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Transcripts may (read: definitely will) contain typos. We use software to transcribe the show and American artificial intelligence is apparently not intelligent enough to understand the Irish accent; go figure!
In time, if people read these, we'll have them fully proof read by human intelligence and corrected for grammar and syntax.
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[00:00:00] Chris: [00:00:00] Hello, everyone. Welcome to episode one. Today's episode is going to be about my favorite topic and that's me. So without further ado, I'm going to pass it over to Noah. And I think his plan is to interview me today. So nobody want to take it away.
[00:00:18] Noel: [00:00:18] I sure do. Thanks Chris. Thanks Dan as well. Yeah it's all about Chris today and I want to just give the listeners and all the people at home, wherever you're listening to and the opportunity to understand Chris, more learn about Chris more.
[00:00:33]And yeah, we'll see how this goes. Chris, how are you?
[00:00:40] Chris: [00:00:40] Is this one of those times where you asked me how am I? And I'm supposed to answer elaborately or okay. Let's preface this because this is important. Yeah. So in our therapy sessions, no, all was asking me the same question to open up and that's how are you?
[00:00:55] And the first few months I went in, I would answer fine. [00:01:00] I'm doing all right. And feeling okay. And no always wants to prompt you to. Let go and to give more and to try and put words to what you're feeling. So Dan, to your question, how am I feeling? I feel a sense of frustration at the moment generally.
[00:01:22]I'm feeling a little bit trapped because of this whole lockdown in Ireland at the moment. And I feel that the only thing that's distracting me is putting my mind. Into my work. And that seems to be all I'm doing at the moment is sitting at my computer, but it seems to be sufficient to keep me going at the moment that I know there's an end to this vaccines, et cetera, but generally how I'm feeling.
[00:01:46] I feel a central frustration. I feel extensive, nervous, excitement. But emotionally overall, I feel well as opposed to the feeling of disenfranchisement or sadness I had last summer that [00:02:00] seems to have dissipated and, generally I feel well.
[00:02:04]Noel: [00:02:04] What's that that you're able to describe that now at this stage in your life.
[00:02:08] So I was trying to link back to understand your story to where you've come from to get to this point. We talked about last week of why you wanted to do the podcasts in the first place so that, some of the similar stuff will come up, but it's just trying to get a deeper understanding of you.
[00:02:21] And what's it like now being able to describe things in that way compared to. In your teens while it was there even an awareness around us about how you felt or did that even come into your mindset at all? Or
[00:02:35] Chris: [00:02:35] what was that like? No, it didn't. I think one of the chief expectations people should have from the therapy process is that okay.
[00:02:46] You learn to apply a vernacular or words to how you feel. And I think a lot of people suffer from the same plight as perhaps I had, which is you feel these emotions [00:03:00] and you become angered or you feel frustrated, or you are suffering with some trade anxiety or situational anxiety, and you can't.
[00:03:10] Describe it to your peers or your parents are your classmates. And I think this is one of the disadvantages of language is that I don't think we, it developed over time in a way that we could explain our emotions adequately. I think that's the definition of profundity. You can explain how you feel emotionally, poetry is poetry for a reason.
[00:03:32] It's people expressing their emotions through words. And I think that I have learned, and I'm still having, I have a long way to go to be able to adequately explain myself, but I've learned to become aware of how I actually feel. And the oftentimes what manifest as anger or. What manifests as anxiety are a frustration is a sense of fear or it's [00:04:00] a sense of sadness or grief, and it comes out in another way.
[00:04:05]So as a younger guy I actually had a conversation with my mom about this very recently, and I was trying to piece together why I started a therapy. And memory being what it is, it often fails us or our recollection fails us. And I pieced together the story wrong. I think.
[00:04:25] So what actually happened was at 19, I did my leaving cert when I was 18 and I turned 19 in New Zealand. I went to New Zealand for a little bit over the summer and I came back and had enrolled in college in university college cork here in Ireland. And. I really didn't want to go to college. I was in a place at the time where my father had gone through the Catholic tiger and had, come out the other side of it in basically he went through the economic crash [00:05:00] and I had been interested in business for a long time before that and leading up to that point and I watched.
[00:05:08] Really as the whole world started crashing down around me as an 18 year old and pressure impressionable guy and. I felt very rebellious about it and quite a Reverend. And I decided I didn't want it to be involved in that world anymore. So I went to New Zealand to as you do as a young person to quote unquote, find yourself, I didn't find myself, but I found other things.
[00:05:28]I found a girl that I really liked and, I had to leave behind and I found a place that are reluctant to leave behind and I found a traveling bug. That has never left me since, and I came back and I didn't really want to go to university when I did my CAO. I only put down one course, sorry, two courses.
[00:05:47]I think you, you ha you're supposed to fill out six or seven courses or options and it's hierarchical. So it goes by points, what you're expected to get. And then it goes down to the lower points I put down. The course that I did, [00:06:00] which was sports studies and physical education in UCC first.
[00:06:04] And I put a course that had more points than a second. So if I didn't get the first course, I wasn't going to university. And I came back and went to the university and really didn't enjoy it. I wasn't in a good place. But I didn't really understand at the time what was going on. My man that had, was obviously suffering and I was obviously suffering with depression at the time or dealing with depression and I didn't quite know how to deal with it.
[00:06:30]I was living in a house that Not that I didn't want to live in, but I didn't want to be in college. Everything was amplified. So the cut, the house was cold and, everything seemed to be negative for me at the time. And I went to the Dean of my course, I organized a meeting with her and she basically sat me down and said, look, I think that you might be.
[00:06:58] I'm suffering with depression. [00:07:00] And, I have experience in this regard and I'd like you to see a therapist don't drop out of the course, just do me the favor of speaking to this person. And it may help you. It may not, but I think you're in a place now where decisions shouldn't really be made.
[00:07:16] Yeah, you're too raw, there's a term called the inflamed mind. There's a theory that depression is a form of inflammation of the brain. And I think I was so raw and so sad at the time and disenfranchised that I shouldn't have made any decisions, but there's no, I was trying to make, the reason I met her is because I wanted to leave college.
[00:07:33] I wanted to go traveling and I wanted to do something else at the time I wanted to be a ski instructor or anything that wasn't quote unquote, Norma. Cause I had a fear of doing what everyone else did and, going wherever else had gone and going along the same beaten path and then, suffering at the hands of the economy.
[00:07:50]If we're an asset,
[00:07:51] Noel: [00:07:51] had you any experience of the possibility of therapy like that before 19 around the
[00:07:57] Chris: [00:07:57] age nine 19, it was October. [00:08:00] So what my mom did for me she pieced it together. For me. It was October, 2019. And on what I actually did was instead of going to my lecturers recommendation, they went to a recommendation from my mom of so much.
[00:08:12] She knew in cork and I had no experience with therapy prior to that. To be honest with you, I didn't really know that I was depressed. I just knew that I didn't feel well. That, I used to cry a lot and I didn't like I skipped a lot of classes. I was just generally down in the dumps. I have the vernacular for it.
[00:08:35] Now I can explain it now in better language. I'm trying to put across what I felt at the time, the words I was using at the time. So I went to the therapist, it was CBT based and. Prior to that. My, my preconceived notions really worried that I was going to go and this person was going to give me [00:09:00] tools or they were going to sit me down and ask me about my childhood and, the cause effect relationships with incidents over my life.
[00:09:09] And we're going to try and piece it together. And. That's not really what happened. I went to the stadium and when we spoke and she, I always remember sitting in front of her and she didn't talk a whole lot. She asked me a kind of a leading question and I might answer it and I tell a story and because it was CBT, she would give me like exercises to do.
