The Wellness Scoop - All On The Board: Strength through vulnerability and mental health toolkits

Episode Date: April 5, 2023

DISCLAIMER: this episode touches on eating disorders and eating disorder recovery.This week Ella is joined by Transport for London employees Jeremy Chopra and Ian Redpath, AKA All On The Board, the duo who made it their mission to bring smiles to the faces of London commuters through writing poems, quotes and creative messages on the underground’s service information boards. In this open and inspiring conversation, Ian and Jeremy open up about how their own experiences with their mental and physical health led them to create a positive online community.They discuss: How Ian and Jeremy started sharing inspiring messages about mental and physical health with London commuters Jeremy’s experience with depression and an eating disorder The danger of keeping inner distress to ourselves Dealing with imposter syndrome Ian’s experience with anxiety and PTSD Navigating difficult times one step at a time The importance of self-compassion in any healing journey The power of a gratitude practice Why saying something is better than saying nothing Links: All On The Board’s latest book, Your Daily Companion: Inspiring words to take you from morning to night For new users, use code podcast20 to get 20% off the Feel Better App Wellness Toolkit for this episode Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Terms and conditions apply. Quick favour, could you hit the subscribe button? It really helps get the show out there so that more people can be inspired by the personal growth that our guests are talking about and take those lessons into their own lives. Welcome to Wellness with Ella, the Deliciously Ella podcast.

This is a podcast that aims to inspire you, to empower you, to leave you feeling uplifted. Every week, me and my guests will candidly reveal our personal journeys of transforming times of great difficulty into times of enormous personal growth. How did our guests get to where they are today? What have been their biggest challenges? What practices and habits have really genuinely moved the? What practices and habits have really genuinely moved the needle for them and how do they keep moving forward? Wellness with Ella has the simple mission of giving you unfiltered empowering conversations that give you the tools, knowledge and inspiration to transform your own life and your own health.

My guests today truly epitomize what this season of the show has been about. The idea that we all struggle with our health, that nobody is immune from life's challenges, that you never know what the person next to you is going through, that personal transformations can happen at any point in our lives and that whilst all of our journeys are different, the thread that really seems to link everybody's transformation together is learning to embrace vulnerability and sharing those challenges with the people around us. My guests today are Ian Redpath and Jeremy Chopra, better known as All On The Board. If you've ever been on the Tube in London, you'll have seen their poems and their creative messages

on the boards around the stations lots of people assume that these are written by a team of people that perhaps it's a scheme created by transport for london but actually the whole premise was started and continues to be run by two guys ian and jeremy both of whom were working on the tube and had been through incredibly challenging periods with their well-being and they wanted to ensure that no one else felt alone in their own challenges. So as they watched millions of people commute each day, they felt that simple messages of hope, inspiration, honesty and clarity that you are never alone in your struggles would maybe help. They've since been seen by tens of millions,

if not hundreds of millions of people, gone completely viral with their wisdom, their vulnerability, and the boards have been shared by so many people from celebrities like Katy Perry and Michelle Obama. And I was so excited to speak with Ian and Jeremy to find out how their personal experiences have led them to create this online community

with such a positive message and a universal impact and in the conversation we're talking about finding ways to connect with one another the importance of both compassion and understanding and both of them have some really moving stories about their early lives the experiences with their mental health and the times they've been able to provide help and support for people during their most vulnerable moments. It's a very revealing and honest conversation and I really hope you enjoy it. Just one warning though, we do touch on one of their experiences with eating disorders so if that's something that you would like to skip then I would really recommend moving on to a different episode. Otherwise, let's get into the show.

Well, Ian, Jeremy, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us. It's so interesting because I think the whole season, this is our last episode of this season, we've really been exploring the power of vulnerability and the fact that we all have these stories right no all our lives are completely different all our challenges are completely different you know I do believe

you can never really understand because we've never walked in each other's shoes that being said life is just anything but linear and I think we're not necessarily completely open about what that actually looks like and the power of vulnerability when we take down those walls to actually talk much more honestly about our experiences be that with physical health mental health grief loss and that connection that we create as a result and the reason I'm so happy that you guys are here for the finale of this season is I feel like what you've created is the absolute epitome of that premise this idea of community through vulnerability of sharing and of showing people that they're never ever alone

um so I wondered if you could introduce yourself and the concept of all on the board I mean for anyone who's ever been to London or been on the tube which is probably a very large proportion of our listeners they will have seen your boards or they've probably seen the memes go viral of those amazing um quotes and poems that you share but will you tell us a little bit about yourselves and what you do you want to go for it yeah why not uh so my name's ian redpath uh i used to be a very good dancer but not so much now and uh yeah myself and jeremy he's going to introduce himself um yeah we we both work for london underground and we started doing all on the board in 2017 and uh i don't know we've always been creative spirits and you know we've got our own health and mental health conditions and um you

know it's just a a distraction as to what we're going through and then um yeah it's just uh you know we we kind of um we want to get the message out there that people are not alone however lonely they feel if they are on their own there are people going through similar things and wouldn't it be amazing if we could get all the lonely feeling people in the world in a room together or in a virtual room and just say that you're not alone let's get talking you know and it's like you know the london underground we always say it's it's one of the busiest places in the world and yet it can feel like the loneliest place, you know, like I was on the train today during the peak and literally everyone is on their own journeys

and it's crazy to think that like we're all like, you know, crammed together and yet none of us are saying hello to one another, you know, and it's, I guess, you know, that's what life is kind of like, but we want to, you know, get the message out there, you know, no one's ever alone and, you know, we may be in, you know, that's what life is kind of like. But we want to, you know, get the message out there. You know, no one's ever alone. And, you know, we may be in, you know, different boats, but we do face similar storms. And, you know, let's get through it together, you know. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, we're lucky that we work in a team on the underground. Not all on the board. It's just us on all of the board. But for our day job on the underground, we work in a team that allows us to work all over the network, which is why, even though there's only two of us, our boards pop up everywhere because we'll be working a different place every day. And that gives us the opportunity to kind of like write different kinds of things for different places, sometimes changing the name of a station just to make someone laugh or sometimes writing about the event that they're going to just to extend it a little bit, you know, make it a bit more fun inside the journey that they're doing on the underground um and we've just taken that opportunity i think to write things and just put the message out there and connect people as you're saying um and uh yeah the communication thing has always been a big big thing for us because i think

before this as you say we were we were we are creative spirits but we've never had the the uh outlet before now to kind of put our things out there. You know, it's all been inside us or on pieces of paper at our homes or whatever. And we came up with this idea one day in 2017. We were just working and we thought, let's write a little silly poem about the event that was going on in the O2 that time. And then instantly people were taking selfies with it

and smiling and you just, you could see straight away, oh wow, that worked. That actually did something. Because actually before that, there was just a board that was saying, keep right on it. And it was filthy and people were just ignoring it. They just walk wherever they want to walk.

