The Blindboy Podcast - The Psychology of being an Adult

Episode Date: May 9, 2023

Mental Health podcast. Exploring the condition of adulthood using cognitive psychology and transactional analysis Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Headbutt the dentist you sweltering emmets, welcome to the blind boy podcast. What's the crack? I think it's fair to say that we're in the middle of summer. I'm just back from Canada. Had an amazing time in Canada. And it's the first time I ever went away somewhere and came back on the plane and the weather in Ireland was better.

Like when I went to Toronto, it was still like January there. There were no leaves in the trees. Everything was really grey. There was no signs of spring whatsoever in Toronto. And Vancouver, there was a little bit of spring. But then when I came back to Ireland, big fat green leaves on all the trees.

And I tell you what, and this is what I love about fucking May. If you want to practice mindfulness, if you want to have a mindful walk, this is the best month to do it. May, when all the buds are coming into fruition on the trees and the leaves are very into fruition on the trees, and the leaves are very young and they're as green as they'll ever be, going for a walk in the evening.

From about this week onwards, going for an evening walk. Go anywhere where there's a bit of foliage. Doesn't have to be out the country. Even a neighbourhood that has loads of trees and flowers. But go for that evening walk. And give yourself one task. Breathe from your diaphragm.

By which I mean put your hand on your belly. On your tummy. Breathe in slowly with your nose. When you breathe in you want to feel your hand on your tummy expanding so you're using your diaphragm there you're you're bringing in a huge amount of oxygen into your body and you do this nice and slowly you breathe out through your mouth

now you don't want to be walking too fast or power walking. Just a regular relaxed stroll. And breathe nice and slowly with that diaphragmatic breathing. Real relaxed. And what it does is it stimulates your nervous system. You see, when we're stressed out, when we're worried, when we're distracted, you don't really notice it, but our breathing can be quite shallow we can breathe a lot from our upper chest but when you actively practice diaphragmatic breathing you're using all of your lungs to bring in this oxygen nice and slowly it naturally like stimulates your

parasympathetic nervous system and that's responsible for the relaxation response in your body. It will reduce any feeling of stress, it reduces any feelings of anxiety and it lowers the level of a hormone in our bodies called cortisol. Cortisol is the hormone that gets released in our body when we're frightened or when we're angry, when we feel a reactive emotion, cortisol releases itself in our body and tells us to fight, to flight or to freeze. I'm finding myself having to control it right now because I'm in my office and in the corridor someone's hovering.

And you can hear the person hovering and they're hitting the hover off my door. You know, but I have to be... Oh yeah, I'm just, yeah, I'm working. That's grand, don't worry about it. So the, yeah, the cleaner came in the door there. That's fine, there's no problem. Luckily, while I was explaining this. I was doing diaphragmatic breathing. But you know.

That right there is actually a good example. Of what I'm speaking about. Like I've got a job to do here. My job is to record this podcast. And I'm using a microphone. So I do require silence. But I'm in an office and I share this office with lots of people so a cleaner has to come in and do their job but importantly I actually have a choice about how I react to that now what I could do is I could allow myself

to get very stressed and very anxious and I could could say, oh fuck, the cleaner's here. How long is the cleaner going to be here? I'll never be able to do the podcast, for fuck's sake. I'm so unlucky. Bad shit always happens to me. And then what do I do? I get stressed out. I get angry.

I don't record the podcast. But because I'm breathing diaphragmatically and being mindful, the cleaner is cleaning outside. I engage empathy and I say, that's that person's job. They're doing their job just like I'm doing my job. And yeah, it's a little bit, it's not ideal to have someone hitting a hoover off your door when you're recording a podcast but fuck it let's work with it let's work with it let's instead of reacting to it let's notice it and what happened you know the cleaner hit the hit the hoover off the door then she opened the door to come in and she saw me. Got a little bit of a fright because I've got my satin plastic bag on. It's not plastic, it's made of satin.

It's the one that I wear that you can't hear so there's no rustling in the microphone. I don't think that cleaner knows who blind buy is. When she opened that door there, like I know the difference between a person's face when they see blind buy or when they go oh my god why does that person have that in their head what's happening and when that cleaner opened the door like she's in an office complex and I'm after hours here the office complex is empty so she's going all around the office complex all these empty, everyone's gone home from work, no one's working late. Actually, yeah, let's look at this from the cleaner's point of view, but that might have

been actually a little bit disturbing for her. That's a bit like The Shining or something. I wonder if she's okay. So she's cleaning this fucking office block. And all the offices are the same. And now all of a sudden she just opened the fucking door. Opened the door. And then there's a man inside with a bag on his head. Calmly talking into a microphone. And because I was breathing diaphragmatically. My reaction was excessively calm.

I was like, it's okay, I'm working, don't worry about it. And then she closed the door. What is she thinking? What is that woman thinking? See, I forget that I've got a fucking... See, you don't... I do wear the bag in my head when I record the podcast it's important to me I do do it but I don't wear the plastic bag

I wear a special bag that's made out of satin it's the one I wear on my twitch streams where it's a custom made bag but it doesn't rustle so you don't hear it on the microphone that woman might have just gotten the fright of her life but you know what

i wasn't doing anything threatening i'm in here in my own office, in my studio. I've got a proper set up with all the mics and headphones on. I... I'm going to faint now because I was doing that breathing. I'm going to just... I'm going gonna have to assume look I'm gonna leave it with her it's fine

it's fine this was supposed to be a fucking guided meditation but here's the point I was making okay so I was actively practicing diaphragmatic breathing which means that I was actively practicing diaphragmatic breathing which means that I was really calm, not fully meditating but in the meditation territory. So my nervous system is calm, it means that when things happen in the moment I don't react to them, I notice them passively. So that was a potentially stressful

situation for me. I'm thinking a lot more now about how it was a stressful situation for that cleaner. I don't want to have to go out to her and explain to her what's going on. I'm sure she's grand. I'm sure she's grand. Look, I'm in my own fucking office. I'm not like a robber that came into the building with a bag on my head. I'm in my own office. It's clearly my office. No, it's grand. It's grand. It's just a mask. It's just a mask. Who cares? I was hovering and it was after hours and I opened one of the offices and a man was wearing a mask and he was nice. didn't he wasn't mean or anything that he was nice and I closed the door and I went back to my job she definitely didn't know who blind boy was

I can tell at this stage I know when there's a little sparkle of recognition and when there's what the fuck is that and how I know is in my earlier career we'll say the early 2010s I'd be doing gigs in you know when like a hotel has got a venue so you're doing a gig and the gig is in the hotel like function room so I used to do a couple of those gigs but sometimes the hotel will give you like a hotel room as your dressing room. Which means that you have to walk from a hotel room all the way down through the lobby to get to the stage. And I used to do that in costume. I'd do that with the bag on my head. But when it was in a hotel, like not everyone knows who the fuck Blind Boy is.