[00:09:38] And she sh I think he was trying to figure me out, but. I hadn't figured me out, I couldn't, yeah, excuse me. I couldn't explain it myself. So I'd always remember the day she said you, do you, have you ever thought of suicide? And prior to that, she was there was a lot of, whimsical conversations [00:10:00] and I told her that I had, and I told her that, I took her through this, the steps that I was going to take.
[00:10:11] And she got really serious really quickly. And that was the first time I think that I thought, Oh maybe everyone doesn't think like this, and maybe I need to take this more seriously. And maybe this is important and maybe therapy is important for me. And did it. What actually happened was it came to a natural conclusion because I was living in the city at the time to go to college.
[00:10:37] And let's say I started therapy in October and the second semester finished in may or June, whenever I think it was may. And I stopped going because I felt well. So she convinced me to, I had stopped links sport, even though I was doing a fucking physical education degree. I'd really stopped taking care of myself [00:11:00] and I couldn't figure out I couldn't grasp what made me feel well.
[00:11:04] And I didn't, I wasn't aware at the time that you needed to do anything to make yourself feel well, because I didn't think there was something wrong. I didn't think that I was ill in any way. I just felt that I thought at the time that university was wrong for me and I just needed to leave that and that would solve everything.
[00:11:22] You just go get out of here. Escape. And Jenny's just so she taught me that there was more, yeah, exactly. But she taught me there was more to it that there were obviously underlying issues for me and the way in the manner in which I was approaching things. And the way I was thinking about the world was conducive to depression.
[00:11:45] And she, had a lot of questions and I think the. Trope really with depression and what everyone thinks about depression. When you speak to them as that, there's a chemical imbalance. People always say, Oh, this it's a chemical imbalance. And, she did [00:12:00] try and get me to take medication.
[00:12:02]One of the first things she asked me was, would you consider taking medication? And I said, no. I, I, wasn't a very sick child, but I had asthma growing up and I had a few different things. And I. I took a lot of medication and, maybe 16 or 17, I vowed not to take any medication anymore other than my asthma medication.
[00:12:20] And I was staunchly against it and she, she never pushed me. She didn't want me to do any, I didn't want to do. And she felt that talk therapy and what we were doing in the exercises may help and it did help. But what she gave me was like a frame of reference and She gave me the tools to perceive my life in a different way.
[00:12:36] So small things like that, she told me, which are the low hanging fruit of, go back and start playing sport again. And this will give you a community and a sense of belonging and maybe a sense of purpose and, speak more openly to people about how you feel. And she gave me exercises about, because I was suffering with some anxiety, et cetera at the time.
[00:12:59] And she gave me exercise. You [00:13:00] breathe, breathing exercises, et cetera. But being young and naïve, when it came to me, I thought I was done. I feel okay. I'm not crying all the time, so I can just go home for the summer. And when I did that summer was I decided to go back playing rugby. So I applied myself for that for the summer.
[00:13:16] I I spent a lot of time practicing and, with friends. Playing tag and whatever, and I had a good summer. And it didn't surface for me in a way that I thought I'm in trouble again until maybe a year before I met you, which, I was probably 25 at a time. So between, 20.
[00:13:41] Sorry, 2009, sorry. 2010. And the age of 25, I had no therapy. I had no place to go to, to speak to someone and I didn't really think too much. Yeah. But [00:14:00] what events actually happens if you're somewhere who, someone who lives with depression, I believe is that right? It's going to come up again.
[00:14:07]There are psychosocial factors which go into someone's are leads to someone becoming depressed or developing anxiety. And all it took was something in my external environment for it to trigger me again to get into a state of depression. So I went through a depressive episode and again, on the recommendation of my family, I went and sought out therapy.
[00:14:32] And that's where I met you. It just so happened. You were practicing the same village of me and it was serendipity that we met essentially. But I didn't have the language for it. I think when I met you first, I still didn't have the language for it. And I hadn't I've only developed a love for.
[00:14:51]Psychology and, behavioral psychology and sociology and these things, since I met you, it may not have been causal. You may not have been the [00:15:00] reason, but I certainly didn't approach myself as a project in the way that I now do and the way I would recommend other people do. Before, before I had met you, before that it was just.
[00:15:11] I was feeling a certain way. I couldn't understand that. And I wanted it to stop quickly, just yeah, exactly. Microwave solution. Give me something quick. I didn't want to take the drugs, give me a reason to be okay. And I'll be okay. And I'll figure it out. Oh, it was typical kind of type a male personality of there's nothing really wrong with me.
[00:15:29] I don't really want to talk about it. So give me a fix. You fix me. I'm done, Let's move on and then it hit me again and I was going maybe this is an ongoing issue. This is more serious and I have to approach this the way I approach everything else, which is apply myself and make it a project.
[00:15:46]And that's how I, that, at the time we met you,
[00:15:48] Noel: [00:15:48] what was the, just going to go back like the atmosphere? In college, as in the awareness of us was that suppose this is where it again, just to hold those my age that I'm offering, [00:16:00] as I'm sure you guys where if I don't the they're the generational difference than for like awareness around mental health and stuff like that.
[00:16:08] What was that like then if you can remember around college time, and you mentioned that you're playing rugby
[00:16:13] Chris: [00:16:13] and those in Washington, no, there wasn't any worse,
[00:16:16] Noel: [00:16:16] Was that in, there was another circle. So R again, I suppose it's
[00:16:20]Chris: [00:16:20] My friends, my group of friends, and, the people that I met in college that I became friendly with were, very open, honest, accepting people, but still none of us spoke about that.
[00:16:34] I remember, or I can recall depression or anxiety or mental health. I think the topic of mental health and those two words are in Vogue. At the moment. Yeah. And that's a good thing. It's good PR it's good marketing people attach to mental health. They get it. And, people are getting to a point now where they can say that I have suffered with mental health issues.
[00:16:58] Oh yeah. But as [00:17:00] we've discussed before, it's somewhat of a misnomer. We believe because the mind and body and the body are interconnected, you can't separate the two. You can't chop someone off at the neck. And separate out the mind from the body. It doesn't work like that. So we would've spoken openly about, I'm not feeling well or whatever, but it was never a presser mental health conversation.
[00:17:24] No, I didn't tell anyone I was going to therapy. Yeah. Not if you did,
[00:17:30] Noel: [00:17:30] do you think it was again,
[00:17:31] Chris: [00:17:31] it's back in time, but it's hard to know. I wouldn't have. This is down to masculinity. No. The archetype of the male and the male that we all look up to is strong. And the male that we look up to is powerful and infallible.
[00:17:48] And it's the hero. No, and I certainly felt that at the time there was, it was a failure on my part and I felt weak. So [00:18:00] I think, I didn't want to tell anyone for fear that they might perceive me as weak. And I didn't think it was anyone's business. I've heard people talk to me about this, that it's, it's no one's business, but now I realize that, you can walk in a room and say to someone that you've developed a cold and everyone goes, Oh, that's fine.
[00:18:15] No one really bats an eyelid. They don't really give a shit, but I suppose you couldn't do that with I'm suffering with depression. I was in rugby dressing rooms and that's a place where it's full of peacocks, no male peacocks showing off their feathers. Look at me, I'm big, I'm bigger than you.
[00:18:37] And I'm strong and I'm fucking tough. Rugby players have this perception of being tough. They may have been soft these at heart and, they may have been weak minded or, they may have, I suffered like I did with depression or anxiety, but none of us ever talked about it and that dressing room banter, you're not going to go home and say, yeah, that's perfect.
[00:19:00] [00:18:59] It's a perfect way to make fun of each other.