And just by putting a little poem on there, that was a bit of fun. It changed the demeanor of people completely you know that yeah they're going to an event that they want to go to but you could see that they were just trying to get there it was functional right it was just getting there and then yeah we broke into that and found a way to get into um into that headspace and break them out of it and say oh you're here now everything's going to be good and then it was a few months after that that we kind of came up with the mental health stuff um writing about what we go through

and that stuff was a whole other whole other thing it kind of really exploded into this bigger we can really change things now we can actually make things better for a lot of people there are people suffering all kinds of things out there and they feel alone um and i think it was just just before we was writing our going to start our second book we were we were trying to think of like how do we want to approach this and we want it to be a companion because that's what we're trying to do sometimes we're trying to be a companion for people as they're coming through that space and we said what's our core things that we do on the board we realized it was um as you say make people realize they're not alone um to be kind to

themselves and to be kind to each other and like i think the world would be a better place if we did all those three things all the time before we sort of rewind and and start to understand what inspired you to want to open up that vulnerability and share what you'd both been going through i'd love to know is there one or two boards or messages or poems that you've shared that have resonated the most uh do you know what the first one that springs to mind is um like the board that we wrote about endometriosis yeah and it was just um it i mean because what it was i mean i mean like my wife really gets bad periods yeah and we was looking into it and it was like no this is more than sort of bad periods uh symptoms we was like looking into it and me and

jeremy was researching it and we just came across this condition endometriosis that we had never heard about and was like my god people go through this you know and it's like we kind of like done a bit research on it wanted to put it on the board and then we was thinking you know why despite looking like we're in our mid-20s you know we're in our 40s and that yeah you know it's like it seemed bonkers for two you know men in their 40s to write about endometriosis on a board and you know and yeah i think that's one of my proudest moments you know i mean i love doing all the you know the concert boards and the fun boards and you know like celebrities come down for you know selfies and stuff but yeah it's just that that kind of did resonate with a lot of people and you know it's it's that's that's always the one that's always the one always comes to my mind and purely because um we do a lot of research when we're

writing about conditions unless it's something that we both go through ourselves um and obviously we don't go through endometriosis we never heard of it before and and um we had to do a lot of research and it was a really tricky one because you're looking and you're thinking right there is a lot of stuff to unpack and put on a board um but we do have to do a board it's one of the most pain it's on the list of one of the most painful conditions on earth and it's very common yeah yeah and very few people know about it i mean if you say the word endometriosis to someone in the street they're going to think you're talking about

you know some kind of plant or something like that maybe you know some you know osmosis or something like that but um they're not going to think that that's one of the most painful things around um so we had to do that and um it was really tricky and then when we put it out and it got this massive response, I mean, it's been a universal response still to this day. Because some of the other boards you put out about conditions, you get this massive response of thank you and that's perfect. But then you get other people who challenge certain parts of it and say,

oh, you got that wrong. And then we kind of look back at it and try and... But then it kind of gets people talking about the condition. Yeah, that's the point, isn't it? It's all about breaking down those barriers, isn it and removing the stigmas and yeah and it's exact which is why almost circling back to beginning instead of so keen to talk to you guys about this is exactly that is that we go through so many things and we don't talk about them and i think it's writing them down and sharing them with those four million people and everyone online every

single day to highlight the fact that people are going through this and to be aware of it and conscious of it and it's it's incredibly powerful and i'm sure as you're saying it makes people feel very seen yeah it's it's just um kind of trying to make the invisible visible you know it's like we don't know what one another is going through i remember telling someone that you know i've got ulcerative colitis and they're like oh yeah i get that and that was kind of comparing it with their ibs sort of thing or that they had been out of curry the night before oh i had what you had last night and it's like well no you didn't really it's like do you know what i mean so it's just like you know it's just like let's talk about our conditions you know get

them out there it's like you know you you may be on a train and you may see some youngster you know not getting up for for an elderly person and it's like well there could be a reason why they're not getting up you know they could be having chronic fatigue chronic pains and you know sometimes they get sort of dirty looks on the train so i'm not getting up for that person but they may want to get up but physically they they can't get up you know it's just uh i've had it before you know people looking at me and i've been going through such chronic pain chronic fatigue i want to get up for someone giving me a seat but i physically before, you know, people looking at me and I've been going through such chronic pain, chronic fatigue. I want to get up for someone giving me a seat, but I physically can't, you know.

It's just understanding one another and, you know, being more empathetic and stuff, you know. Absolutely. As you said, the world needs a lot more of that. Yeah, we do try to make people laugh occasionally. That's how All On The Board happened, actually. We were writing a TV sitcom at the time while we were standing there. And then we started, I don't know how we ended up with getting from that to talking about Craig David's songs. But I think it was just because the crowd were coming through. We were singing Craig David's songs to one another.

The Craig David crowd was coming through. And then we thought, what songs do we know of Craig David? And we started singing really badly, some of his songs to each other. And we thought, oh, well, let's make a little,

little poem out of it. It was a really short one, but just there you go. Cause it was offering sort of directions to the O2, but kind of incorporating these songs as well. You know, I see, you can imagine walking away to the O2 and,

you know, it won't take seven days to get there, blah, blah, blah, you know, but yeah, it was good.

But people often ask us, you know, how do we go from that to the mental health stuff that we've gone, gone to get there, blah, blah, blah, you know, but yeah, it was good. But people often ask us, you know, how do we go from that to the mental health stuff that we've gone to? And it was just because it was just a natural process for us. You know, we're just writing about what we like and the things that make us tick.

