Welcome And Why Anna Is Here

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Welcome to my podcast, Slay Your Dragons with Compassion. And today I'm very happy to interview a friend of mine who's working a lot with conflict resolution and mediation and has a um a new structure in mind, which we'll talk about as we go along. And um the podcast explores how adversity has shaped our lives and and what it is we do with it and and how we grow through our experiences. So today um Anna and I will talk about her her experiences. And Anna, welcome to uh to the podcast. And um we were chat chatting a little bit beforehand, and we were saying something about um your your your childhood has shaped you quite a lot. So maybe we'll start there.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Yeah. Um well you started off by saying that I work in conflict resolution, and I think that's to do with the fact that when I was about five years old, um, I remember seeing my parents arguing and shouting at each other. Um I just had this sense that it didn't have to be that way. It was almost like seeing a spiritual reality behind what was going on, and I couldn't understand why they were talking to each other the way that they were and why they were fighting. Um, so I think I have instilled in me this desire to try

Divorce, Abuse And Surviving Silence

SPEAKER_00 1:25

and understand how and why people do that. And so that's why I think I've ended up in conflict resolution mediation, because on some level I was trying to resolve my parents' relationship.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Yes. And it's interesting to observe, it's terrible to say it's interesting because actually when we've been through probably quite a difficult time, and probably you got some of the um spillover from that as well in how you were treated.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 1:53

It's not like they were vital to each other and then lovely to you.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, basically it it resulted in my parents getting divorced when I was 14, and my mother left um rather than my father, and that was for me, uh, I think probably because I was a young girl, extremely traumatic. And she left at the age when I was just developing into a woman and basically abandoned the family. So it was me, my sister who was 10 and I've got a view to my father was um what we would now call probably bipolar, but in those days there wasn't any understanding.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

It was just difficult.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Yeah, he was just um violent, basically. He was just, you know, someone that was um out of control, rather didn't have an understanding of the psychological aspect to it. So now um I think that probably has bipolar, I think he's probably got um all sorts of mental health issues. And was he violent to you? Yeah. He wasn't regularly violent, but he was sexually abusive to me. So when my mother left home, I got propelled into the role of mother.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_00 3:08

Yeah, it was horrific. And I've spent the last 40 years healing from them.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

So that obviously these things affect our relationships as well. So that you know, our sexuality is something that needs to be it's a bit like developed like a bug that's that's opening. Yeah, and yours was forced into a violent sort of abusiveness.

SPEAKER_03 3:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:31

And it's interesting when you say um he wasn't violent to me regularly. Yeah. Actually, he was violent to you sexually regularly. That's the that's what I'm hearing.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:40

And that must have been terrifying for me.

SPEAKER_00 3:42

Yeah, uh, it was it was um, I well, I was suicidal. I mean, my mother had left home, I was left with this abusive man. Um, I felt personally responsible for my younger brother and sister, so I was vigilant around them, and I remember saying to myself that if any if he touched them, I would tell the authorities. But I was old enough to know because I was 14, that if I told the authorities, um they would put us into care homes. And I had a friend who was already in a care home because I lived in a working class environment, and it wasn't nice. So I didn't say anything um to anybody to protect my brother and sister. So that was quite a big pattern that I had to then break because it was it was about looking after other people, not myself.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

So that's often what we do, we we experience something, and then our healing time is you know, most therapists are wounded healers, which is a very known fact. Yeah. And and that is that if we have to find a way of making sense of what's happened to us.

SPEAKER_01 4:49

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:50

And uh in some ways you can look at it and go, it's horrific. And and it must have been frightening for you.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 4:58

And uh presumably he was he was when he when he was sexual, sexually abusing you, he wouldn't be doing this lovingly either.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

This would be just that you were But it was just a very terrifying experience for a young woman, girl to be um around in a house where oh, and the other thing that happened at the same time as that was that I was um uh when I was I I was at secondary school and I was molested by a group of boys at the same time that my father was doing something similar. So I was absolutely suicidal.

SPEAKER_02 5:33

What what happened that you found a way to build?

