InsideAMind of Jeff Brazier | Dealing With Grief, Reality TV & Fatherhood #32

:: 00:00

Welcome back to the podcast. I'm Tom and I'm Joe and this is Inside of Mind, a podcast brought to you by the I Am Podcast team, and season two is focusing on men's mental health and well-being. It's an absolute pleasure to be joined by Jeff Brazier today.

:: 00:15

Thank you so much for coming on, Guys, the round of applause should be for you. That was a really slick opening. I'm really really proud of you.

:: 00:22

Yeah, something we try to practice a lot, but something I've butchered a lot as well over the years I noticed you did the heavy lifting there.

:: 00:29

Did you not trust Joe with any more words?

:: 00:31

No, not anymore. Maybe I'll add more words, just his name. Did you have that written down with your hand, joe? Joe, reading it, I can do this one. So I was going to start this off with just saying can you tell the listeners and viewers a bit about you and a bit about your story.

:: 00:48

Yeah, I mean, that's such a big, open question, isn't it? So, bearing in mind the title of the podcast is Inside Minds. I would say that I'm 45.

I've lived a really interesting, varied life.

There's been lots and lots of challenges, lots of lessons and, as a result, lots of growth and development and um really proud of how I've um navigated my way through through a lot of stuff and no doubt there'll always be more bumps in the road ahead, um, but I always enjoyed having conversations like this because I think that there's always some really useful things that might be relevant for other people.

You know, we can approach things in so many different ways and obviously, the ways that I feel I've navigated for example, bringing up children on my own and, you know, in my younger years being fostered and kind of the sort of disadvantages of your attachment styles that sort of ensue as a result of maybe, you know, not being around your primary caregiver for those formative years there's a lot of really interesting stuff in there got something going on, um, and I I like to kind of just dispel that misconception that that everyone in the public eye is living some sort of perfect instagram life, um. So, you know, I I really love offering um a piece of me, if you like. Um, if it helps the next person to kind of look in, so well, it's not just me, um, and if there's anything useful that I can come out with in in the next person to kind of look in and say, well, it's not just me, and if there's anything useful that I can come out with in the next hour, then it'll be good. You already have.

:: 02:32

Absolutely. You've already given me the compliment of the week so far.

:: 02:37

Well, I'll just go now, then. So wrap it up. What's new with you? What's going?

:: 02:42

on. It's always new. It's the start of a new year. It's been a good start. It's involved a bit of travel. It's involved a family holiday, which is much needed. My kids are 20 and 21, so time together is scarce these days, so to have them sort of around the dinner table, breakfast table, lunch table and to be able to do things with them is something I really appreciate.

uh, I've had a strong sort of: 2024

And so just today, today started off bad. I've felt really unsettled and unsatisfied. I had the hump that a work trip is going to be taking me to Hull University soon. I was also a little bit niggled. Shout out Hull University. Shout out all you unibods at Hull. Yeah, I don't know. Sometimes you just can't explain what it is or why it is. And also I'm careful not to search for a surface level reason as to why I feel. I just did feel like that.

Um, so I'm always like right, what can I do to change that? So I put on, I looked up what a nice calming frequency was and I think it was 532 megahertz. Um, whacked it on and uh, yeah, 20 minutes later I was sitting there feeling all right, it's not giving me a headache, it must be, must be all right. But what does it do? Right? And that's the thing with marginal gays. If you're a fit and healthy individual, uh, and everything seems to be sort of like all right, how do you measure the, the impact that these, these new changes have? But what I will say is that I went to paddle this morning. I was all right, spent some time with some friends, social box ticked. I had a pt session at uh 2 30 and you know what first thing she always says is right, get on the, get on the skierg and off you go. No one likes a skier Joe probably does.

:: 05:24

Joe definitely likes a skier. He's definitely pulling it so fast compared to everyone else.

:: 05:29

All right, what about a skier? And then the 500 meters she asked me to do and she always wants me to be under two minute pace and I just some days I'm like oh, oh, this feels like the hardest thing ever. Guess what? Today, thanks to the healing frequencies of 532 megahertz, I absolutely banged it out and I was like this is gonna be a good session and it was. I felt good, felt good lads, I'm gonna lie.

:: 05:57

How long have you been into stuff like that? You said the 532 frequencies how long have you been kind of focusing on that health and wellness like little things, little changes like that.

:: 06:07

Yeah, I'd have to consider myself spiritual as of 20 years ago when I started meditation, uh, but that has probably increased over the years, and I think it especially increases when my kids have reached an age where they don't really need me so much, nor nor want me to meddle in their business, so it leaves, you know, as per empty nest syndrome that people may talk about around you, I definitely have more space for me than I have ever had. So I guess that sort of what I like to fill with that space is spiritual practice. So when it comes to Instagram saying, oh look, you could have one of these and and see how that goes, like that, that for me, I'm like all day long let me try. That might be absolutely rubbish or actually might sort of do something, but I'll give it a go. So I I love going to festivals like love jam and medicine, and I'm sure there's lots more out there that I could go to, because every time I go there, I always discover something that's good for me that I didn't realize, like Love, jam and Medicine, and I'm sure there's lots more out there that I could go to, because every time I go there, I always discover something that's good for me that I didn't realize existed.

I love ecstatic dancing, and I didn't at first, because actually I feel quite self-conscious. For starters, you're sober, it's the daytime, often the morning, and there's a big sort of room full of you, uh, or tent, as it were, uh, surrounding a dj who's playing absolute bangers, but everyone's going all out like they're at different sort of point in their journey to to you. So, like, at first you're sort of like side to side, and then all of a sudden, you're starting to loosen up a little bit, so you just start to just let go of that self-consciousness. That isn't really doesn't serve us at all, does it? But you understand why it's there, um, that's something I'd definitely like to reduce and work on.