And we just came up with that at that time. And then we started realizing, why don't we write something a bit more personal, you know? Yeah, yeah. And for people to be honest with one another, you know what I mean? Because, you know a lot of people like kind of look at you know these perceived perfect photos of people online they're like why can't i have that but they're

not seeing what's going on kind of behind the scenes and behind the lens and stuff it's like everyone is going through their own sort of dramas and problems and you know it's and were you both always open and comfortable talking about it because i think having a bit of research on the both of you it seems like you've both gone through some real challenges both with your mental health and your physical health i'd love to understand a little bit more about how that informed this desire to kind of break open the conversations and share that vulnerability but within that i'm curious did you always feel really comfortable talking about how you felt i know my experience like it took me so so long to talk about my health and be open i was yeah i was terrible by that um i went through my whole teens like literally from from the the first uh few months of secondary school right to

through university i was like a silent person just kind of hovering around and it was bad really really bad and what prompted that i mean i probably already had bad self-esteem i think before i went to secondary school but you know you're so young you just you're just making it through right um and then uh in secondary school when you i you're so young you're just you're just making it through right um and then in secondary school when you i mean everyone probably recognizes you go to secondary school especially if it's one that's away from where you would have been locally you're gonna have no friends you're gonna have to everything completely brand new and i went secondary school and i had no friends and i was really bad at making friends anyway. So I made one friend on

the first day. It was a boy where we were in a queue for lunch and then someone bumped into him. He dropped all his coins on the ground and he started crying and everyone was just like walking past him and I decided to stop and help him and we became friends. And for the next three months, we became inseparable. We were just like everything together. And it was really weird because I was this person that nobody liked. And I was like a social outcast. And he was probably the most popular person in school suddenly. And yet we were together all the time. And it was just, I think, a day before we were due back to go to school after the Christmas period.

In the local newspaper, there was a report of a fire in a house and and he had he had sadly died um and i that was i only got note of it from that newspaper report when i was at another friend's house and um the my friend's mum had told me and i remember in that i still remember that moment she told me and i just kind of like did this thing where i kind of pretended like you know i don't know what's kind of going on I don't know if that's real or whatever and I went to the bathroom locked the door and I just like completely just went like tears and everything like that but silently and I think that was where things happened with the silence because I cried really heavily but they had no idea that I was doing that.

Cleared my face with the water from the sink and I walked out and then never talked about it. And then when I went to school, the first thing that happened was, of course, everyone knew that we were inseparable and all the other kids, as they do, they would come around you at the dinner table asking, oh, well, how did this happen and so on and so forth. Did you cry? Someone said, did you cry and then I actually said no you know and I and I remember that sticking with me and

throughout my school years thinking oh why did I say no you know I felt really bad about that and um and and I think that just affected me really deeply it was you know I guess it was childhood trauma to a certain extent right um and everything just became really internalized because it was a defense thing for me so i just went through my whole teen years like that and and i then had um i then developed an eating disorder so i i don't know what it's called now actually i haven't looked up what it's called now but at the time i think it was called ednos which is like eating disorder with no obvious symptom uh where it's not you know bulimia anorexia anything like that it's it's it's just different it's just you have an eating disorder clearly

have an eating disorder but you don't um have a diagnosis that's really quite um direct and um i went through my whole teens and i was extremely um undernourished basically by the time I left school and I was I'm lucky to be here to be quite honest with you and it wasn't until I got into my early 20s where I had this moment just this weird moment of clarity where I woke up one day and it was just sunlight coming through and I just realized I'm going to die basically I just heard these words in my head and it was really clear I mean I'm sure everyone's kind of had this day where you just like everything feels really really ridiculously clear you can feel the air you can feel the dust everything like that it was like that it was just for for that day but it was enough to kind of kick me into gear realizing that and um and from then I started to

try and kind of find a way back um but I still probably I would say I didn't get into talking about my my issues until probably like 30 even I mean you know so we're talking from the age of 12 until 30 I was really bad at talking I would never be sitting here talking like this or writing things on the board or putting things out in podcasts or interviews or books or anything like that back then. No way. Even going back, you know, 10 years ago when I first came on the underground, certainly probably wouldn't be talking like I am now. So all on the board has really helped me to do that, to kind of out more and be able to do this um i'm still have social anxiety i still you know i can still feel those little shakes that you get inside you that no one can see um the sweaty palms and all that kind of stuff um but one of the reasons why i do things like this is because i want people to

realize that you know that's how much of my life was, you know, so difficult, purely from not talking about the things. Yeah, I mean, like, I'm really good at defending, you know, myself from certain situations, but then you don't experience so many things because of that. So it's such a powerful example, as you said, of the fact that we keep so much inside of us, and you can be interacting with people all day. You might just walk past them, but it might be someone you bump into in a coffee shop or a colleague or someone you're sitting next to on the underground or on the bus or on a plane or just in your life. And you have absolutely no idea exactly that they might have, you know, 10, 20 years of kind of trauma that they don't want to talk about and I wondered when you started opening up and you started writing on the boards did you suddenly

feel almost this like release this pressure off that you felt other people then opening up to you and saying I've been through this maybe it's something similar or something kind of very different but equally challenging and you realize wait a second I'm completely normal because it's completely normal to have these fluctuations yeah you know what it was because as I say it was such a long period of my life it became ingrained as a characteristic so when we started doing those boards and as you say people were opening up themselves and sharing it and commenting and so on I was I guess I was gaining strength from those as you say but it it was a very slow process because we were still

wearing masks for the first three years we were anonymous for the first three years so it's like you're kind of coming out but not really with all this stuff you're still behind a mask um and uh and yeah it was it was probably like when we took the masks off that was really hard uh because it kind of then goes back you know you're completely baring your soul yeah it's now yeah actually i'm the one who's been saying some things you know you're the one who's been saying some things um and we we end up going through an imposter syndrome period as well where we're kind like, what do people really expect us to be? Did they expect us to be who we are?

And, and not knowing that fills your head with all kinds of silliness. It's like, you're never going to know that. And everyone's going to think differently about you. And it doesn't even matter because as Ian said, we've only ever cared about the words we're putting out, not about what, who we are, um, in terms of that. And even though we're gaining from it we gain strength from it and and it does help me to you know speak out uh we never we never made it about that um and so that was that was it's ups and downs you know but then life is right you know your mental health struggles don't just go because you had a realization

you're gonna have things that change because it's just the organic nature of the way chemicals work in your brain and the way the world is you know this is a different room but we're talking about the same stuff and yet i'm realizing certain things right now that i didn't realize before i might forget something today that i'll remember tomorrow it's yeah it's just one of those things but you have to figure out you have to come up with tools that kind of help you to navigate those tough parts to get to the good parts you know um yeah yeah definitely do you know yeah it's just getting getting it out there the importance of talking you know i mean it's just um like um i i used to have problems sort of expressing how i felt

and i'd write it down on a page and that was a way of getting my feelings and emotions out there and I remember showing someone they was like oh this is a bit dark isn't it but it was kind of like it was therapy for me it was just getting all my negative thoughts and feelings on a page and like I've still got them in my wardrobe and it kind of like it's evidence to me that you know I survived that moment you know and that's what I was going through in that and I think as time has gone on you know i've realized that talking about your problems and you know again getting it off your chest you know don't suffer in silence it it does make you feel better you know i mean it's just um you know the more we talk you know the better we

feel you know just the light and the load you know you haven't got to carry the weight of the world on your back you know you can share it out with others you know and did you have a moment with each other i don't know i i don't think i've read about this like when you first met each other were you kind of honest about everything you're going through or did that build up and then you suddenly had this built up but the funniest thing is the very first time um he you would he doesn't remember the very first time we met it was, we were on a duty and I remember it being a really hard shift and I was with some of our colleagues from our team

and then he come walking past and I was like, oh, who's that? I ain't seen that person here all the shift. And they're like, oh, that's Ian. He works in the SRT as well. And I was like, well, where's he been all this time? I thought he was a Skyver. I thought like he's taking the mix.

