SPEAKER_01: 0:46

So, welcome to my podcast, Slay Your Dragons with Compassion, done in conjunction with my good friend's online events, John and Sandra Wilson. And um we've been doing this podcast now for two or three years. And what I'm what I'm looking at, the theme of this podcast, is how adversity shapes us. We're gonna go through our lives, we're gonna have a lot of shocks that happen. We can either get knocked over by them or we can rise and find something deep inside ourselves. Now, today I'm very happy to um to um chat with my good friend James Willing, um, who's been through a a pretty wild and uh and interesting life and has encountered some really quite big stuff in the last few years. So I'm not gonna start there, I'm just gonna start with what's what's made you? What's tell us a little bit about you?

SPEAKER_00: 1:38

What's what's what's the the the um the meaning of James in this world right now uh the meaning of James in the world right now right now is um to get through to get through the next few months, which seems to be ongoing. Like um, so the challenge at the moment is that um well you've you've seen the house here, Malcolm. Uh the challenge at the moment is that uh the beautiful house that I live in, which myself and my husband Tim bought, I don't know, 13 years ago, 14 years ago, is no longer viable for me. I can't afford to stay here for all sorts of reasons. And uh in this current um housing market, uh it's very, very difficult to sell properties uh as everyone is aware. Um so uh finally I have got an offer on this house. Oh fantastic. Yeah, it's uh it's way below what I was ever expecting. However, it's an offer which I've accepted for various reasons. And um the challenge now is to see whether it actually goes through. Because as we all know, uh a deal is not a deal, or this property is not sold until exchange happens. And in this current market, anything can happen. And we have the we've got this horrible budget looming, which um is scaring everybody to death. So, yeah, that's my challenge up until for now, and then uh that will go on up until Christmas, and hopefully in January, if all this goes through, I will be no longer the owner of any properties, and I will be a free agent, as a girlfriend of mine says, um, I will be fortune's plaything.

SPEAKER_01: 3:25

How lovely, nice, nice uh term. And I I think the the one of the reasons I wanted to have you on the podcast is because I saw you really honour the loss of your husband. I saw you go through some very profound grief. I saw you um be utterly upfront, unable to sort of put up the normal shield that says, I'm fine, thank you, and be sort of basically torn apart by it. You're married to a very lovely man, a very kind, gentle artist, and and I've you know, I used to hang out with you guys and sort of saw some, you know, some beautiful connections between you, and it all went pear-shaped. So perhaps we could talk a little bit about what happened to Tim and a little bit about who Tim was and and how where it where it started and where you went with this.

SPEAKER_00: 4:19

I mean, basically, as you know, I I mean I knew Tim Um from my early 20s, and uh I always fancied him. Uh, I'd never got the feeling that he fancied me. And then many, many, many years later, uh in my late 40s, early 50s, in my late 40s, shall we say, um I'd known Tim, but I met him again at a mutual friend of ours, 50th, in Spain, and that's where it all kicked off. Tim was uh four years older than me. Um I always like the fact that he was a bit older, a bit more mature, definitely more mature, definitely was not to be less mature, James. So and um anyway, so we clicked, we got together, and um we eventually bought the house that I'm now living in. Um and for many years we we grew together. He was um an amazing artist, very, very talented surrey artist. He could paint anything. He also was a uh a very clever uh restorer um of paintings, and um and funny enough, like at the beginning of our relationship, he made it very clear that I was not to interfere in any way within his world of art. So he had this passion for art and he loved it. And I think, thank goodness for the amount of work, personal development that I'd done with myself, I really always respected that. I think Tim couldn't have lived with someone or been in a relationship with someone who didn't really, really understand his desire and passion for art, um, for painting, being able to be on his own in a studio or go off. We had a house in France and he'd go off on his own into the fields. And it was very much like, okay, off he goes. Um and um and sometimes it felt like we were ships in the night because he had his studio in the garden, and I, you know, in the morning I'd wake up, go morning, and off he'd go, and I'd kind of like throughout the day, he'd pop in, have a cup of tea, and say, How are you doing? and off he'd go again. So it was we had a very interesting relationship in that respect, but I honor I really um admired him as a person um for his kindness, his integrity, and his incredible passion for art and his talent. Um, and that you know, that was always there. And then literally um we'd got through COVID, um, we survived COVID very well. And then one day, out of the blue, three and a half years ago, no, four years ago, he said to me, in fact, it's November now, just coming into November. And I think he told me around this time, four years ago, he woke me up and he said, No, he didn't wake me up. We were having a cup of tea in bed, and he said, I've got something I want to tell you. And I said, You know, when someone says something and it drops, and you think this I said, What is it? He said, Oh, I'll actually I'll tell you later. And I said, No, no, tell me now. And he said, I've he said, I've got cancer. And my reaction was, This is ridiculous, you can't have cancer, you're way too fit, you're way too young, blah blah blah. Anyway, and he's uh it turned out they'd given him six months to live. He'd done that normal thing that Tim always does, which is to sort of do everything on his own to start with. Um I don't mean that in a but Tim is very much he wanted to go and find out for himself what what the issues were before he alarmed me, bless him. And so by the time he told me it was absolutely done and dusted, diagnosed that he had six months to live, he had cancer of the esophagus or esophagal cancer, and uh he um yeah, so he he had that for six months and he literally died six months later to the day that they said he would. Um and you stop me whenever I'm boring you or anything, because I mean I could talk forever.

