0:05

all right Hugh thank you so much for joining me today how are you doing over there in

0:10

Vietnam I'm doing pretty well thank you Simon yes and thank you for inviting me on the show no well thank you for being

0:17

here very excited to have a interesting conversation today and I think many of our listeners would love to know a

0:23

little bit more about you your experience your background so maybe you could give us a little bit of a rundown

0:28

a bit of an intro sure um uh there are two ways of looking

0:34

at it on the one hand I've had about six separate careers and on the other hand

0:40

I've basically been doing the same thing but with a different hat on so um the first thing I did when I

0:49

left University was I went into theater and um in England there's a tradition if

0:56

you're a young person interested in theater you go to the Edinburgh Festival and you lose money so I did that

1:04

um I then became a therapist um kind of

1:09

by accident really um but very few people really become a therapist by

1:15

accident really therapists are people who need a lot of therapy but they don't realize that so they go and train and

1:21

try and think they're going to fix other people and gradually gradually they they fix themselves and if they're lucky they

1:28

can then give up being a therapist you know or maybe they really like being a therapist and then they carry on so I

1:34

still do a tiny little bit of therapy to be honest but um I don't have regular clients anymore I'll either do a little

1:40

burst uh if somebody tracks me down and really needs some help and I have a few people I who check in with me from time

1:48

to time um what happened next I was invited by a good friend to um

1:57

start a qualitative Market research business I'd been helping his business a

2:02

little bit and um the situation changed so we set up a market research business

2:10

qualitative research is essentially going in depth it's talking to people about feelings understandings all the

2:17

sort of complicated stuff as opposed to quantitative which is asking a short

2:22

series of questions of a large number of people qualitative is asking a lot of

2:27

questions of a small number of people and the two basically complement each other they will really help if you

2:34

understand want to understand a market or potential policy or a new product or whatever

2:40

um while I was a therapist I was running a a small I was for for a time I was

2:48

running a small learned society and got in touch with a a chat called well a chat called Paul McKenna got in touch

2:54

with me at the time he was a a DJ and he wanted to become a stage hypnotist so I

3:00

helped him to make sure that his stage Act was safe and then he moved into helping

3:07

people into initially I think we started with stress and smoking and we ended up doing a whole load of other things um so

3:15

I collaborated with him for oh 20 more than 25 years I think helping him with a

3:20

bunch of books we wrote one together called I can M mend your broken heart

3:25

and I helped him on a bunch of other ones so essentially uh oh I also wrote a

3:31

book about negotiation along the way and I've done a bit of teaching and I'm just about to do some more teaching actually

3:37

in in the University here so my experience covers

3:43

Psychotherapy uh performance like storytelling and theater business

3:50

negotiation uh and qualitative market research and the one thing I forgot to mention is that after I'd been a

3:56

therapist for a little while I went back to University and did a a PhD in philosophy so philosophy as well so you

4:05

weren you weren you weren't joking when you said many hats absolutely wasn't a

4:11

joke I mean for a while I thought one day I'm gonna find out what I really am gonna do you know and then then it

4:17

occurred to me this is it I do the same thing but we're in lots of different fields and what am I doing I'm helping

4:23

make sense of things I'm telling stories and I'm finding Solutions yeah I think um from just

4:31

hearing that that all those experiences all those different um Avenues it sounds like you just really love

4:37

learning you really love taking information yeah yeah I it well here's an

4:45

interesting thing it's not so much taking in information because the kind of modern belief about all of this is

4:51

that the more you know the better you know let's have more knowledge let's get more data and I think of that as a kind

4:57

of horizontal thing you know let's get some more of this let's know know some more of that as though we're I don't

5:03

know walking around a map trying to find more and more stuff inside it but it you

5:09

only have to think for a moment or click on something on Google and you realize that's kind of hopeless strategy there's

5:17

way too much stuff to know in however small the field there's still too much

5:22

stuff to know I mean it's it's completely absurd so recently it's occurred to me that what I'm really

5:28

interested in is something I would call more vertical which is going deeper into

5:34

stuff and I would call that understanding so actually I'm not so

5:40

interested in more knowledge I've kind of got enough right but I am interested in understanding better the stuff that I

5:47

know but don't yet understand well enough is that got a lot to do with you know it's important to obviously know

5:53

but knowing how and to actually apply your knowledge into certain aspects of your life is is a very important part

6:00

you know it makes it makes that it makes that knowledge and that learning active and engaging in the in the kind of real

6:07

world absolutely and and you know I don't know what you any skills you you

6:12

have but think about them and if you're a musician you might say okay I know how to play for El right and you know pretty

6:19

much every piano student pretty soon knows how to do it but then you listen to a really great musician player and

6:27

you go oh okay I know how but I don't know how as well as that person knows how so knowing how is is exactly it is

6:37

something but it has a depth to it uh which we can kind of pursue indefinitely

6:42

to be honest interesting yeah that's that's that's a great way of looking at it absolutely I would really love to

6:49

know um in your words what Psychotherapy

6:54

is if you don't mind because you know we hear a lot we hear a lot of words

7:00

especially in the you know within true hope you know we do we work with um brain and body Health we hear these

7:06

words about you know cognition and mental and psychology Psychotherapy you know all these there's so many words

7:13

kind of intertwined into a realm and I I'd love to just get not only from my own clarification but I'm sure a lot of

7:19

other people would probably benefit from hearing you know from yourself kind of what Psychotherapy actually

7:27

is okay well if you um imagine you're a fly on the

7:33

wall uh to most I mean there's family therapy and group therapy and all sorts of things but let's take the basic one