SPEAKER_00 5:39

Um I don't really know, other than I must have been on some level guided because um I don't really know how I got through it. I don't know why I didn't become a drug addict or homeless or you know, because I yeah, uh was so traumatized. Um I think maybe I began to have an interest. I think maybe that thread that I talked earlier about with my parents, there was a there was a quest for understanding, which led to me doing um A-level psychology and sociology, and I I found some some refuge in that by trying to understand people and and what was going on. But um it wasn't until I was in my 20s that I that I um started to heal what happened with my father. Uh I did a um a degree in sociology and psychosocial studies and um started to have counselling because I just felt weird and what what we call that now is traumatised.

SPEAKER_02 6:43

Yeah. I mean it's it's amazing that you were able to have come from the environment you were in and do a degree, for example, first of all.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:50

So what what took you to that place?

SPEAKER_00 6:53

Um I don't really know, other than uh there must be an unbroken part in all of us that that can pull us through.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

Yeah. So I think that's it to almost like we become navigators of our own journey.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:09

And that we either get crushed, and people do take their lives, or they they go into drink, or effectively, yeah. They're they're often um taking their own life through a gentle process of basically disregard for the self.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

But what I'm hearing is that you found a way to regard yourself. So you you you did a degree, you went into therapy, you went into counselling, and then what happened?

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Um so I then started to work. Well, part of the degree was working for uh what they wanted us to do was um work ironically, although maybe not, um, in uh with vulnerable children. So I ended up working in the care home for a young woman my age who'd been sexually abused.

SPEAKER_02 7:59

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 8:00

It was unbelievable. And so I couldn't believe it was happening, but I still haven't really consciously dealt with my own abuse. So, but I remember that that all I needed to do was just sit with her, not ask her questions, not try and change her, not try and make a difference.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

So actually, your own experience led you to the um skillfulness clearly that with which you've handled. So although we're being treated in an abysmal way sometimes, we're also finding resources to deal with that. And so that's what I see is that you've actually sort of like that you in some ways you were educated by your experience. I mean, I'm not under underestimating what you went through either. And to have your mother leaving and to be left in the in the sole care of a violent, abusive man is pretty bad news.

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I

Finding A Thread Of Healing

SPEAKER_00 8:55

think I I um like you just said, I probably I mean it's interesting, isn't it? Because you can have, like you were saying, one person have an experience and respond very differently to another one.

SPEAKER_03 9:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

And maybe that's our soul, or maybe that's what we come in with, past lives, maybe all sorts of factors that contribute to how you respond to life. But I it it I I was very, very traumatized and unhappy. Despite doing all of this, I still haven't felt like I was um happy about them.

SPEAKER_02 9:33

Yeah, so in fact, we have to basically go back to the roots, yeah, undo the damage where we can, yeah, and find our way through. And that takes a commitment to life, yeah, which actually is interesting. This actually brings us to what we were talking about before is the work that you're aiming to do now is about longevity. Tell us a little bit about that.

SPEAKER_00 9:52

Yes, so um I think because um I when I was younger, I had this um strong desire to not be here anymore and give up, um, even though I didn't. Um I'm familiar with what it feels like to get to a point where where you would where you just don't want to exist anymore. We actually don't want to be here. Um but um uh the more years that I spend in this body, I realize that I actually do have a mission and I do have a purpose, and I I haven't even started. So I want to be here for as long as I can. And I think particularly for women, when they get to a certain number, um, there are messages in the culture that say it's time to give up. You know, you've had your babies, you've got to the family, you're not beautiful anymore, etc. etc. And for me, um uh it's about recognizing that the body just carries the soul's purpose. And so um actually when women reach that age, it's about giving their gifts to the world rather than giving up. It's the actual opposite. So for me, it's about a mindset thing and recognizing that a lot of the programming that we have in our society is is is is basically bullshit.

SPEAKER_02 11:16

Yes. I was writing um an article the other day about um that when people have purpose, they live longer.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 11:24

And I and I know that's that's true. So I had um a heart stack earlier this year, which is a bit of a bummer. Um, and um it was in January, and I ran an ongoing one-year group in London, a psychotherapy group. And I was cancelled the first one because that was three weeks after the heart attack, but the second one was seven weeks after the heart attack, and and I was very tentative, and people saying, be careful with your energy, be careful what you do. But as soon as I got into that room and started working with that group, it's almost like a part of me that I didn't realise existed. Well, I did I know it existed, but yeah, I didn't know it existed in parallel with what I was with, came out and it uplifted me. And even though it was exhausting and tiring and and I was sort of having to keep my eye on the ball, um I felt alive.

