Essentially there's certain life events

that we don't have any control over.

Okay? As much as you are autonomous

and you know what you do every single day,

there will be something, there will be something

that you won't be in control over.

For instance, the death of a loved one. Okay?

Let's just take that as an example.

So you can't prevent people from passing away.

It's a, it's an inevitable consequence of life.

Life is contingent, you know, it's a cycle of life.

Now, as much as you can't control the event,

what you can control is how you see the event

and the person that you become after it, right?

So you can control your perspective to it.

Yes, in the initial stages of, uh, grieving, you go

through a variety of things.

You go through denial. You go through a really,

really low period, you go through all the emotions,

a fluctuation of emotions,

but then it gets to a point

where you are holding onto the pain

because letting go of the pain means that you're letting go

of this particular person

or letting go of this particular experience,

which is so definitive of you.

Greetings, hello. Good day.

Wherever you are in this world.

Thank you so much for joining me.

My name is Simon, and I'm the host of True Hope Cast,

the official podcast, true Hope Canada.

True Hope Canada is a mind

and body based supplement company that is dedicated first

and foremost to promoting brain

and body health through non-invasive nutritional means.

For more information about us,

you can visit true hurt canada.com.

Today I have the pleasure

of welcoming bestselling author Ruby Dahl to the show.

Now, Ruby is a bestselling author of five books,

including one, the Self-help book,

Ruby's Words on Healing Self-Discovery, love, heartbreak,

grief, and Moving On have been greatly appreciated

by readers from all over the world.

Ruby has featured in various online magazines from Harper's

Bazaar to The Times of India,

and has done guest appearances on the BBC Asian network

and BBC Radio One.

Ruby is also a contributing writer

to widely read online magazine, such as we are The Tempest

and for catalog, and she has graduated

with an MA in philosophy.

Presently, Ruby is working on her debut

romance thriller novel.

Today though, we're going to be discussing

how people can use their creativity as a pathway

through tough times.

Enjoy the show. Okay, Ruby. Hi. Welcome to True Hope Cast.

Really appreciate you being here with me today.

How are you? What is going well?

I'm good, Simon. I'm doing very well.

I've had a productive day today. How are you doing?

Yeah, doing good. I mean, you're in the UK

so you're eight hours ahead of me,

so I think it's like 6:00 PM

over there. That's something like that.

Yeah, yeah. It's 10 past six right now. Yeah,

There you go. So I've had

breakfast and coffee

and you know, my day's starting.

Oh, so, okay, so far, breakfast and coffee. Okay.

So I've, uh, gone to the gym.

I've, uh, done a couple of chapters of my self-help book.

I've worked on my novel. Um, I've gone for a walk,

I've come back, done all my chores and everything,

and now I am sitting with you.

Yeah, that's my day so far.

Awesome. Well, I've got a lot to aspire to today then.

That's great.

Yeah, I mean, I, I've not set the bar too high.

I'm sure you'll be fine. Yeah,

A lot of self-help work and that's, that's good.

And then we're gonna talk about a lot of that today.

It's a really interesting topic that you've got a lot

of experience with and a lot of passion for.

So why don't we just kick things off

and let, let our let our audience know who you are

and what it is that you do.

Okay. So I am a bestselling author of five books.

I created a social media platform, an Instagram page,

around six years ago to heal from a few experiences

that I had, a few personal experiences.

Um, I was in very bad mental health,

very poor mental health, and I started writing to heal.

And as a result, within a year,

that platform just kind of exploded.

It got very big, and that led

to me self-publishing five books from then onwards, um,

leading to my, my fourth book,

which was the most most popular,

and it was the bestselling book.

I sold 25,000 copies in one year, which I self-published.

So that was a huge deal for me.

And presently, we're sitting at over half a million, um,

of an online community

where we talk about all things self-love, self-growth,

mental health, healing, love relationships, everything,

everything that you could possibly think of.

Wow, that's really cool. So you,

you began your social media journey on Instagram

and you were using it as a personal avenue.

Yes. So for me, books had always been a form of escapism.

So when I was younger, I lost my

mom a at a really young age.

I was only four when she passed away.

So I turned to books

and reading at a very, very young age,

there were always a form of escapism for me,

and I knew that one day I wanted to be a writer, I wanted

to be a novelist specifically,

but somehow that journey kind of looks like spiraled

and went a different way altogether.

When I went through something really, really difficult

and I just needed to heal from it, I was like, I'm,

I'm in a very, very dark, difficult place right now,

and the only way that I could feel better is if I write,

which is what, which is what I've always done.

So I created a page,

but I shared my deepest, darkest fears, secrets,

vulnerabilities, everything under a pseudo name.

So nobody really knew it was me

until a year later, essentially.

Wow. And I, I'm just interested to,

'cause you say, you know, you started to write to heal

and then it got really big,

especially in the social media scene.

What, why do you think that is?

Like, what was it about what you were doing, um, that

that grabbed the attention ears and,

and eyes of a lot of different people?

What, what was the draw there?