So I'd get to the hotel lobby, and this is around the time that ISIS were causing a lot of trouble in the world, and I'd walk into the lobby, trying to get to my fucking, get to the stage with the bag in my head, and then a German family or an American family would start screaming,

because they think I'm a terrorist. Like what the fuck else are they supposed to think? Why is there a man with a fucking plastic bag on his head in the hotel lobby? Why is this happening? Why is this a thing that's happening? If I was from America or Austria or France, I'd go, oh, it's a terrorist. A terrorist is in the hotel and we're all going to die. So that happened to me maybe three times. So from now on, if I ever do a gig and it's in the function room of a hotel, straight up,

do not put my fucking dressing room up in a hotel room. Put me near the stage because I'm not bumping into any Austrians with this bag on and having them screaming for their lives because they think I'm going to hurt them. So I know the look I know the look in someone's face

when they don't see blind by they just see what the fuck is that? What's he after doing to his head and why? So that cleaner had a little bit of that look in her face when she opened the door but she didn't look, she looked kind of shocked like maybe

she walked in on a fetish thing and she's gone now because i can't hear anything in the corridor and the lights are gone off how's it talking about mindfulness so look i was breathing diaphragm how the fuck did this happen how did this happen i was breathing diaphragmatically. How the fuck did this happen? How did this happen? I was breathing diaphragmatically, okay? Which means, in through the nose and feeling my stomach expand. And when I breathe like that, I take all the oxygen into my body. It calms my nervous system.

After a couple of minutes, it lowers my cortisol levels. And then when anything happens, which is threatening to me i passively work with it rather than reacting to it like within broadcasting because what i'm doing right here is broadcasting what just happened there is one of the worst case scenarios i mean there's much okay biggest worst case scenario is one of your guests saying something horrendous on live air that's the biggest one but simply having your broadcast interrupted and it appearing unprofessional in broadcasting that's like a worst case scenario. That's why radio studios,

if you go to any of the radio studios, Today FM, 2FM, they have two doors. You can't just walk into the studio. You have to walk into an area first to prevent the worst thing happening, which is someone, a cleaner, coming in on the middle of the radio show.

That's why outside radio studios they have a red light that says on air so right there the worst one of the worst things that can happen in broadcasting happened but i've been diaphragmatically breathing my nervous system is calm so i worked with it i worked with the bad thing that happened. This is what I talk about when I say embracing failure. I had two choices, lads. Choice number one, a bad thing happens and I react. I react.

By which I mean I get angry or I get stressed I could have been rude to that person in fact I would imagine within broadcasting because I know broadcasting the standard reaction is to be really rude to the person I've been on fucking TV sets man

and if someone makes a noise in the background if the director is an arsehole they'll scream at that person and really dehumanise him and really take advantage of the fact that they're the director and anyone who makes noise is destroying their work and they use that as an opportunity to be really mean to somebody. I didn't do that. I politely told that person,

I'm working right now, but it's okay, don't worry about it. And then she left. Might have gotten freaked out by the bag, but that wasn't me doing anything bad. So if I'd have reacted, eh, now I've just shouted at a person, right? And for most of us, like, losing your cool,

that's part of being human. That's part of the fallibility of being human. Losing your cool with somebody and shouting at them or whatever, it's not ideal, but it does happen from time to time. And when it does happen to most of us, we tend to feel bad afterwards. I know I would. If I'd have been rude to that woman there, oh Jesus, first off I'd have had to go and find her and apologize and I'd have I wouldn't have gotten much work done for

about three or four fucking hours because I'd have felt quite bad about myself and my stress levels would be up high and I'd be experiencing shame. Also, another thing that would have happened had I reacted in that situation of someone walking in on the podcast. The other thing that would happen is because I'm stressed out, because like I said, this cortisol hormone is in my body and I'm feeling stressed out. I start focusing only on the bad things. I start to say, I'd put time aside today to record this podcast. It's so unfair that someone walked in and now look at everything. Now I can't even record

and the podcast is going to be terrible. The podcast is going to be shit because someone walked in. What's the point? Then what happens? I leave it too late. I end up having to do a podcast because a podcast goes out every week regardless. And then I rush it. My heart isn't in it. And I deliver a piece of shit to you. Now let's look at option B. Let's look at what just

happened. I happened to be breathing diaphragmatically when I was speaking. I'd been doing it for about a half an hour before this podcast because I was grounding myself and I was meditating. So it meant that my central nervous system was nice and calm and I was feeling quite good. So when that woman walked in there, I didn't really react I noticed and acknowledged and carried on and then when she left I wasn't thinking negatively about all that just ruined the podcast I think what I did is I went immediately to empathy I thought about I wonder is she okay and she wasn't just freaked out there by my mask now if I'd have been emotionally reactive there

and I experienced stress I wouldn't have been able to experience empathy because empathy which is the capacity to put yourself in another person's shoes that tends to only happen when our nervous systems are regulated and we're legitimately calm and then the third thing that I did was from a creative point of view I was quite open I was open to experience so like I said that's one of the worst things that can happen in broadcasting a stranger walks in and interrupts the broadcast because I was calm I said let's work with the failure let's embrace failure something failed right there something legitimately failed this is like said, this is why studios have red lights outside that say

on air. I don't have that because it's a podcast. Because I was diaphragmatically breathing and my nervous system was regulated. When a threat occurred, I worked with the threat. I brought it into the podcast. I brought the threat into the podcast using creativity and now I've used it as an example to explain mindfulness which is better than any fucking talk about mindfulness that's mindfulness in action right there the only thing I'm slightly worried about like I said is what that person thinks about the bag that's on my head. But like, that's not a thing I did. I just happened to be wearing this bag, so it's not a thing I did.