I was like, what? What's that about? Where's he been? We've been like slugging off here all this time i thought he was a skyver i thought like he's taking the mix i was like what what's that about where's he we've been like slugging off here all this time so i was doing my makeup and no he was he was actually helping out he was actually doing the job in another part of the station and then um our manager put us together because she said that we're both everyone keeps talking about how we're both creative and coming up with bonkers things and all that on the gate lines we should do something together um and we she started putting us in shifts together and we were just standing around talking like this and coming up with ideas um we came up with all kinds of ideas some crazy stuff um and then it yeah i think we were just thinking in the middle

of conversations yeah he remembers the first time that he met me but i don't remember the first you wouldn't remember that because like you literally just he was doing the job but i think i was on my way to the toilet you were yeah and i was like quickly high and by weren't it because yeah but yeah i mean i can't remember when when i finally found out about your condition or i think we just literally just told each other like open it up about it i think we just realized that we're both very similar in how we see the world, like in terms of that kind of caring for people and caring about others around us. And it just became really easy to kind of say, oh, that person's a caring.

You know, you just get that aura around people. And you felt comfortable to share your stories. And this is what gets me. It's like, like you know why should it take bravery to ask for help why why should you be brave in coming out about who you are you know i mean we should we should talk about it like like we chat about the weather you know how does it affect anyone else you know it's kind of we want to like smash stigmas and break taboos and stuff and just you know generally that's what we do now we get customers who come up

to us on the underground all the time asking us questions obviously like the directions are here directions for there but sometimes they come over to you and you think that's what they're going to ask and they say oh you do the boards don't you and it's like oh yeah we do and then that you can see that the the nervousness and it's like just pretend you're asking us for directions it'll work out you know you'll be able to say what you want to say um because that's who we are now we just like we just want people to be able to come up to us and say whatever give us a hug if you want to give us a hug you know give us a high five or just you know way from a distance if that's easier for you whatever but don't feel like you can't you know you know what it's brilliant when people like we may get recognized

once a shift maybe twice or three times yeah but when they come over to you and say oh could i get a selfie with you we're always up for selfies and hugs you know i mean it's a good feeling isn't it you know it's good it'd be nice if that became like a community thing like if people were able to just do that but you know it is it is difficult you can understand why it is it's very different scenarios right you can't just go and hug up anyone you can't just go and do that with anyone you can't open up to absolutely everyone but um there are but unfortunately that translates a lot to people in their own groups where they they're not doing that with the people they they they know that they can they just don't feel that they can um yeah it is important because i think

in my case with my eating disorder the thing with eating disorders is you become really good at hiding the fact that you have an eating disorder, even though you don't know you have an eating disorder. Because I was, you know, I was still a child and a teenager, but you don't know that you've got a disorder. You just think this is what you are. And I was wearing like clothes that would just be baggy and, you know, no one could see how i was and so on it was it was

it was destroying communication it was like you know blocking communication and it's and i'm i'm incredibly good at that um and i'm constantly fighting that part of me saying that's not helping you that's not helping you at all start talking more you know i don't think i've ever actually talked this much about that period actually until just now thinking about it um we've written about eating disorders and i have mentioned it in in the books but not to this depth you know and there's so much it's ridiculous a long period of life you know and it affects so many things um yeah those are informative years you know going through all of that. I mean, when I went to university, actually, I wasn't someone who lived in halls.

So I didn't have a community. I would actually just drive from home to university and home like that. So it, again, gave me the opportunity just not to talk to anyone. You go to lectures, you sit there, you don't say a word. In the seminars, the teacher points at you and you say the most simple answer so you don't have to say anything more and then the attention goes to someone else you just find these ways of not talking and i think there's a lot of people out there now more than ever because of social media they can say things on social media but not in real life and they feel like that's them talking, but it's not really, you know,

because it's too controlled. You know, you've got to be willing to just open up and let things flow. Do you feel a sense of freedom in a way now that you can speak so openly about that? Yeah, this is a really weird sensation right now, talking like this. This episode is brought to you by Samsung Galaxy.

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based on your day schedule so that you're prepared no matter what. Buy the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra now at Samsung.com. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Libsyn ads. Email bob at libsyn.com to learn more. That's B-O-B at L-I-B-S-Y-N dot com. yeah like it's this is a really weird sensation right now talking like this because um it's just it's as i say it's a ridiculous amount of stuff and you can't write that on a board you can't write that even i mean you could write in a book but it would it would it would have to be a really big book you know um and talking is is so so much more because all those little pauses in what i'm saying you know all those little intricacies in the things i'm saying you can't translate that any

other way than just talking i mean that's why we can talk that's why we've got voices i know i always think it'd be a really interesting experience if anyone's listening say they're on the tube or the bus or maybe they're in the office surrounded by a group of people if everyone just sort of stopped and then like actually offloaded you know what was going on you know when people are like how are you and sometimes you're like I'm great and you really are great and sometimes you're like I'm actually really having a bad day you know this happened that's happened I'm worried about this I'm worried about that you know big stuff small stuff but we're all like yeah good good good fine fine fine and I would love this moment if like the whole world stopped and everyone just was completely honest about what was in their brain what they were thinking

what they were feeling and obviously as I said you'd have an absolute split where some people genuinely are feeling really really great yeah but probably a lot of people are worrying about a lot of things and I wondered if everyone said it out loud at the same time how many people would say the exact same thing yeah that's each other fantastic you know i mean because like you know we all kind of ask each other out of politeness i guess like how are you doing yeah and then not to be a burden or waste the other person's time oh yeah i'm okay yeah it's like if you ask are you really okay like a second time you know they might genuinely say yeah you know i'm fine but it's just yeah to be open and honest and yeah that'd be brilliant i think it would be like there would be poetry in the echo as you say

everyone would be saying a lot not everyone but there would be a lot of people saying the same thing and there would be a there was there would be a sense of harmony in that moment and it's almost you know as you were just saying jeremy it's like what you were going through with your eating disorder created this extreme sense of loneliness but it's a loneliness that can be fostered by lots of other challenges you know be it physical illness mental illness grief but probably feeling very similar feelings of trying to make yourself invisible not a burden or feeling like you don't fit in and again it's it's just those sensations being so universal and Ian I was wondering what your experiences were like kind of getting to this

point and this point of saying I want to break down the barriers I want to share yeah do you know what it's it's just um but over time it's um you know it's like I used to be a train driver I had a young girl jump in front of my train it completely messed me up and um you know, so I used to be a train driver. I had a young girl jump in front of my train. It completely messed me up. And, um, you know, I was scared of the dark for about a year.