I feel like I was doing something that's, we are all

so afraid to do, which is share my vulnerabilities.

I was being as raw, as honest

as I possibly could about everything.

You know, I was, um, going through a lot of pain mentally,

emotionally, um, I, you know, I felt like I'd, you know,

delved into like the deepest,

darkest mental pit that I could have.

I was very, very, um, you know, upset and,

and depressed at that point,

and I was talking vocally about it.

I was being as vocal about it as possible.

I was sharing it online.

And a lot of the time when you are going

through a difficult, you know, phase as as this one,

you feel very alone.

You feel like there's no one else

who is going through what you're going through.

And my platform was a way for people to, you know,

find a safe space to find out, oh, I'm not alone

because this particular girl is going

through the same things, or she's going

through something similar, and she's being

so open and honest about it.

And as a result, my readers found that they could be open

and honest about their feelings and their emotions,

and then they'd send me like, direct messages, emails,

just sharing their stories with me, telling me how,

you know, today I was feeling very low,

but your words made me feel better.

Your words made me feel less alone.

Your words made me feel like there's hope.

And I guess the truth was that they could go somewhere

where they could feel understood, where they could feel

as like, they're part of a community

where they could feel like they're just not alone.

And I think that was the biggest, biggest attractive, um,

part of that, of that page.

There are so many negatives to social media,

but when you explain that, it just makes me really happy

that we do have this incredible way of connecting

with each other from all walks of life,

from all across the planet.

And we do have the ability to access a lot

of the things that make us human, a lot

of the things that connect us all.

So that really makes me do, I mean, do you agree in regards

to there are some kind of negative aspects of social media,

but something like this, using it as this creativity tool

to really actually socially connect

and have, you know, use your media socially.

Do you, do you feel that that's one of the kind

of bigger positives of that type of a platform?

Absolutely. Uh, Simon, I feel like the negatives are

because of the way people use social media.

So if I'm using social media to show off about my life,

to portray all my highlights,

to portray all the good points, all the, you know, I'm, I'm,

I've got a great hair day today

and I'm dressed in the best outfit and I'm on a day,

and, you know, life is just great.

And if that's all I'm doing

and that's all I'm sharing on social media,

of course it's going to lead to people comparing

to feeling bad about themselves, to thinking

that they're not achieving much, they're not doing much.

But the way that I utilize social media was to show

that life is not perfect.

That there, you know, there is this person who's going

through something and I try to use social media for the way

that I feel like we should all use it, which is to,

to create a community where people are imperfect,

people are healing, people are vulnerable,

they have their insecurities,

and then they can, you know, engage with each other

and find connections with each other.

And I feel like that is why with social media, it becomes

so hard to connect to a lot of people.

We connect to people in the sense of, well, I want

that life, or I want to look like that,

or, I wish I could be like that.

But we don't connect in the way of, oh yeah, you know,

this is someone that I can relate to.

This is someone that, you know,

is portraying the body image that I have.

This is someone that's portraying the

healing journey that I'm on.

And that's the issue. I feel like if you use social media

in a positive affirming way, in a way where you can connect

with people, it's great.

But if you use it in a different way

where it's literally just like an album

for all your life highlights, then yeah, I feel like it,

it will, it does more to, it does more

to thwart people's mental health then it does,

to help them, essentially.

Yeah. I've not really had this thought

before in regards to how positive social media can be,

because I, I feel like when we're out there being social

and with we're with our communities within,

within our groups or with just, you know, engaging

with strangers, I think there's actually a lot of, um,

we put on characters, right?

We're not actually, like,

we don't go out there into the real world,

and we're not like, as vulnerable as we probably could be.

But on a, there's a, there's a big talking point there,

but like with, with the fact of being able to use your phone

to, to write things down

or to engage, there is like, um, kind

of a safety mask there.

So you can actually be a little bit more vulnerable,

a little bit more open, a little bit more kind of

truly honest with yourself.

So I, yeah, I've not really had the thought I

before of like how powerful and positive and cr

and creative that can be,

because for so many people, oh no, for ev for 99% of people

going out into like, you know, the real world

and being with different groups of people

and just being as vulnerable

as you would've would be if you were writing a, a,

a blog post under a secret name,

ma, it's very, very different.

Right?

Absolutely. And Simon, I had the same face

because with being vulnerable means being very, like you're

with vulnerability comes fear, fear of being judged, fear

of, you know, someone thinking, oh my God,

like this girl is not in a good place

or fear of, fear of just generally people talking about you

or what they'll think about you or how they'll judge you.

And when I realized that I no longer cared

what people thought in terms

of like the negative connotations of what I was doing,

I removed my pseudonym.

I was like, uh,

I remember blocking approximately like 40 people, 40 people

or so from like my community, um, for fear

that I didn't want them to know that I was going through

so much pain because, you know,

people are going to talk bad about me.

They're going to talk about me,

and I didn't want to be spoken about.

But the moment that I realized

that my vulnerability is my strength, me going

through this means I'm human.