7:39

which is one person a therapist talking to another person a client or a patient okay so if you're a fly on the

7:45

wall the therapist therapist is sitting there the client comes in and for 55

7:51

minutes usually they talk to each other it's a conversation that's what

7:56

Psychotherapy is now there's any number of labels that pertain to the theoretical

8:03

training that psychotherapists have yeah so you could be Behavioral or

8:09

psychodynamic or cognitive or gal or whatever but

8:16

um that's a bit like what's what's the simil it's a bit like

8:21

saying um the way I drive my car is the way and then you give the name of your

8:27

driving instructor actually the way you drive your car is the way you drive your car right he or

8:34

she taught you something and then you learn to do it your way

8:39

um there are all sorts of really good questions about like what are you trying

8:45

to do in Psychotherapy and and what's happening so you know are you fixing

8:51

trauma you know or are you bringing Insight whatever um again those are kind

8:58

of disc this descriptive from the outside what what I would say and what I did say to all do say to all my clients

9:06

is that let's you and me Let's us agree what we're going to try and do yeah

9:12

people come they're very distressed and they they often say oh like I can't do such and such or whatever I'm very depressed and it's

9:19

unusual that the presenting problem is actually the key there's normally

9:25

something else going on yeah but what I say is well let's work and let's we can

9:30

chunk it up we can say let's try and achieve this let's try and Achieve that you know if somebody's agrob let's try

9:35

and Achieve uh let's say something you know I know walk down the street or something like that we could have a little goal but that's an interim one

9:42

ultimately what I'm trying to do and what I'm kind of negotiating with my clients is that I want them to leave me

9:50

happy to face the challenges that life offers and kind of if you are happy to

9:57

face the challenges life offers you're doing pretty well absolutely yeah I mean especially

10:04

with someone with agoraphobia or so many other things that you know somebody might come in with but as you say you're

10:11

sitting across from somebody and they are coming in for the reason that they think that they need to come and see you

10:16

for but I'm sure as you kind of you you both get into it you're kind of digging kind of getting into the the root of

10:23

what's leading to somebody to to kind of that that perspective and would you say that a lot

10:30

of the times when you're having these conversations these these therapeutic sessions with people that that primary

10:35

reason that they initially came in for is is not is never really the that key aspect that you're talking about it's

10:41

usually something else well certainly often something else I mean maybe people are completely right

10:48

about it we just don't know but uh typically I would say that you know Psychotherapy in the

10:55

modern sense started with the psychodynamic people with Freud essentially who t to people and Freud had a theory that basically every came

11:01

everything came down to Sexual Energy being expressed in different ways and getting stuck at various levels and I

11:09

think he was reductionist I think clearly Sexual Energy is important you know we all have to deal with it but

11:15

it's not the only uh driver for development for growth or for or indeed

11:21

for difficulties but that whole um psychoanalytic approach

11:30

was predicated on the fact that if you really understood what's going on then you're better right that Insight is

11:37

Curative well I used to find a lot of people who had a lot of insight into their problems but didn't actually

11:43

manage to change their behavior and I found it was kind of the other way around I found that if people changed their behavior then a little while later

11:50

they'd say you know what something I I I I've just realize something da da da da da and then they would uh maybe tell me

11:57

something about their upbringing or where they think something had come from or whatever but I'm I'm very interested

12:03

as a psychotherapist I'm very interested in helping people change their behavior after all that's what they want nobody

12:08

goes and wastes a $100 an hour just to have a conversation right if I can fix it myself I'm not GNA bother go and see

12:16

a therapist am I I'm going into Psychotherapy because I can't work out some weird stuff is happening either in

12:22

my behavior or in my mind that is distressing again otherwise I wouldn't be coming it's distressing and I can't

12:29

get a handle of it on it so I go and see somebody else and if I do that that's a

12:34

very brave thing I've already made a strong commitment towards my own health

12:39

and I would like to congratulate everyone who's had the courage to do that especially because sooner or later

12:45

something's going to be embarrassing that's that's kind of the deal you know if if it's not embarrassing we can just

12:52

talk to our friends and sort it all out but when we are willing to go and talk to a stranger and admit I don't know

12:58

something that we're afraid of that seems weird or some inhibition that we can't come over then that's that's a

13:05

very brave thing and and it's one of the good things about it is that's the beginning of the energy you can use to

13:13

continue that change and positive progress yeah absolutely like so so

13:20

brave and courageous for somebody to first of all even make a phone call to make to make an appointment then to go

13:25

there and keep themselves accountable to you know they're taking very strong actions towards wanting to make a change

13:31

and I love I love what you're saying there about how you often see significant progression when you help

13:37

people change their behaviors because those individuals most likely have a lot of insight and experience to what's

13:43

going on for them and they just maybe need some practical application of how

13:48

they can kind of get towards their their goal whether that's large medium or

13:54

small yeah I I have a friend who um one of his sons was very very depressed

13:59

and my friend said to me you I just don't understand it why can't he just put his socks up and get on with it and

14:07

I said well so and said the thing is that's what depression is it's the

14:12

lack of motivation is an integral part of depression that's why they can't do

14:17

it I mean it's clinically proven that the single most powerful intervention

14:22

Bar None in depression is physical exercise much more powerful than any

14:28

other single intervention okay but depressed people really really don't

14:34

feel like taking physical exercise they really don't it's very challenging

14:39

indeed okay so one of the things that you can do if you are depressed is start

14:47

with something super small wherever you are wherever you're sitting or standing

14:53

if you're depressed and you're listening to this now you're maybe you're walking along with on an iPod or a headphones