SPEAKER_01: 8:45

You're interesting me, keep going.

SPEAKER_00: 8:47

So, anyway, but the interesting thing about all of this is that I of course I absolutely didn't know it at the time, but I was in complete denial. I just did not believe that he was going to die of this thing. I thought he'll get through it, and um because he responded, he very quickly went on to chemo and he responded incredibly well to the chemo initially. Um, and so he was just normal Tim. And being normal Tim meant he was working in his studio every day. He carried on doing what he loved most, and he said to everybody, I don't want to be fussed over, I'm just gonna carry on, and that's what he did, and he also um was determined to create a final exhibition, and he worked incredibly hard, too hard really, in pulling all that together, but he succeeded. It was like Tim had very little ego, it's impossible not to have some ego, but Tim had very little ego, and he was more into just wanting to do this final exhibition, not as a way of saying, look at me, it was just a sort of last hurrah, really. It was like, I want to paint these things for you, for you guys. And uh so he made he um produced this exhibition and uh at pretty much sort of like five months, so this was around February, he was working on this, and the exhibition went live in March. And while he was in the process, literally the first night the exhibition opened, he wasn't feeling very well. And then the second day of the exhibition, we had a big opening night where he sold about 70% of everything he'd put into it. It was phenomenal. Um, and the next day he got very ill, and we didn't know why. I whizzed him to Guildford AE, he was whizzed in, and long story short, he started to go downhill from there basically, and he the chemo wasn't working, and the secondaries like he had cancer in his liver, etc. etc. So he just got more and more sick. And uh he I managed to get him into for a second diagnosis um to the uh the Royal Marsden, who confirmed that yes, he he was going, you know, that he had this cancer, and there was nothing more that they could do other than keep him on the chemo, etc. And then one day, um, so after the exhibition, um after his exhibition, he kind of got a little bit better, but he still wasn't right. Uh and then we went away that Easter to our French house, and while we were there, he was in terrible pain with his knee. He'd had a replacement knee a number of years before, and he was in terrible pain. So I whizzed him, we whizzed back to the UK, got him into AE uh the next morning, and he never came out. Well, he he got very, very sick in Guildford Hospital with this knee infection, which got worse and worse, and basically the infection finished him off. So I always say he didn't die of cancer, he actually died of a chronic infection. And in a way, uh looking back, it was the best thing that could have happened to him in for him because he died very, very peacefully, and he didn't die uh in a in a horrible way as some people can with esophagal cancer. So um, yeah, so he died in May 2022. Um and well, you know the story. I mean, since then it, you know, I've uh yeah, I've found I've found life a real struggle.