I couldn't have the lights off, you know, every, every time I shut my eyes, I'd say, because what happened, it's like our eyes met just as a train hit her and she smiled. So I was kind of left with that image.

Yeah. And it's, um, uh, and it just messed me up big time. Subsequently, like recently, like last year,

the girl got in touch with us. I mean, this is like over 10 years later, I was under the impression that the girl had died. So, so I was carrying that kind of, you know, it was like,

you go through all the emotions. You're like, you're glad that you survived that situation. You feel guilt. You think of her family. You think of her family you think of what she could have been could i've done anything more and then to to have the girl like send us an email 10 years later and jeremy said to me do not read the email you know it's just gonna

you know but i've kind of like uh you know i i've forgiven her and i'm glad that she's alive and you know um you know and i'm glad for her family but it's something i can never forget you know i mean i remember having counseling at the time just after it happened and um you know, and I'm glad for her family, but it's something that I can never forget, you know what I mean? I remember having counselling at the time just after it happened. And, you know, the counsellor said, you know, if she was here and she was in the room with you,

what would you do? And I said, I honestly couldn't tell you whether I'd hug her or want to hit her. You know, my head was in that place, you know, it was just so messed up. But over time with counselling, you realize the importance of talking you know i was kind of trying to protect my own family by saying yeah i'm okay i'm okay but just by bottling it up inside and just yeah i was really beating myself up it's like you know why am i protecting my family

they're they're people that i love that would do anything for me and i can you know talk to them and they're there to help you know unfortunately some people haven't got those people in their lives but you know there are people out there that will listen there are organizations you know that's kind of what what me and jeremy want to do use social media for good you know we share sorry we see people sharing sort of comments and sort of making friends with one another, you know, over certain like boards that we put on about mental health. And it's like, just to see that connection, it's like, oh, wow, you know, I thought I was the only person going through this, you know.

So I think like, you know, since my late teenage years, you know, having anxiety attacks and, you know, I've just realised the importance of talking and to getting it out there. And, you know, Ella, if I said to you, you know, I go through this and you might say, well, I go through that too. And then we can know that we, you know, we're not alone. And, you know, you could share your techniques on how you, you know, deal with yours and I could share mine. You know, it's just important. Sorry, talking is so important, you know, it really is.

However you do it, you know, by, you know, putting out your film on social media or, you know it's um it really is however you do it you know by you know putting how you feel on social media or you know i remember like um like uh i think it was last year it was um you know jeremy's talking about his eating disorder i've i've had this uh sort of problem for seven years it's like um a fear of choking and it and it affects me so like you know if i go out to restaurants you know i'm kind of like hiding the food and just constantly worried about choking on food and it's affected my diet so much and i was i was sitting at the kitchen table my wife was on the sofa and i just had food dribbling out the side of my mouth like a baby and i was making all these gargling noises and i'm like

i'm so fed up of this so i just wrote down on a piece of paper i was making all these gargling noises and i'm like i'm so fed up with this so i just wrote down on a piece of paper i'm going through this is anyone else going through a similar thing and it kind of went viral you know we put it up on social media it wasn't a board or anything it was just me asking for not asking for help but just saying if anyone else has you know something similar going on you know and and uh subsequently i ended up on this morning sort of uh with the the speakmans and they were talking me through it and you know it was it it was something that they could never cure overnight but it was just nice to know that i wasn't alone and it has improved and i can now go out to restaurants like you know

social occasions you know and i've just realized it's like, because I was like, literally, if we was all eating food, I'd be the last to finish, but I wouldn't finish it and my food would go cold and you couldn't eat it at all. And I was always like hiding food under napkins. But now I just order smaller portions and just realise, you know, when I've had enough, I've had enough. I haven't got to beat myself up about it.

It's just nice being with other people, you know. Yeah, so talk, talk, talk. Did you feel you were living in a kind of cloud of fear in some ways? Yeah, yeah, big time. Yeah, big time. Yeah. And it's just, you know, it's kind of like I was always trying to protect other people, but just like by saying, I'm okay, you know,

it's like, you know know putting a brave face on things but why put a brave face on things you know it's just um and did you think this is something just I found that in my own life because that's what I did for a really long time yeah we'll just like draw away from people and just give them like a very surface level like yeah fine yeah um you know even with people who are very very close with that actually it's like really counterproductive and i didn't it took me a long time to understand that and change because it's incredibly difficult but actually you're trying to protect people but in a way you're not because you're sort of pushing them away and you're not therefore really helping

them or yourself to a degree absolutely and they can they can kind of see it they can see what you're going through but they they can't really you know they want to do everything they can to help and you know yeah and did you both or either of you have a moment where you kind of had that internal dialogue of thinking okay i've been living like this for however long and and to your point there of almost like writing it down and putting it out there but saying i don't want to live like this anymore i need to ask for help and that kind of being stage one and almost like privately asking for help and then stage two being like and now actually i want to break down the barriers so that anyone else it

doesn't have to go the same way well for me it's like a process over time it's like sort of receiving counseling and just you know and I realized you know I was I was obsessively like I started obsessively talking to people how I was feeling and the incidents that happened to the point where I got to the point where you know what I don't want to talk about this anymore I'm boring myself and then I kind of realized it was kind of like, you know, I think I'm getting there, you know. Yeah, for me it was like going back through that period with my eating disorder. It was, I had that moment of clarity, but I don't think that came just out of the blue.