14:59

maybe you're sitting at home ask yourself you know if I could just go for a walk somewhere from where I am now

15:05

which direction is the best Direction you know do I want to walk to the park do I go and want to go and walk down to

15:13

the river do I want to walk towards somewhere where I can see my friends and you know it's a good

15:20

question and you know what's the best bit of exercise I can do now I mean if

15:25

you want to run great go for it but you can start even smaller than that you can start okay where do I want to

15:30

go I think that's yeah that's wonderful and I think it's a really great segue because you and I were chatting a couple

15:36

of weeks ago and kind of how this conversation could go and we both decided that we want it to wanted it to be you know a Solutions based discussion

15:43

because ultimately a lot of people right now um have only themselves to keep

15:48

themselves motivated and positive and and accountable during this kind of wild and stressed time so how do you feel

15:56

people can actively begin to help themselves during what seems to be you know a kind of never ending world of of

16:04

Co um well first of all I would I would say do what works right

16:12

I'm not the expert on your life or anybody's life for that matter not even my own I have to say I'm still finding

16:19

things out so um you know if you're not sure you could you could say to yourself

16:25

okay well Mo I felt pretty terrible all this week I was okay a little bit on Monday afternoon but the rest of the time was CH okay so what was it about

16:32

Monday afternoon that was good when you last felt good what was

16:38

the good thing that happened did you have a cup of herbal tea did you I don't know take a supplement did you go for a

16:45

run did you do some yoga did you watch some crazy stuff on TV I don't really

16:50

care but there's some things that make you feel a little bit better than other things so pay attention to those things

16:57

and do more of them now that sounds like a really almost too simple to be true

17:04

suggestion but it's actually one of the primary suggestions of the brief therapy center from in Milwaukee and it turns

17:11

out to be incredibly effective do more of what works so second so I don't want

17:18

to diminish that do more of what works the second thing I would say is do

17:23

something really small ask yourself not what like you might think to yourself what I'd really like to do is get

17:30

together all my mes and go on a fabulous two week holiday in the Caribbean well

17:36

okay maybe you would but what's the smallest possible thing you could do

17:43

that would make a noticeable difference I mean would it be for me really

17:49

interesting one is to sit upright yeah I typically tend to slouch a little bit

17:54

forward but if I sit upright somehow I just feel a little better in myself and that's absurdly small but it really

18:01

helps when I'm out on my little motorbike thing I eat often find myself slim you know like tipping forward a

18:08

little bit I sit upright and I just feel a tiny bit better so I'm I'm really

18:14

talking tiny bit better here what's the tiniest thing that can help you feel a little bit

18:20

better and when you start doing that try and find half a dozen I don't know sitting upright having a glass of

18:27

water let's say you think you want to meditate and you say oh I can't meditate you can you can meditate for five

18:33

minutes not for two hours not for 10 days without talking you can do it for

18:40

five minutes yeah something like that so try all these tiny little things and as

18:47

you do them pay attention to the process of

18:54

change very many people during this time have you typically people are eating too

19:01

much they're drinking too much they're not getting enough exercise and they're feeling depressed and they're not seeing their friends okay so somebody who will

19:10

uh remain uh nameless told me the the other day she said she'd arranged to

19:15

meet a a friend for a socially distanced walk you know keeping two meters apart she hadn't seen this woman for I don't

19:22

know four five months and she didn't actually know her that well but she was a colleague from work and as she got

19:27

there she said oh I wish I could give you a hug and her friend said be my guest and so they had a hug and they had

19:35

a great old time talking and walking for two and a half hours and they did each other a power of

19:42

good so what can we do we need to pay

19:48

attention to the Small Things pay attention to the most immediate things in our own

19:54

worlds um the the The NeverEnding world of Co is actually a little bit of a a

20:01

mystery because it's out there in the media it's out there on the on the screens in the you know uh the threads

20:09

of social media and posts and everybody being scared and frightened and so forth but if you pay attention to where you

20:17

actually live and the people you're seeing okay some of them are very frightened but some of them

20:23

aren't and there are things you can do little things for your yourself with

20:29

your family and the more you pay attention to where you really

20:35

live the less scary all the weird and terrible things are that are happening

20:40

in the rest of the world and you can become one of those little places that's

20:46

creating a little bit more joy and

20:56

happiness kill people sadly those people are overwhelmingly people

21:03

who are already sick who are very old and overweight and that is a problem right dying is a problem but you know

21:09

it's a problem all of us have to face we're all going to die okay and we

21:16

don't know when we're going to die last year A friend of mine drowned he was a very wonderful man he doesn't drown of

21:21

covid he drowned because although he could swim the two people who clung to him couldn't that's tragic you know he's

21:29

left a family and it's you know death is not is not a light experience but at the

21:35

same time it's one that's coming for all of us every every single one of us yeah

21:41

there's a lot of there's a lot of power and responsibility in just that statement that can be a really really

21:47

know self-proclaimed powerful statement that you know you can project you to do some really wonderful things and I love

21:53

what you're talking about when it comes to being trying to become aware and a bit conscious of like what does work

21:59

what is simple what can you apply kind of immediately and now I've got a question in regards to do you think we

22:07

pay more attention to do we put more attention on the things that don't work

22:12

do we put more attention on the these be more attracted to the things in our life

22:18

that maybe make us feel anxious or depressed you know it's it's interesting because those small things you are

22:23

talking about can make profound profound changes and it's weird that we don't try and do the them all of the time whether