Like, there's not a single person in this world

who hasn't gone through something, um,

who hasn't experienced a little bit of pain.

So me experiencing pain just means that I'm a human being.

And that's when I realized that I don't need a pseudonym,

I don't need to pretend like I'm someone else.

And that's when I, you know, came out to the,

to the community and said like, yeah, this is me.

I'm Ruby Doll. Um, I've gone through X, Y, and Z

and this is why till this day I speak so openly honest,

honestly about my mental health, about, you know, my issues

of growing up about my heartbreaking and everything.

Because I feel like there will always be a fear of

what people think about you.

But the moment that you take away that fear, the moment

that you start seeing your vulnerabilities is things

that give you power, that fear disappears as well.

And I'm at this point in my life where I have no fear about

what people think, essentially.

Like I have no fear.

Like I could put my deepest, darkest secrets online.

And if people say, oh, you know this, like, if people say

to me, oh, you went through this, you suck, then it's a bit,

it kind of just tells you

what they are as a person, isn't it?

Like if I'm talking about what I've gone through

and someone's said, you suck as a person, then it's,

it's really definitive of them as opposed to me.

And the moment that you take

that fear away from your vulnerabilities

and stop doubting the fact that you are worthy regardless

of, you know, whatever you're going through in life,

that's when you start empowering yourself

through sharing all your life's difficulties, essentially.

You said something there that was interesting about how,

you know, using your vulnerabilities as a, as a superpower

and how we all experience pain.

Is it necessarily the experiencing the pain

that provides us the power?

I mean, I suppose that fuels it,

but I'm talking about like, there has to be a point

where we either accept what's happened to us

or we start really processing it.

'cause there's obviously this, this stage of grief

or this state, there's gonna be this, this passage of time,

whatever, before we actually start being able to like,

you know, recalibrate and rebalance

and start like moving on, I suppose.

But we never, like, especially with something

that's really traumatic and, you know, really life changing,

it, it takes a lot of time and it takes a lot of work.

So like, can you talk us, talk to us a little bit about the,

the experiencing of a painful event

and then how you can, how people can start to

use different things to start processing

and using that actual event to, you know,

as a positive going through in their life

as a big learning experience.

'cause I don't, I think a lot of people don't have an outlet

and they might experience pain,

and I think some people just put it to the side

and forget about it and really just try to suppress it

and suppress it and suppress it,

and eventually it's gonna come up somewhere.

Uh, and then also a lot of people kind of secretly love

to be the person that got hurt

or the person who whose family member passed away.

You know, they hold onto that as their identity

and it becomes so, so powerful that it's who they are

and they can't think of being not completely attached to

that thing that happened to them 10 years ago,

20 years ago, 30 years ago.

And it, and it holds people back hard.

What do you think about that?

Yeah, I think it really depends on

how you treat a particular event.

So essentially there's certain life events

that we don't have any control over.

Okay. As much as you are autonomous

and you know what you do every single day,

there will be something, there will be something

that you won't be in control over.

For instance, the death of a loved one.

Okay, let's just take that as an example.

So you can't prevent people from passing away.

It's a, it's an inevitable consequence of life.

Life is contingent, you know, it's a cycle of life.

Now, as much as you can't control the event,

what you can control is how you see the event

and the person that you become after it, right?

So you can control your perspective to it.

Yes, in the initial stages of, uh, grieving,

you go through a variety of things.

You go through denial, you go through a really,

really low period, you go through all the emotions,

a fluctuation of emotions,

but then it gets to a point

where you are holding onto the pain

because letting go of the pain means that you're letting go

of this particular person

or letting go of this particular experience,

which is so definitive of you.

Now, there's different ways of an event defining you.

So for me, um, a humongous, a huge defining event

for me was my mom's passing

for when I was four years old, okay?

However, it's so interlinked with my identity

because it's what made me the person that I am today,

because I wouldn't be this empowered.

I wouldn't be this strong, I wouldn't be able

to see life the way that I do.

However, that was in my control, right?

The way that I became was in my control.

If I spent much of my life telling myself,

okay, my mom passed away.

Um, I've got a single dad, we've immigrated to the uk.

Uh, we are a working class family.

I go to a state school, I don't have

many opportunities available to me.

I'm a South Asian brown girl.

There's so many things that are working against me.

There are so many things that are working against me, okay?

However, if I now start feeling sorry for myself

and tell myself, okay, this is bad in my life,

this is bad in my life, this is, I'm just going to give up

and I'm not going to wake up the next morning

and actually be hopeful that I can make something of myself,

then I have let that particular event define me,

but in, in a way that thoughts my

abilities and my capabilities.

Instead, I looked at that event

and I said, okay, this has happened to me.

What can I take from it? And how can I change my life?

And how can I, as a result, empower others

and change their lives as a result?

Like the way that I talk about a lot of the pain

that I've experienced is by telling people that I

got myself out of that cycle.

So, um, a short example,

I was working in children's services for a short while,

and uh, I was working as part

of like child protection conferences.