SPEAKER_01 12:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:13

And actually that that for me was part of the healing process that happened.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

So when you talk about the the longevity that actually that that I think purpose is is key to that longevity, what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 12:27

Well, there's studies um called the Blue Zones where um a doctor uh went around to parts of the world where people live an extraordinarily long life. And after all of his research, what the conclusion we came to was exactly that was that you know, you can have a really healthy diet and you can go running every day or whatever you do, but what you need is soul food. And um the people that lived the longest were the ones that had the purpose. They'd get up in the morning, they'd chat to their friends, they'd go and on a little walk, and they'd go and help somebody, and they had community. Um, so that's obviously um something that is breaking down in our culture, and we really need to be conscious of the impact of it on so many levels.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

That's interesting because I I I mean, I'm I definitely know that in it myself, but uh but actually I I I could see that if I retired, and so for a while after my half-stand, it was like I wasn't doing much except watching daytime television, yeah, having little walks and doing a bit of shopping. I felt like I downgraded

Purpose, Ageing And Longevity Mindset

SPEAKER_02 13:36

my energy in a big way. Yes. And and I needed to find a way of actually, but I did find a way, so I got back into my purpose.

SPEAKER_03 13:44

That's brilliant.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

So um, and I can actually see that I, you know, I I feel like I'm I'm even though there are times when I look at the world and go, this is a bloody horrible place to be. Um, I also go, I've got a gift to that I've been given, yeah, that I've got to bring to the world. And that's what I'm hearing from you as well, is that you've got a gift you've been given.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:06

And you know, I obviously no one's saying to be abused as a child is is a gift. However, when I look at the suicide of my daughter Melissa, which is my biggest gift, uh, or my biggest sort of like having to work my way through something, uh what I see is that that actually it has given me resources that I didn't know I had. And um one of the quotes I put in my in my book was uh in order to be biggest who we truly are, the heart has to be broken. And the heart has to be broken many times in order to to reveal what's hidden within.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:44

So your heart as a child, your heart would have been smashed just through the reins.

SPEAKER_00 14:48

Absolutely, yeah. I mean, the the the biggest heartbreak was my mum leaving. You know, I adored her. She was beautiful, she was, you know, someone that I longed for. And to use the the sort of modern-day terminology, um, you know, I developed an insecure attachment, obviously, because she she abandoned us.

SPEAKER_02 15:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

So you never saw her again after that. Um, well, it was kind of weird because she basically um ran off with a man who was 10 years younger than her who um was a millionaire. Uh we were working class family.

SPEAKER_02 15:28

Um there's a cost.

SPEAKER_00 15:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:29

Well, there's always a cost.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

The cost was that she now, well, she um that relationship broke up, she became an alcoholic and has subsequently lost her life, really. She's still alive, but she um was in and out of rehabless. Yes, she didn't ever find it.

SPEAKER_02 15:51

Yes. So she thought, probably thought she found it. Yeah, you know, here's this amazing set of circumstances having been with a man who's violent and also uh off his trolley in lots of ways. Very much so, she had to actually find something and she probably thought this is it.

SPEAKER_00 16:09

Yeah, but what she but but what what we can't figure out, my sister and my brother and I is how a woman can can leave her children. We we still can't figure out what was going on there. And it's a very low statistic.

SPEAKER_02 16:24

It's it's it's a very low statistic. And and what I can see in in the examples that I've seen in therapy is what I've been giving therapy to to people, is that the so if the circumstances get to be almost completely unbearable, you'll surrender it all.

SPEAKER_01 16:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:45

Because in order to escape those circumstances. So what I'm hearing is that she will have found a way, she would have just gone, I can't do this. Yeah. And then she was held there because of you and your brother and sister, probably for long years beyond its natural lifespan, until the point where she effectively snapped.

SPEAKER_01 17:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

And and then of course, what she thought was going to rescue her was not her own internal resource, which is where we need to go, yeah, but an external sort of like, here's here's the knight in shining armor.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:14

But it turned out to not be the night in shining armor either.

SPEAKER_01 17:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:18

Um and my sense is there's probably a lot of pain for her, which is being bypassed without that.