But if I didn't have that bag on, I feel like I was polite there. I felt like I let my boundaries be known while also being respectful. Then I didn't react to it and get negative. I continued on with the podcast and I use creativity to make it work for me so I'm really happy with that right there actually let's just listen back to that interaction I had with the person who was cleaning there just to make sure that I was actually polite you know but I have to be

oh yeah I'm just yeah I'm working that's grand don't worry about it that wasn't too bad there was a little bit of trepidation

in my voice which is fair enough I could have said thank you that's not an artistic person's dream right there the ability to

replay every single unplanned social interaction that they had throughout the day and analyse it for normality. But fantastic opportunity there to start talking about the history of door handles. I'm happy with that. That was respectful to the person. I let my boundaries be known.

I said to them that don't worry about it and I could have finished with a thank you but I didn't we'll take note of that take note of that the next time it happens I sound like I sound like a soccer player being interviewed after a match

alright let's have a quick ocarina pause okay I don't have quick ocarina pause okay I don't have an ocarina I'm inside my office what I do have is two books alright what have we got here I'm gonna hit two books off each other the first book

that I have is Labyrinths by George Louis Borges he is a magical realist writer from Argentina I believe then the other book I have is The Granta

Book of the Irish Short Story edited by Anne Enright both of these are great books now I'm going to hit them off each other and you're going to

hear an advert for something I don't know 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 the girl is to be the mother. Mother of what? Is the most terrifying. Six, six, six. It's the mark of the devil. Hey! Movie of the year. It's not real. It's not real. It's not real. The first Omen, only in theaters April 5th. 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. sunrisechallenge.ca. That's sunrisechallenge.ca. That was the Ocarina Boss. Support for this podcast comes from you, the listener, via the Patreon page.

Patreon.com forward slash TheBlindBoyPodcast. If you enjoy this podcast, if it brings you solace, if it brings you entertainment, if it brings you distraction, whatever the fuck this podcast does for you, please consider becoming a patron. Because this podcast is how I earn a living. This is my full-time job. It's how I rent this office. It's how I pay my bills. I love doing this podcast. I adore it. But if it wasn't my full-time job, I don't think I'd be able to put in the research and effort that I do each week to make the podcast. So if you enjoy it, please consider paying me for that work. But if you can't afford it, if you don't have the money, don't worry about it. You can listen for free because the person who is paying is paying for you to listen for free everybody gets a podcast i get to earn a living it's a wonderful model based on kindness and soundness um tomorrow well not tomorrow today

really that's when this podcast comes out i am announcing when my book company i have a new book company they are officially announcing my brand new book of short stories topographia hibernica which is coming out in november i can't wait to show you because i'm so fucking happy with this collection of short stories but you can pre-order the book it's not coming out till november but you can pre-order my brand new book of short stories and if you pre-order it now you get a signed copy a copy that i literally sign so check my social media instagram blind by boat club twitter at rubber bandits i'm going to post a link for you to be able to pre-order my next collection of short stories topography hibernica obviously those pre-orders are going to be there's going to be

a limited amount because there's only so many that I can actually sign. So if you want an actual signed copy, first edition of my brand new book of short stories, check my social media for the pre-order links. Have any gigs? Do you know I do have fucking gigs and I should have been promoting them last week.

Let's see what we've got here. Let's see what we have. I don't have gigs until August, do I? Yes. Okay. Saturday, the 26th of August. I'm in the Cork Opera House for the Cork Podcast Festival. That's going to be wonderful, Crack. Come along to that. V Vicar Street you know I love my fucking Vicar Street gigs lads I adore them so I have another Vicar Street and it's going to be on Monday the 28th of August and then what am I doing September the 1st man

Birmingham I'm at the Mosley Folk Festival alright have you anything else that's it thus far I'm pretty sure there's ak Festival. Alright? Have you anything else? That's it thus far. I'm pretty sure there's a fucking Belfast in there somewhere. Yeah, November 18th.

I'm back at the waterfront in Belfast. Okay? So, those are my gigs. They're a few months away. Not doing much over the summer. Come along if you like. So I'm 20 minutes now talking about this. And that obviously was unplanned. But in a way.

There's a nice bit of synchronicity. Because this week's podcast. Was going to be a mental health podcast. What I wanted to speak about was. What it means to be an adult. What it means to be. Not necessarily your age. But what it means to be a fucking adult. And for me. And this isn't just like something I've arrived upon this is based on psychotherapeutic theory

the shortest way for me to describe what it means to be an adult is the capacity to emotionally regulate the ability manage, control and notice my emotional responses. Even during times of stress or emotional upheaval. And the thing is with being an adult. I'm in my fucking thirties. But I'm not always like that. I'm not always emotionally regulated. Sometimes I'm emotionally reactive. And'm not always emotionally regulated. Sometimes I'm emotionally reactive and when I'm emotionally reactive I react emotionally the way a child would.

I'm coming from a position of being a child. Let's take anger for example. When you experience toxic or unhealthy anger. Toxic or unhealthy anger is when you throw a tantrum. When you lash out. Or simply when you feel that way. When you feel so angry that your face is red. And your vision becomes blurry and your teeth grit and you clench your fists and it's difficult to think straight. How does a time and place for that?

If you're literally being attacked and you need to fight. That's why that's called the fight response. response. But most of us, when we feel that way, you could be sitting down having a coffee, thinking about something someone said to you three years ago that hurt you in some way, and now all of a sudden you're not drinking your coffee anymore. You're gritting your teeth and clenching your fists and your face is red and hot and your vision is blurry and it doesn't feel very nice and that type of unhelpful anger tends to pop up in us when one of our personal rules is broken. A rule that we have about how people must treat us or how the world must be, a rule that we have that we learned in childhood that's very personal to us

and often these rules are incredibly rigid and we might not even be aware of them. That's what going to therapy is about. You become aware of personal rules that you hold that you expect the rest of the world to adhere to. But the thing is, if these personal rules that we have are very rigid and irrational then we'll consistently be disappointed and we'll consistently be angry so let's take it back to that person walking into this room so they could clean let's just say i

grew up in a house where my physical boundaries weren't respected. Especially when you're like a teenager. When you're a teenager, you have your own bedroom, and this is your space. And you're in a house, and you don't own anything because you're a teenager. But your little bed, and your bit of carpet, and your closed door, where you get to experience privacy. These things are hugely important when you're a teenager.