We'd hold these child protection conferences for, you know,

children who were in like child in need plans where,

you know, a teacher's notice something, uh,

the child comes from either, you know, young parents

or there's drugs, alcohol,

there's something, there's something involved.

And often I'd find that the children who were going

through this had parents who also had parents

that put them through the same thing.

So it was like a cycle.

So like 16, like moms who got pregnant at 16

actually had moms who got pregnant at 16.

And it was just a cycle.

They constantly found themselves

and say they were not breaking themselves outta that cycle

because they thought that is all there is to life there.

That is all, you know, I've got limited

opportunities available to me.

I don't need to go to university.

I don't need to, you know, get a job.

Or even if I went to university

because I come from this particular social class

or part of, you know,

where I'm living or whatever, I'm limited.

And it's that belief that we need to change about,

about our experiences and ourselves.

If I found myself, you know, being defined

by my experiences, I would've accepted the same life

that would've been set for my mom or the people before me.

You know, most South Asian women who came

before me were housewives.

They got married very young.

And you have to take yourself outta that story.

You have to take yourself outta that cycle,

but also use that particular event

to define you in an empowering way, not in a limited way.

I feel like a lot of the time when you go through pain,

you hold onto it,

but you hold onto it in a way that cripples you,

you hold onto it as a, as a shackle around your ankles

as opposed to, you know, a crown on top of your head.

Essentially. You have to take the shackle off

and you have to say, okay, this is what I've experienced.

What can I do with it? Like, these are the tools.

Now, what can I make of my life

using these particular tools?

And I think that's the most important thing.

You can let an experience define you,

but you have to let it experience the experience,

define you in a positive way, in an empowering way,

as opposed to a way that thoughts your

happiness going forward. That's how I see it.

Why do you think that so many people choose,

like for a long period of time?

Choose the shackles over the crown?

Because it's comfortable, because it's familiar,

because sometimes we think when you,

like say it's been a heartbreak, or you've lost a friend

or you've lost a job, it got, gets to a point

where the only thing that reminds you

of them is the heartbreak.

Where the only thing that you remember when you think

of them is the pain.

Now, if you suddenly get rid of the pain,

you are getting rid of this part of your life.

And how I see it is that every single person

that we meet in our lives, we give

them, give them a part of us.

So say that I've like got this, this puzzle of my life

and I've given this missing puzzle to this person.

And in return, that person has given me their piece

and I've attached it to my puzzle of life.

Now, when this person has gone,

not only have they taken my piece with them,

but they've also taken the piece that they gave me.

So what I'm grieving when they're gone is not them,

but myself and grieving a part of myself.

And the only way that I can hold onto a part of that is

by holding onto the pain.

But the moment that you start telling yourself a different

story, the moment that you start saying, okay,

it's not just the pain that will remind me of them,

it's the good memories, it's the positives.

There were a chapter in my life that chapter's never going

to go anywhere, even if I forget them,

that's when you start to let go of the pain.

That's when you start to learn to live with the pain

and move forward with it as opposed

to let it prevent you from moving on.

And for you with your experience in regards to,

and obviously it happened to you at such a young age,

you know, you're, you're a different

person when you're four years old.

You, you know, you've obviously got comprehend things in

very different ways, but what was it,

and you, you went into reading

and you obviously have this massive creative side of, of you

with the, with the writing as well.

What was it that, um, that allowed you to find that,

that tool to start expressing yourself in a particular way?

I mean, have you always just been in, into writing

and into reading,

or was there something that kind of happened

or was there someone, or was there a book

or was there something that inspired you to start using it?

To start, you know, really diving into, into you,

because you're talking about a lot of these identities

that we have with, with tragedy and trauma, um,

or these stereotypes that, that exist within our cultures.

There's a lot of like external factors predicting

who we are supposed to be as individuals.

But when you start using something like writing

to really go in depth and putting your thoughts

and your feelings down on paper,

that's sig significant internal self love, self work.

And I feel that that's one big step of the process of of,

of stopping so many external things, defining people.

So what was it, what, was there a particular factor for you

that really kind of like set you on your way to, you know,

writing five books and being so,

so accomplished in this, in this, in this area?

Essentially? Um, going back to the initial, initial part

of your question was the books.

I always found a way to escape in stories.

So like, I used to read stories by Jacqueline Wilson

and Kathy Cassidy, Karen Kobie, like these kids' books,

these kids' stories growing up,

because I was so unhappy with my reality,

I was say eight, nine years old.

And my dad, um, after my, my mom passed away

and stuff, my dad had resorted

to medicating through alcohol.

So he had literally become an,

a heavy alcoholic, uh, an addict.

And I had like various social workers.

So I spent the majority

of my childhood going from social worker to social worker,

moving from school to school, going from council house

to council house and not having any sense

of control over my life at that point made me want

to escape the reality.

And the only way that I could do it

was through reading books.

I, my dad used to like hold markets.

He used to have a stall in markets on the weekends.