SPEAKER_00 17:24

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, she's she's been in and out of rehab because ironically, the millionaire paid for paid for it. Um but it hasn't really, I mean, I mean, she's still alive, she's still conscious mentors, she still has faculties where we can have a conversation. Whereas my father is in an old people's home and has basically lost the plot. So, you know, there's there's a definite difference in terms of the support that she's received. Um, but I think she was um a product of her culture as well. She came from the 60s where women were basically um, you know, meant to live to get a husband and have a man and all of that. Um so I think it's partly that. Um, but it's affected my younger sister who was 10 uh when she left really badly because um, you know, my my mum didn't come and get us, she didn't take us with her. So that's the bit that I've had to work on a lot is uh the fact that she didn't come to get to take us away from him. She knew what he was like. So it was it was a very big uh denial in her that could have fought that could allow her to do that.

SPEAKER_02 18:38

And I'm I'm guessing this is only conjecture, but my guess is she probably waited till you were old enough to fill the gap as she felt.

SPEAKER_01 18:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:48

Um you know, we're we're looking at 14, yeah, 14 years, but I mean, yeah, God knows what she only went through with a man like that.

SPEAKER_00 18:57

Yeah, no, I think it's probably a mixture, so I think um it's probably the fact that she obviously there was a lot going on with my dad, but I also think that she also has some kind of mental health issue too.

SPEAKER_02 19:12

Now we can affect it. So then your slide would make sense of it. And and can you have a conversation about this with her while she's alive?

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Yeah, but it it it's interesting because I um my mum um has wanted to keep the thread alive with us, so she has made sure that she tries to connect with us, but she's quite narcissistic. I think that's probably the label we would use now.

SPEAKER_03 19:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 19:34

So so I can have a conversation with her, and but it will drop off. It that there won't be an integration of learning or so.

SPEAKER_02 19:41

Are you able to say to um mum? Has she leave your children?

SPEAKER_00 19:45

Yes, I've had conversations. So when I started the counselling when I was 23, um, I went through a whole period of uh writing her letters, going no contact, um, you know, doing the anger work, all of that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_03 20:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

Um uh but because she was um uh using alcohol, I could have really got a straight answer from her. And now it's it it's kind of past itself by date for me.

SPEAKER_02 20:15

I think that's that's often the case as well. You get to a certain stage where you go, I'm not gonna get what I need and you give up.

SPEAKER_01 20:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:22

Which is a shame because it means you give up on the relationship to some degree as well, to a large degree.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

And your mum is probably very lonely now.

SPEAKER_00 20:29

Well, I make sure that I speak to her. So, you know, and I we were planning to sort of um see each other in the summer. She's in a semi-sheltered accommodation, but um, I don't have the same sense of obligation or duty to have because it it it felt like she'd severed the bond. So uh when I um one of the things I've had to recover from, or probably still recovering, is codependency because I would end up looking after her.

SPEAKER_03 21:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

So when she was in and out of rehab, I would go and visit her and I would try and talk to her and help her. And so, you know, it was just so messed up.

SPEAKER_02 21:14

It was all skews, they were everything went out of place. There was a um a line in the Yi Ching which says that um when the father is truly the father and the mother is truly the mother and the children are truly the children, then the family's in order, when the family's in order, the community's in order, but the community is in order, the whole world's in order.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Yes, so so that reminds me of the five sacred laws. So um I uh trained in uh relationship psychotherapy and became a real relationship coach as well as the mediation stuff, and they taught us um the five sacred laws, which is um number one, everything is born with woman. Number two, nothing should be done to harm the children. So that's where that relationship comes in. As soon as you harm the children. Everything goes out of whack.

SPEAKER_03 22:02

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:03

Um, so um that you know, and obviously we have a culture where um you know m I had to spend a lot of time disidentifying with being somebody that had been abused. Um I I didn't want that as an identity. I didn't want to be a victim to it.

SPEAKER_03 22:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:25

So I spent a lot of time in my 20s. Um, I went to uh survivors groups, and in and in that time frame, um things were beginning to be spoken about, like domestic violence and sexual abuse and lots of things that weren't before. So there was a lot of movement, there was a lot of feminism. Um, and I was quite uh I was quite a feminist in in those days, but also realized that I didn't want to be a feminist, I didn't want to be um someone that identified with a label.