And it's very important that your parents or your caregiver respect this space that you have within reason. A parent still has a duty of care. A parent is responsible for your safety. So when you're a teenager, you can't have full, proper adult privacy because a parent needs to know if you're actually safe but some parents aren't like that. If you grew up and you had your room and you wanted your privacy and you wanted your door closed so that you could experience your own space and your own

privacy and this was consistently violated in a toxic way. Let's just say you had a dad who's like, I don't have closed doors in my house. Or you felt that you couldn't relax in your room because your parent was always trying to catch you out. They opened the door suddenly going, what's going on in here? And now all of a sudden you can't experience the privacy of safety. Even though when you were a kid you weren't doing anything wrong. You just want your little bit of space. And when a parent behaves like that towards you, it's a vote of no confidence. I don't trust you. I don't think you're worthy of being trusted.

I don't think you're capable of having privacy. Because you're a fucking idiot or you're a snake and I don't trust you. Or if you have a fucking idiot or you're a snake and I don't trust you. Or if you have a sibling and you say, please don't come into my room and fuck up my stuff. Just ask me. If you want to come into my room and take my stuff, please don't do it without asking me. And then they do it anyway. That person's kind of taking your power away. They're taking away your sense of autonomy. Also as well, I think it's reasonable as a teenager to ask your parent, can you knock first? Is that okay? You can come in, but can we have, can you please knock first? I understand that you want to check on me, but can I have a little bit

of autonomy and power and boundaries in this situation? Which is reasonable because it's compromise. I'm a parent. I care for your safety. I want to check in on your room. Okay, well, I'm a teenager and I have respect and understand that. But can you knock first? Because I feel better that way. That's a fair compromise. Some parents, some siblings, they don't give a fuck about that. So if you grew up in that type of house,

where you didn't have that privacy, and you're not being listened to, your needs aren't being met and people consistently and continually disrespect your boundaries if you grew up that way then a situation like what just happened there to me could be deeply fucking triggering and what it can do is it it can allow us then to form a personal rule, which is people must respect my personal space at all costs. If someone invades my personal space, they are doing it exclusively out of malice. They're doing it to hurt me and they're doing it to take my power away. People must not invade my personal space.

People must not invade my personal space. If that's a rigid personal rule that you have, you're going to find it getting broken quite a lot. Because you can't expect that of the world. Now I'm lucky. My parents were very respectful of my personal space when I was a kid. My bedroom in particular, where I had my books and my CDs and my music, that was a very, very important space to me.

That was where I escaped from the stress of school. It's where I could pursue my interests. It's where I could be myself. It's where I could pace up and down and have ideas. I loved my bedroom. And my parents knew this space is real important to him and we should knock before we come in and if we need to go into his room while he's not there we just let him know in advance my ma would say it to me all the time the windows in your room are filthy so I'm going to go in today while you're in school and I'm going to clean your windows, all right? And she'd let me know. And I didn't care that my ma was in my room. I didn't mind. But I really, I felt very safe and respected when she said to me,

I'm going to go into your room today. So I have to take that on board there. That when that person came in here to clean that room and just came in, it's not really a deeply triggering situation for me. But if I had grown up in a house when my boundaries weren't being respected, I could have really, I could have gotten very angry right there. I could have lost all capacity in the moment to behave rationally, to behave like an adult. I could have screamed at that woman and said, why didn't you knock? Did you never learn how to knock on a door? How dare you barge in here? How dare you? If I had a rigid personal rule that this is my office and this is my space and it has to be respected and anybody who would come in and disrespect this space are doing it deliberately to hurt me and they are wrong. to hurt me and they are wrong if I really held that rule dear I might go a step fucking further and now I'm furious and now I'm writing an email writing an email to the person I rent this office off and I say you need to fire that cleaner that cleaner doesn't respect space and the person

the person I rented from would probably go okay because you're renting the office and now a person has lost their job that shit happens that shit happens now you might be thinking blind boy what if the person you rent the office from is listening to the podcast and now you're outing the cleaner for walking into the office don't worry because no one knows who the fuck I am in here not Not even the people who I rented from. And what would have happened there is I'm not an adult in that moment. My nervous system would become dysregulated.

I would experience the emotions I felt as a child or a teenager when my boundaries weren't being respected. Because my emotions in that moment are childhood emotions. I don't have the faculties for critical thinking that an adult has and I truly believe that the cleaner has done something very bad and very wrong. But the reality is no, the cleaner was doing their job. The cleaner believed that the office was empty. The cleaner didn't feel the need to knock because it's after office hours they assumed that no one was in here they didn't know I'm working they didn't know that I was recording they didn't have access to any of this information so when they

came into this door and opened the door without knocking, they did nothing wrong. They did nothing wrong. And that there is an adult, emotionally regulated, rational assessment of the situation. And what do you get from that? No unnecessary suffering. I have no control over what happens to me in life, but I have full control over how I react to it. Whatever the fuck happens I as an adult have full control over how I react to it. I can't control someone walking in here out of nowhere. I can in future I could put a notice on the door when I'm recording all of these things but today a chaotic thing happened out and over the chaos of existence presented itself and i had a choice as an emotionally regulated adult in that moment regarding how i reacted to

it and because i reacted to it calmly in an emotionally regulated state unnecessary suffering didn't happen the unnecessary suffering of the person who walked in I didn't lose my cool with this person I hurt them in any way I didn't experience the unnecessary suffering of unhealthy toxic anger I didn't experience like what that anger could also do is I could then blame that person after the person had left when they came in. I could then blame them. I could blame them for why the podcast is going to be shit this week. Sure I can't do a good podcast now. I've been taken out of the zone. Someone fucking walked in. It's all their fault. I'm not going to put out any fucking podcast. Why should I? It's ruined now and it's because of them. They did it. And the thing with blame and anger, it's a very tasty short-term solution. It's a very tasty short-term

solution when we fear uncertainty. I love recording this podcast. I adore it. But every week, I do have a bit of anxiety. Every week, I get a little bit of a fear. And the fear would be, what if this week's podcast is going to be shit? What if this week's podcast won't be good and people won't like it? What if I do a bad job this week and if I listen to that anxiety that comes up then I won't try because I'd be too scared of failing and what would be really tasty to me in that moment is an excuse for me not to try. And if I can blame someone, fucking great. Sorry lads, there's no podcast this week. Some incredibly rude person

came in and interrupted it and I just couldn't do it. Sorry about that. It's not my fault, it's theirs. If you suffer from procrastination, which I think most of us do, it's very common. When you suffer from procrastination,

what type of thoughts come up? I'd love to sit down and do that thing I'm supposed to be doing. But sure I can't, the dishes are dirty. Whatever it is you're putting off, whatever thing it is you want to do, but you can't get yourself to sit down and do it. Think of the excuses that come up and think of the if-onlys. If only those dishes were clean, I would be able to sit down and write my journal or write this song or whatever thing it is you want to do.