So he was a full-time parent On the weekends he'd go work

like in, um, in the local markets

and, uh, sell stereos, car stereos and stuff.

And I came across this book, book stall of books,

secondhand books in this market.

When I was 10 years old, uh,

that's the first time I picked up a book.

That's the first time that I saw a story.

And the moment that I started reading, I just felt

so at, at ease.

I thought, oh, like I can just escape from

what I'm experiencing for, for a really, really long time.

And then the more that I like escaped into books,

the more my love for books grew.

And then I came across, you know, self-help books.

I came across the kind of books

where I was healing from all these things.

And I, and I wanted to know why I was feeling in

this way, why I was in pain.

And I read these books

and I read like all these online quotes

because when I started my Instagram page,

Insta Poetry was like, really, it was a new thing.

There were so many new Insta Poets who would share quotes

and stuff, and I'd read all these quotes

and I'd be like, this person knows exactly how I'm feeling.

And then I just started journaling.

I just started writing my thoughts down on paper.

I just started, you know, every day I would wake up

and I'd just be like, okay, how am I feeling?

I'd write my thoughts down, I'd write it like on my phone

whenever I was, you know, on the tube, on the way

to uni, anything of that sort.

And that's how I started just expressing myself

because like, the only way that I could make sense of

what I was and who I was, was

through writing and expressing it.

It could be just speaking to someone.

It could be just having a conversation with my friend,

but your friends are not there with you all the time.

Um, so the only person that's there with me is me

and my thoughts, and that's when I just resorted to writing.

I just resorted to expressing

and putting everything down on paper.

And then when I went through my d really difficult

experience six years ago,

and I was essentially going through a really,

really difficult heartbreak,

and I just felt so claustrophobic within myself,

like I just felt like there was no escape.

And then I went back to

what I always had done, which was right.

And I said, okay, let me just write down how I'm feeling.

It started with blogs. So like, I created an online blog

and I just write on the blog and I just share.

And then I was like, okay, let me just create like an

Instagram page to, to advertise the blog,

and then I'd like post a blog,

and then I put the photo of the blog on my Instagram page.

And then I was like, I can actually,

I can actually write shorter pieces as well.

And then it literally went from the blog to the Instagram

to the point where me just sharing three liners

and someone would comment and be like, oh,

this is exactly what I wanted to hear today.

And I'd be like, I'm not,

I'm not putting any hard work into this other than I'm

writing my deepest, darkest fears on paper.

So if this is, if this is something that someone's able

to relate to, then I'm doing something really great.

And that's what led to me to realize that,

like my dream has always been to be a novelist

and write like young adult fiction books,

but that's when I realized that I can have that dream.

Like I can have that goal of being a fiction author one day,

but then I can also have this purpose which helps other

people through my writing,

which helps other people through my words.

And it means that not only essentially

what I'm doing is I'm, I'm healing

and I'm writing to help myself heal,

but that writing is helping someone else heal as well.

And that's when I just realized, I was like, yeah.

I was like, you know, let me just, let me just write

for myself and for other people

and see, see where it takes me.

And it, it brought me here,

it brought me this far, essentially.

Wow. That's amazing. Thank you for sharing that.

I think that's really, really powerful

and yeah, that's certainly made me

think about a lot of different things.

And can you tell us a little bit about your self-help

book specifically?

So you've, you've got five books,

but I think, is it called Dear Self?

Yeah. So Dear Self is actually,

it's a bite-sized self-help book.

What that means is, um, it's a very niche genre.

Uh, so there's a narrative.

There is a narrative as, as you would have

in a self-help book.

But then there's also pieces of prose, which are like,

you know, the smaller essays

that I share on my Instagram page.

So it's like divided by prose.

So essentially you'd have a chapter on say, self-love, uh,

and self-worth, what what does it mean to love yourself?

And then I'd write a chapter on self-love.

But then that would be followed by like various pieces,

individual pieces that standalone on self-love

that have been like, loved

and adored by my, uh, readers online.

And then I, I put that in the book as well.

So it's like a, yeah,

essentially it's a bite side self-help book.

And it's a book that I've been extremely vulnerable in.

I've, um, spoken about my journey of how I, you know,

learned to love myself, spoken about my heartbreak.

I've spoken about friendship, attachment, loneliness.

I've spoken about mental health journeys, grief, um,

a variety of things in this particular book.

And it's a book which not only is it there to help people

who are on various healing journeys,

but it's not, it's not defined by just one thing.

It's not like a book about heartbreak

or a book about finding yourself.

It's a book about everything. It's a book about generally

the various different healing

journeys that we're on in our lives.

Like I always say that we're not on one healing journey.

We are on succession of different healing journeys.

You could be healing from your heartbreak.

You could be healing from your first failure.

You could be healing from losing your job,

you could be healing from the loss

of, you know, a grandparent.

And all these healing journeys happen side by side.

And in some of these healing journeys, you reach a lighter,

better place sooner than the other ones,

because the other ones are a lot more impactful.

And I guess Dear Self is a,

is a book about healing journeys in particular.