There's another thing that I always target when I go to these places and that is um play therapy really amazing work, um. And there's there's a guy called benergy rising. Look him up on instagram. Uh, he is a bit of a sort of um expert in the field, let's say he goes all over europe sort of doing it, and everyone they're always really sort of busy, so I think that everyone recognizes that they're in.

A child could do with a bit of a workout at times, and so you go in there and they start sort of asking you to to pretend you're a ball or pretend you're this and that, and then you start start working around the group and again you've got to sort of reduce that, that feeling of self-consciousness, and and then by the end of it you're you're in a child's, having a whale of a time and you're like this is exactly what I needed. So so yeah, I'm very open-minded to answer your question and I know that there is, like I'm scratching the surface in terms of what I know is out there, um, that that would benefit not just me but anybody interesting love that.

:: 08:59

So you said you started 20 years ago your spiritual journey. One what was the catalyst for that change? Do you think it was? Or two, do you think it's taking 20 years to get to where you are now, to figure out what you like in that spirituality, and you think you're still trying new things all the time?

:: 09:11

it's an extensive menu, so it's. It's just trying trying out what you fancy at any one time. I'll always love a sound meditation. Okay, the most beautiful, that's frequencies. To be honest, I bet if I asked someone that does that like what frequency is is each specific bowl should say, oh, that's five, three, two or something like that yeah interesting, um.

So yeah, extensive menu, um, but yeah, 20 years ago are I think that what I've always sort of been looking to do is simply survive, um I I think that it's a shame to have to look at life like that sometimes. Sometimes, sometimes it can sound a little bit sort of dramatic, but I guess when, when you're fostered at a young age, you're not with your mom, you're with two strangers, effectively, and they're sort of disciplining you, and and sort of telling you what you can and can't do, and you know, you just feel lost, right, lost right, um.

So I think sort of that's where the survival element comes from. And I think 20 years ago is around about the time um, not quite 20 years ago, but I'd started it before around but um, see the boys losing their, their mum and and obviously realizing that, right, there's a lot of responsibility on me. I think that I saw meditation as being something that was going to provide me with some balance, and I've always like again, balance can be overlooked in terms of its significance, but I happen to think that if you have balance in your life, then you're going to fare better than someone who isn't really even trying to calibrate the scales in their life and kind of what they need versus what they, what they need less of I just want to talk.

:: 10:45

Come back to the point you just said about losing your ex-wife. If you're going through that grief, how did you deal with it while trying to protect your children? How was that mentally for you?

:: 10:56

I probably didn't in truth, and I could say this in retrospect, and it took me a good seven or eight years to work out that. I probably completely distracted myself from feeling anything along the lines of how the wife feel about the loss. She wasn't my wife, we hadn't been together for two years, and that's probably what I would say to myself is, it's not about me, this is about the kids, about their loss, and that's right. But there has to be room for for you as well, there has to be a little bit of acknowledgement of the fact that your life has just changed overnight, the, the, the responsibility that that rests solely on your shoulders as as multiplied significantly. So give yourself a little bit of like room to feel.

Yeah, no matter how sort of you know negative that those feelings would would effectively be, but I just wasn't who I was and that wasn't part of my coping strategy. It wasn't what got me through my childhood so effectively. I was going to go back into something that was comfortable and something that was known to me and that was to to to cope, and that was to um, to to cope by being positive and looking forwards. Um, so I used it's the way I describe it the shield of positivity to um, to bat off any of the sort of the negative feelings or the you know, the feelings of oh, this is tough or anything like that, didn't allow myself to feel it, couldn't even see it. Um, it was all about right. What do the boys need? Um, and yeah, seven or eight years in, I actually remember going on um loose women. Um, they were interviewing about something I was doing at the time and and they they sort of um scuppered me a little bit by playing a montage of of jade clips um, which they didn't tell me they was going to do. I don't mind that they did it, because it helped me to just unlock the fact that I was watching it.

I came on crying because it it was almost like I think you can become immune to certain images of people that we've lost, and I would go through pictures of um the boy's mum with them. Um, but there's something um different from a still image to a, to a moving image of that person. All of a sudden, it just it it, even though it's eight years, anyone who's experienced grief will have learned that um, grief doesn't work in a, in a linear pattern, in that it doesn't matter that it was eight years or 18 or 28 years ago. Uh, the truth is, you can still feel it like it was eight minutes ago, um, and in that moment I was sort of just. It was almost like it just showed me that I hadn't actually thought about myself up until that, that that time. So I think I had to adjust and correct that slightly.

Um, I had to make a little bit more more room for myself. I think I started to have therapy extensively at that point. Um, not because I thought that the world was going to come crashing down, but I just saw that as a this is going to help me and it, you know, it absolutely did, and I don't regret uh, doing that, or so. In fact, I continued way beyond the point of feeling like I needed to. Um, so, yeah, it it's a lot of responsibility, um, bringing up boys on your own, and obviously they're they're, they're 20 and 21 now. So I can kind of look back and feel really proud of of how it went.