If only that person hadn't walked into this office, I'd be able to do this podcast. But when we use anger like that to blame another person or to blame circumstances for why we can't do the thing we should be doing. We disempower ourselves. We give power away and it impacts our self-esteem. If I didn't do the podcast this week because someone walked in and interrupted and they took me out of flow or they took me out of the zone or whatever and I didn't deliver a podcast. I would feel momentary relief from the fear of failure

for a couple of hours and then I would feel fucking awful. I would feel terrible. The very fear of failure that I was trying to avoid in the first place. That sensation of failure would come down on me like a ton of bricks. But the fact is, there's no such thing as failure. The only real failure is doing nothing because you were scared to try. And when we're scared of trying, we'll try to find people or circumstances to blame so that we don't have to try. And it's a real short-term solution. So how'd you get around it? You go, fuck it, let's try.

Someone walked in in the middle of the podcast. Great. How can I turn that into a podcast? Fantastic. Let's embrace failure. Let's work with it. And what do I get from that? A legitimate feeling of achievement and resilience and the

wonderfully rewarding experience of compassion and empathy. I'm not sucking my own dick but I do feel I feel good that I was nice to that person who walked in and made a mistake because when she came in okay a what the fuck is on his head but B I'm really embarrassed that I've just done this I'm really embarrassed that I just barged into your office without knocking and interrupted your work and I could sense that she felt that embarrassment when she walked in and I feel good about the fact that

I let her know that it was okay so I'm gonna assume she's definitely walking away with what the fuck was on his head but I like to think now that she's gone home now and she doesn't feel like she did a really bad thing I'd like to think that that person who was cleaning things fuck it I walked into the office there, hope he's alright, but sure it was grand he didn't seem too bothered with that, and now she's getting on with her day, as opposed to me being an asshole,

me being an asshole, and being rude to a person who simply made an error, it feels nice, and it feels human, and it feels warm in my belly to allow another person have the the simple fallibility of being human and to show a person respect unless you're like a fucking sociopath snapping at people and being rude to people and being emotionally reactive and flying off the handle. Or just not being nice to people.

That's not... I don't want to do that to anybody. And anytime I've ever snapped at anybody. I always feel terrible afterwards. And I experience the unnecessary suffering. Of shame. Because that's the thing with with being an adult but then getting emotion when you get emotionally triggered you're a child in the moment if i'd have been a child in

the moment there and i threw a tantrum and snapped at that person who came in and i was a child in the moment my anger would have cooled after about an hour or so. My emotions, my nervous system would have regulated. And then two hours later, when it's too late, then I would have said to myself, they didn't do anything wrong. They didn't know I was in here. They didn't know they weren't supposed to open the door. Why did I shout at her like that?

I'm a fucking cunt, am I? I'm an arsehole? I'm a fucking cunt, am I? I'm an arsehole. I'm a horrible person. I'm nasty. I'm not nice. I'm not good. And now a new spiral of negative thinking is after bubbling up. And this new spiral, this is what's called a secondary emotion,

which is a feeling about a feeling. Because what if I was raised in a house whereby I have to be polite to everybody all the time? And to be impolite to someone is fucking terrible and it means that you're a bad person. Because the fact of the matter is, let's just say I did, let's just say I was rude to that person who came in.

Yes, I was rude to that person who came in. Yes I was wrong in that moment and yes I shouldn't have done that if I did it but it doesn't make me a horrible human being. It means that I'm a human being who did something that wasn't very nice earlier on but I'm still entitled to be fallible. I'm still entitled to be a fallible person. So what would I do later on in the night if I had flew off the handle and I had been rude and then I'm in bed going you're a rotten human being, you're terrible, you must be polite and nice to everybody all the time and when you fail to live up to that expectation of yourself you're a bad person. What I would have to do with myself later on in the night then, because I wouldn't be sleeping, is I'd have to engage self-compassion and I'd have to say to

myself, no, that's a personal rule that you have around politeness because of how you were raised. You were raised by anxious parents who demanded politeness and now you're being unnecessarily harsh on yourself you're globally labeling yourself as a bad person for an aspect of your behavior and that's again I'm a child in that moment had if I had grown up in a house where politeness was very important and I was shamed by a parent or a caregiver when I wasn't polite, because that's how this shit happens. I go back to being five years of age,

and I didn't say please or thank you to a neighbour. And when I didn't do this, my mother or father got real embarrassed that their child wasn't polite. And then I'm five, and my mother or my father says, I can't believe you didn't say please or thank you to the neighbour. We've taught you to say please or thank you.

I'm ashamed of you. And a five-year-old hears that from a parent and they experience it as deep pain. They experience it as the threat of abandonment. And then you internalise the rule, I must be polite to everybody all the time and if i fail to live up to that expectation i'm a shameful human being i'm deserving of being of i'm unlovable i'm deserving of being abandoned so i'm now as an as an adult man in bed i can't sleep

because i roared at the cleaner earlier and now I'm saying to myself you're a terrible person you're awful so I'm now experiencing the terror of abandonment that I felt when I was five so what does the adult do in that situation the adult engages self-compassion the adult says that wasn't very nice earlier on you shouldn't have shouted at that person who came into the office you shouldn't have done that they did nothing wrong so you were actually wrong in that situation

but it doesn't mean you're an awful person because here's the thing about being an adult you can take accountability for your actions and what does that look like as an adult now you're emotionally regulated again you're able to access critical thinking and you start to say to yourself, I need to go into work tomorrow now and I need to stay a little bit longer and I'm going to go to that cleaner and I'm going to genuinely apologize to

him. I'm going to say, yesterday when you came into the office, I shouted at you, that was wrong. And I'm so sorry to have treated you in that way. I'm so sorry. And then that person has a choice whether to accept your apology or not. And assuming that person does accept the apology, then you have a wonderful healing moment of human connection. And you grow in that moment. And being able to, like assertiveness is a key part of being an adult. And the capacity and ability to know when what you've done is wrong. And to be able to take accountability for it and genuinely apologize for it. That's a very adult and assertive thing to do. And when you do that that your self-esteem