Um, and yeah, that the best way to explain it would be like,

it's a self-help book for people who don't really like hard

to digest self-help books essentially.

If, um, if somebody believes that they're not, you know,

amazing at writing, do you think people can still use it as,

as a creative outlet to kind of,

to kind of get things going?

So I feel like a huge part of writing as a, as a journal

or whatever it might be, um,

actually getting your thoughts down onto a bit of paper

and reflecting on them

and kind of reading them back, back to yourself

and having it, you know, it's kind of taking it from the

inside and putting it into the outside world a little bit.

How, you know, if, if some somebody doesn't think

that they're really good at writing, do you think that

they could utilize this as well and get some benefit?

Oh, absolutely. Writing is a, a form of expression,

which I think is so, so powerful.

Um, you know, especially these days,

like journaling is such, it's so impactful.

It's something that's spoken about so much,

just getting your thoughts down on paper every day.

It could just be on your tablet,

it could be on your phone, it could be anywhere.

Just writing down how you're feeling,

not only does often it unclog your thoughts,

but it also shows you exactly what you're feeling.

And having something down on paper

and being able to look back at it

and read it at a later date.

You could come back and you could look at it

and you could be like, oh, that's how I was feeling.

I feel a lot better now. Or, you know, I have a solution

for this particular thought or feeling,

or just being able to express it.

And writing is beautiful in that way.

It's just, um, I heavily, heavily recommend journaling.

Uh, I know that a lot of people do intense journaling,

so they wake up in the morning and they do like three,

four pages of journaling.

I can't do that, unfortunately.

I've got really bad handwriting. So usually

what I do is in the evenings, um, when I come back home,

I've got my diary and I literally just journal my day.

I just write how I was feeling today.

Um, if there's anything significant

that happened, I write that down.

And what it does is it kind of,

it unclogs unclogs my mind for the night.

So everything that I'm feeling

and I'm thinking is now out on paper.

And I feel like I've put it to this external outlet now,

and I no longer have it in my brain,

so then I can be peaceful

and just go to sleep very peacefully.

And I feel like that's what writing usually does.

It, it frees your mind from the thoughts

that either you don't want to think about

or you're not able to comprehend or are tangled together.

It just kind of untangles them.

And I feel like it's, it's great for anyone who wants

to make sense of how they're feeling, essentially.

Yeah, I think that, um, the massive difference

with actually sitting down

and being, you know, quite conscious of doing this activity

and writing your thoughts down

or your feelings down as a beginning stage

of maybe journaling, the big difference between that

and then just like walking around

and thinking those, thinking those thoughts

and feeling those feelings is

that we, we are not distracted.

We're, we're actually putting some conscious effort to,

to do this activity because there will be, there'll be times

during my day for sure where I am feeling a certain way

or I am, you know, a, a certain emotion is coming up for me,

but because I'm doing something, my mind will be like, Nope,

you haven't got time for that site.

Move on, get, get on with it.

And then it just like, just kind of goes out the window.

Like I do that when I've, like, when I've, when I work out

or I'm, I've played football

or something, I'm, I'm, my body's in like physical pain.

My mind will talk myself out of giving

that pain some attention, which is kind of ridiculous.

And then, like, I was lying in bed last night with my,

with my son going to sleep,

and then my like left foot that I smashed a couple

of days ago starts talking to, oh, starts talking

to me like, big time, like, you know

that you've got a lot of pain here.

So I, you probably should have put some attention on me

earlier in the day, but here it is.

But I know, I just find the whole idea of being able to

sit down and be present and actually write things down and,

and being able to process them rather than the automatic

habitual boxes that in our minds like start firing

and just trying to get us to just carry on

with our own habitual ways rather than just like stopping

and taking, taking some time for ourselves.

And I, I, I notice it hugely, my wife is a big writer.

She loves to write things down,

and she is the best version

of herself when she's practicing that.

She's, she's completely, she's amazing anyway,

but when she does that, she's fueled

and actually she's got this, this creative fire that comes

with just actually doing it, even if it's a five,

10 minutes a day writing down on paper

or on her phone or whatever it might be.

So I see it within many different people in my life

who use it as a very, very positive thing.

And without question, it can do marvelous things

for probably everybody.

As long as you can kind of like write

or get things down, then it, it, it's a,

it's a really positive thing.

How do you recommend people kind

of like, get starting with that?

Like it's something, something

that they've never really done before.

Sure. They've heard of journaling

and they, you know, might have done that when they,

they were younger or something as a exercise with school.

But like, how would you recommend actually

like, starting to get it done?

Um, so firstly, Simon, I completely agree.

I feel like writing is, is beautiful. I tell everyone this.

I say writing saved my life

because if I didn't have writing at the point

where I was at the lowest, um,

I probably wouldn't be here today.

So definitely, uh,

but also I do acknowledge that it's not everyone's cup

of tea in the sense of like, I, like I'm great in typing,

but even when it comes to writing things down,

like I get very tired very quickly.

So, um, essentially these days there's a lot

of different outlets.