I wish that I didn't put the pressure on myself that I did. I didn't want to fail them. I didn't want to fail at being a dad, so I kind of felt like I needed a bit of solution to everything and that's just a real false sort of flag. Actually, really to be good enough, we just got to be a good menu, um, because kids are gonna they're gonna look at you and there'll be certain traits where they're like, yeah, I, I feel like dad in that respect and also they, they might look and think that I really like the way dad speaks to other people, like that's what I'm gonna sort of embody. It's more of a conscious decision anyway. Uh, and the rest of it 90 of it they'll probably pie off because they're not you, you're not them and they're they're gonna sort of do it their own way, as they should.

Um, but there was no need for the extent of the, the pressure that I put on, because really I couldn't fail if I, just if I created a safe container, a safe space for them, um, and if I was just consistent with that, that love and acceptance of whatever they were and whatever stage they were at. Um, so yeah, I'd say to any parent listening to this at early stage of that journey um, just being a good menu, is, is, is more than enough and sharing as much love as you can, is, is is always gonna yeah good enough by those kids. Thank you for sharing that, mate. I appreciate that.

:: 15:45

I just wanted to. We talk about journaling quite a lot, or have talked about journaling. You wrote a book called the Grief Survival Guide. Did you find actually writing about experiences and dealing with experience helped you in like a journaling kind of way?

:: 15:59

Yeah, I think it comes back to the survival element of. There's probably an element of me that's like right, how can I help my kids? Um, I know, let me write a book on on grief and then, you know, we can read it together and and hopefully, that's a way of them being able to get, um, the support, need, the kind of insight that that they might benefit from. Uh, invariably, the the knock-on effects is also that lots of people get to read something accessible that's written in a language that they can understand, without any sort of really, um tough language that that they find, you know, will stop them from, from actually sort of going a little bit further.

So, uh, that's probably my sole purpose for for um, writing the book, something I'm proud of. It took over my life for for a good year. Um, one of the worst experiences in my life was when you've you're so proud of what you've written and then someone from the publisher um sort of puts a red pen through a lot of it and starts taking it away from you get, really, it's like, it's like your baby yeah, this book and um, when they start sort of suggesting that it should sort of sound different or be written differently, and all of a sudden it doesn't sound like you anymore you know I really think that this is what.

What will be important is that people can hear that this is from me, that people can relate to it as well. Yeah, so we're all in it together, kind of thing. Yeah, um, but yeah, I forgot that. I've wrote it sometimes, but I said it's lovely to to sort of put it on your cv very cool.

:: 17:34

I want to take you back to the, the jeff of the seven and a half years post where you were putting on a, I guess, a performance or an act of happy-go-lucky positivity. How is that person there? Because you're a very happy, positive person now for the most part, obviously with your down days as well. How is that person different to then? Because obviously not that you're putting on an act now, but you're a very happy, positive person. What is the difference, would you say?

:: 17:57

Letting in negative emotions. That always felt to me like that would be a really silly thing to do. Why would we allow ourselves to feel negative if we have the choice of feeling positive instead? Why wouldn't I try and put a positive spin on everything? Why wouldn't I just look forwards? And I think what I've learned is the answer to that is well, you're really not having a full human experience if you are blocking half of it out. Even as I say it like the logic checks out is like yeah, let's just be positive about everything, but you're inaccessible is another thing. You are inauthentic and inaccessible. So when people see you doing that, you very often are the last person that they'll come to with an issue, even though by then I'd probably sort of done my life coaching qualification and lots of people were happy to come for coaching. But when I realised that what I didn't want is for that to be a barrier between my children sharing how they felt about their loss. So I had to quickly adjust that, and I think a lot of us probably do it. I think a lot of us probably do it. I think a lot of us probably just try and power through and sort of limit ourselves, hoping that it's all right. No one will notice.

But I learned that lesson, I think, when I did the SAS program and I remember typically being very supportive of everybody else, which I've always felt very comfortable doing. There's always been a part of my sort of makeup to talk everyone sort of around me. I'm a thinking footballer but I'll always be giving information and sort of looking out for everybody else, so making sure that everybody had the right weight in their burger and making sure that their water bottles were full up and stuff like that. It's going to get you a beast in if you don't. But what I had to realise is that I was always on the periphery of the group. I was never in the middle of it. They were really fully a part of it and it was part of me. That probably didn't allow myself to get that close to people. I kept a safe distance and that's straight out of my childhood.

I remember as a kid being quite a loner and I would go to um into romford on my own, even though I had a best mate school. I had to sort of really think about it why it didn't make sense, why wouldn't I've gone into town with, with mark or with tom, um, simply because I guess that I was subconsciously deciding, even at that age which is probably about 11, that it was just safer and easier to be on my own and I'd go to McDonald's, get a little scratch card, trivial Pursuits, hopefully win a free chips, and off I'd go to the cinema. And I feel quite sad and sorry for my 11-year-old self that he didn't sort of feel safe around people. Um, to that extent, um, but yeah, bringing it, bringing it sort of back to that realization about right, how do I make myself more accessible, how do I sort of put myself back in the middle? Because, by the way, through my whole 20s, I was in the middle of everything, so it wasn't like it wasn't something that I did or wasn't something that I managed to kind of work through. At that point where you know I was, it's just in the middle of like everything. I'd loads of friends probably too many, to be honest trying to sort of be friends with everybody. But, um, yeah, in in the end you're just like right, okay, I need to. I need to start sharing my vulnerabilities, because if I share my vulnerabilities, then people are going to talk to me about theirs and I, at this stage in my life, I want that, or I prefer that, rather than being what I was throughout my 30s, let's say, say which is I'm going to just hit everything with positivity, but no one's really going to be able to identify with that. So, yeah, I made myself instantly more accessible.