SPEAKER_01: 12:33

I miss him every day. I think it basically what I saw uh initially is that his death crucified you. It's like you you you were you two were very stable. It's like he was a stabilizing influence on this wild, you don't look like a wild man, but you are a wild man, and um you've had some fantastic adventures in your life, but you were stabilized with a with a partner who who you loved and who loved you, and it felt like you'd found peace, and then these things don't last forever, and and actually you've had to deal with it since. So I I saw you sometime after Temper died, and you were wrecked. You you were you're unable to sort of contain your emotion. Not that one should, I think it's fantastic to actually deeply grieve. Um, and then somehow you f found your way through. I I I know this doesn't go away, it's like it's not sort of suddenly everything's alright, but something in you has changed, and I'm wondering what happened, what was the process after which Tim died? What happened to you that actually took you from from being basically um a wreck of a human being into um I mean, understandably, I'm not sort of saying a wreck because you were you're uh you would you you honored, I think this is what I saw in you is that you really honored your emotion. You honored the fact that this was the love of your life who had gone from your life, and and suddenly there you are knocking around in a big house on your own. What what what happened to you?

SPEAKER_00: 14:03

Well, I mean, firstly, the process continues, and secondly, I am nowhere near uh sorted. So, you know, it is a forever I just see this as a forever process. Um I I mean in the Bible, um somewhere in the Bible it says life is to endure. There's something around endurance and endure, and I I actually really bugs me that is it true that life is to endure, but I do feel like yes, it is, I suppose. So I'm not fixed in any way. I would say, well, as as you know, Malcolm, and I'm not going to go into into it in detail, but not only did Tim have cancer and was he dying, I also had an absolutely horrific um legal battle going on. It was uh uh it was a really nasty situation that I uh was involved with. Um and it it was a legal thing. Um I'm not gonna go any more than that. Um and Tim was aware of it, and it was I was dealing with that as well. So it wasn't resolved before Tim died, and it it was eventually resolved a year later. Uh so I I really don't know where I get my resilience from, but the bottom line is I always think it's either, well, stay under the duvet or get out. And I'm not a stayer under the duvet. Um, I'm gonna say I felt suicidal. I frankly wanted if I'd had the tablets in a bottle and I could I have taken them? I don't know, but I was very, you know, it's very easy to say. Uh you know, but I I felt very, very, very low for for that year. And Tim, bless him, left me not a huge amount of money, but bless him, he left me his pension. And uh and and it and it was a cash, it was a cash payment. So that helped me. And I think also, you know, I decided to do, I decided to keep myself in psychotherapy. I was seeing a therapist once a week, then I did your year course. Um, and all of these things, you know, keep I just yeah, I the only way to to keep going is to just face head on every day my demons, my black side, my you know, um hang out with friends. Um just keep going.

SPEAKER_01: 16:45

And it's interesting because you, I mean, you know, you're already naming a couple of structures that have helped you to manage the adversity. For example, not just lying under the duvet and getting yourself out. Now I know when my daughter died, Melissa, um, I I I I wrote a book about it. And I wrote a book about it because I needed to do something to chart how I was dealing with it. That's an I think I wrote the book for myself, but it's it's sort of got out there quite a lot. And I think you're you're the one of the reasons I wanted you to come on this this show is actually to so that you can also help others be inspired. And I think often we we we bear our our sadnesses and our struggles in silence and hidden behind a wall. And I think there's something very profound about finding what are the resources you've developed in order to do with, and I hear that you're still dealing with it, but one of the resources was I'm not gonna just lie under the covers, I'm gonna get out there. What are what are the other resources if you start to name them?