22:29

that's to take 10 minutes to have a nice cup of tea go for a walk around the block meditate for 5 minutes do a

22:36

10-minute yoga video like all these things are accessible to everybody all the time but for some reason we are more

22:42

I think a lot of people are a lot more attracted to the things that actually might cause us a little bit more harm

22:49

whether that's psychological or physical and I think that that's interesting what what's your take on

22:55

that I I think few people are actually attracted to harm but we're very easily

23:02

um overcome by drama drama and

23:07

and what happens in uh on the internet and all the news media is that the the

23:14

the internet and and it started with television really and goes back a bit

23:19

but all of these media are attracted to conflict and to conflict is a much more

23:26

interesting story than oh oh a few people in British Columbia had a really nice day yesterday that's just like not

23:33

a story you know whereas some people had a huge argument about going into a supermarket without masks that's a story

23:41

you know and we can take sides and Shout at each other and all that kind of stuff so drama and conflict and simplicity I

23:48

mean simp oversimplified conflict is is um is compellingly

23:55

interesting we all run on habits so if I have a habit of paying attention

24:03

to the bad stuff I'm going to do more of it it's just a habit right so I for

24:09

example noticed that during all of this even though I'm relatively skeptical about I think you know generally

24:15

speaking lockdowns cause more damage than than the covid

24:20

but I you know I'm I'm not the the point I want to make is I was reading about

24:26

that stuff and I just got more and more upset even when I was reading stuff I did agree with so so I decided two

24:34

things one is I got to limit the amount of time I spend reading news articles

24:39

about things that I find offensive but simultaneously it's also useful to read

24:45

one or two articles of from the other perspective so rather than thinking you

24:51

know oh my goodness I can't believe how many people believe such and such you know how dangerous la la la

24:57

la I read another article saying it's so wonderful la la la la la yeah so that I

25:04

I I don't get stuck in a little self-righteous bubble you know which is a very easy thing to do so

25:12

um what what what can we do about all of this we can notice our habits and then

25:19

say well is that a habit I want you know most of the time we pick them up accidentally very few people say oh I'm

25:24

going to be plenty negative today let me get on with it they just don't it just happens right so I have to notice it

25:31

happening and think oh now maybe I can put a different ending catch the same

25:37

beginning oh maybe the world's going terribly mad but maybe it's time for me to have a nice cup of tea and have a

25:44

call with my friend absolutely yeah I just as you're

25:50

you know talking about that that word drama is sticking out for me because you can't see there's no show show or movie

25:56

available on Netflix that is is just joy and happiness for an hour you know there

26:02

significant drama there's spikes in the motion it's very interesting my my parents have watched EastEnders for what

26:08

I want to say 25 years it's incredible like some five days a week it's the same

26:13

Pub it's the same street it's the same people it's remarkable but you know this

26:19

it's just it's pure it's pure drama constantly and it's wild and it's addicting it's very very it's wildly

26:26

attractive and addicting and I suppose it's very very difficult to get out of that habit of watching something like

26:32

that and being connected with these individuals that go through all these dramas that we can associate because we're human beings with emotions as well

26:39

and it's a really tough thing to break like to have like a social media Purge or to um stop watching the news or to

26:48

look at alternative news sources that might be you know rightwing if you're left and the other way around you know

26:53

like that's a it's a very you have to be really I feel like you have to be really conscious and aware of where your mind's

26:59

at and what you're looking to achieve with you know changing your sources of

27:04

information and stimuli I would say yeah I agree I mean I think it's

27:10

it's also quite hard if you say I've got to stop doing this that and the other um that kind of doesn't work please stop

27:16

thinking of elephants right it just doesn't work much better is to say have you thought

27:23

about giraffes in other words you start doing something better and gradually the stuff

27:30

you don't want kind of gets pushed out a little bit um it yeah just a top tip

27:37

there really yeah so starting simple recognizing kind of like what works what is good and kind of bringing a little

27:43

bit more awareness to that and you you pointed out some really simple easy examples that a lot of people can do

27:50

even if they're you know lockdown at home like right now it's um yeah I think

27:56

they're the kind of like little little tools that I think people people know but maybe have forgotten about that

28:02

they've got these at at their disposal to again like help change their environment and help change their mood a

28:07

little bit absolutely I mean I think it is um

28:13

uh important to recognize some people are very very frightened you know there's been a lot of very frightening

28:19

messaging going out there now uh there are typically you know people

28:25

talk about the fight or flight response you know when there's a threat coming you know I'm going to fight it or I'm

28:31

going to run away but um and and and that you know that's well documented but there is a third response which is also

28:38

common and less well documented which is freezing absolutely just freezing and a lot of people are effectively Frozen

28:45

emotionally they've been so frightened by all these messages that they they've

28:51

lost a sense of proportion and perspective everything is terrifying and that's debilitating that's a really it's

28:59

like having all your own energy taken away so if you are really really scared

29:04

you need again to find the smallest possible thing that you can do that will

29:11

help you give have a bit more of your own power back and and what is it that

29:16

will make you feel a little bit more safe now probably talking to someone like me isn't necessarily a good thing

29:24

because I'm relatively good at feeling safe you need to talk to other people who are who are kind of scared but maybe

29:29

someone who's a tiny bit less scared and see what they're doing and see if you can play with them for a little

29:36

bit yeah I like that that's that's a very good recommendation yeah a lot of people as you say Frozen at the moment

29:44

the last year or so and if they can find something to help kind of start to think

29:50

of some of other things you that's literally going to change your biochemistry and you know kind of get you out of that constant stress response