The more I started talking about vulnerability, I realized that I'm being a better menu for my kids, because they're more likely to be able to share theirs, and it makes you far more human, which is the point of our existence, right? So? So I want to experience the full um, the full sort of menu that life has to offer, and I didn't want to limit myself by just um, you know, denying myself the right to feel. I have the right to feel. I'm still enough, I'm still a good person, I'm allowed to go through um, through down times and, and to experience negatives and and, actually, like the biggest revelation ever is, when you actually express some of those down times, other people find it much easier to support you. I've never really been that comfortable with with allowing others to support me, but it's far more of something that I enjoy. Now I've learned to enjoy it, learned that it can be really enjoyable and it feels, as I say, really human to do that. So there's a lot of transition.

:: 23:19

That process of letting things in more than you might not have done for the first 20 or 30 years of your life. Let's is that. Is that tiring does that weigh you down a little bit, like you do just crash?

:: 23:29

uh yeah, I think you're imagining that there's sort of like a, a weight yeah the, the, the minute you acknowledge it. Only then does it become heavy yeah and I've never really thought about that.

Joe, do you know you should, should do this more often. You've asked a really insightful question there, mate. Um yeah, um. So so was there a weight? Yeah, I was. So there's a always a big weight on my shoulders, but I just didn't, didn't acknowledge. So it's the elephant in the room, right, so there's an elephant in the room. Didn't acknowledge it until all of a sudden I did. And then what happens? Does it all of a sudden feel heavy?

no, feels lighter yeah, at that moment so I guess I was always feeling the weight of it okay, until I learned to express it, to to sort of acknowledge the vulnerability, to allow other people to talk to me about my vulnerability, uh, and then to realize that actually that's a really amazing way of sort of dispersing it. And this is contrary to what a lot of men believe talking is or the effect of talking. So I can only yeah yeah, can only speak sort of first, and that's how that process worked for me.

:: 24:41

Yeah, I love that. I just wanted to come back to a point you said before on the SAS program. I love watching SAS who Dares Wins. I loved watching it on Race Around the World. I'm just curious, did any of these shows sort of put pieces together for you? Because you see, like the interrogation that they do on the SAS who Dares Wins, was there anything that you had like in the camp at SAS or on race around the world with your son, where you were like okay, like that makes more sense now, or I understand my son better here, or you met someone on these shows where you were like you took advice from them or spoke to them and you like put two and two together after them.

:: 25:20

My big takeaway is from we start with race playfulness. I'd lost the ability to, to be playful with my kids. Uh, a, maybe because they were getting a little bit older. Rolling around on the floor with them, sort of maybe was was less um less possible because they're they're around less um. But actually being playful is something, is a habit and a way of being that you can, that you can be in that headspace sort of at any time. So, yeah, fred helped me to sort of and race helped me to to learn that I I could go back to being more playful, which is definitely something that I've worked on.

Um, the other thing was do I still have something to prove? Um, at 45, do I still have something to prove? Because I was so competitive to the point where, at the end, where you sort of you haven't won, and I think, even if you have won, you'd sort of still turn around and think, why didn't I go to the gwarzu falls? You'd sort of still turn around and think why didn't I go to the Gwazu Falls waterfall, why didn't I go to Kirichiba and do that incredible railway journey through the mountains? And it didn't make sense that I'd chosen to just go more direct, because it was more important not to lose ground and I felt a bit ashamed of that and I felt a little bit like that. There's no logic involved in that whatsoever.

So, let me, I need to adjust it, I guess I I feel like again, it's another thing that I've been adjusting since then sas um two big takeaways again, I guess um one I've already talked about, which was sitting on the periphery yeah and and actually daring and being brave enough to sort of offer vulnerability, which then doesn't mean I have to sit on the periphery anymore, um, but the other thing was, uh, I was paired up with someone when all of a sudden, you've got an oppo and you've got to look after someone. So I found it really easy when it when it's like right, you've got to look after yourself and, as an option, you can look after others in a in a way that I was, I feel like I'm good at. But actually when they put me with Camilla and she was struggling with her boot and we were sort of like in a bit of a race, as you always are, there's always a competitive element to it I wasn't able to stop racing and go back to help her, which is the right thing I should have done. And I guess afterwards, when I had a few strips taken off of me by Ollie Ollerton, who was the first person to get over, I had to really reflect on that, because I found it really hard that I did something wrong and what was it in my instinct? That sort of meant that I was almost kind of like ignoring the fact that really should have could have done with me just falling back and don't worry about the race, don't worry about how much ground that I'm losing, as I'm sure, like a metaphor, uh, for life there in the I, I sort of wasn't, wasn't happy to be slowed down by anyone or anything.

I still felt a pressure to uh compete and to not necessarily win, but always give my maximum, which, again, not not a, not a terrible thing, but I think there's, there's got to be, the ability to make decisions based on the circumstances, and in that circumstance I didn't make the right decision. So so, yeah, that was um, that was again steep learning, and it doesn't have to be one of these cool shows, uh, to have learned the same from um. I've probably learned the same from even the rubbish ones that I've done, um, everything's an experience, right, and you put yourself in a slightly vulnerable position. You're obviously sort of on camera, you're probably doing something that's slightly challenging. You always learn something about yourself and that's, yeah, I love, I love that, I love being out of my comfort zone, um, I, I know that that's where we, we learn a little bit more about ourselves.

And and you can never, um, you can never sort of complete the the cycle if there's always something new that you didn't realize, or that sort of. I think your subconscious, basically like it, will give you the lessons that you're ready for and then, as you move through those, there's always another one waiting for you.