SPEAKER_00: 17:43

Major resource, and this is where it becomes very I don't know, some people will go, oh please. Major resource for me was God. Finding, I mean, I mean, talk about finding God, my spirituality, a major, major resource. Um, I've struggled with do I believe in God, do I believe in Jesus, all of this stuff all my life. Um, Tim was not a religious person. I'm not religious, but I can tell you that I I don't know why, but I believe in the power of prayer, and I believe whether whatever it is, by I also believe in um having gratitude. And a lot of the time I was just going, I was saying, Thank, thank you, that I have got this house. Thank you, I have got this. So I think out of gratitude, and I also decided that there was a period of time after Tim died where I was even thinking, I wished I'd never met him because you know, I can't bear this terrible loss. This is this is worse. I'd rather not. And then I realized that, you know, I know it's a silly thing to say, but you know, that old statement, better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all. And it's absolutely true. I know I I think now I I love him so much. I'll always love him. And I'd rather have that feeling of that than never to have loved. And um, and all of this somehow has come back to me through praying to the universe, you know, just saying to the universe, what next? You know, where do you put your trust? Where do I put my trust in life? Where do I put my real heart and soul? Um, you can have friends, but I don't know, there's another connection, there's something else out there. It's God, universe, call it what you like. So that was a massive part for me. And also, um, I'd always been I'd always been known at St. Paul's Church round the corner, but never really a church goer. And Alex the vicar, though, is incredible. He was very supportive. He was also aware of this legal case that was going on, and uh he was very supportive around that, and he loved Tim as well. So, yeah, I mean, I would say thinking I haven't really thought about this before, but I would say, you know, my spiritual connection somehow just even though I don't try believe in half this stuff, you know, God, Jesus, whatever, is like, okay, even though you don't still surrender everything, it's like, do you know what I mean? It's like bite the bullet.

SPEAKER_01: 20:29

And and it's interesting because it's like it's almost like um I saw you uh or I heard you come really alive as you talked about how that that particular resource, I I really saw that it impacted you, that actually that it felt very real. Now we can call it God, we can call it universe, you can call it whatever you like, but I I'm hearing that a spirituality came upon you and has actually supported you through this horrendous dynamic. And I found the same thing. I I I remember my cousin teaching me how to do the the mourner's caddish, which is the Jewish prayer when Melissa died, and I did it twice a day for 11 months for 11 months twice a day, and in the the 12th month, God does it, you don't do it, you you just let it eat up for you. And so I found I had this little ritual of praying in the morning and the evening when I got up and when I went to bed, and it was very comforting. So I'm actually, you know, w we don't know what resources we're going to find until we hit the pits. I'm hearing there's a big one there, and I guess there are more as well, which is what I'm wanting to tease out of you as well, James.

SPEAKER_00: 21:35

Uh, that what else? I mean, that that that is that is a massive resource, and just to say that ironically, um, you know, my very lovely neighbor neighbours, Maggie and Richard around the corner, who I think you might have met them briefly, or Maggie, um she uh Richard, you know, lovely, lovely chap, very similar sort of personality to Tim in a way, um, was found. Maggie was in LA last weekend with with her daughter and her grandson. She'd only just arrived. And I won't go into the butt but basically Maggie had had uh Richard had a heart attack on Sunday afternoon and was found dead, watching the footy with a pint of beer in his hand. And I went round there and I saw Richard, and Maggie was she's she was hysterical when when she was told in LA, she was on the next plane back, she's now back. Ironically, uh um Alex, the vicar, was having tea with me on Tuesday afternoon, on Wednesday afternoon. I haven't seen Alex year for he hasn't been here for over a year for a cup of tea. And he's a great guy. And we talk about everything. And and and while he was here, I said, I'd already said to Maggie, would you like Alex to pop in and see you? And she'd already said, He's not going to a church, I don't want any funerals at the church, we are not believers at all. You can stick God and you can stick him even more that now that my lovely Richard's died at the age of 73, blah, blah, blah. And I said to her, uh, to Alec, I said to her, Well, look, ironically, Alex is coming for tea. Would you like him to come and see you? And she said, Oh, right then. And Alex was having tea, and I told her what him what had happened, and he went to see her. And she has now decided she's going to have Richard's um uh service, memorial service at the church at St. Paul's Church. So the talk about a 90-degree turn or whatever you call that, 120-degree turn. Um the reason I'm saying all of this is that boy, when push comes to shove, when you are so damn low that you want to almost kill yourself because you don't know what else to do. The pain is so much. It's incredible how in that moment you can offer a prayer. You can just say something, and somehow there is a connection.