SPEAKER_03 22:56

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:57

Um so even though I think um, you know, I've done I've done lots and lots of work on it, I've I've realized that um ultimately, like you're saying, there's got to be a reason for why it happened. And there's got to be a reason for what I went through and what and why I am the way I am and who I am now.

SPEAKER_02 23:21

Well, when we survive torment and torture and and abuse, um when we really survive it, we come out having been moulded in the fire of those experiences.

SPEAKER_01 23:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:34

And that of course one of my heroes is Victor Franklin, who I man search for meaning, who survived the most appalling torture and and loss and found awakening through that.

SPEAKER_01 23:46

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 23:47

And to some degrees, you've had an awakening through your experiences.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 23:51

I don't want to aggrandize these things, which actually it also under undermines the depth of the experience. But um you you are you are you have found your way through it. Yeah, you're working with the very features that helped you survive. Yeah. And so the work you do is is with is with conflict mediation, yeah. Um among other things.

SPEAKER_01 24:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:13

And and does that bring you sort of a sense of of some completion, some understanding of your own journey?

SPEAKER_00 24:18

We enjoy mediating people. So um uh I I mediate people in mainly in organizations, some families, um, because I because I go back to that five-year-old that can see there's something else going on, that if we can just get to that bit, then it will unfold and can reach an understanding. It doesn't always happen that way because

Mediation At Work And Hidden Family Drama

SPEAKER_00 24:45

um people have um addictions to their own stories and not necessarily at a point where they can let that go, and I have to respect that. Um, but what what I can see, and this is where I was influenced very much by Marshall Rosenberg on violent communication, yeah, is that the words that we use are key to unlocking misunderstandings. Um, and you know, it doesn't matter what level I work with, I work with senior leaders down to people that are just in teams or whatever. I don't like the hierarchy thing, but um, and and and it's exactly the same issue wherever you go. Um but that but there's something else for me that that I wish I could bring to the table because quite often people are acting out family dramas in the workplace, projecting their mother onto people or their father onto people, and I'm not at a point where I couldn't surface that because that's not contract that you go in.

SPEAKER_03 25:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:50

Um, but I think that that workplaces are an opportunity for people to learn about themselves, and that's what I say to them. This is is this is an opportunity for you to grow and develop. And what I'm actually saying now is, and I I'm I took a bit of a risk the other day, and I said this to a quite a senior leader for a big corporation. I said to him, everybody, no matter what rank you are, is being called to up level their communication and interpersonal skills, and and you have to do that. Everyone's being asked to do that.

SPEAKER_02 26:24

Nice, that's good. But that also takes confidence, it also takes assuredness that you're on the right track as well. Yeah, I just worked with the um European central banker one time, and um, and I actually did a very deep conflict resolution and and and and therapy work with them, and yeah, and most of them loved it, but some were so threatened by it that when I got invited back again, I was told to cut back on that stuff. And then I thought, I don't really want to do that work. I want to do the work where I really reach into people's souls and how to shape.

SPEAKER_00 26:57

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and that's where I feel I've reached because I when I go out into the workplace, uh, there's a certain remit I can work within, and I don't want to be limited by that anymore. That's where I'm that's where I'm sort of heading with the longevity work and the the um mindset work. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 27:17

So in fact, in some ways, you've you you're doing what you've needed to do to heal your past, and now you're looking at what your future might look like. Yeah, and of course, your future is is to keep yourself alive. Yeah, you know, it's uh it's funny because when in in the Jewish tradition, when someone dies, yeah, you wish the bereaved long life.

SPEAKER_01 27:36

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

Now that is not a blessing as far as I'm concerned. Long and healthy life is a blessing.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 27:41