:: 29:35

You mentioned a few times about proving something and you not said it was who it was to. You said it was for yourself or is it for your boys?

:: 29:40

Yeah, good question. Yeah, I don't think it's to my stepdad. I don't think it it it's to to my kids. It must be to myself, like, but what is it about me that that always expects so much of himself? What right have I got to expect myself to be? You know better than anybody on on sas, for example, or you know on on anything that, but I, I just I love challenge. I love the, the sort of the, the game of it. Um, I love the, the sort of I switched on you have to be when it, when it comes to trying to solve something or get the get the most out of yourself, I always like to feel like I'm bettering myself, moving forwards. I never want to sort of feel like I'm stagnating, moving sideways in life, but there's a, there's probably a healthier place that that motivation can come from. I think that's what I'm learning to convert it into. It's like I I'm trying to be my best because I want to as opposed to because I I have to it was an unhealthy pressure before and I don't know where that comes from or why I

:: 30:54

wanted to talk about. You guys want to retreat together, uh, annalee howling's retreat. I just wanted to ask what? What did you learn on that retreat and what was there where you guys kind of bonded on it and you found some common?

:: 31:07

ground. Oh, we did well. I learned that Joe is a beautiful human being, so I enjoyed doing your Pilates classes. I didn't really know what to expect from it. I don't think you ever do.

When you turn up to a retreat, I always anticipate that I will be one of very few men, so I was always, uh, really glad to see that that joe's there, um, and max as well, says three of us, and you never really know what you're going to be doing.

I know you know what the the sort of the title of it was, and that was trauma.

So that was appealing to me, to be honest, because I I have trauma that I've I've always been working on and and will always work on it. Um, but to meet a group of people that that were so, um, so welcoming to begin with, but also so honest within their own stories, um, as with every exercise that we did, we got to kind of trust each other more and more until it felt like the safest room of people that I've ever been in. Uh, and it's like that was in a matter of days. So it's just a really, a really beautiful um thing to to gift yourself. You know there's a lot of healing um done in that room and that's why, you know, I'm still in touch with joe, that's why I'm here and also why why I love being a part of that particular group. Everyone's from all over the world. People flew in from literally everywhere, um, but we all bonded over the, the commonality of, of, of shared sort of traumatic experiences and something to to really be proud of there's something so nice in that.

:: 32:51

Yeah, I just wanted to echo that as well. Just say that, um, it's taken me years of therapy to become open about what's gone on with my life and how I feel, but I think, within three or four days of knowing these people and I think if it wasn't for max and and Jeff being, I wouldn't have been able to provide that or they provide it for me, sorry. So the space that this man provided for not saying because he's here to blow smoke, a bizarre, so genuinely yeah, I mean the space that you and Max provided for me and Annalie, as a result of that, I think, to go in there as a practitioner for primarily I was there to help them through Pilates and PT, like this guy in the gym, like that was my primary role. But I think, within that, I think because I let my guard down I wasn't expecting to get as much from it. I went in there with a completely open mind and I was just.

I was blown away by the end of it. I was telling him that he was, you know, more of a father figure to me than I've had in most of the men in my life I've ever had. So and that was within 48, 72 hours of knowing the guy, so I just want to thank you for that. You know that was one of the most amazing extended weekends of my life in Advernity and it was for work, which it was unbelievable. So yeah, I just want to throw that in there.

:: 33:51

So thank you for that. That's an extension of what we were talking about when it comes to sharing vulnerability and the benefits of making yourself more accessible. But you can make lifelong connections with people, um, when you show your authentic truth. Yeah, absolutely. And next, next thing, you know, you know that it gives someone the validation to do the same and and that spreads. And it was just like the whole group were was so honest, but we're we're having real realizations that they'd not actually arrived at before that moment, and that's the power of having people that are brave enough to share what has been awful for them. Basically, there's a lot of healing in it.

:: 34:39

Why do you think men struggle to open up emotionally? Do you think it's a trust thing?

:: 34:46

uh, it's a really good question, um, because it would sort of, I think, if you was going to generalize, you just say that that typically we've been brought up, um, in a stoic manner where, like you know, our fathers maybe sort of tried to show us a good work, work ethic, try to give us discipline, so that we didn't, um, maybe stray, um, you know, insert into trouble. Uh, sort of realized from my own parenting experiences that actually you know they're, they do have merits in a sort of a in a, a in a sense, but, but actually there are, there are traits that I'd I'd far rather exude Um. So I think men are going through a lot of transition, um, societally, in terms of the expectations, uh, both placed on them but also placed on themselves. And you can't be all things, and that's what people are having to work out is that you can't be someone that creates a solution to everything, which I think what men typically try to place themselves in that position where we have to be the answer to everything financially, emotionally, everyone's got to be happy, and it's my job to to make it so Um.

So, like a modern dad or a modern man might just be someone that, um, that is able to share an emotion and to be able to sit with others and allow them to to do the same sounds quite easy, but actually it's quite difficult, pretty hard. Yeah, I massively struggle with that. Yeah, can be a really difficult thing.

:: 36:28

I think there's such a good point you said then about I feel like I do that a lot, trying to find a solution for other people, when actually you should just open the space for them to figure out the solution for themselves, in a way, and provide them the space to not bounce ideas off, but just let them figure it out and you don't always have to do it. I'm really like I do that a lot. Now you've just said it out and you don't always have to do it. I'm really like I I do that a lot. Now you've just said it out loud.