SPEAKER_01: 24:08

That's interesting because you mentioned and I I can really see it's interesting. You introduced this as saying, oh, people are gonna go, oh, you know, that old chestnut or whatever it is. But actually, what I'm hearing is this is real for you. I think what's also real for you, which you sort of you named, is is this practice, like which is one of my practices also, which is the practice of gratitude. These are little things that actually weave a web that supports us through adversity. So tell us a little bit about your gratitude practice.

SPEAKER_00: 24:35

Okay, so I th I think the gratitude, I mean, I've I've always known about gratitude, but I think where the gratitude really started was that initially when Tim died, I went through this phase of wishing that I of being in so much pain that I wished I'd never had got married or never wish we'd never met because I couldn't stand the pain. And when I got when I started to think about no, this isn't, I used to think, why don't I be grateful for what I've had? I mean, how many people get the love, get the feeling of get that? So I started, I think, with my gratitude about Tim, my grateful gratitude towards to this man who had literally come into my life um and become my rock. And that's where my gratitude started. And then I thought, you know, I've always I've just always thought I'm I should be grateful for the house I live in, grateful for I mean, if you if I compare, if I or we compare our life in the UK to what's been going on in, you know, other other parts of the world, there is no comparison. I mean, there's gratitude there, there is massive gratitude, there is massive, wow, aren't I the fortunate one just to be living in a non-war zone country? And then so it goes on. And and I that's how I think most days. I mean, you know, I just and then there's the little thing. So there's always something to be grateful for. There's there's always something. Um, actually, the other thing I'm grateful for right now is I'm actually grateful that I've got working hands and arms and legs because sometimes I see people in a wheelchair and I think, I don't know how I could survive that. So, you know, at my age, I can still go swimming when I want to and and do exercise. So there's does that does that give you a I mean you look good for 90, James, actually. Yeah, 93, actually.

SPEAKER_01: 26:33

But actually, it's like I I do hear that, and it's like by the way, what you're naming, I think is very normal. I know well for me, and I'm just saying there's a normalcy for me in this as well, is that I would sometimes wondered if I'd never had Melissa, if I'd never had a daughter, if I had to deal with the loss of of my flesh and blood, um, would I have been happier? And the truth is I would have been less enriched, and then I started to unravel that more and do exactly what you're talking about in terms of the gratitude that I was grateful that this beautiful young woman had been in my life and had given me so many gifts.

SPEAKER_00: 27:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 27:12

I kind of just like to say a little bit about a piece of magic that happened. So, you know, we've been looking at spirituality, but uh but some I was longing for a dream of Melissa. When Melissa died, I was longing for a dream of her, and after six months, it was the first time she came to me in a dream. And um, I I'd found out where she was, and I rang her, and and someone answered the phone and said, I said, it's Melissa Lester, just a moment. And this very flat voice came and said, Hello, Mom. I said, It's not Mum, I'm dad. She hung up. I had never heard, I never had anything again, except after two years, I had this dream that she was at a I was at a party and I was ghosted past the front entrance, and I saw Melissa shining, happy, sparkling, alive, vibrant again. And she shot me this look of pure love. We didn't speak, but she shot me this look of pure love. And I rang my daughter Alex the next morning, and I said, I've had this dream. She said, So did I. How do you how do you account for that? And I think we get all sorts of signs that the veil between life and death, we can look at this through Christianity, through Buddhism, through spirituality, through all sorts of things, but there is a veil between life and death, and this is not, I know this is not all of who we are, and so I am very grateful that I've I've had an enormous loss, as you've had an enormous loss, and that it's enriched me as well. And I would never have dreamed I'd be able to say that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 28:42

And I can see it's enriched you, James, as well as that. Totally. I mean, you know, that's amazing what you've just said. I quite like the dream myself, but have it, Tim. I've not had that dream yet. In fact, quite a few of the dreams I've had have not been with Tim in them, have not been have not been the best. But anyway, there's been more around actually, around the theme of him leaving me and not wanting to come back, which doesn't bode well. That's I think around my own issues, around, you know, he did never did love me. But um, he did love me, he did love me, and you know he loved me because you saw it. Um, and I think, you know, yeah, amazing about Melissa, but that's just incredible. You know what it reminds me, actually, what it tells me is you know, when you want to really give up, I mean, like, really give up. There's something that says, these are the simplest things, and everyone always says it, there's always something around the corner, but it is true. You just don't know what's round the corner.