So it's how do we maintain our health and uh and uh longevity as well.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Yeah, I think that's that's absolutely key. Um there's a weird thing going on in in in our culture, isn't there, at the moment, where you've got um people that are relying on AI, and then you've got people that uh you've got people that are doing lots of surgeries to make themselves look young, you know, and celebrities. There's this whole thing at the moment with a Zempic, which is that dialect. Um that's completely misguided, obviously, for many, many reasons. So the separal place to begin with is the mindset and how you feel about um yourself as a soul rather than as a body. Um I remember when I again when I was young, I saw my aunt sit on the floor cross-legged, and she was probably about 65, and but she's sitting in a yoga position. She wasn't doing yoga, she was just sat on the floor, I think she was playing with another kid. And I remember thinking, okay, that resonates. So it's about separating the two out and and and realizing that what's really important is um how you see life, yeah, and not to associate a lungbelt with who you are. So to say uh, you know, I am uh uh 25 or I am 45 or I am 85, you're looking like what that's a that's a word spell. Yeah, it's a lungbell.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

Yeah, that's true. I had a client recently I was seeing, and and um she's in her 60s and she looks 40. I say, Oh, you look amazing. And she said it's cost a lot of money and taken a lot of operations. And I thought, I can see the part of her that actually realized that that wasn't it.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:39

And that's why she came into therapy as well.

SPEAKER_00 29:41

Yes, yeah, exactly. Yeah, because then something about um for me, being aware of your soul and the longevity of your soul or the eternity of your soul is where you begin.

SPEAKER_01 29:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

And you know, everything is energy, isn't it? So, you know, everything recycles. So why can't we? And even if that does eventually inevitably end in death of the body, because it's not again the language, he's died. No, he hasn't, his body's died.

SPEAKER_02 30:14

Yeah, that's right. That's right. But the language is the spell. But we have to actually get to the place where we know that as more than an intellectual concept, yes, exactly, and that we can actually get to that place in ourselves. This is my journey in my 70s now, yes, is is to actually find that place in myself that knows my soul's purpose more than my humanism.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

Yes, yes, absolutely. And I and I would agree, um, I'm I'm still on a journey myself. Um, I think if you download the concept that you are eternal, then you probably wouldn't ever get anxious about anything. But because um we are evolving, we're not at that state yet, then it's for me, you know, like I have good days and bad days. Some days I really feel my longevity, I call it, my youth, not in the sense necessarily of you know, uh youth in the way that we're thinking of country, but in terms of my soul. There's a never-ending supply from the divine of energy, it is just never ends.

Soul, Language And The Fear Of Ageing

SPEAKER_02 31:22

Yeah, it's true. And again, I've experienced it in in bits. It's almost like we get given little sort of like reminders to keep us buoyant enough to stay on the search. Yeah, and yet it's not an easy path.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

No, not at all. And obviously, right now, with what's going on on the planet, many people are feeling superiorly anxious, normal people, people that maybe not have had that much trauma or whatever, because there's so much uncertainty and a lack of rooting in who we really are.

SPEAKER_02 31:54

I had a client who came to me just reminding me of this as well. A client who came to me um and said, I'm going to take my own life. And if you're there to stop me, there's no point in my coming to you. I said, Okay, here's the deal. Um, you don't do it without letting me know, so I don't suddenly find out and it's it's a surprise. But actually, I'll work with that. And I I knew that was the right thing to do. So, and I worked with her for three years and um and she she smoked six cigarettes today. Um, she'd she'd married a man who was impotent because she never wants to have sex again.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

Uh, who was 20 years older than her.

SPEAKER_01 32:30

Right.

SPEAKER_02 32:31

And um, and one day she was given a diagnosis of terminal lung cancer, and I thought she was going to come in delighted. And actually, she came in devastated and thought, I want to live. And for the next year, she lived. Like that she needed that that awakening to come to the place where actually she realized she was more than just uh this body and and and whatever else. And actually she had a fantastic last year.

SPEAKER_01 33:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:02

And then the cancer got too much, and she did take her own life, but as a conscious act as well at the end, and told me about it. And I spoke at a funeral as well, which was amazing. So I think we I think being in the work that we do, there's a privilege in being able to access parts of the world that are normally hidden.

SPEAKER_01 33:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:21

And you know, what we see out there is not um this bright shining, hello, I'm fine. It's more like, what the hell are we in? Yeah. This world is bloody crazy and I'm in it.

SPEAKER_00 33:32

Yeah, absolutely. And I feel like we need each other as mirrors um and as guides.

SPEAKER_03 33:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:39

Um, because it is so fragmented. Um, and and that's what I feel. Um, you know, I can't remember what you just said, but uh it's leading me to think that we are also not our experiences. Um so um, you know, one of my one of my uh what should we call it, um, strong conditionings that I've been working on to break is um this sense that my cast is who I am. And it and it really isn't, but it's some days it comes back and the and the despair and the depression and the and the sense of powerlessness.