It's kind of like click to me where I'll go into situation of it and then I won't know the background of the story. Or they'll say and I'll be like, well, why don't you just do that? But it's not about that. People just want to have a space to open up about it and figure that route out themselves. Because I hate it when someone tells me you know, oh, why don't you do this? I find it like quite condescending because you don't know the background of it. But when you said that, then I think that's just kind of clicked in my head a little bit, which is really nice that's why I love these conversations and we're talking about like-minded people like yourself is there's a lot of things that I do wrong still, and I'm just having these little chats just really opens my mind up to it, and I'm always trying to find solutions for things when maybe it's not my, not my right to find the solution. I just need to provide someone the space to find it themselves yeah, that's a really good point.

:: 37:44

I mean, men like to fix traditionally, absolutely yeah, but I think that's something that we need to take off our shoulders in terms of responsibility. Actually, instead of fixing, why don't we validate? And by validation what I mean is just as you said, hear someone, hear what they're going through, and you might feel like you know the answer or what they could do. But the greatest benefit that you've afforded them is just by listening them, to them, and to to let them sort of air that for themselves. Um, yeah, putting putting the pressure on your, on yourself, to to sort of give them an answer. It's almost like we, we just want the, the negative issue to to go away. And if we, if we say something that sounds good, does it actually fix it? If it was we say something that sounds good, does it actually fix it? If it was that simple, would that person not have done that in in the first place?

Sometimes, what I found as a coach is that you can absolutely take people to a point of realization so that they actually know that they're responsible for whatever problem they're holding themselves in, but they very often don't want to actually solve the problem because the problem somehow kind of represents a benefit of some weird description. So, as a coach, you learn to not give advice or opinion and, just as you said, leave that space open for them to be able to find it for themselves, open for them to be able to to find it for themselves. Um, but yeah, in terms of like you know, a typical male will just be like yeah, I need, I need to fix everything for everyone. I think that just puts an unrealistic pressure, um, something that we can't, can't maintain, and if we do try that, then we're always going to probably hit a feeling of failure.

:: 39:27

Um, whereas if we don't put that expectation on ourselves to begin with, if you know that it's good enough to hear someone and validate by saying, yeah, that that sounds difficult, or I've experienced something similar, um, then we've made our job so much easier and you're not going to fail at that I wanted to get your opinion on on the retreat itself, because you mentioned there about opening the space and I don't know if you had this while we were on the retreat yourself, I think, because we were three blokes in a room of 12 or 13 other women most, if not all the women that were there trauma were caused by the men themselves in their lives. Did you have a bit of a power struggle with that, because I wanted to be there and open the space for them? I've not asked this before and I'm really glad I did now Because I can see nodding already. It's it's.

I had a bit of a struggle with wanting to open space for them and I didn't know whether they would feel intimidated by having three blokes in the room, whether it'd be better of all women. But that's what Annalie was genius with the setting up the whole thing with the partners and and working the space with, with yourself and obviously, if it helped that, obviously Max and yourself were very sort of empathetic, emotional men, which I think really helped the space as well, whereas if you had 16 women it might have changed the whole dynamic of the space itself yeah, it would have been.

:: 40:34

I think no two groups would ever be the same in terms of its chemistry, uh. But I'd probably go back to a retreat that I went to before comporter um, and I was literally the only guy and I remember the feedback from someone in the room was that she was gutted when I walked through the door because I was the wrong gender. She felt because of her previous experiences, she felt threatened. She felt like she wasn't going to be able to open up. She felt like she might as well just go home and then by the end of it she sort of thanked me for not being typically male, but being someone that was safe typically male, but being someone that was safe.

So I probably made this comment in Comporter and I'm really proud to be a guy that women consider to be safe, and what it takes to be that. I'm not entirely sure, but I think part of it is not being a guy who tries to come in and fix people's problems. I don't think women want that necessarily so much. There's something in there about, uh, women not not liking. I can't speak for women, by the way, uh, but my understanding of it is they don't want someone who's going to be condescending and be be sort of traditionally like I'll do everything for you. Um, what I want is to be empowered and and um, yeah, look we, just by reminding someone in the group of, uh things that were difficult for them, uh, I felt at times apologetic about that, but actually, um, it's the opposite. I, we, we're doing them a service by being present in that respect, because it means that they have to confront whatever the.

The issue is. It would be maybe too easy, um, if it was just a, a room full of women. That, as as as with society or the ways there's men and women everywhere, so within the group, it serves, serves everybody a purpose. I think if there's an equal number, it doesn't have to be an equal number, but that there would be.

:: 42:34

Yeah, men present yeah yeah, love that.

:: 42:38

Sorry, I'm just. I'm deep in thought now, when you guys were talking about sharing, yeah about, about sharing, trying to solve.

I think I was just thinking then like if I was looking retrospectively and it was on my side, like if I was looking retrospectively and it was on my side.

You know, I think two things I love is when someone turns up for me and someone's like someone's present for me doesn't doesn't have to solve the solution, but but they're there, and I think that's something I'm trying to focus a bit more on. Again, coming back to solution thing is not trying to solve the problem, but just giving people the space but turning up for them. That's kind of my love language, in a way is is being there and being present for someone. And you know I've said this with you before. I was like there's not. There's not many times I'll give like a compliment of such. But you'll know I'm, I'm rooting for you when I show up for you and I'm there and I'll be there through the nitty-gritty bits, and I think that's one thing I'm going to focus on a lot more is, instead of that solution side, just giving people space and being present there to help them figure it out if they need me and bounce those ideas off if they need me.