So you have like, you can, if someone is unhappy

to just sit down, get a piece of paper

and write on the paper, you actually get different types

of journals these days and they're really good.

So these are like journals with like quotes and stuff.

And every day you have like, you'll have, um, something

that will say, okay, what are you grateful for today?

And it's got pointers.

So it kind of encourages you to write instead of you having

to think for yourself too much.

So if someone wants to start out in the beginning

and they're not very comfortable in writing in that sense,

then I would definitely say get a journal that, um, acts

as a tool for you to be able to start, uh, journaling

and manifesting.

Um, in another way, I'd say, to be honest with you,

whenever you have a thought, if you can just type it on your

phone, I think that's the best way to start.

That's the best way to start.

Just open up your notes on your phone

whenever you get a thought and say you are in the office

or you are in the middle of something not driving

or anything, just stop, write it down

so that you can refer to it later.

Because I feel like a lot of the time

what happens is we have thousands of thoughts every day.

I have so many thoughts that, um, for instance,

I'm in my car and my phone's like on the chair, um,

and the moment that I get into my like, start driving,

I'm like, oh man, I need a phone holder.

I need a phone, phone holder.

And I tell myself, remember,

remember you needed a phone holder.

And then I go driving and I get back home

and then by the end of the day, I don't remember.

And I'm like, what did you, what did you,

what were you thinking, Ru what did you need?

What did you, and I just don't remember.

So at that particular point, I just wrote it down,

it would've been so much better.

And I have this, this for everything.

So I have lists, I have lists.

So when I was initially dating my partner,

when he'd say something to me that triggered me,

or when he'd say something that I saw as a red signal,

I'd write it down straight away.

Okay, write it down. Because I didn't wanna forget it.

I didn't wanna forget it because then later on when I'd see

him in person and I'd sit down and then I'd open up my notes

and I'd be like, okay, so on this day you said X, Y, and Z,

and I just wanted to let you

know, this is how it made me feel.

What were your intentions? Like, what, what were you?

And for me, it's so important to have done that.

It's so important right now in having the

relationship that we do.

Because had I not done that,

these would have always been these little red signals

and flags in my mind that would've built up to the point

where maybe if I had not gotten the clarification,

or if I had not reached that point that I was with him in,

eventually they would have resulted me in subconsciously

thinking that I'm in, in the wrong place.

Like, I think that's the case with anything, like,

with a job, with, um, a degree that you're doing with a,

with a company that you're trying to start up,

you have these little thoughts in your day,

like these dark thoughts where either you're questioning

what you're doing or something affects you,

or something someone said hurts you just write it down,

get it outta your system so that when you go back to it,

at the end of the day, you're able to refer back to it

and say, okay, now I'm in a clearer place.

I am, I can, I can look at this

and I can kind of tell myself

and reflect on, on how it made me feel.

Do I still need to deal with it or am I okay now?

Like, do I not need to deal with it?

And I feel like that's the most important thing.

I feel like you need to get your thoughts down, written

whenever, whenever you feel those thoughts,

and then refer to them either at the end of the day

or the next time you're doing that particular event,

or you're seeing that particular person or whatever,

because you don't have a thought for no reason, right?

You have a thought for a particular reason.

And it's very good to deal

with that thought when you have it.

And often we can't

because we're in the middle of something, we're driving,

we're cycling, we're working,

but having that thought written down

and then being able to refer to it later is, is very good.

I mean, most of my deepest dockets thoughts, you know,

issues, everything, they're all online.

So whenever I feel a certain way, I'm like, okay,

let me get back to my Instagram page

and like read the piece that I was feeling a certain way.

And then, you know, it's, it's, it's what it is,

but I feel like it's just good to have that.

It it unclogs your mind

and you're also able to deal with it properly later.

Yeah.

I love that, um, exercise of writing things down

for like a tri things that a partner might say or do.

Yeah. That would trigger you.

How would you recommend somebody approach that

to their partner after they've written that down?

Because I think that's a really, really powerful tool,

but I think it can also, like,

if it's not done in the right way,

it could cause even more aggravation.

So is there, is there a particular way

that you would recommend, um, bringing

that piece to the table?

Uh, bring it when you are on good terms? I'd say so.

Um, don't bring it up when you

are in the middle of an argument.

Uh, the way that I see it is, um,

so initially when we were dating

and stuff, um, obviously when you're dating,

when you're getting to know someone,

it's, it's very difficult.

You don't know them very well.

You're, you are still in thin waters,

you're still in like shallow waters, you don't really know

where it's going to go.

So there were, uh, there were many things that, um, one

of the things that really I struggled with in regards

to my partner really, really struggled with,

I've never come across it before in my entire life,

was his level of honesty.

He was very, very honest. Okay. He was like brutally honest.

So like, on a day, like,

because I'm, you know,

as a woman, I want to be complimented.

I want to be affirmed all the time.

But he was brutally honest about everything.

Like, um, if I, if I did something

and I said, oh my God, like I just had an argument

with a friend and she did this instead of affirming me,

instead of being like, oh, you're absolutely right girl.