29:57

that we know is like you know the leading cause of chronic disease and that's kind of like where we want to be

30:02

like talking to because this has been going on for a long period of time now and without covid before that people

30:09

were quite quite fearful and scared anyway and you Chuck something like this into it and a lot of people like just go

30:16

into this different level and you know the body can only only do so much when it comes to you know spurting out stress

30:24

hormones it there's a there's a there's a point where where it uh will kind of

30:30

manifest into something a little bit more serious so I think these tools and these tips are super important for your

30:36

psychological and physical health and without question like you mentioned before like changing your environment

30:43

and exercising whether that's like going for a walk or doing something else like that can really really change your um

30:49

physical body very very quickly yeah there's a um there's a guy

30:55

called Ernie Rossy back in I think the 80s he he did a lot of work with Milton Ericson who was a psychiatrist very

31:01

interested in hypnosis and he wrote a Rossy wrote a book called State dependent memory learning and behavior

31:08

what he's saying is that essentially the there's a there's a a kind of circle if you can imagine it of there's your

31:16

behavior there's your cognition there's your hormonal State um and then there's

31:23

your emotional state and we're not one one of those things we

31:29

are a process that manifests all the way around that Circle so you can intervene

31:35

at the hormonal State you can intervene at the behavioral State you can intervene cognitively and emotionally

31:40

and you are that process you are it's not as if one drives the other it's not

31:46

that the hormones drive your brain they're the same thing your thinking and the hormones they're different aspects

31:52

of the same thing yeah so the neuropeptides and the electronic signal

31:58

and your cognition we don't know actually that much about it but the simplest description is to say that's

32:05

the process that a human being is it manifests physiologically it manifests

32:12

behaviorally and it manifests cognitively that's who we are and you can interview at any one of those

32:19

levels interesting I love that um a lot of people around the world are really

32:24

split right now and have been for some time basically we've got a lot of people who think the reaction to covid

32:31

worldwide has been appropriate and you know they're happy to kind of like go along with government regulations and

32:36

then you've got other people people who are you know not so happy with lockdowns mass mandates social distancing the

32:43

prospect of vaccine passports Etc and this has you know SP split a lot of people up friends families colleagues

32:49

you know I I've I've experienced this so I wonder um I wanted to ask you how can we start to create maybe a healthy

32:57

healthier dialogue with each other because at the start of 2020 we were all

33:03

friends but now things things are things are wildly different even between even between family members and people who

33:09

are relatively or really close before things have changed and I think everybody has got one of those P people

33:15

in their life yeah I mean to be fair Simon I

33:21

don't think we were all friends at the beginning of 2020 okay um it the you

33:26

know Co has been a big kind of topic and a big issue but it's not the only one so

33:32

we have to remember that that actually it's fairly normal to disagree with

33:37

people it's it's really okay to disagree with people let's say I mean I certainly

33:43

have the experience for many years I've had friends who say politically are to the right of me or to the left of me but

33:50

they are friends of mine and we enjoy you

33:56

know we enjoy dinner together we enjoy traveling or whatever it is that we're doing and it's okay to

34:02

disagree and one of the things that makes me know it's okay to disagree is

34:07

that I know that I am not guaranteed to be

34:14

right if I know that I personally might be wrong right now then it's easier to hang

34:23

out with people I disagree with so I might think well I know a certain amount

34:29

this is the way it looks to me but I don't know 100% that I am absolutely

34:35

right and if I do know that for example it's a good idea for that person over

34:41

there to keep themselves well away from all these people over here and protect themselves from the virus it doesn't

34:47

mean that an entire class of people should definitely do that at all times

34:53

indefinitely so the two things that help are one is knowing that I'm

34:59

definitely possibly wrong and

35:05

secondly be very careful about generalizations um never generalize

35:12

that's what I say um it's it it we I mean there's a deeper

35:18

root for this actually Simon we can't really go into it in less than about six hours but there's a way of thinking that

35:26

is dominant in modernity which prioritizes abstraction it prioritizes

35:32

fixity and it under represents emotional significance so if you like the

35:38

scientific model the academic model where we get to describe things a lot and what we're looking for is the kind

35:44

of essence we abstract that yeah and so pretty much every political ideology

35:50

works like that and it's why pretty much every political ideology fails because

35:56

we don't live in an abstract world we live in a concrete world we live in an emotionally inflected world and an

36:03

abstraction is not the Deep essence of something it's a tiny

36:10

onedimensional abstraction taken out that we throw back at reality and

36:16

imagine we've understood it but no we've understood one tiny Glimpse imagine reality is a hologram

36:23

right it's a big glass sheet and you can see 36 degrees around it then you drop

36:29

it and in one tiny sliver you can see the whole of that hologram but in just

36:35

one tiny sliver and the delusion is that that sliver tells you the truth it

36:41

doesn't it's part of the truth absolutely but it's not the whole truth and we typically in modernity par

36:49

you know all these kind of overarching rules regulations protocols and policies Focus to our

36:58

detriment on a single element I mean actually Co is a really good example because Co is indeed a dangerous virus

37:06

particularly for old sick obese people but we've abstracted that from healthare

37:12

like what are most people die of cancer heart disease and um COPD and diabetes

37:18

coming up behind that those Remain the most dangerous things in our most common

37:24

causes of death even throughout all of this covid problem but we've as it were pulled out Co and

37:30

said that's the one that matters and most of the other health services have been

37:35

downgraded that's probably going to cause us some problems so we we should really be very very wary of confusing an