:: 43:40

Where did that come from for you showing up because it's timely for me. So I just wondered where showing up became an option for you.

:: 43:53

I think that's hard. I don't know there was a certain time, but I think showing up for me is I think that's the greatest sign of respect to someone is. Anyone can type a message, anyone could post something on instagram, but actually being there in person, showing up is is one of the most important things, if not the most important thing, for me in a friendship or a relationship. And I'm not sure if that stems from something from childhood, where someone turned up for me, like my parents, would turn up for everything, every sports game, no matter where I was, even if I didn't want them there, my mum and dad would stand there in the corner and they'd watch. And I don't know if I've taken that from them, as they showed up for me when my mum was ill the minute she was back from like recovering from her cancer, she was back there on the sidelines. She was present for me and same with my dad, and I don't know if I've taken that from childhood and brought it into adulthood.

For me, and just seeing how much love that they've had for me was showing up, you know, no matter where I was, no matter where I was playing rugby, no matter where I was playing cricket they were. They were always there and have always been there, and still there now and I don't know if it's I. I reckon it's from that. I've never actually thought about it before the tony up piece, um, but it's definitely one of the most important things in my life and something I look for massively in my relationship with meg is she always turns up for me when I need her, and even if I don't need her, she'll be there right on my shoulder helping me, and vice versa, it'll be the same for her I only ask because I think it's something that we find a little bit later on, maybe in your 40s, typically, um, it's a lesson that you learn through.

:: 45:41

We've just been talking about in terms of trying to be, uh, mr, I can fix this. Uh, here's my advice um, in, that's like the key to being a good parent. Showing up, as you've experienced and just described, um, in a, in a in a relationship, like just just showing up, being consistent. These are over um, these are underestimated components to being a good person. Uh, and being of value to to others. And, actually, when you think about it, how much easier is it to show up than be a solution? It's like showing up, it's just you just got to walk through the door and you've succeeded. And and, absolutely, when I think about, like, the people that have shown up for me when I really needed them, you never forget it. I don't think you ever forget that person that showed up when they didn't need to. How is that applicable to you?

Applicable to me is that I, the way I dealt with looking after the boys on my own, is that I really sort of shut up shop socially. As you can imagine, I had so many beautiful and wonderful people in my life that I still have now, but yet I didn't really service those relationships, connections and friendships. It wasn't like I was out playing golf and paddle with my mates, sort of. Throughout that period. I was coping by basically just dealing with what was directly in front of me. And if it wasn't directly in front of me, um, as, as I remember someone saying to me one day, they might as well not exist.

Um, I don't want it to sound like I'm a bad, bad person, but I just think my coping strategy is to deal with one thing at a time. Whatever's in front of me, which was the boys pretty squarely for that entire time, was what I was going to deal with, was the boys pretty squarely for that entire time was what I was going to deal with. So I now feel like I want to reciprocate. So a lot of my mates have got kids who are still school age. So, like this weekend, for example, sunday morning, I'm thinking to myself I'm gonna go and do an early, early workout and then I'm gonna go and watch one of my my friends kids play football, because that's my way of being, like I'm gonna, I'm gonna show up. I feel like I'm in debt, but not in a stressful like pressured way. I feel in a in a good way.

:: 48:06

I've got a really huge motivation to turn up for people that I know turned up for us do you feel like you owe yourself something to do, that, like you're waking up, you're making up for lost time? Like you, you've missed out on so many opportunities because you were in that fight or flight state of just surviving. Do you feel you're making up for lost time in that sense of giving something back to yourself? And those are the others around you socially? I?

:: 48:25

lost balance, um. So like there wasn't a sort of you know, most people have been seeing their friends sort of every saturday or however their social life looks, and mine went out the window, um. So I remember at my wedding day, just looking around just being like I'm so grateful to all of you. You literally have had very little from me, but you, you sort of stuck with me and you understood the brief, you understood what, what. What was um, what the challenge was, um. So, yeah, every time I I see them, I really celebrate that, I'm really grateful, um, but in terms of what I'm giving to myself by by doing that, I think it's me just choosing who I want to be moving forwards in this next phase that's really interesting.

:: 49:12

That's one of my favorite conversations. I think we've had that sort of like topic on we're showing up for people. Yeah, I think it's powerful, especially in today's day and age. I think people lack a sense of purpose and community side of things at the moment and you know things are more online, right, and you can't show up for someone online. You can send them a message. Sure, that's slightly part of it, but I think people are lacking that human connection and people really showing up, especially in today's day and age. I know I am. Yeah, what's the?

:: 49:42

most valuable commodity time, and that's that's what it's steeped in, isn't it? If you give someone a bit of your time you didn't need to give them, that feels great.

:: 49:53

Yeah.

:: 49:54

Feels really nice.

:: 49:55

And I always try and pay that person back with my time as well, you mentioned community as well.

:: 50:00

Yeah, that's massive because you're big on community, aren't you? I mean, you set up your walking projects as well.

:: 50:06

So tell the people that don't know a little bit about that and your projects and your walks, and because I know you're massive on that in the community that you built through that network in my coaching capacity, I had a really wonderful space that I was working with that were allowing me to do workshops in the evenings and I I'd always sort of looked at walk and talks which not original concepts and thought I wonder what that does, you know? I wonder what that? I know it brings people together and maybe if I do what that I know it brings people together. And maybe if I do a walk and talk, it will bring people together and I can tell them about the workshops that we're offering in the community free of charge. So I just remember putting one on and being blown away with how powerful they are. They sound so innocuous, like what.