grows and you tend to find yourself in more and more situations where you're not doing shit that you need to be apologizing for but now let's take it back to me lying in bed feeling like shit because I was rude to a person who came into the office and now I'm thinking about it and I'm saying you're being really hard on yourself now you've done something wrong and you should apologize but now what happens is I'm terrified of apologizing the idea and thought of taking personal accountability and apologizing to someone who have done something rude to that now becomes terrifying why Why would it be that way? Well, sometimes when you apologize to a person because you've done something to him

that's worthy of an apology or you've said something to him, that person doesn't have to accept your apology and that means conflict. And if you grew up in a house with a lot of conflict, you can become an adult who's terrified of conflict

so you will avoid any situation where conflict might present itself and apologizing to someone and taking accountability is most definitely a situation where conflict may occur I might have to go to that person and say sorry about roaring at you there yesterday that was really rude of me and then they might go fuck you I felt like shit for the rest of the afternoon I felt like I cried in my car

because of the way that you spoke to me I feel terrible about that and they're entitled to say that in that moment and that's not pleasant and that's conflict right there. So if you grew up in a house where you had to walk on eggshells around a parent because they might explode at any moment.

Where you have a parent who's fallible and they have anger issues and you don't know what it is you'll do next that will cause them to explode because their anger is coming from a different place their anger is coming from personal rules that they have or their low self-esteem or whatever but all of a sudden you're six years of age and then you're eating dinner and you and you literally you knock your drink onto the ground and there's milk all over the floor and now your dad screams at you and you literally, you knock your drink onto the ground and there's milk all over the floor

and now your da screams at you and you're terrified. Or you have to witness your parents, you have to witness your da screaming at your ma and you have to experience the terror of that as a little child. Or your parents are fighting and they don't show emotion, they don't show any emotion when they're fighting, so they give each other the silent treatment and there's this extreme tension and the sense of walking on eggshells and you're too young to understand it,

then you might internalise that as a terror or fear of conflict. And people who have a fear of conflict can be terrified of taking accountability and apologising for things that they did because in their mind, the potential outcome of conflict brings on a feeling of terror. So then what would I do? I'm lying in bed.

Oh no, I shouted at that person. I shouted at the person who was cleaning, who came in earlier and that was a bad thing. Oh God, I really should apologize, but fuck it. I can't even fathom how awkward that would be. I can't even imagine or picture the words of what an apology would look like.

Oh God. Then what happens? I don't stay late in work anymore. I now become terrified of the cleaner I'm scared to come into my office in case the cleaner is there the cleaner becomes a monster in my head

oh god I hope I don't see them I hope they don't see me now I'm not emotionally regulated in my office because I'm looking out the door going what if the cleaner is here fuck I'm mortified I'm not emotionally regulated in my office because I'm looking out the door going what if the cleaner is here? Fuck, I'm mortified, I'm so embarrassed. They remember me as the dude that shouted at him

and I don't have the words, capacity or ability to apologise to him even though I knew I should. But let's take it now from the point of view of the cleaner. What if the cleaner now I'm speaking entirely fantasy and metaphor now at this point lads i've gone into fantasy characters that i'm creating so i'm not literally talking about the person who walked into this office but in the fantasy scenario let's just say a cleaner walked into

the office and i was very rude to them because of this and I behaved out of line. What if they grew up in a house with quite a bit of conflict and in particular a domineering parent, a parent who was always right. No matter what you did as a kid, you always got in trouble. Even when you were right, your parents' pride would never allow them to apologise or to say, do you know what, you have a pint. What if your parent was a dictator? My word is the final word. You're to be seen and not heard.

You spilled your milk at dinner? I don't care if it was an accident. I don't care if that was an accident. I still have to pay for the glass that you accident. I still have to pay for the glass that you broke. I still have to pay for the milk that you spilt. I don't care that there was an accident. Don't have any more accidents. No, I don't want to hear it. Go to your room. What if that was your parent? What if that was the cleaner's parent all the time? So when they grew up, they were never allowed to have any fallibility. They were never

allowed to make accidents. They were a fuck up all the time and their parent let them know this. You never got an apology from your parents ever and the absolute unfairness of that situation leads to a deep resentment and that resentment now gets projected on anybody who apologises to you. Well, what can happen there is, and it's known within the psychotherapeutic theory called transaction analysis, this situation is known as gotcha now, you son of a bitch.

So I'm at home in bed, and I acknowledge I shouldn't have shouted at the fucking cleaner that was awful that was very rude. I'm going to go in tomorrow and when I see that cleaner I'm going to walk up to them I'm going to apologize to them I'm going to say I'm sorry and I'm going to take accountability. So I walk up to the cleaner and I say listen I'm so sorry about yesterday I should not have shouted you when you came into the office I understand you were just doing your job you didn't mean to interrupt me I'm so sorry for that I was completely out of line and then the cleaner rather than accepting the apology

the resentment towards their parent comes up in them and then they go fucking brilliant i got you now and they don't accept the apology you see when you apologize to a person at that moment you're very vulnerable you even think of the body language of an apology you put both your hands up you expose your body a pilot genuinely apologizing and taking accountability is being real vulnerable it's a dog rolling over on its back it's going I was wrong I put my hands up I'm sorry and you wait there and you hope that the person accepts your apology and you have a connection but sometimes if a person had a very domineering parent

who was excessively cruel and excessively mean, like I described earlier, sometimes if you present that person with an apology, they see it as an opportunity to kind of kick you when you're down. That's why it's called gotcha now, you son of a bitch, within transaction analysis. So I apologize to the cleaner. And then the cleaner goes, That's why it's called gotcha now you son of a bitch within transaction analysis. So I apologize to the cleaner and then the cleaner goes well you should be fucking sorry you horrible cunt.

You rotten person. You're disgraceful. How dare you. You are awful. No I will not accept your apology. You shameful horrendous horrible person. How dare you, and the anger that's coming up in that person, it's not an anger towards me for shouting at him yesterday,

it's all the pain and hurt that they have towards their caregiver who was really mean, and now here's the opportunity to finally tell this parent what you think of him, here's the opportunity to finally tell this parent what you think of him you were never allowed to talk back you were never allowed to be right you were never allowed to make a mistake to make an accident so now if anyone presents themselves and goes i'm sorry you fucking twist the knife in you're stabbing your own da you're stabbing your own ma or the're stabbing your own ma. Or the other way to do that, and this is the more common one, is passive aggression. No, I don't accept your apology. I'm too hurt. I'm never speaking to you again.