I think it was building up to that in a similar way to you. I talk to myself a lot, almost like a third person interview in my head. Sometimes you're walking along and like you're talking, you're like, it sounded like I'm talking like in an interview in my head. Um, and I was already going through all that stuff and seeing,

talking about how inadequate I am and how, um, how much of a failure I am and all these really negative things all the time. That so many of us say to ourselves. And it was constant. And, um, and it was constant and um and it was during that period and and because i was as i say i was at university i was going back and forth not really talking to anyone um i only had myself to talk to but then i kind of like um started to get bored like you say you start to get bored of the negative stuff and i don't know what it is i

must have had some kind of strength in me and i think that was when i realized there is some strength in me somewhere because i'm still here despite all that negative stuff i'm still here so what what is that um and and then i started thinking about the things that i do enjoy and i went i enjoy watching movies and uh writing stories and all these kind of things and and at that time i was actually watching the tv show buffy the vampire slayer and i became obsessed with it was like the greatest thing ever and um and the character of buffy was just like this this this amazing hero who despite all of this stuff and obviously obviously doing it all in secret she's still there and she's still fighting for the whole world kind of thing i'm like oh you know there's a bit of that going on in me as well so um you know i i connected with that and i think it was just after it was during

that period as i was watching it was just after that kind of thought process i woke up that day and had this kind of like i guess epiphany that i'm going to die i need to stop this and i did go to the doctor and of course the first thing the doctor did was um diagnosed me with depression and an eating disorder and said right here, here's tablets, take these tablets. And I was like, so medication. So you start taking a medication. And after about a week or so, it started making me nauseous. And that's the one thing that I hate the most.

Everything is feeling nauseous. It's just like I can deal with most other kind of things, but nausea, no, thank you. And I just literally bin them and i said right i don't like that but but that i obviously need something because the doctor said i need something and i need something so what else can i do so i just um found my own solution which was to start binge eating weird things that solution but when you were that like on the verge of i was you know i was completely undernourished. I had to, I started to binge eat in secret to try and help myself in that way. And it was

literally one bite a day. And that became my thing. One bite more a day of a really bad pizza in a local place. And it was always open. So I'd go there after work, binge on this pizza by just having one extra bite a day. And I started gaining weight, basically. And then I started doing other things like exercise. I was like, OK, let me try some exercise. And I think that was when I realized I'm actually stronger physically as well than I realized I was because I'm able to do some of these exercises I thought would just kill me. So I started doing that as well. And then I went through this period where actually my health got really, really good.

I was like, wow. And people started noticing it. And their demeanor towards me was completely different like they weren't so abusive to me you know like random comments and things like that didn't happen anymore um and yeah that starts to have effects as well but yeah and what do you are there tools that you do now or kind of things that like maybe just reminders for yourself or practical things that you come back to it is mostly reminders i think in the head and obviously what we do with all in the board because because when we're feeling that inadequacy or whatever we just write about it now and we're lucky that we've got that output you know we've got that that space to

do that and other people don't have that but then people do have that because social media you can do anyway or people around you can talk to i've got two kids you know i'm everything i do is is for my family now you know um so i'm always visualizing them in my head you know what can i pass on to them for my lessons because they might go through similar things you know my parents didn't know what i was going through so how can i know what they're going to go through or how can I give them the tools to tell me what they're going through? And, you know,

these kinds of things it's, it's, yeah. Yeah. No, it's nice just dropping little reminders out there to people. It's like, you know,

it's like, you're not weak. You're tired from being strong. You know what I mean? It's just like intrusive thoughts, you know, it's like, Oh,

the voice in my head. Well, no, actually you've got control over that voice in the head. You know, you can tell it to shut intrusive thoughts, you know, it's like, oh, the voice in my head. Well, no, actually, you've got control over that voice in the head. You know, you can tell it to shut up whenever you want. You know, it takes time, but, you know, you can learn to find space, can't you, between yourself and that voice? Yeah, yeah. I mean, for a while, you know, it's just like, again, we work on the underground and like sometimes and it did scare me quite a bit. It's like I'd be walking along the platform and because of what had happened to me it's like you know i'd get

this voice going oh you know you had someone jump in front of your train why don't you do it and i'm like whoa like hold on where did that come from you know i mean it's just and then you know over time you realize no hold on it's like it's i i can control this you know i can tell it to shut up you know if you're not gonna get on with me or entertain me or like help me out, then, you know, just go away. Yeah, basically. It's just realizing that, you know, it's like perfection doesn't exist. You know, it's like you're not alone. And, you know, we all have, you know, you know, our imperfections are just differences that should be celebrated. And am I right in saying that gratitude is one of the things that you come back to a lot as well? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Basically, just grateful to, you know, celebrate every little achievement like a glorious win. You know what I mean?

It really is, you know, just getting out of bed on some days. It's like know yeah i got out of bed you know it's like you know i won't give myself a medal for it or you know but it's just like yeah you've done all right you know but life's the medal isn't it yeah you're still here enjoying it yeah i'm genuinely like that that period of my life i shouldn't be here considering how things were going but the fact i am here is just like i'm still here this is amazing as long as i've got we've we've all we've all got a limited amount of time you know and and unfortunately these kind of things end up wasting so much of it and then you're kind of like trying to catch up but um that that becomes itself a negative thing because you're not trying to grab

everything you can it exhausts you again so you've got to just like accept sometimes you have amazing things happening some days you're just too tired but you're still here and as long as you're here keep going and enjoy as much as you can you know everything from a cup of tea to um just just being out in in what's not raining or when it is raining just enjoy the rain whatever it is you know just try and find some enjoyment in it um and when you can't enjoy it just accept tomorrow is going to be better you've got through really bad days before there's going to be bad days in the future it's going to be good days in the future um and yeah the gratitude is like actually with what we're doing now i mean here we are you know it wasn't until we're almost 40 that all on the board happened so every little thing like meeting

you like doing this kind of thing all these kind of things that we're doing is just like amazing to us it's like blowing our minds every single time we do this kind of stuff it's like how can we be how comes we're doing this well we're here because we got through that stuff and we never gave up so if we can be here at this kind of you know age having any kind of success if you want to look at this as success then everybody should just be willing to keep going and you know you never know what might happen you might come up with something amazing and do something amazing and just what we do come across a lot of people that have like anxiety attacks on on the tubes you know because they're crowded they're hot and you know and it's

just to like you know if you could if you have an anxiety attack write down how you're feeling and next time you have one you know it's evidence to you that you got like, you know, if you have an anxiety attack, write down how you're feeling. And next time you have one, you know, it's evidence to you that you got through it, you know what I mean? It's just, yeah. It must be really humbling and kind of fascinating at the same time watching everyone on their journeys every day. It's just like, I always think it's interesting on the Tube or any kind of crowded space like that to watch people go about their days.

And I guess I've become so interested and attuned to how people seem to be feeling and how they're interacting with one another that I've just become fascinated by watching it but you can really see people who are struggling or feeling down but the way that it is quite invisible I'll never forget I had this tube journey I was um at work in um by Liverpool Street which is in East London and my mother-in-law had been um very very ill for a year and when we knew we were reaching kind of towards the end and but obviously things turned really really quickly and I was literally about to walk on stage to do a talk. I'd had the microphone on. I just had one of those weird feelings to check my phone.