37:44

abstraction which is some part of the truth with the whole of

37:50

reality yeah I think I I I completely agree with you I think uh being open to

37:56

being wrong is is very very important and it should always be on on the on on the edge of your mind would you say

38:02

that's something like would that be like a a tip you might have for for people who are you know H having conversations

38:09

or looking to actually start to reconnect with people who they they may have disagreed with because I I totally

38:15

agree with you that people have disagreed with each other on many many different topics all of the time and

38:22

weren't in this happy la la Rainbow Land preco but like I would say in my group

38:28

of 100 friends preco I was very very close and

38:33

connected with a lot of them but you you throw covid into it and different opinions and different information you

38:39

know at the beginning of all of this I was very very very very strong willed and I was kind this is this is my my

38:44

thoughts this is it this is my belief this is my perception this is it this is that and it took my emotional state to

38:49

come down before I could start intally understanding that you know maybe I don't know everything there's a

38:55

lot of information out there and there's a lot of other people people who quite rightly are are open to their own

39:00

opinions and beliefs and it it certainly took a bit

39:05

of understanding and self-reflection on my part to start changing how I was having conversations with people um but

39:12

I'm hearing so hearing from so many other people that they have lost friends they have lost they can't communicate with their family members anymore

39:19

because they I don't think they know how how to do it I don't I think we have a very big problem in our society anyway

39:27

that we um we don't really communicate brilliantly with each other we don't really learn it at school very well like

39:34

how we can create relationships how we can repair them it's not something it's not really it's kind of something you

39:40

have to just figure out or you don't we have and we have a lot of people walking around the world um who have very very

39:48

poor communication skills and it's it's a Hu it's a huge problem and when you

39:54

know you can you can you can have your your political belief and your religious belief and all these other kind of

40:00

dinner table conversations and you can obviously have mutual respect and have kind of like a

40:05

you know civil discourse with people but there's something different about covid I think in regards to

40:14

bringing it up as a conversation piece and you know I go I go to certain people's houses and I just I just do my

40:21

best to not bring it up because I know it's just going to cause problems yeah I understand that I I do

40:27

understand that I mean I think focusing back on the solution things first of all yeah um if we if we just step back a bit

40:37

there's a a tendency now particularly because we have so much information is

40:42

basically any opinion you have go onto the internet and you can find a bunch of people to support you right anything

40:49

Flat Earth definitely hundreds of people up for that um and on from there right

40:55

so conspiracy theory no absolutely down the line whatever right so that's the defic that's the problem

41:03

with the Internet it's incredibly flat but it's incredibly wide and it's

41:08

incredibly narrow setting that aside one of the things that has predated the internet

41:15

but goes along with our modern version of education is that we pay a lot of attention to Theory and facts and we

41:20

don't tell enough stories now you want to go and hang out with your mates and you don't want to

41:26

talk about Co just tell them a story and I'm serious about this tell them a story um let me tell you one of my favorite

41:33

stories I worked as a Storyteller for a while and this one actually comes from Canada um uh the the Inuit people uh my

41:42

understanding it's an Ino story again I'm not into it so hey but it's a great story so I'm going to share it these

41:48

people believe that before everything else there was Raven great Raven and he

41:54

had a nephew who was known as little Raven and one day little Raven stole his

42:01

uncle's box of light he picked it up in his beak and he

42:06

flew away and he flew and flew and flew he flew as far as he could he flew until

42:11

he was so exhausted that he couldn't fly anymore and he just landed and he found

42:18

himself surrounded by strangers and he was really tired and he

42:25

was really thirsty and he was really hungry Ry and he said please please could you give me something to drink

42:30

could you give me something to eat and that's what happened they said

42:37

nothing he said please I'm I'm really hungry I'm really thirsty please can I

42:43

have something to drink something to eat after a little while a few of them

42:51

just laughed he said please give me something

42:56

to eat please give me something to drink if you don't I'm going to open my uncle's box of

43:03

light They carried on laughing and he did it he opened his uncle's box of light and out of that box came out all

43:12

the stars in the sky and they flew up and took their place high up there and

43:17

then out came the moon the beautiful shiny Moon and it flew up into the sky and then out came the sun and the sun

43:24

was so bright The Strangers were so terrified that they jumped and some of

43:29

them dived down into the sea and they became the fish and another group jumped up into

43:36

the sky and they became the

43:42

birds and the third group was so terrified that they stuck absolutely

43:48

still where they were and they became

43:55

humans I like it Round of Applause that was beautiful I was in thr with that that

44:01

was great thank you you're totally right telling stories is is as ancient as it

44:08

comes and it's a wonderful thing to to be able to do with people yeah I think we easily talk about

44:15

stuff so for example we talk about Community I mean nowadays like 20 30

44:22

years ago Hy anybody talked about it but we talk about Community the more we talk about about it the less it actually

44:28

exists the same could be said of leadership God knows how many leadership courses there are now when do we need

44:35

leaders right now how much leadership do we have almost none right we can either

44:41

do something or we can talk about it now when I tell a story Community happens we meet I can

44:50

tell that you were watching I could tell what you were feeling a little bit even though we're separated by Zoom there was

44:55

a certain energy energ that happened there you were joining me in that story

45:01

that's what stories can do for us there's a shedload of philosophy behind that if you want but the important thing

45:08

is pay attention notice what can happen notice that you can feel different you

45:14

can really be with somebody when you tell a story and you don't have to be brilliant at it you just have to do it

45:20

from your heart that'll make a big difference absolutely just listening to

45:26

something like that I mean I I've got a year and a half old son so I I read read

45:31

stories all day long um but using a completely different part of your brain that creative imagination is such a