[00:19:02] Noel: [00:19:02] Yeah, but it's a perfect place for as a breeding ground as well for that stuff to come out. Because like I said, if the, even if there is something there it's no, don't talk about us, push it down. And that's not, again, I don't mean that in a kind of in a disrespectful way to to rugby teams or anything like that.
[00:19:17] But it's just unfortunate that's, that is the situation or at least that's the, your experience of the
[00:19:22] Chris: [00:19:22] situation. I'm not sure it's like that anymore, but yeah, my experience anecdotally, your boss, it was. Like, what'd your group
[00:19:31] Dan: [00:19:31] of friends talk about it. Would you speak about it with your group friends now?
[00:19:34] Like those same guys, still con I tell everyone now. Yeah. Yeah. You yeah. You're like, Oh, I don't think you, I think certainly you're very open and I think that's great. And I think, and I've said this to you before, like you shouldn't like, if you're bringing up sick to work, there should be no difference.
[00:19:52] Then saying, Oh, listen, I'm not coming in today because I have the flu or, Hey, I'm not coming in today because I'm incredibly anxious or I don't feel like getting out of bed [00:20:00] because I'm sad. But I do think even the way it's taught sorry, even though it's treated now, when you said you went to therapy, when you were 19, the CBT and it just, it gave me a flashback to when I was 16 and I was like, there's something going on with me?
[00:20:13] I don't know what it is. I need to go to therapy. And I remember having to tell my mom, but I couldn't explain. I couldn't. It was just such a strange thing. I couldn't explain what I needed. She was like, what's, what do you mean? You're not? But I remember when eventually I explained it to her and she straight away was like, it was like, Oh God, okay, look, we can go talk to this person.
[00:20:28] But I remember what trigger, what triggered the memory is the first thing that, that the counselor or psychotherapist, I'm not sure what she was too young to remember. She handed me a piece of paper, like it was like, hi, I'm X, hi, I'm Daniel handed me a piece of paper. And it was like, how do you feel?
[00:20:44] And there was like, Those, when you leave a shop and this, I was like, how was our customer service today? And this is the smiley faces. You tick, you press the button. It was like sad, face, sad, face, happy, face, happy face. And then it was like, circle, which one you feel? And then it was the second I'm pretty sure was like a second or third question [00:21:00] was, are you having suicidal thoughts?
[00:21:04] Like straight in not even are you like, tell me how you're feeling. It was just, are you having suicidal thoughts straight away? And then I was like, Oh my God, I don't know how to deal with this. And it's just, it seems like a very heavy approach, but just when you said it reminded me of it,
[00:21:16] Chris: [00:21:16] it's very strange.
[00:21:17] I think the suicidal ideation piece is very important because they have an obligation protection and no, you can speak to this, but yeah, they need to find out pretty quickly if you're in your own time and are not in the presence of the therapist considering suicide. Because,
[00:21:33]Noel: [00:21:33] Especially with kind of teenagers, youngsters under 18, the kind of legal ramifications insurance and stuff like that.
[00:21:39] And that's the unfortunate side of things that are there, paperwork and legal software. It's important to protect the client. It's important to protect the parents. It's important to collect. Protect the therapist as well. And that's, I suppose that's what we're trying to do as well. We share in these stories that people come to understand, because we don't know whoever is listening right now.
[00:21:59] It could be [00:22:00] on that kind of where they go, Oh, that's going to scare me. It's not always the case. And it's done with the best intentions. It's that as Chris was able to just show there, if that question does yes. If it comes up quite abruptly, as Dan mentioned, It's that the therapist is there to say, okay, now I know what's going on because sometimes you, the therapist, we don't know exactly what's going on.
[00:22:23] And it might seem as though this kid has gone through this person has gone through some difficult times, but Oh no, I don't think the suicidal ideation there, but there actually is. And it's just trying to get an opportunity to get that across, or we're able to go, okay, now we know what we're dealing with.
[00:22:37] We're here to support you. We're here to help and let's go to juve. You've put that out there because I think that is important. A lot of
[00:22:44] Dan: [00:22:44] sense then. Yeah. It's like you just get it out there and you understand the situation straight away, and then you can work backward from the most extreme cases that is that kind of it.
[00:22:52] Yeah.
[00:22:53] Noel: [00:22:53] Not necessarily work backwards from the most extreme cases. It's that? Because I suppose it may be like the HSE [00:23:00] setting or the national hospital setting. Cause you might have a lot of different people. I would say if you came to see me. It, I, it's not that I'd work my way backwards for the most important.
[00:23:09] If you're coming to see me, I'm seeing you and that's it. No one else matters at all. In that instance, so it's so I know what we're dealing with, and then we know that, it could be a thing where, okay do those you're whether it's a parent or close family member or a friend or your caregiver.
[00:23:24] And if I thought do they know that you're feeling this way and if they do that's really good that we have that support them. Do we do, we also do we need to, sorry, do we need to if they don't know, do we need to let them know? And it's trying to empower the person in front of you and that they're able to understand what's going on.
[00:23:44] Cause that's a big one there. And that's what I was trying to just, emphasize that with Dan's experience and create and Chris's experiences trying to understand. Basically, just trying to understand yourself you touched on the word awareness there which is massively important because if we don't have that [00:24:00] awareness, like how do we know what's going on?
[00:24:02] Or if we know where it is, something, happening within us and what was actually, and there's just on that, what was that like for you? Was that progressed on Chris, the awareness? What was that like becoming more self-aware that kind of, that whole journey of it for you?
[00:24:17]Chris: [00:24:17] It was certainly a step-by-step process. Yeah. I think that overwhelming as well. It does get overwhelming. I think you used the word empower there. And what came to mind when you said that was the experience for me of telling someone that was the only person they've ever told about the experience.
[00:24:33] For me of telling someone that I had thought about suicide. Was actually disempowering. I felt like I basically had to put words to something that I had been secretly thinking about, and it almost took the power away from me because she made me realize that no, [00:25:00] she wasn't impunitive she didn't say this is a, you can't do that.
[00:25:04] That's a stupid thing to do. The way she basically posed it to me was that I feel like that would be a mistake in your current circumstances. And what we want to do is we want to work through it. And I want you to question why and what will the effect of that be? And I want you to give me a reason why you want to do it.
[00:25:25] And it meant that I had to vocalize what, I was catastrophizing in my own mind and I was. I have a funny way of looking at the world and, I've since come to understand that, basically I think a lot of things are absolutely absurd and I see things in abstractions. I'll give you an example of this.
[00:25:47] So I, the other day I was in the park and walking our new puppy. And what came to mind was isn't this extremely strange that we, as mamas are walking another [00:26:00] mammal. And we control these things and everyone everywhere. I looked, someone had a dog on a leash. Yeah. And I kept thinking like, isn't it strange that we all have these dogs?
[00:26:10] This is the way my mind works all the time. So I have to mute it if I want to have conversations with people, but I'm thinking he's abstractions. And I kept going to a place where life is absurd and. What is the point to this? And, the idea of getting a job and making money. These are just abstractions from our primal purpose, which was essentially propagation of life and to hunt and gather and all these things.
[00:26:37] It's, I was young and naive and I couldn't wrap my head around. What was the purpose of life? Yeah, she basically. Told me that I have to find the purpose. I have to make it purposeful and I have to learn to see what I already have and be grateful for [00:27:00] that. Whereas I was. Thinking much beyond our further, beyond my own circumstances, I was thinking, in more grandiose terms, I was thinking about the world at large.
[00:27:09] And I was thinking about bigger ideas and I couldn't wrap my head around what was the point of going to college and what was the point of, dressing up and getting out of bed. And it just continued to spiral downward. And when I told her that I had considered stepping in front of the bus a few times, Cause that was the way I was planning on doing it.