And so I did. And I had three missed calls from my husband. So I obviously called him back. And his mum had had, she just, something had turned. And it was really clear that actually we'd gone from thinking we had months to thinking we might have hours or, you know max a couple of days so I literally just walked out I didn't even tell anyone I was leaving and there was this whole crowd of people and I literally just walked out and it's that strange thing exactly as we were talking about earlier where

you're completely numb you're completely you're like in this busy crowded like events you know 10,000 people in the space but you're completely alone in it and i walked to the tube and i got on the tube and when i sat down on the tube and it was the middle of the day so it was relatively quiet and i just had this complete breakdown and it's absolutely hysterical and i was going all the way across london to west london where my mom was going to pick me up and drive me down because my husband was already with his family and they don't live in london i cried the whole way and no one spoke to me and it's one of those you know you have those experiences i don't say this as like sure everyone on the tube that is so nice i don't say it as a criticism but

it was one of those just those moments that stick with you where you think this is so weird the world's got to change like there's something wrong with this like as in i i i was you know young in my in my 20s and i was there and you know I was like dressed for work so I you know I clearly needed help and no one no one even looked at me it was anyway and it always stuck me as this fascinating thing of everyone going through things but we're so scared to say the wrong thing that we don't say anything and I think what you guys are doing of putting yourselves out there and always saying something and letting people see that every day when they're in on their way to work having those

moments it's it's just amazing do you know what i just want to say if these microphones weren't in the way i'd have come over and given you a hug yeah because yeah yeah just um but but yeah you're right it's like it is weird it's that we've got all these tools now to communicate with you know social media and that. And yet we are kind of like in our own little cocoons. And it just seems the art of conversation is kind of like disappeared. You know, I think we should have, why one day a year? But it should be, you know, they should put up posters where,

you know, on your tube journey, you've got to say hello to at least 10 people before you get to your destination. You know, I mean, how, how crazy would that be? But it would be nice, you know, or you've got to hug three people if you want to, before you get to your destination, you know, it's just, yeah, it's, it's mad. Just everyone on their own little journeys and just, you know, it's just like, kind of like, you know, I was on the tube the other day and it's just like, I think there was about 20 people on the carriage, you know, it wasn just like, kind of like, you know, I was on the tube the other day and it's just like, I think there was about 20 people on the carriage, you know, it wasn't during the peak. And I counted how many people were on their phones

and out of the 20 people, there was like 17 people on their phones and it was like... Yeah, you're kind of missing everything around you. Yeah, yeah. I kind of miss the days of newspapers and like elbows kind of nudging you and stuff, you know. You can't do that anymore. There's too many people packed in now to even get a newspaper out.

But no, it's interesting you're saying that about your journey that time because I'm currently off work because I'm grieving because my mum passed away at the end of January. And it's been really tough because it was really sudden. And I'm going to be going back to work in a couple of weeks' time. And it's been playing on my mind a little bit like, cause all our followers kind of know, and they're probably,

you know, thinking when they see me, they're going to give me a hug or they're not sure if they can, or whether they can say hello or what, what to say. And I'm thinking in my head, well, um,

I don't even know how I'm going to react. So we're, we're all thinking like, we don't know, we don't know. So why not just do what what is natural to you you know like people want to come over and give me a hug people want to come and say hi or wave in the distance or whatever thumbs up whatever that's fine you know um because i might well tear

up or might cry because that's how i do things that's me in general um and i don't want people to feel like oh that's really awkward or bad. Cause you know, he's crying, crying. Tears are just messages from the heart, right? That, that you have to come out and they come out in the way that they come out. So, um, it's a, it's a weird thing that's been playing in my mind. Like I'm going to cry. I definitely am going to cry at some point. And I don't want to weird anyone out and make them feel like, oh, they're the reason why

I'm crying or, you know, anything like that. Um, and then you go through that whole, i'm trying to defend protect people from feeling bad about things or whatever like that again it's like well no not really it's just the way it is it's just a part of life isn't it and it's it's so interesting how scared we are of saying something because we're scared of saying the wrong thing and i remember you know talking to my husband about it afterwards and it's you know he felt you know and i'm not sure if this how your experience all but like so lonely because people often don't say anything because they're scared that if they say something they'll upset you or they'll say the wrong thing but as a result you end up feeling really cut off because no one was not that they don't want to talk about

it but as i said it's the fear of saying the wrong thing that means people often say nothing yeah and it's really interesting one again just about breaking down the barriers and i think the more we talk about all of our experiences in our life the more comfortable everyone is to say okay you know what it's okay it's okay to talk about it it's okay to have whatever emotional response to it and as a result we all feel infinitely more connected and compassionate to each other you know but i think because of that period of me being completely isolating myself to so many people and everything around me in society in general it has given me this kind of particular ability to spot that in people who i have no idea who they are and i think that's probably like what happened when i was working on

the tube that day and the lady it was it was it was incredibly busy it was king's cross station so you can imagine really busy and it was literally just me and one other member of staff there and finally enough talking about rule breaking and stuff like that, earlier on we were saying, I was breaking a rule on that duty that time because I was told to go to another part of the station, which would have left my colleague on their own. And it got incredibly busy, but I decided to stay with my colleague. I disobeyed orders, basically, stayed with them.

And then this lady came through the crowd and it was just like this crazy thing where it's almost like a like a light spotlight on that one person in this crowd that i saw like oh she doesn't seem right someone doesn't seem right and i just asked her are you okay and she kind of stopped i think just shocked by the fact that i spoke to her and and stared at me what what seemed like forever but it was literally just seconds and just stared at me and said no actually no I'm not and then you know long story short she eventually admitted that she was gonna do something and um and I had effectively you know broke that thought process and stopped that happening by just saying are you okay um and obviously you know there's all the science that you by just saying are you okay um and obviously you know

there's all the science that you don't say are you okay that there's because it's a really easy one to just say yes to but if you see you you can there are other ways you can say things and keep talking to people and find out you can ask them a second time or third time or find another way to ask them an open question um but if you don't even say anything that moment is gone and then that you know you don't know what's going to happen then so like you say you know we're scared to say the wrong thing but saying something is so important even for moments like that it's so important just to say something whatever it might be did you ever stay in touch with her no it's kind of like what what happened you, wasn't it?