And when I'm here in the office and if you walk past me, I won't even look at you. And I refuse to speak to you. And I'm blanking you and ignoring you and pretending that you don't exist. I'm going to hurt you with my... My pain is so great for what you have done to me that I'm going to hurt you with this pain with a wall of silence. And then from my point of view, it's like, Jesus Christ, I don't know if I deserve that.

I was wrong. I shouldn't have shouted at you. That was definitely wrong. But fuck me. It's a bit much, isn't it? And it is a bit much. Because the anger that that person would be feeling is not anger towards me and my actions. It's a deep pain that they have towards their parent, who was always right all of the time. But what I'm speaking about in all these situations, all these toxic potential scenarios, at no point are the people behaving like adults. A childhood pain has been triggered and we respond as physical adults in the moment, using childhood emotions, childhood logic and childhood pain,

so nothing really gets resolved. There's no human connection. And that's always, that's always a risk when you apologize to a person. If you, if you genuinely did something wrong to a person or behaved in a way that was unacceptable, when you go to apologize to a person, that's a genuine risk. They might literally go, excellent, brilliant. You're showing me the soft parts of your body can I have a little stab please that's a genuine risk and then when you're assertive when you're an assertive adult what you need to be able to do then is to understand your own emotional boundaries and what those boundaries are is like I described there I went to this person. I apologized to him.

I took full accountability. I know that I was wrong and I admitted it. However, the extent of their anger towards me, the blanking me, calling me these names, that seems a bit disproportionate. I'm definitely responsible for my actions. When I shouted at him yesterday yesterday I'm responsible for that but I don't think I can accept responsibility for the the size of their pain here I think might this might be something that they have to accept responsibility for themselves

so you can actually choose to not take that on and if the person is blanking you and they don't want to talk to you you just go I can't help them with that I've apologized I've taken genuine accountability they don't want to speak to me that's fine I'm gonna have to move on here being an assertive adult means understanding that too assertiveness is having a real good understanding of boundaries i genuinely understand when i've done something wrong and i genuinely understand when someone is doing something wrong to me and these things are not colored by emotions and events from childhood they're all happening in the here and now, using critical thinking from a perspective of emotional regulation.

You truly understand and know if another person's response to you taking accountability is disproportionate. And it might have a lot more to do with their own baggage, we'll say. Now let's look at it as well from another perspective. And I mean the perspective of capitalism because capitalism genuinely gets in the way of authentic human connection. Let's just say I did shout at that person who was cleaning the office. Let's just say I was horrible to him because under capitalism I'm the person who's renting this office. I rent this office. I'm a customer of the people who rent out this office.

Because of that, there's now an unfair power dynamic at play. If I'm the type of person who rents an office, and then is rude to the person who's hired to clean that office, I'm probably also not the type of person who does a hell of a lot of apologizing or taking accountability. So let's just say I did that. It really hurt that person's feelings who was cleaning this office. And they felt like they needed or deserved an apology because of my unacceptable behavior. That person who's entitled to an apology isn't going to knock on my door and say you fucking shouted at me yesterday that was really hurtful. They're probably not going to do it. Why not? Because they'd be afraid of losing their job. The fact is under capitalism

I would be considered more important to the people who own this building because I'm renting an office. I would be considered more important to them than the person who they hire to clean the office. And that creates a power dynamic where I have more power than the person who is cleaning the office. So therefore they can't actually meet their human needs. For my accountability or my apology. Under that system. And it also means technically. That I can get away with it.

It also means too. If I had shouted at that person and I went to apologise to him the next day. Because their job might be at stake. If they feel that they want to say, I accept your apology but I need you to know how hurtful that was. Maybe they won't say that. Maybe they'll just go, oh I'm sorry, oh don't worry about it, I shouldn't have walked in. maybe they'll just go oh I'm sorry oh don't worry about it I shouldn't have walked in and they're not being authentic to what they truly feel because they're speaking to someone who under capitalism is seen as more important to him because this man rents the office and I'm

hired to clean the office so if he apologizes to me I should just take it gracefully and I shouldn't let him know how I actually feel and when that happens you can't get genuine human connection and that's deeply deeply wrong and unfair but the thing is not everything you learn growing up is bad aside from being emotionally regulated when the cleaner came in and it interrupted the podcast aside from being emotionally regulated and being able to put myself in that person's shoes and realise that it's not a problem at all. Another thing that informed me are values that I learned as a kid. My dad was a union organiser. The rights of workers to be treated fairly and with dignity was something that was very important to him.

And he was a union organiser and he instilled these values in me. And my ma worked in a supermarket. She packed shelves in a supermarket. And while doing her job, and sometimes people weren't very nice to her. Because the customer is always right. One of the most toxic fucking phrases in our society. The customer is always right and some people take this as permission to be mean to workers anyone who works in retail will know this

you will get customers who come in and they are fucking horrible to you and they're horrible to you because the customer is always right and that shit I mentioned earlier that's got you now you son of a bitch from transaction analysis that's what these people do no no no I'm the customer and you work here so you're gonna stand there and I'm gonna be fucking horrible I come to you today with a broken toaster I bought this toaster yesterday and when I took it home it was broken now what's really happening the toaster's broken when I took it home it was broken. Now what's really happening? The toaster's broken and I'd like it replaced. That's the rational situation that's happening. But do some of these people do that? You sold me this broken toaster. This is disgraceful.

Do you know how to do your job? Where's your manager? You're being rude. What are you going to do about it? Hurry up. What are you going to do? gonna do am i just gonna wait here i don't have all day these people exist and that's real fucking common and it has nothing to do with broken toasters it has to do with excellent here's a person and they're effectively trapped and their soft belly is exposed and I've got a lot of resentment a lot of childhood resentment and I'm gonna stab them I'm gonna stab them and no one can say shit because the customer is always right bring down the manager the customer's always right you sold me a broken toaster fuck that the customer isn't always right not when it comes to respect and a person's dignity

so no part of me considers what I'm doing to be any more important than someone who's doing their job and I've seen this again on fucking TV sets and all that shit there could be some people that would think well I'm in here recording a podcast

and this is very important work but the work that you're doing a podcast and this is very important work but the work that you're doing of cleaning the office is less important work so therefore I'm more important so if I had have been rude to that cleaner and I did need to apologize I would include a genuine little anti-capitalist disclaimer just saying no I shouldn't have shouted at you I'm very very sorry and I need you to understand this has nothing to do with the work environment here I'm a human being and I was rude to you as a human being and if you'd like to tell me how it made you feel or there's something you want to let me know about that experience please i'm listening and hopefully that would work so this isn't some mad

autistic shit where i need to go through every single possible parameter of a social interaction in order to understand it i was going to do this podcast anyway i was going to speak about mental health the emotional condition of what it means to be an adult, emotional regulation. The reason I'm incorporating what happened earlier in the podcast is that it feels right in the moment. It feels authentic to bring that situation into how I explain all the different choices. This is a podcast about choices the beautiful freedom of being an adult is understanding

I don't control what happens to me but I have full control over how I react to it and that's what this podcast is about but if life was that simple everything would be perfect wouldn't it but life isn't that simple. We learn misinformation as children. We receive unhelpful information about ourselves, about other people, and about the world and how it should be.

