easy to understand but it can be anything many many things where unowned anger is projected on another person through a setup through a bizarre unconscious setup and that's really common there's people doing that right now so those are just three examples of games that people play within transaction analysis that once you know the games and you can identify them and if any of them are ringing true with you and if they are ringing true and chances are you're doing them a lot they're creating difficulty with your relationships with other people they're lowering your self-esteem they're causing you to feel a sense of shame that you're you don't know why if you can identify those things as an adult you can go fuck me i didn't know i was doing that brilliant how can i stop and you stop by catching yourself in the moment and going what is the flexible realistic way to deal with this

so for the person there who was playing the i got you now you son of a bitch game that person would simply what they need is self-compassion they need to compassionately say to themselves do you know what i haven't been sticking to my exercise regime that goal that i gave myself where i said i was going to lose a stone i haven't been sticking to it i have been eating twixes i've been doing all these things and i'm not particularly proud of them but you know what they happened and that's okay proud of them but you know what they happened and that's okay by taking ownership of it and allowing myself the compassion for having essentially failed at this goal that's fine I'll try again but I'm not going to beat myself up over it and I'm certainly not going to project

that onto another person so that's an adult it's very similar to cognitive behavioral therapy you'd write these things out and journal them on a sheet of paper and you go what's the flexible rational way to deal with this because ignoring it and trying to put the anger on someone else is is a rigid position so there you go that was this week sojourn into transaction analysis i hope you enjoyed it i hope it wasn't too rambly i'll be back next week i'll be over in spain um take some of that stuff on board most importantly self-compassion and empathy is the key to any of this stuff lads self-compassion and empathy is the key to any of this stuff lads um it's it's all part of a journey it's all part of a journey it takes time but the first step is identifying things in yourself

here's a little key here's a trick any of this shit that i'm calling out today if you're listening to this and your immediate reaction is to think of people around you and say to yourself they're like that they're like that they're like that if you're if at no point you're looking at yourself and saying you know what i'm like that sometimes that's what you need to flag it's easy to listen to psychology things and see how other people are wrong. But the most important thing is to identify these things in yourself. They're just normal parts of being human. You know, they're just not being human is complicated.

Being human means being fallible. It means having parts of yourself that need to be changed so that you can become the best version of yourself. And it's fine. But try and find it within best version of yourself and it's fine but try and find it within yourself uh forgive yourself for it and say i'm going to compassionately work on this myself so i can become a better person and be happier and it's fine it's grand all right i'll talk to you next week god bless God bless. Thank you. Thank you. 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 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.