SPEAKER_03 34:22

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 34:23

Um and and and I'm only just beginning to realize that that's a conditioning, it's a program.

SPEAKER_02 34:29

Yeah, exactly. One of the things I'm most focused on these days is that is that we actually need uh what the Buddhists call Sangha, which is the community of like-minded oaths, so that we actually get some support in the human condition as well, so that then we can do the deeper work.

SPEAKER_01 34:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:45

And of course, if you look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, um, you see that when when the need is survival, the rest goes goes to help, you know. It's just but actually when you get to that, and then then you can start going, what's my purpose in life? How do I live the best possibility of this incarnation of us?

SPEAKER_00 35:04

Yeah, yeah. Well, it's interesting. You you refer to um the Sangha, the Buddhist um community word, because I was a Buddhist for many years. I um joined a Buddhist community in London, um, and I was on the path to ordination. Um and that I think I went into that trying to find my family, very family. Um, and what I found, well, initially I found a lot of peace and a lot of very loving, kind people. Um, and then underneath that, what I found was a lot of suppression and repression of um the wounds.

SPEAKER_03 35:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:45

Um and so eventually I left um being a Buddhist, although the concepts of compassion, um, which I think is what people need the most of now, um, has stayed in

Community, Buddhism And Life’s Two Wings

SPEAKER_00 36:00

my heart and Buddhist cosmology stayed with me. So there were a lot of amazing things that I integrated. Um, and I again didn't find that identity being a Buddhist very helpful.

SPEAKER_02 36:13

Yes. Well, interestingly, and you've you've just reminded me of Hermann Hester's book Zidata, which is obviously for me one of the most important books I ever read. And and basically when he comes across the Buddha and and the Buddha is clearly speaking from wisdom and knowledge, it's not enough for him. He needs to find more than that. And so he just takes the path where he could have just stopped at that stage, but he went to the place where ultimately he he became awakened, preservating right.

SPEAKER_03 36:41

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:42

And and so I think we can we can rest at a certain stage and go, I've done enough. But I think that's sort of it's almost like that's giving up and saying this is as far as I'm gonna go in this slide.

SPEAKER_00 36:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I think I think I um we um we had a conversation about this um the other week, uh the whole new age movement, and I um kind of innocently thought that if I followed all these people like Eweise Hay and Susan Jeffers and things, the new age guru types, even Deepak Chopra, who yeah, um I would somehow find a place of arrival and I would be um 100% flat line happy.

SPEAKER_03 37:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

And I sort of realized, well, that's a bit of a myth, yeah, really, because life brings challenges, doesn't it? And so how can you remain um in that constant state of happiness?

SPEAKER_02 37:38

That's not what we're meant to be, yeah. So it's it's just well, in fact, in the Yijing as well, which has been a very valuable guidebook for me, joy does not exist without sorrow.

SPEAKER_00 37:47

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. We need both. They're both they're both wings of the same bird. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

Um I could talk to you for hours, Anna, so thank you. I'm really enjoying this dialogue, but we're coming towards the end of our podcast. Sure. And the question I always ask at the end is what's the particular dragon you've had to slay? Um, what's the biggest hurdle you've had to overcome in order to be who you are?

SPEAKER_00 38:11

Um what will well uh if I'm completely honest, I'm still slaying it. And completely honest one to do with um a sense of reclaiming my power and um knowing that I have a gift to give to the world, which was really um uh not suppressed, put down, covered up by my childhood. So I'm I'm uncovering it. I don't know who it was that chiseled away at the the statue thing, but it's like that, and I'm still

The Dragon Anna Still Slays

SPEAKER_00 38:45

uncovering it.

SPEAKER_02 38:46

Yes. Yeah, I was not sure what that was, because I know that story very well. So yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, thank you so much, Anna. It's been really uh you know a very enjoyable dialogue, and I and I get to learn a lot in these in these dialogues because I've it's the bounce that actually gives me insight as well.

SPEAKER_00 39:04

So I've same here, I've really enjoyed it too.

SPEAKER_02 39:07

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00 39:08

Yeah.