45:37

wonderful place to be and it's a it's a warm tingly feeling sensation place and it's a good place it's a good place to

45:44

be I've yeah absolutely and you know what here's another top tip Simon tell him stories reading stories is good but

45:51

telling is super special um it's it's

45:57

again it's complicated we'll have to talk about that another time I have a a little boy he's only 3 months old when I

46:02

tell him a story he can't even speak yet he looks at me he's so enthralled you

46:07

know many years ago a friend of mine brought her children to see me they were 6 eight and 10 right and I told them a

46:14

story I saw them all eight years later right so that makes them 14 16 and 18 so

46:23

I walked into the house they said tell us the story of the monkey and the crocodile love it that's great yeah stories

46:31

stories are huge and they they they certainly take us back and they use wonderful Pathways in our brain that can

46:37

know really really change the way that we're we're thinking feeling and behaving yeah that's a really good piece

46:44

of device actually is telling stories and whether that's um about yourselves or something fictional or something

46:50

something like that that's that's uh that's wonderful I might I might steal that one I might have to I might have to find it and and read it few more times

46:57

but I like it thanks for sharing that with us um do steal it all stories are

47:02

stolen you know of course they all been hand recycled fiction I love it um just

47:10

before we kind of like wrap this up I'd love to get your we're going to talk about your um Rec most recent blog

47:17

because I really enjoyed that but before I ask you about that how big a part does

47:22

our choice of information play into our perceptions of kind of like what's going on in the

47:28

well uh obviously kind of big yeah I mean one of the do you know what the

47:36

German word is for a television program something no it's

47:42

called fser okay FS it means far away Seer looking far away okay okay and

47:50

basically nowadays that's the normal way that we get information not really the TV but the internet but we get

47:56

information from a long way away from a very distant place

48:01

okay so it's slightly distorting like we're

48:08

all a long way away from where we actually live it's a whole lot more helpful to

48:15

pay real close attention to what is all around you right now like really around

48:22

your you physically the people you are with yeah so that's one thing it's not

48:28

just that whether you pick a leftwing or a right-wing media Source or whatever but all of that media tends to be a long

48:34

way away from your life um you know Facebook is a long way

48:39

away from your life because it's got people all over the blinking world you know popping stuff up and it's all it's

48:46

all like confectionary you know one little sweet that's nice you know but eat half the confet shop and it makes

48:52

you sick so social media is is is very very like that you just have to be be

48:59

careful not to take too much of it and ideally none at all it rots your teeth or maybe that's the sugar I can't

49:06

remember I uh I love that so far away idea and you're absolutely right any

49:11

kind of new source whether that's TV or off the internet or off a blog or whatever it's it is it's it's far away

49:17

from us and if you were to you know if if I mean I don't I don't watch TV really I watch a show a show or two but

49:24

I don't watch the news or anything like that and if I didn't see people like you know walk in my world in my reality like

49:31

in my day today that's with me right now that's connected to me and I walk around in my community like I if I didn't see

49:38

masks I wouldn't know anything else was going on in the world you know and that's really interesting because that's

49:43

that's a lot more real to me than watching some sort of TV news anchor

49:50

telling me a bunch of stuff about what's happening like all over the world you know so that that's a really interesting point that you bring up thanks for that

49:56

cuz that's that's made me think a little a little bit differently about all of

50:02

these incredible new sources that's just they just absolutely everywhere we kind of polluted with them to be honest and

50:08

um yeah if you if you can take the time to filter that out a little bit and you know go out into your world and and see

50:15

things for kind of what they are with your own two eyes I think that paints a much different picture that's that

50:21

splashed at us constantly yeah so here in Vietnam when

50:27

somebody dies they have a wake at the house so they and always you'll find

50:34

they take a little bit of the street they put up a kind of um not really a marquee a tiny gazebo thing and put some

50:40

tables out and people come around to pay their respects to the family and to to

50:45

to give their respect to the person who's died so it's kind of ordinary to see that uh that's what always happens

50:53

right so just this morning I came back and and the Little Alley I normally

50:58

motorbike down was half closed off because there was another funeral um you know people

51:04

die and we see that that's normal very few people actually died of

51:10

covid in Vietnam but people still die so unfortunately we because we don't see

51:15

what's happening on our own world and we do see this kind of weirdo dramatic picture painted by the people who want

51:22

eyeballs um uh on on media we we kind of forg get that death is part of life so

51:29

that makes it way more scary when people start talking about it a whole lot more but actually death is part of life you

51:35

know um I'll tell you a little story which I which I rather liked I when my

51:42

aunt died who I loved greatly I went to there was a beautiful service in the church and then there was

51:48

a a wake at her house and then late at night I was driving home and uh this was in London and very

51:56

close to my house somebody ran out in the middle of the road and waved at me trying to stop the car now your average

52:02

response to that in London would be to swerve and drive on right because everyone's nuts luckily I didn't I

52:08

stopped right and this guy he he was from there's a place where they were

52:14

putting refugees and he could hardly speak English but he he said to me help help and I could see there was his wife

52:21

she was pregnant and in fact she was about to give birth so he needed to get

52:26

to the hospital so I said get in we get they both got in the car and we drove I don't know half a mile down the road I

52:32

took them to the hospital and I thought well there you are one out one in that's

52:40

life yeah that's great I think uh there's some wonderful traditional uh

52:46

cultures that have a much different uh relationship with death than we do kind of in the west I think that yeah like