Like you don't get the information. You know, once it's out of your hands and it's now in the police hands or whoever, you never hear anything again. So you don't know, you know, did you have a real impact over it? But if you've given that person one more day, the other people can come involved and fix things or help things or whatever. But yeah, it was like 45

minutes she wouldn't let go of my arm like the police came and there was a psychologist and all this and that and she wouldn't like let me go she'd become like attached to what i was saying it's like you know the person that she trusted in that moment and um and i think i'd probably be the same as well i think anyone would be you know that, you know, this person has kind of done something for you and you don't know the other people around you. And you're in that space that's such a bad place that some people end up in. It just, it was what it was. But, you know, I hope, I hold on to the hope that things worked out, you know. And that was the first time I had another lady like i think about four or five

months later at the same station as well but this time on an actual platform where i intervened as well and we've both done that we've both you know we've both intervened with people in all kinds of situations panic attacks how many times we've done events where someone's having a panic attack and they don't know what to do and they've never had one before they think they're having a heart attack and you just kind of like get them through it you know it's part of the part of the job um and it feels incredibly good when you help someone like that you know that's one of the best parts of our job i think on the underground separate of all on the board um it's one of the best parts of our job is those moments um because you actually feel like you're

making a difference and i think we've gone through we've always wanted to make a difference i mean i certainly i have um you know in this life yeah now we're in a position where we are making a difference in an extended manner so yeah and just you know what we went through with a pandemic you know just being told that we've got to keep apart you know it's just surely it should make us realize how much we really need each other you know it's just i've never you know what you talked about about gratitude i'm so grateful to be able to hug people again you know to be able to you know to hug my family and my loved ones you know i remember sort of beating up with my mom but like uh sort of during the pandemic and she would uh bought

this uh she looked like a five foot condom she had bought this mac where she was able to hug me oh my god i saw those on the internet didn't know anyone actually had one yeah yeah no no she did yeah and it was the strangest things like we kind of met in a car park kept our distance we kind of run together for about 10 seconds she told me how long i could hug her for with this uh five foot condom on or whatever it was and uh yeah just being able to hug each other and you know and that should have taught us how much we need each other you know just being like isolated in our own homes it's just yeah it's just i do appreciate people a lot more since this is probably quite a hard question but if you've learned one thing from starting to share your experiences and writing

these messages of hope and understanding and yeah they're making people feel seen and understood or giving them that optimism um and pause for thought what do you what do you think that one learning might be i don't know about you it's just i realize that you know it's a big. And however lonely I feel, I know that I'm not alone. And you just see other people saying the same thing. You know, it's just we're not alone. You know, we should be all in it together. You know, no matter our circumstances, you know, it's just that we go through similar things.

We have similar conditions and just we do need each other. You know, we go through good days, bad days, but we have days and we just should be do need each other you know so we go through good days bad days but we have days and we just should be there for each other you know i think also that we're all stronger than we realize because there's there's some people who send us messages say oh you sent at the right time thank you so much if it wasn't for you i wouldn't be it's like well we're your cheerleader but you're the one who's been taking the weight and you're the one who's got you here to read the message in the first place and take the message in because you know it's all perspective they could read the message some people do read the message and say oh that's a load of nonsense um and the other person reads and says oh my god that's a perfect message it's

like it's the same words you're just both reading it a different way and it's impacting you differently if you want to choose that it's the wrong words then you're going to see it's the wrong words and then it's not for you but you're still here something's getting you through here and the other person finds something in there and it's getting through but it's you're both getting through because of who you are and so many things you have no idea of in your past and happening to you right now and everyone's got everyone has a strength that's why you're still here sometimes things get too much you know and then unfortunately it doesn't doesn't happen but sometimes um you get into a ridiculously stressful dark space and yet you

get through it and you've got through it because of you you know yeah and just to cut in just the the importance of kindness honestly really you know it is so important to be kind to one another you know i mean it's just you know it's like being kind to someone it gives you a good feeling they're obviously getting a good feeling because you know and then it's just the whole sort of passing it on effect you know it's just you know we don't know what one another is going through so just just be kind to use social media for good you know you know when you can add banter and stuff like that but just use it for good you know we should be building each other up not breaking each other down you know exactly that be kind to yourself kind to others and know that

you're not alone and literally everything will be wonderful to to live amongst really i love that thank you both so much and thank you for sharing so honestly honestly honestly it makes i know you can underestimate what a huge difference it makes to people's lives um so i hope everyone listening has really felt that but i feel so so grateful for both of your time today thank you thank you for having us thank you thank you so much thank you thank you thank you so much i have to say meeting and talking to ian and jeremy was a real highlight of 2023 so far all of our guests are spectacular and they all have these extraordinary stories that i know i personally have been deeply inspired by but i think what resonated so much to me was how different both of their stories were

how much their vulnerability has inspired truly tens of millions of people and shown that whilst it sounds simple being just kind and compassionate and thoughtful to one another is so incredibly important you know we really don't know what other people are going through you will walk past hundreds maybe thousands of people depending on what you're doing in any given day such as walking through the tube or the underground or a bus or however you move around where you live and you just don't know what the person next to you is going through and I think both of their stories really illustrate that and so I think that lens of awareness and compassion is just so important for us to create the world that we also want to live in equally accepting support and love and compassion again from our friends and family even when we feel like we want to isolate again it sounds simple

but I think it makes the world of difference to sharing those challenges and knowing that we're not alone in that and then within that finding moments of joy of gratitude even in the most boring or difficult days and I think that's what their signs are all about is trying to find a pause in the kind of minutiae of the world that we live in and the kind of daily grind as often we can look at it and find those moments of hope of inspiration of of optimism. So I hope you found it interesting to hear what they've been through, the tools that they use. Remember, we have all of those tools at your disposal on the Delicious Cielo app for relating back to this episode, but also every episode in this season. If you don't have the app yet,

there's a free weeks trial so you can get started with absolutely no commitment. And as always, I would love to hear your thoughts on this whole series, on the episode. I will miss you while we're on a break. So we're going on an Easter break now, it's the end of this season. But please do email us podcast at deliciousiella.com. You can find us on social at Deliciousiella. And while we're on on a break we'll be re-releasing our best of episodes so the episodes that you've loved the most and also that I feel are the most impactful in terms of improving our health and our well-being so they'll span from the last five or six years covering everything from period power to the importance of sleep with Matthew Walker stress your day-to-day environment,

how food affects our mood. So a huge amount of information, a wealth of knowledge to inspire your everyday health. So I hope you enjoy that. I will see you soon. Thank you for listening. Thank you for being part of our community and a huge thank you to Curly Media who are our partners in producing the show. You're a podcast listener, and this is a podcast ad heard only in Canada. Reach great Canadian listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one across thousands of shows to reach your target audience with Libsyn Ads.

Email bob at libsyn.com to learn more. That's B-O-B at L-I-B-S-Y-N dot com.