[00:27:30]It made me realize when I said it out loud, that God, that would be an absurd thing to do now. What am I trying to, why am I trying to escape the pain? Why do I feel that this is pointless and why don't these things resonate with me the way they resonate with other people. And she gave me a reason to examine it.
[00:27:51] So when you're talking about the awareness, she essentially lit a spark in me that I had to examine the why of [00:28:00] life. And I had to examine the, our find my own sense of purpose. And I was naive enough at the time to think that she'd given me enough, therefore, I don't need to go back. So come a I'm gone and I'll be fine.
[00:28:13]I figured that out
[00:28:14] Noel: [00:28:14] the excuse to just any kind of, I wish I can get it. I'll take it. I'll take the boxes. Yeah,
[00:28:19] Chris: [00:28:19] absolutely. Ever since then, it's been a process of discovery and understanding, and it's always been through the prism of me. I'm trying to understand myself first and foremost, and you know what we have called inner work and I'm trying to build an awareness and I really didn't come to.
[00:28:39] A proper level of awareness until I started the meditation. And that has been, across as NSF over a good few years. I think I started maybe a year or two before I met you, but very fluently, I started off with Wim Hof breathing techniques. I think at the time he was just [00:29:00] becoming.
[00:29:01] Famous or infamous. If you've never encountered him off, he's a strange guy that, is climbed, snowy mountains in his underwear. I think it was Everest. I can't remember the specific mountain. And he does these breathing techniques and he's had like empirical studies done on the techniques you used and how they can effectively change people, hormonally and, chemically,
[00:29:24] Dan: [00:29:24] did they inject them with a virus?
[00:29:26] And he like fought it off using his
[00:29:29] Chris: [00:29:29] breathing. Yeah we went clinical study on him and his I want, I don't want to call them disciples cause it sounds culty when you call them disciples, but they did a study where he was able to change his response to an external, pathogen. He's since been able to get other people to do the same thing.
[00:29:50] Now, I don't know enough about it to speak about it in detail, but at the time it was just surface to have it. I saw it as guy on, wherever I saw him YouTube or something, or someone sent them to me. [00:30:00] And then I started off doing these breathing techniques in the morning. Yeah. Cause I was trying to figure out something, like we have a culture of do, and I was trying to figure out what I needed to do to solve the problem.
[00:30:10] And the problem was I wasn't feeling well. I never felt. Contained what it was doing. He was always the next thing. And I wanted more and what I had wasn't enough. And when someone sends you an article and says, this will improve your productivity and it will make you a better person. I just said, fuck it.
[00:30:26] I'm gonna try this breathing thing. There wasn't the intention behind it that I only want to build an awareness and this will lead to meditation, but that's what happened. So I started off doing his breathing techniques and then one day afterwards I sat there for, five minutes. Essentially just in the Lotus position tracking my nasal breathing and it just developed from there.
[00:30:48] So I've never done any, meditation coaching or I've never done any classes or I've only started reading about it last summer, so I could perhaps speak about it better [00:31:00] and give people a better understanding of it. And but before that I felt like it was something that I could do that. I didn't need to read about it just made me feel good and I didn't want to go down a rabbit hole and a goal.
[00:31:13] All of the evidence suggests that this is useless and it just anecdotally it made me feel good. And when I woke up in the morning, I used to go gravity and I'd sit down and I'd sit there for, it started off at two or three minutes. And starting off it became a thing. Like I was like, Oh, I need a goal.
[00:31:30] I need to get to 10 minutes. And I understand now that's, useless. If the process in meditation is goal-driven, I shouldn't want to have to go meditate for two hours. That's a good goal to have, but if the entire time I'm thinking about the fact that I'm have to get to two hours, then you're not effectively meditating.
[00:31:50] Noel: [00:31:50] It was supposed to be you doing that helps you realize that's a big part of this whole thing is what this, as we're doing the podcast, as we're doing the episodes and the practice, like by you doing a [00:32:00] quote unquote, wrong or not doing it the way I should have been doing it, that's how you realize, Oh, maybe this is the way to do it as part of their kind of journey to really fully get it.
[00:32:10] You know what I mean? Instead of just getting it, nailing it. The 100% correctly the first time it's just like giving yourself permission to just get it wrong a couple of times and then figure on way at your own path
[00:32:20] Chris: [00:32:20] out of it. Yeah. The thing about meditation for me was that I didn't know if it was right or wrong.
[00:32:25] I just wanted to do it. It was one of the only things that I didn't take and, bastardize it are. Bastardized the experience of it by taking everyone else's opinion and applying it and saying, reading a review of the movie before watching the movie, and then thinking about to review what I'm going through the movie and saying, ah, my opinion is this.
[00:32:44] It's not my opinion that I've just read the reviews when primed, as I've gone in to watch the movie to feel this way about it. I wanted to go into this as, this is my experience. It's no one else's I'm using it because it makes me feel good. I didn't know that it was [00:33:00] going to compound over time.
[00:33:01] And I was going to develop this awareness and awareness of South, and I was going to become interested in consciousness and meditation would become, a foundational pillar for my health. No, that was, you went to happen. Would you notice
[00:33:18] Noel: [00:33:18] it now if you didn't do it, how's it like for a day or a week or whatever?
[00:33:23] Chris: [00:33:23] 100%. Yeah, it's really hard. It's really hard to explain meditation to people that haven't done it for any length of time, because it's so again, it's involved now. So you have the Headspace apps and the calm apps, and everyone seems to have these apps downloaded and they listen to a guy or a girl.
[00:33:42] Speaking soft tones, soldiery tones and they do it to get them to sleep, or, they do it for productivity reasons because it's supposed to increase cognitive function and it, they do for happiness reasons because we're always chasing happiness, but meditation has been proven to increase these gamma waves in your brain. [00:34:00]
[00:34:00]I saw improved cognitive function and improves happiness, improves all these things. So if you send someone an article, I don't know, they're going to try it because it's so positively regarded in Western society, even though it's an Eastern philosophy or an Eastern idea. It's so not, it's now so positively regarded in Western society that ever wants to try it.
[00:34:16] And everyone says they meditate. Yeah, but not a lot of people do. It's like everyone has a gym membership, but not a lot of people actually go to gym memberships. That's why they get an uptick or a surge in revenues in January or February because people have their new year's resolutions, and then everyone falls off.
[00:34:32] That's just mapping human behavior. Meditation is kind of seminar. Everyone wants to say they do it because it's in Vogue and it's it's lot of people say they do yoga, but they don't really like the fundamentals of yoga. It's actually almost a meditative practice. The movements that come with it are to get, to make you a better meditator.
[00:34:48] Yeah. So I do notice now if I don't do it I have to do it every day because it seems to be a habit for me [00:35:00] now. And. I notice that I just to get a little bit more irritable and a little bit less present and thoughts come to me a little bit less freely, and I feel a little bit less grateful for life and for living.
[00:35:18] If I don't do it now, I've got. Sorry. Sorry, what? I'm sorry.
[00:35:22] Dan: [00:35:22] Sorry to cut across it. But one thing I've tried to meditate so many times and like how do you feel when you're meditating? Because one thing I'm constantly asking you, I feel like maybe this is just my insanely busy scatterbrain, but when I'm meditating, I'm like sitting there doing the breathing and doing the listen to the pamphlets, and I'm like, when's it going to happen? I'm waiting to feel something or
[00:35:48] Noel: [00:35:48] no, ,
[00:35:51] Dan: [00:35:51] I know Yoda would hate me, Allah, but have a Yoda and I don't have a Daigle back. So I'm like, I'm in my living room and I'm sitting there and I just don't know if I'm [00:36:00] doing it correctly.