And if that information was painful and left an impact on us as kids, it can colour the choices that we make. So you end up in an adult body going, I know I should apologise, but why can't I? Why am I terrified? Why am I terrified of apologising to someone? I'd love to fucking up. I know I did something wrong.

Why am I scared of apologising? Why did I get angry at a person who just made a mistake? Why did I shout at them? Why do I think I'm the devil because I did that? You find this information out through self-reflection, emotional intelligence, therapy, but it does start with the capacity and ability to emotionally regulate ourselves. Now I'm deliberately not touching upon trauma in this podcast because like I've said before when it comes to speaking about trauma what I do is I bring on an expert on trauma and then I let them speak about it usually someone like Dr Sharon Lambert. The capacity to emotionally regulate to self-regulate it's a lot more difficult and a lot more complex for someone who has experienced trauma

than for what I'm describing, which is just the shit you have to put up with growing up. Everything I've described here, that's just normal human baggage. No one's childhood is perfect. No one's parents were perfect. Our parents were fallible human beings and they got angry and they got insecure and they got anxious and when we were tiny little

kids we didn't have the capacity to think about that critically and we internalized this into our personalities but as an adult you have the freedom to assess that and write your own script. You can relearn all these rules and emotionally regulate. And that's the journey of mental health. That's what that journey is right there. That's the journey that I'm consistently and continually on. And it's never going to end. I'm going to be thinking these thoughts on my deathbed if I'm lucky enough to have one.

But I want to take it back to what I began the podcast on. And what I began this podcast on was, I spoke about the weather at this time of year. It's the start of May. And it's so beautiful right now. That it's the easiest time to try some basic mindfulness when you're out having a walk you can be mindful at any time of year but it's a lot more difficult to be mindful in the harsh kind of bleakness of October but right now go out for a walk and like I said go somewhere it doesn't have to be out the country it could be down a road that has trees and foliage and gardens try and be close to nature

and go for your walk evening time is great just before the sun sets because that's when the smells come out that's when the flowers start to smell beautiful and the chlorophyll from the leaves and all these wonderful fragrances that give us the feeling of life and you breathe diaphragmatically you don't exert yourself when you're walking you breathe in through the nose slowly put your hand on your tummy until you feel your tummy expanding so you know you're engaging your diaphragm. And you just do that at a nice, slow, relaxed pace. And this isn't hippy-dippy bullshit. I've had a fucking neuroscientist on this podcast, two of them, explaining what this is.

This is natural to the human body. So you breathe like that. And then after a couple of minutes, what happens is that your, your nervous system relaxes. The stress hormones start to reduce. You find yourself at a base kind of level of calm. And then once you get there, just notice the beauty of May.

just notice the beauty of May and I mean notice notice means your breathing is slow and you're walking along and you're sniffing the air and you notice the smell of whatever flower is there or you notice the smell of the leaves and if you feel like it

you know your natural playful curiosity will start popping up and now you know you're really looking at a flower you're really looking at a leaf and it's the only thing you're thinking about or concentrating on while you're in this nice, calm, emotionally regulated state. And that's mindfulness. That's like giving your brain a shower. That's resetting yourself. It's what our phones don't really allow us to do. And then what you start to find when you're regulated like that and you're mindful,

the thoughts that might have been stressing you out throughout the day. If you were furiously angry at a friend for something they said to you last week and you've been ruminating on this. When you find yourself after a good 20 minutes of a walk and you're genuinely mindful, all of a sudden now, your friend pops into your head and you're not focusing just on that thing they said. You're not thinking about what you're going to say to them back. And you're

not. Your jaw isn't clenched and you don't feel angry. And if it does come up, you notice it. You notice the physical sensation of anger as it comes up in your body. The way you just noticed that beautiful flower. And you witness the emotion of anger that comes up in you. Not as a thing that's actually happening or not as reality but just as a thought. So a product of your mind. Something completely separate to you, like a flower blooming or the bud on a tree. This anger doesn't define you, it's not real. And then you start to think about your friend and then all the things you like about him start to come in. And then you go, yeah they did that there last week that wasn't very nice but they're also a nice

person, there's lots of stuff I like about them too now you've got empathy and compassion coming in and the toxic anger that's been pissing you off all week now it's becoming properly resolved inside you in an adult present here and now way and that's mindfulness and that's the benefit of mindfulness to our emotional resilience and also what happens when you're in that emotionally regulated state is that you're open to playfulness and humor when you're mad angry with someone or you're terrified of something that might happen there's not a lot of humor present in your thinking you're focusing on you're worrying about the future and worrying about the

past but humor isn't allowed in and just to take it back to earlier, when that woman who was clean came in, and afterwards, I started to laugh about the fact that I had a bag in my head, and how ridiculous that was, and what she might have been thinking. That wouldn't have happened if I'd have shouted at her. That only happened because I was emotionally regulated and I didn't react and I allowed myself to feel empathy for her position and also to find the humour in the situation. And that's mindfulness, that's what mindfulness allows.

It allows us the full adult experience of our emotions, the authenticity of them, rather than the narrow reactive pang that you get from the toxic ones. So that's all I've got time for this week. Rub a dog. Rescue a worm. Move a snail from the sun to the shadow.

Wave at a swan go out in the lovely May fucking air in the evening and do that diaphragmatic breathing and notice smells and see

things and do it mindfully and there's no right or wrong way to do it because what can happen is you go for your walk

and you go I'm shit at this mindfulness I can't stop thinking about something that happened last week so what do it because what can happen is you go for your walk and you go i'm shit at this mindfulness i can't stop thinking about something that happened last week so what 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 Toronto rock.com. Thank you. you