So people just get together and walk and talk for a field or for a forest and, uh, I've. The reason I've been doing them ever since is that I dare and stop because I can see how much people I rely on them but how many benefits there are for people that that turn up to them. I think I'm on course, probably this following Sunday, to have the most people I've ever come to, because I've collaborated with a brand, basically, and I know that they'll probably add to the numbers somewhat, and I get between 70 and 100 people on average Amazing, which is a really lovely group. I don't really have any kind of like um plans for it.

:: 51:33

I it's just something that Maybe that's why it's good, though. Yeah, organically, just grow and see what happens with it. It's quite exciting.

:: 51:39

Yeah, I just know like there are people that travel a long way um to, to, to come, and so sometimes I think that I think that speaks for A like. When you offer something up that people feel like might just be what they really need in this moment, then people will go to whatever length required to give it to themselves. But yeah, I'm just trying to think of some of the people. There's a young girl who comes from a sort of fairly deprived background and has gone through a lot and she's quite ghetto, so she speaks differently to everybody else, but she comes along and I'll tell you the questions she asks me. It's so insightful and I have no worries about her and her future because of the questions that she's asking.

You can see the way her mind is working. She's trying to unravel um, her next steps and how she sort of escapes whatever situation she perceives herself to be in um. Plus, she's also now made friends with people that that she would never have met otherwise, because it's such a far cry from the people that she typically sort of grew up with um. So she's now friends with people of all different backgrounds, um who, who support her and and it's, I guess, a way of growing a community of people that that are so varied and diverse, and that's what really works about it. You see, the older people really enjoy being around the younger people and the younger people really enjoy being around. They kind of mimic society in a way. Plus, there's a thing where, when you're walking with someone shoulder to shoulder I was just about saying yeah, bilateral eye movement.

:: 53:20

Annalee. Annalee touched on that. There's something really powerful about, especially if you're trying to solve a heated argument or you know an intense discussion where you don't want to be face on. I think that's what she said.

:: 53:30

It was like she probably said we don't like to show shame, yeah, um, so you're not worried about what we're sort of showing, we're just thinking about the words and and what it feels like to to hear them and release them.

Uh, but when you chuck nature into the equation as well, which is like a healing environment anyway, that again really sort of underrated and it I'm just thinking the last one where, like it was freezing cold and you'd absolutely sort of not blame people for for staying in bed on a on a sunday morning, but for the hundred or so people that turned up it was so spectacularly beautiful, something about the light and the fact that the sun always seems to come out on these walks no matter what time of year, and you can't help but kind of feel a bit inspired, to be honest.

And there's this wonderful sort of almost magical sort of side to it, which is where people end up speaking to people that they're almost meant to speak to, whether it's because they've got a shared experience or whether because that that person was sort of put there to maybe have the right, the right way of acknowledging whatever it is that you've told them. So you know, I do little exercises like we do a bit of stillness, we'll do a bit of breath work, do a little some small uh group exercises where we talk about what's been challenging and what's good, and it really just gives, it's a nice breaker, it gives people an opportunity to meet others, uh, and and it sort of sets a tone, um, and I even every now and again get everyone doing a bit of ecstatic dance at the beginning. So I'll bang out a little bit of Luther Vandross, maybe something that you know everyone sort of is going to approve of, and that's the warm-up it's got to have a little dance.

Sign us up awkward awkward as anything but um, but just the best. Once you've done that, like you know, people don't worry about what they're about to volunteer to to anybody. We always have look, I'm a, I'm a coach, so people are obviously able to speak to me, but I always have a really qualified psychotherapist or counsellor sort of there, in case someone comes with something particularly heavy that they need to speak to someone professionally with.

:: 55:44

Amazing. I just want to end it on this. And there's a question we ask on the end of all podcasts. I think it's the most poignant question.

:: 56:05

And it's if you could give one piece. Just mine is always about um, the pressure that you perceive to be on your shoulders is is probably not the actual amount. I think we can convince ourselves that, that there's more um, honest, and that things are maybe slightly more on the edge than than we actually sort of uh, than they actually are um, and that things always get better when you allow yourself to be as human as possible. I think that, maybe, is my message today. What does it mean to be human? Well, you don't have to be a typical man. You don't have to approach things in a, in a masculine way, um. You can sort of de-escalate that and um and and be in the middle somewhere, which is, I believe, to be human. It's where we sort of we all meet in the middle at that point. And what is it to be more human? It's more human to be more real, be more authentic, be more vulnerable, talk about what's good, talk about what isn't Um, and just you know, if you're someone that struggles with that, just um, challenge yourself with maybe choosing someone to kind of share a little something with and kind of own it, and be proud that you're doing that, as opposed to being self-conscious and judgmental of yourself, that you are someone that that, unlike the rest of us, shouldn't be feeling anything negative or shouldn't be feeling, um, like you're. You're weak in any capacity.

I think there's such strength in in being able to share what you perceive as a weakness. Uh, but it's. It's just like in the world of grief that's. That's something that everybody gets wrong. They think that by talking about how sad they are, that they're gonna, um, uh, put a lot on somebody else. They don't want to weigh other people down. We might as well just keep it to ourselves, and that way we're doing everybody else a favor. But actually, people want to know where you are emotionally instead of having to assume or pretend. It's always much better if we, if we actually just know it because we've said it, we've owned it. It takes a little bit of courage first, few times, and then you realize, oh, it's actually easy to do this. I should have just done this in the first place. Love it, something like that. Completely agree, mate.