[00:36:00] And I think then that's pushing me further away from doing it because all I'm thinking about is am I doing this? So every time I've tried to do it, it's, I've never really come away from it feeling like. Wow. I benefited from that, but I don't know what I'm doing wrong. Like obviously I know it works, but I just don't know what I'm meant to feel or is that tightly down to the person?
[00:36:17] Chris: [00:36:17] Does everyone feel different? The only thing that you're doing wrong is going into it with preconceived notions of what it should be. I think meditation is not a means to an end. It is the end itself. So I know some of this is going to sound really woo. But when you sit down to meditate even a very experienced meditator.
[00:36:37] I'm not putting myself in that class. They would still, conjure thoughts and, absentmindedly think about the fact that left the washing machine on and they can hear the washing machine downstairs while they're meditating. The difference between an experienced meditator. And you Don is that you're concentrating on the fact that you're not getting into a state of North thoughts.
[00:36:59] No [00:37:00] no mind or big mind. But the idea is to sit and to sit with that process and to learn that these thoughts are always going to be there. Like the idea of enlightenment is supposed to be that, you hear about people who have no thoughts, but that's not necessarily true. The best guy I've ever read on the topic of meditation is a guy called Sam Harrison.
[00:37:25]He has a really good podcast as well. I think it's called the waking up podcast, but he looks at it from a kind of a scientific perspective. And he jokingly derives this enlightenment process, or, you can say for sure that anyone has become fully enlightened or the Buddha wasn't lightened or not.
[00:37:41]But he suspended, his judgment is scientifically from a scientific perspective, you're asking, what do I get when I see it? I get the fact that I've sit for, 30 minutes to an hour. And I'm not doing anything else. It's a kind of a mano focus. I can't [00:38:00] multitask. I'm not double screening.
[00:38:01] I'm not looking at my phone at all. I'm not looking at, I'm not thinking about my work. Sometimes I am thinking about my work, but I am aware of the fact. That I'm thinking about my work, that's not going to make immediate sense to you, but
[00:38:14]Noel: [00:38:14] That's a huge part of that whole thing. And it's something, what Tom was touching on there is I'm what I've experienced with clients.
[00:38:21] And lots of people that have tried to start doing it is that they can start doing, and it's Oh, it's not working because I'm still thinking about, it's yeah that's exactly part of this. And it's. Leaning into that. It's holding and sticking through that. As you said at the start, I did it for a couple of minutes and it's just keep tipping away that slowly and slowly.
[00:38:39] Cause it is, it's a really good thing to do. It's really there's the case in point is Chris was talking about his experience of it and lots of other people's experience of it. But it's just trying to break the back of a, trying to get through though, those parts that Dan spoke of I'm doing it wrong because I'm still thinking about this stuff and there's a Buddhist monk could talk.
[00:38:54] His name escapes me. He talks about the monkey mind where it's really busy. It will still [00:39:00] come in. And as you say, Chris, it'll, I'll think about work. I'll think about stuff, but it's almost just going, Oh, there you are. There's to talk about work. Okay. Come on in. Make yourself at home and just put, still stay sitting, stay in that and let yourself, and let your mind work through that.
[00:39:15] Dan: [00:39:15] I think I got there once. I think I've tried it loads of times and I'm not giving up on it cause I know the value and understand the value on it. I don't really want it. I really want to get there, but I think I got there once in my old apartment, I was sitting there on a drew, the curtains.
[00:39:29] And I put on I love as cliche as it sounds. I love pamphlet music. I listen to it all the time. I just love native American pop food stuff. I think it's amazing. But anyway, had that music on and I was doing my breathing and I just, I'm focusing on when you close your eyes and you can see the little swirly things in your eyes.
[00:39:49] You know what I'm talking about? The little shapes and colors, I was just really focusing hard on them. And I was just like, all I was doing was like watching these shapes and I was kept breathing and I found myself like, [00:40:00] in this it almost felt like I was in an empty room. That was it. And there was nothing in the room bar, me and these little shapes.
[00:40:06] And I was so relaxed and in it, and then I thought to myself, I'm there, but then I started thinking that, Oh, I've done it. You know what I mean? I'm like, I'm in medic, I'm meditating. And then the minute I started doing that, I lost it. And then I was back in my apartment and there was, people fighting outside on the street, but it's just a matter of, trying to.
[00:40:25] First you get there. You might, if you get to that point, which is your, a meditative state, you might get there for 10 seconds. You keep doing it. You might get there for 20 seconds, a minute, two minutes, whatever. But yeah,
[00:40:35] Chris: [00:40:35] the point that I was trying to make that as there is no, there. That's the most, there is no spin Neil.
[00:40:42] Sure. But the idea of you want, you're saying you're getting to it. A meditative state, the meditative state is sitting in meditation. The meditative state is meditating every single day. Usually at the same time. And I'm just sitting in awareness. [00:41:00] The imaginative state is saying, I am thinking a lot.
[00:41:03] The meditative state is. The pain that comes up from I I sit in kind of a Lotus position or half Lotus. And I do that because now, usually when I started, I thought that you have to sit cross legged with your hands or with your thumb and your forefinger touching. Cause that's what in the pictures, right?
[00:41:24] People are sitting. Like that in Lotus position in the movies. And that is the Eastern idea. And that is Zen Buddhism, they sit, they have a certain posture. And there's this really famous book called Zen mind. Beginner's mind. I think his name is and they give you a fixed, specific posture.
[00:41:42] It's very procedural and you have to do it for 25 minutes, no more, no less. And there are certain you have to do at the same time every day, and it's very prescriptive. Whereas what I have learned in my own practice. And I can only speak from anecdote here. I can't, I'm not an [00:42:00] authority on this and I can't teach you anything, but I've come to a point where I've recognized that it's okay to.
[00:42:09] Have thoughts when you're meditating. There are times I don't want to be, I've almost afraid to say these things because people take in the goal, this is what I have to do to get the meditation. But there are times where you get to that state of no mind where you lose that sense of Seth. You it's not lose consciousness, but you, yeah.
[00:42:28] The sense of expanded awareness and the way I describe it to people sometimes is that. Sometimes I get to a state of mind where I forget I'm there and I'm I can't feel my body, with the way proprioception works, as you can feel, and you can understand where your hands are and where your legs are, and it gives you your sense of balance, et cetera.
[00:42:50] I lose that sense. And then I feel like has always a roof over my head, but it feels like there's nothing over my head. It's just like infinity. This is [00:43:00] so hard to explain and I, I have never tried to explain this property to anyone, but that doesn't happen to me every single time.
[00:43:07] And I don't want it to the idea for me is to just sit. It's the only time of the day where I am not tangentially thinking. It's the only time of the day where I can. Sit in awareness and get to a point where I feel comfortable and I'm not thinking about what I should do or have to do. And the best thing that I have learned from it is that when I do get into a state and I do get to a place where I'm really stressed from something else and, if I do it too late in the day am, I'm usually fueled by adrenaline throughout the day.
[00:43:42] And I'm just too fidgety, but I still do it. Because I used to be in a place where I was very goal-driven and if I wasn't doing what I need to do ever wasn't being disciplined, I would self lacerate, or I would go to a place of self [00:44:00] derision and I would give out to myself and it was these negative self thoughts, our negative self talk where, you're not working hard enough.
[00:44:06] You're not doing it well enough. You're not there. You're not in that place. As you you say, done that place that you want to get to, but the fact that. That I've gotten to a point now where thoughts would arise and I'll go, huh? That's interesting. Why am I thinking about the fact that I left my spreadsheet open?