52:53

death and dying is especially here in Canada in America in the UK you know we

52:59

we put our old people in blocks of flats with other old people and we distance ourselves from them because we you know

53:06

we we don't really want to think about death too much and we bury people in the ground and we do have funerals and

53:13

things like that but we have these other traditional cultures that you know have these kind of like much bigger events that are much in my opinion like a I

53:20

want to say like a better tribute to the life of somebody rather than just like focusing on the death of somebody and we

53:26

have a very interesting relationship with life but also like very strangely

53:31

with death like a lot of people are super afraid of it and super scared of it and yeah it's it's definitely a part of the response to response to

53:39

covid um I'd love to get into so your most recent blog was titled the Ferguson

53:45

correspondence and specifically I really enjoyed how it concluded um I'll put a link to it in

53:52

the um show notes so people can get to it and read it and I'm and I'm sure there'll be others up there by the time this goes

53:58

out but you put forward that what we kind of need now is humility by our

54:04

scientists by our politicians and even from the Skeptics they they need to be

54:09

practicing empathy I really love that do you think the scientific Community our

54:15

governments and our Skeptics are capable of this at this

54:23

point um well I think people are cap AP of it I think um again it's one of

54:30

those illusory generalizations to talk about the scientific Community I could

54:35

talk about the human Community but it here we are we're in the human Community but there's an awful

54:41

lot of diversity and disagreement in this human community and uh the same is

54:47

true amongst scientists uh and for that matter governmental uh people or Skeptics um so

54:57

are people capable of humility well we all are um the kind of key is to is to try

55:05

and be humble before you're humiliated so because it's coming for

55:10

you sooner or later you are definitely going to be proved wrong so you kind of need to be prepared for that really it

55:17

would be a better thing to be prepared for that um there are people who like to

55:22

deny it and they do cause a lot of trouble it has to be said um let me f i

55:27

you know I just was thinking about this just a moment ago and I thought well hey

55:33

let's take a scientist you know how about a famous Nobel prizewinning scientist like Richard

55:40

fainman and he's he was here's a quote he's got lots of lovely things to say one of them was if you thought that

55:47

science was certain well that's just an error on your

55:52

part now he was a pretty good scientist um another way he he talked about the scientific method he says we are trying

55:59

to prove ourselves wrong as quickly as possible because only in that way can we

56:05

find progress and just one more from fainman I'm smart enough to

56:12

know that I'm dumb uh so there are some you know it's

56:20

a little bit unfair to talk about the scientific community and and sort of lump everyone together one of the

56:27

difficulties of modernity and it's a really tough call for scientists and academics is that

56:34

science is kind of massively misrepresented it's it's understood as this wonderful search for the truth you

56:42

know um but actually it's a career nowadays by the end of the 20th century

56:48

science was primarily a career at the beginning of the 19th century science was a vocation it was a weird crazy

56:56

bizarre thing that a few really eccentric people indulged in right it

57:01

wasn't taught in schools it was just these people who were obsessed with understanding the world and they were up

57:06

to it and they were they did wild and wonderful things normally on their own now science is

57:14

industrial it's an enormous activity and if you're a scientist and let's say you have a

57:20

couple of kids and a mortgage and you have an inconvenient idea

57:26

it's kind of problematic I mean I mean not just covid

57:31

take climate change let's say you found out something oh well maybe you know there's something else going on not just carbon

57:37

dioxide whoa that's going to be a a really difficult thing to pursue it might threaten your career your funding

57:44

right your funding is mostly episodic right you have to do something that people want to

57:49

fund so there are massive pressures on science and there are massive pressures

57:54

elsewhere don't get me wrong they not the only people suffering from this but it's it's very very hard to think deeply

58:05

and clearly and understand things when you're as it were in the middle of a big river which is Flowing quite strongly in

58:12

a certain direction it's hard to Paddle Your Own Canoe these

58:17

days yeah I like that that's um that's a very interesting take on it especially

58:23

within the scientific Community because quite clearly we all have the ability to be empathetic and and uh and express

58:30

humility but sometimes our circumstances don't don't allow it

58:37

simple as that I suppose they make it difficult it's very very difficult there are certainly people out there who you

58:42

know literally put their neck necks out put their lives on the line to you know maybe have a different point of view but

58:48

you know through if you just look throughout history and throughout science it's those individuals that you know that create and make kind of the

58:54

biggest splash yeah absolutely wonderful well we're g to

59:01

finish up there Hugh thank you so much for taking the time with us I'd love to get you back on because I think there's

59:07

a bunch of things that we could talk about but I think that we I think we jumped to a few really interesting

59:13

points we had some solutions that people can kind of jump into now how can people

59:18

get a hold of you well I have a website uh uh if you stick it in the program notes that'll be

59:24

great it's it's Hugh wilborne hu G wlb

59:31

rn.com and uh you can click on the blog and find out what I'm writing um you

59:36

know I kind of got diverted a bit by this Co thing I'm not that excited by it I'm more interested in helping people uh

59:43

become more confident of themselves including their Shadow and find better ways to

59:50

educate ourselves I think that but let's do that I'd love to come back and talk to you about that because there's a whole world of re understanding

59:59

education which uh we could really do with these days and I think it's it's also really exciting and good fun

1:00:06

wonderful well we look forward to getting you back on to talk a little bit more into that but thank you so much

1:00:11

again for more information on anything we've spoken about in this episode please make sure you check out the show

1:00:17

notes don't forget to subscribe if you haven't uh thank you so much for listening this is true Hope cast the

1:00:22

official podcast of true hope Canada we will see you next week