SPEAKER_01: 29:48

You just we don't know what life's gonna bring us, and it's we don't.

SPEAKER_00: 29:51

And the thing is that you know, there was a time when I really wanted to take the pills, and and I realized don't do it because I don't know what's round the corner. I mean, I'm hoping and praying that through me doing what I've I feel like I've been told to do by the universe, by God, which is, you know, get this house sold, which is the scariest thing to have to move from here. It's not just scary, it's the most, it's the it's the biggest wrench of my life since Tim died moving from here. This is my forever home, you know, this is my security. Um, I have to move from here. And I'm trusting, I'm really putting my trust and faith that wherever I move to or where I'm moving on is going to be a part of a part of a bigger journey, a part of a the the new part of. the journey, the uh the the the post-Tim journey. Um you know none of this was meant to be. You know, when when I particularly when I decided when Tim and I got married, that was it. I thought this is life. This is my life now. Thank you very much. We've got a lovely home, you know, and and you know Malcolm our relationship wasn't perfect. It wasn't perfect from the sex point of view. But you know, we kept going and I kept going and I would have dealt that with that. We would have dealt with that I think if I'm sure if Tim had not had cancer. But you know I I still go even now I think oh three and a half years on I still pine for him I still have so much grief. I sit sometimes on a Saturday night on my own with the bloody TV on thinking it's Saturday evening. Here's Norman Nomate sitting here you know Saturday night we would always have been out I feel like I'm bearing my soul a bit here but you know why not?

SPEAKER_01: 31:50

That's what the purpose of this podcast happy will bear their souls James.

SPEAKER_00: 31:55

You know lonely James you know all of that and then I think oh get over yourself James you know go and have a gin and tonic or something um but you know go am I willing to get on with the journey and and keep going and get out of bed in the morning or do I just sink beneath the sheets and the duvet and I don't know what in spot what it's just I have no there is no option. It's one way or the other.

SPEAKER_01: 32:23

Well it's sink or swim and what I'm hearing is that you're learning to swim. Yeah you've been learning to swim all your life so we're coming funny that I'm a big swimmer. Oh yeah you are that's right I remember so we're coming towards the end of our of our podcast it's been really lovely having this this engagement this dialogue with you and it took a while to tease it out but I realized this was this was the whole of this was about Tim and you and and what's emerged for you.

SPEAKER_00: 32:48

But I always ask this question at the end of the podcast and it's something I I want to be spontaneous as well which is what's the particular dragon you've had to slay what's the the obstacle you've had to overcome to be who you are now oh the continual imposter continual fucking imposter in my head that tells me I'm no good I may as well just give up blah blah blah it's continual it's the impot you know call it the imposter syndrome but um it's that kind of that that voice that niggles away um and and it does all the time and it's just um like you said so the time I think you have to give it breathing room sometimes let it have its own what have its voice but also recognize it go yeah yeah all right thanks for that and then just carry on.

SPEAKER_01: 33:39

Lovely that's really nice actually it's a it's a really good dragon there actually is it because it's the more conscious it becomes the less it runs us. So it's like when you recognize it then you start to find strategies to deal with it as well.

SPEAKER_00: 33:51

Yeah it's the dragon of the imposter the dragon of that niggling voice that but but what is that is exactly the um yeah the the I'm not good enough dragon.

SPEAKER_01: 34:05

And none of us know where we've come from or where we're going unless we're particularly profound in the realms of being able to tune into the the life and the universe and everything but so that we all carry some aspects of the imposter syndrome in us. And I've seen it with people who are very powerful who are in fantastic positions or incredibly successful there's always a little part that goes is this real am I am I just play acting so I I really appreciate you sort of like sort of dropping down and actually sharing a lot of your journey with us. I'm sure it will inspire others who are on similar journeys. So thank you so much James for being with us today.