[00:44:23] Oh, I just remembered I got the numbers wrong in that project. But I, it, I tell people that thoughts are our thoughts effectively come from the same place as far. It's not your house, but, and from nowhere, no. So it, I thought will come up. And some deeps though, it was just a rise. I'd say I, there is, that thought or feeling or sentiment and sometimes really old memories come up.
[00:44:48]Like things from that, I wouldn't be able to recall from, what's the subconscious mind, this is a rabbit hole. No, from the subconscious mind, things would come up and stuff like that would come up in a dream or whatever it would come up in my thoughts. [00:45:00] And I go, Ooh, that's really interesting.
[00:45:02] Why am I thinking about that? And then I just say, I let it go. Yup. Bye-bye I think he might have to anymore. And that happens over and over again. And you get to a place where sometimes not very often the, the added benefit or the bonus that you get at the end is that sometimes for a few seconds or for a few minutes, you might not think about anything at all, nothing, but that's not the goal.
[00:45:28] The goal is to just sit. And that's all I can explain about meditation. I don't have any formal teaching. I've only read books, in the last six months, I maybe read 10 or 15 about meditation to try and give a language to it. But it's very difficult to explain the feeling. All I can do is recommend that if you want to get to a place where you feel a sense of gratitude for what you have.
[00:45:56] And a sense of connection because that is a huge thing. That's come from it for me [00:46:00] is a sense of longing for connection, before it would have longed for isolation. Now, I feel like I long for connection. Yeah. If you want that over an extended period of time, meditation can provide that.
[00:46:14]I've never taught about the environment really until the last 12 or 18 months. And I really genuinely think it's become. Arts because of my meditation practice, I started to feel what actually happened was in lockdown. The first lockdown we had in February, March, I went home to cork to our house.
[00:46:32] And my my home is a Georgian house and it has, this lovely garden and I'd never paid attention to the garden before. But I couldn't go anywhere and there was nothing else to do. So I used to meditate a lot, like a few times a day and for longer periods of time, my daily practice is 30 minutes, but when I was there, I would do an hour at a time, or I might do an hour in the morning and I might do, half an hour in the evening.
[00:46:56] And I've, I never heard [00:47:00] birds. The way I heard birds in that few months, it sounds silly, but I never paid any heat to the birds or the blossoming plants or the fact that there are, trees generate oxygen. And those, all those processes were internalized only because I was meditating so much at that time that I started to think about that with intentionality before that they were just something I needed to get out of my way.
[00:47:28]I never thought about that stuff cause I was so focused on what I was doing at a time when either my work or if I was training or whatever it was at a time, people would get to know me, but I am extremely obsessive and I put on my blinkers and that's all I think about meditation has taught me to think more expansive.
[00:47:46] And if. All I get from it for the rest of my life is that I get a sense of connection and, awareness and it helps me to be more empathetic to other people. Then that's enough, I don't need to get to a state of Zen [00:48:00] or enlightenment. I don't know, is that even possible?
[00:48:03] And I'm not trying to be the best meditator in the world because I don't think that's even possible. How would you, gosh, who's a better meditator than the other one. Unless you put them under EKG or R put them into a scan and MRI scan or whatever, and measured brain activity. Sure. Oh God.
[00:48:21]Monks people who do this day in day out and they live with nothing and they live on nothing. It's remarkable what they live on and how little they have. But how content and peaceful and the state of the community that they find from this practice. I have to think that, if I continue on, it's only going to improve my state of mind and improve my life, but this is all STEM from.
[00:48:46] You're asking me about that sense of awareness. Know I've gone on for fucking a few minutes now, meditation, but I genuinely think it is a foundational pillar of my life now. And for you to understand me, you have to understand how much importance I put on. [00:49:00] That practice. And there's a few
[00:49:01] Noel: [00:49:01] things there, it's okay. It's fine. Each individual finding what works for you. Like again, like Dan, if you left, you kept going in that after it might work here, it may not, but it's about finding the different things that work for you that obviously works for you, Chris and there's different parts of it. W the breathing part to, just to letting your mind BIP's part looking after the body, getting the body and the brain as a mechanical working team into a better place.
[00:49:26] Obviously facilitates lots of other things with your emotions, your feelings, your the way, your, the way in which you're thinking. And on that part, With regards to therapy and starting with myself, then what was that like you'd obviously had started therapy with CBT and college come through four or five years, then began the meditation in some ways.
[00:49:47] And then obviously you got in touch with myself. And what was that experience without kind of necessarily going into the details of it if you don't want to, of course, but what was the experience of that, of. Coleman to another therapist, [00:50:00]
[00:50:01]Chris: [00:50:01] The devil's in the details. So I don't have a problem giving the details if you want.
[00:50:06] That'd be brutal. Experientially at the time, I think I felt defeated. I felt that, psychologically, it was a failure that I had to go back to therapy that I had somehow done something wrong that what I was doing wasn't working. And I think I had to be cajoled to go back when I can't remember, I'd have to speak to my parents cause my parents have always been very positive about this whole idea of mental health.
[00:50:33] And they've always encouraged me to take care of myself. I think from a very early age, they recognize that I, I tend to ruminate a lot and I tend to think about things very deeply. And
[00:50:48] Noel: [00:50:48] did that help you much knowing that they were okay with
[00:50:51] Chris: [00:50:51] us? Yeah, for sure. For sure. I wouldn't, if someone, if my own close family had Maybe acted against me or told me that it was shameful. [00:51:00]
[00:51:00]You can't go see a shrink like that. I don't think I would have done it because I have so much regard and respect for my parents that, and I was so young and impressionable that I think if they said this is not something you should do, it's shameful. You're fine.
[00:51:14]Just get on with it, which would have been, Par for the course for, yeah. Most families and most males up until, the early two thousands, maybe mid two thousands depression. Wasn't really a thing you talked about. It was, a whisper to be ashamed about, you, it was something that, they used to call it nerves and men didn't get depression.
[00:51:37] It was depression. I talked to you before about this book. I think it's called, I don't want to talk about it by a guy called Terrence real. And his whole thing was saying that depression is a thing for males and there are patterns for male psychology that, men need to understand. And men also like suicidality is very high for young males. [00:52:00]
[00:52:00]Why is that? I think it's because of this idea of masculinity and that. Feeling low or failure is a weakness and we should be ashamed of it. People don't want to talk about it because it, it emasculates us. It puts you across as vulnerable and weak and you can't, escalate our traverse the dominance hierarchy.
[00:52:24] If you're a weak male, that, I don't know if people. I've ever read 12 rules for life by Jordan Peterson, his name, Jordan Peterson. I know the guy gets a really bad rep bought. And I read his book in conjunction with another book because I wanted to understand, first of all, why people give him such a bad rep?
[00:52:42] Because I don't watch, I don't have social media. And secondly, I wanted he comes out everything from a An individual approach. It's a process of self discovery and your own responsibility and ownership make your bed, in the morning was the analogy you used for [00:53:00] taking care of yourself.
[00:53:00] And I read another book that came at depression and anxiety from a sociological perspective. And it was essentially saying that your psychosocial environment was what affects you and it can change your chemistry. And he. I'd have to losing my train of thought. What exactly did he, like we were talking about in Peterson, we were talking with Jordan Peterson because I was trying to make a point.
[00:53:26]What was the question again? Sorry. It's a, I
[00:53:27] Noel: [00:53:27] suppose, it's just coming back to, I'd asked about your experience with it with therapy and starting therapy, say with myself and, but then also it was just, it was pointing out that having that support there of your parents yeah, just having that very simply having the support of your parents say, Oh, okay, this is an option.
[00:53:44] I do have that option versus the kind of the masculine or you can't be doing that to that. We don't talk about it in that kind of way. And sure.
[00:53:53] Chris: [00:53:53] Sorry. I was referencing torn peanuts because of the lobster idea, we move on from that. Yeah. [00:54:00]
[00:54:01]Noel: [00:54:01] What was that experience though? Starting just to come back to that for you. Cause it, and this is, I felt like a failure heart.
[00:54:08] Chris: [00:54:08] Yeah. Yeah. I felt like a failure, but back because I was in a, I was at a point that I could have go on living the way I was living and what I didn't, it didn't conjure anymore.
[00:54:20] Suicidal ideations. I certainly felt. I, again, a sense of disenfranchisement and I'd started reading philosophy in a big way at the time and existential philosophy. There's a few different authors. One of them was a guy called I'm going to butcher this, but Albert Kamoo or Albert Camus I think it's all American movies.
[00:54:41] He's Algerian, French Algerian, and he had this whole idea of the absurd and. I don't know how many men, the last a hundred years our women have gone to the likes of Nicha and Camou and read their stuff and it's resonated with them. What's the point. And what's the purpose in life is absurd.
[00:54:59] And [00:55:00] I, it resonated with me so strongly that I felt I was developing a sense of kind of existential neoism no, What's the point of life. There's no purpose to it. Focus, hedonism is the way forward. It doesn't make any sense anyway, make as much money as you can and enjoy it while you can.
[00:55:17] And it doesn't actually matter. We're on a, a rock floating through infinite time and space and who cares. It doesn't matter what I do. And you can't, I think a precursor to wellbeing is a sense of optimism. No. And I was developing a very strong sense of pessimism. And when I went to you first, I told a story and I told you the story that I wanted you to hear, which was a story of myself at the time and what I wanted from life and what I wanted to become and who I was going to be.
[00:55:51] But I never really told you about myself. I think, I recognize now in hindsight, how [00:56:00] Surface level, the conversations we were having, where, I went to you and, in the last episode I referenced this Jeff Bezos joke, but it was because I went to you and I went through a stage for a couple of years where I'd read a lot of biographies of entrepreneurs and I was reading His biography at the time, or it was basically an account of the setup of Amazon, by the way called Broadstone.
[00:56:21] It's a very good book if you're into business books, but the guy is so impressive and mine are just ism. I'm not a narcissist, no narcissists will limiter and narcissists. But my narcissistic tendency at the time was to think and this goes back to competence. My parents have always given me an a steal, the sense of confidence in me that if he could do it.
[00:56:39] I can do it, I'm going to put my blinkers on and I'm going to give all of my time energy resources to building businesses. Yeah. And that has, again, from retrospect, hindsight, 2020 as allowed me to develop a lot of skills and has allowed me to develop businesses that will [00:57:00] serve me for the rest of my life, hopefully, but at the time I was shooting for the moon.
[00:57:07] Yeah. And, or shooting for the stars, whatever analogy you wanna use. And I went into trying to portray myself in a certain way with strength, I think back to what I was telling you at the time I was portraying strength and, but I felt jaded. No, I, can you help me with that? And over time, like I, people ask me about therapy and I always give the the mirror analogy.
[00:57:32] So for me, the therapeutic process with you has been, I go in and you act as a mirror and sometimes the mirror speaks to me. So sometimes the mirror directs me in different points me in a different direction or. It asks me certain questions, but I'm talking to the mirror and it keeps bouncing back and I'm effectively looking at a reflection.
[00:57:58] And I don't like [00:58:00] what I see, but what I see changes over time, and it's almost like peeling off layers of skin on an onion slowly, but surely we delve a little bit deeper and a little bit deeper and a little bit deeper. And, we. We talked about ideas early on that I just didn't internalize. You mentioned Carol Rogers to me, it's on your fucking business card.
[00:58:20]The curious paradox is that once you can accept yourself, you can learn to change or you can change. I saw that the first day I met you, but I didn't really pay heat to it until. 12 months ago, a, maybe 14 months ago at this stage until, Q4 2019. When I realized that my sense of self was distorted, when I realized that I had been going through the individuation process, that young talks about what I had been, trying to find congruence.
[00:58:51] And there was so much incongruence in my pronounced personality and what I was trying to portray to people that I needed to accept that. No, that is the [00:59:00] curious paradox. I did accept it. I have accepted it. I have accepted that. I was living in life where I was not who I thought it wasn't who, what other people thought I was?
[00:59:09] I was who I thought they wanted me to be. Yeah, I was walking around, dressing a certain way, doing certain things. Cause I thought that's what you needed to do to achieve what they achieved. I thought that I wanted what they had, that's culture romantics, the whole idea, Renee, Gerard has this idea of mathematics that we want, what other people want, because it can inspect their dominance hierarchy.
[00:59:31] It's what they want. It's cultural convention. And I went to you being like, this is what I want. This is who I am slowly, but surely over five years. How has it been five years at this point? I think we have broken down those narratives. And we have I think we still have a long way to go. I think I'm aware now that I need to go and take action on certain things.
[00:59:57]With respect to my personality. I think I'm aware now [01:00:00] that I have been living certain lives and I need to live a more truthful existence and that, again, that sounds, we want people going to hear this and go, what the fuck are you talking about? But. If you're constantly doing what other people want you to do.
[01:00:13]And living a life that you think is regarded by your peers or regarded by society, you will eventually come to a place where you feel this sense of cognitive dissonance. You're in two minds, you feel like behind closed doors, you are one thing. And in your own mind, you're one thing. And then to everyone else, you're another thing.
[01:00:34] And you have to act in a certain way to be perceived well, Oh, yeah. I've gotten to a point through therapy where I know that I can be myself and I can be. Okay. Being myself is the idea of going on a fucking podcast or starting podcasts is that I have to speak openly. And it doesn't matter who I'm speaking to you.
[01:00:54] I can't be one thing to one friend and another thing to another friend, I have one friend Steve who [01:01:00] would hopefully listen to this and I've told them this, that I act a certain way with him because he's highly intelligent. And I love having these like DMCs with him about, really topical things.
[01:01:11] And we talk about all sorts of stuff, but I don't talk like that. To my other friends, my friends from that knew me from five and six years old would just laugh at me if I started talking about that stuff because they know me from when I was a child and I didn't talk about that stuff then. So they were like, what are you trying to say?
[01:01:28] Smart things for Chris and friends of Steve. Steve allows me to do that, yeah. So that's the whole process. And I think that was the experience. It's interesting. All has been a positive
[01:01:39] Noel: [01:01:39] experience. Yeah. That's what I was going to ask you as well. But I suppose just something you said a few minutes ago was w when you're looking in the mirror and something that you don't like, and I think that's a great place, that's a great thing that place of therapy can give you.
[01:01:51] Is that okay? Do you know what it gives me a chance to reflect and start a necessarily in a really nasty way with ourselves? The saying actually there's a part of me that adult I was like, okay partly not [01:02:00] like we identify that we have a look and the great thing is you have the choice and the ownership to take that on board and to change that and to have, and then because therapy, it gives it a place to do that.
[01:02:11]And it's just something there as you just said it and D enjoy it. How's it thing, not necessarily first
[01:02:19] Chris: [01:02:19] around now. Yeah, I do. And now it's difficult for me to understand why other people don't think critically about themselves. Would
[01:02:30] Noel: [01:02:30] you say it as a place to just yes. There's obviously, in the initial stages in college, or maybe at the initial stage with myself, you could maybe see it as right. There's something definitely I'm feeling depressed. I'm feeling anxious, I'm feeling stressed. I w you know, all those things in those, in the kind of bracket.
[01:02:46] Yeah. So I want to go to see a therapist or a counselor for that thing. Has it evolved for you
[01:02:52] Chris: [01:02:52] from that? Yeah, it's not. It's two things now. Yeah. It's like a [01:03:00] check-in procedure. So I feel like nowadays it's normal for people to go to a gym and have a trainer in the bath. Check-ins note to keep them accountable.
[01:03:11] I feel like you are that thing for me. Yeah. And I mentioned the last episode, the last year was difficult for me. I had a breakdown in, in. February or March. And, I think mentally that's, that was the Nadeer for me, that was the worst place that I have been to mentally ever. And I went on to, feel okay for what, and then how the prolonged bout of depression over the summer.
[01:03:43] And, I was very stressed from work and. I feel like the second the second thing that therapy does for me, the second thing is the thing that you do for me is that you provide me with a sense of [01:04:00] context. So you've known me for so long now and my habits and my predilections and what I will do and how we react to depression.
[01:04:13] And you know how important meditation is for me and how important my family and friends are for me. And you constantly are asking me to check in with these things and you constantly bring up, you used to use the analogy of signposts and sometimes you see the signs and you take the exit for Galway, but you're intending on going to cork, whatever.
[01:04:34]You're going on. You're 50. And you take the Gabi exit, but you're trying to go sewed bone to cork. Yeah. That's happened to me a lot. I would go along prancing along feeling like I'm fine. I'm doing no. That culture of do is deeply embedded in me. I have to do in order to react, I have to be able to solve the problem.
[01:04:55] That's part of my masculinity. No, my I need to be able to take a problem [01:05:00] and solve it. And I feel like my depression was a problem and I was solving it. They was doing and. You're able to say, okay, you have been doing bot right now. You don't feel well. So what could you peel back? What could you do less of what could you take and maybe put it in the back burner for a while.
[01:05:27] How many projects are you working on right now? How many people are you responsible for? Are those people going to be okay if you're not able to get out of bed for two or three weeks? Probably, have you built a team strong enough that can help you when you're down? Yes. Have you made them aware of the fact that you're down?
[01:05:45] Yeah, usually I tell the people that are important and that I need to tell, and it means that. I often don't even notice that I'm low. Other people will [01:06:00] notice for me. No, they're little things will come up and I'll see people looking at me in a certain way, or I will react to something in a certain way.
[01:06:09]Or sometimes I have these like internal dialogues and only really happens when I get very low, but I don't express anger very well. I don't like confrontation. I don't like being combative. So usually what happens when I feel hard done by, as I have and what I'm very low, only I have these internal dialogues where I'll go through or I'll imagine the entire argument, I'll be telling them to fuck themselves in my head, but in real life, I'll be presently going along with my day and these things build up and I don't notice them, but the only people that are able to recognize are you.
[01:06:49] Maybe my parents and my fiance. Yeah. But they don't always say it to me because they don't have the objectivity that you have. I don't have any other objectivity. I don't [01:07:00] have any other safe space where no one has an interest or self interest because, everyone has self-interest in everything they do to a point, no one is entirely altruistic or, entirely self interested.
[01:07:13] There's a spectrum. And in every conversation you have. There's a little bit of self interest that goes into that from your interlocutor or your, the person you're talking to. Yeah. So you're the only person that I speak to you on a regular basis that sometimes doesn't even speak. You just listen.
[01:07:31] And you don't, you only person that I know that will say, Chris, you're feeling, Oh, Y you're not admitting it, but you're 100% about to have an episode and what are we going to do about that? And I don't have any, anyone else stat, it's their job to text me. I don't always is this part of your job, but you do it anyway.
[01:07:51] I don't know. Is there anyone else that will text me? Fuck. I feel like I'm choking up here.
[01:08:04] [01:08:00] I don't know. Is there anyone else that will.
[01:08:09] Dan: [01:08:09] Sorry folks.
[01:08:10] Chris: [01:08:10] All right. That was, text me and asked me if I'm okay. After a conversation in that way, because they know that I could go to a really dark place,
[01:08:31]And that's what therapy I think can provide for people. No, not everyone's okay at admitting this publicly on the airwaves, not everyone is okay with admitting this to themselves or to their loved ones, but perhaps they can be okay with paying someone to do the duty of listening to them when you're in that place and [01:09:00] giving that, giving them that sense of objectivity.
[01:09:02] And I'm guiding him through. And I'm at a place where I can get myself through these episodes, but I know I have you there buttressing and catching me effectively. Yeah. Without any self-interest, because even if someone is very close to you, their self interest is in protecting you.
[01:09:25] They don't want to lose you. So they want you to do what is necessary to feel well. Yeah, you don't have that interest, you, you do it to a point, but it's professional.
[01:09:44] Dan: [01:09:44] I'm a professional I'll look after you.
[01:09:49] Chris: [01:09:49] Sorry. I don't know why you're choking up so much here, but no, man, this is
[01:09:53] Dan: [01:09:53] the point. I think this is the point of what we want to do. Inevitably. We will all change.
[01:09:57] Chris: [01:09:57] Yeah, I think
[01:09:59] Noel: [01:09:59] that's [01:10:00] exactly it. And that's, and thank you, Chris, because that like on so many levels you talk to in the, in, in episode zero, we talked about the ripple effect and what this kind of can do, and we talk and about this stuff can do.
[01:10:14]It's touching, it's reaching out to people and it's been genuinely real about it. That's so important to us, to me, to Chris, to Dan, from the get-go, just to be genuine about this stuff. And that's what we wanted to get. Give people an idea of who Chris is, who I am, who we are as a team of what we're genuinely really like.
[01:10:34]Really trying to do here, make something. An honest difference about that. And genuinely from my bottom of my heart, I really mean that Chris, thank you for that. And Sharon, without today, because I know how hard that is to talk about this stuff. And I know the difference that it does make.
[01:10:51] Yeah, for sure, man. And that's what we like. We do what we like. We, that's what we wanted people to get involved with all this and to hear from people's stories, obviously look, [01:11:00] make sure you're safe and you have that place and that person to talk about this stuff on a deeper level, was it, there's only so much we can help to double it's to hear from the community to build a community, to hear from people out there as well, which is really important.
[01:11:13] Dan: [01:11:13] Exactly. And I think one thing that Chris mentioned earlier, Is that, his, he wouldn't have said anything to his group of friends before. And I think, for groups of friends are getting better at that. My, my mates check in the WhatsApp group every so often. And maybe after listening to this, if somebody listens, sends out that text to their WhatsApp groups, Our group or their, even their mates or their parents or their family, whoever, and just, Hey, how's everything, how are you, but really ask how are you?
[01:11:37] Noel: [01:11:37] So look, thanks for listening today, folks. And thank you for Christmas in particular for for sharing that all with us. We'll look forward to hearing again. We look forward to talking to you again, and you can hear from most from the next episode. And I think that's where Chris is going to get an opportunity to grill me and ask me some questions.
[01:11:55] We'll look forward to that and we'll look forward to speaking to you as also, thank you.
[01:12:00] [01:12:00] Chris: [01:12:00] Jump out the bed I got to between the curtain, see the sun to the coast because my bones. A morning, cup of butter. So be the most. If you've got a problem or a squabbling or an issue, we can talk it out, stretch your legs.
[01:12:14] Matter of fact, cause we can walk it out cold days. No raise what you talk about. You must be looking both ways with thoughts about, Oh, it'll help you pray for your peace of mind, a PCRs and a peace of mind. That was me before I keep ignoring it to keep it alive. Now the dark makes way for the shine.