He'd be like, yeah, but, and then he'd take her side

and I'd be like, why, why is he taking her side?

Like, I'm, I'm his, I'm his partner, he's seeing me anyway,

so that was one of the things that I really struggled

with, the brutal honesty.

So I'd write down, you know,

if he was honest and it hurt me.

So like if, I don't know, I was wearing a dress or something

and you know, he said, oh, I like this dress,

but I like the other one more.

Like, this is, this is okay. I'd write it down.

And then, um, if it was something else, I don't know,

I can't think of anything off the top of my head,

but like an offensive joke

or, uh, something that they said about

anything in relation to like your insecurities

or something like that, write it down.

Um, or if we're in an argument

and he says something that's really, really triggered me,

that's really hurt me, write it down.

And then the argument's over, we're in a good place now.

Maybe a week has passed, we're on a nice date.

And then I would just be like, oh, you know,

we're having a really good time right now.

There's just some things I wanted to discuss with you.

Like, there's just certain ways I've been feeling.

Um, and in the argument that we had the other day,

you said a few things to me that really hurt me,

so I just wanted to know what you meant by them.

And then outcomes affirm and off, um, every point.

And then he just provided clarification.

And the thing was,

because we would be in a good place, we would be in a,

in a soft kind place.

We are on a lovely day.

Like I know that a lot, a lot of the times we struggle

with bringing up these difficult topics when we're in a good

place because we're like, oh, I don't want

to suddenly taint this good place

that I'm in with my partner.

But it's very important

to discuss it when you aren't in a good place,

because then they're not angry with you.

You are not angry with them. Yeah.

You're both looking at each other

with these dewy loved up eyes

and you're just so in love so that when they do bring up,

okay, this, this, this, you're able to kind of reflect on

how you were feeling at the time, why you were so angry,

why you said that, to then look at this person that you love

and tell 'em, oh no, I didn't mean it in that way,

or I did mean it in that way, but I meant it in that way

because you said X, Y, and Z.

So that's one thing that I'd say, I'd say that, you know,

make a note of it, don't mention it

straight away in the argument that you're having.

Um, if you're having an argument about say socks,

and suddenly they've mentioned the fact

that you left your towel, you know, on the bed,

don't mention the towel, mention the towel

later, focus on the socks.

And then once your argument's over about the socks,

a week later you are like, oh, by the way,

you know what you said about the towel.

Like, just mention it when

you're in a good place, essentially.

So yeah, I'd say that. Mm-hmm.

Um, how I do it these days is, um, when, especially like

with engagement, engage life and stuff

and planning our wedding, it's just so stressful

that we're like, we're all, we are in a good place.

But there was a point where we're literally at each other's

throat, literally like, you know, arguing about everything,

function, venue, everything

that you could possibly think of.

Um, so then after all of that was over,

I said, let's go on a date.

And we went on a date

and I was like, okay, these are my

expectations going forward.

And I just set down my expectations for him,

and I was like, look, this is what happened here.

This wasn't great. This, this is,

and it is just helpful overall

to discuss these things when you both have a clearer head.

If you are doing it in the middle of an argument,

you're probably not going to get the result

that you want out of it.

Um, so yeah, so I'd just say discuss it on a date,

face-to-face when you are in a good place.

Yeah,

Good advice. Yeah,

I think that, um, a big, a big part of like, of like,

you know, an adult relationship is being open

to being wrong.

Yeah, definitely being open to growing

and, you know, doing self work

and growing as a, as a, as a couple.

And you can't really do that

unless you get called out on some stuff.

And obviously when the emotions are high,

it's just not the worst, worst point to bring anything,

uh, agitating up.

So obviously when the emotions are, are calm

and it's a lot of, um, clarity, you're in a good place

and you know, you're both kind of on the same page.

It's without question makes a lot more sense to be able to

put something on the table that is going might,

that might be a little bit provoking,

but it's so much easier to respond to

those things rather than react to them in the emotional,

high frequency, high energy moments.

So, and yeah, without question, like that's, you have

to be a willing to do that, to grow as an individual

and to grow as a partner

because you obviously, you know, you're not,

you're not in your, you're not in the life,

you're not in your life on your own anymore if you're

in that type of relationship.

So I think that's very,

very good advice. I really appreciate that.

Yeah, I thought that was great, Simon.

The way that you said it, sorry, the way that you said it,

you were like, if you bring it up later on instead of

reacting, they will respond.

And I think that's, I think that's the key to it.

Uh, you've, you've summarized it really well. Yeah.

Okay. Thanks very much.

Um, on your YouTube channel, I've been through a few, few

of your videos and you talk about love a lot,

but you were talking about your Instagram as well as like a,

like, kind of like a mini blog.

Do you have different Yeah.

Social media channels for kind

of different things, different focuses?

Yeah. So, um, my, essentially my,

my Instagram is a mixture of everything.

So it's like love, self, love, heartbreak, relationships,

friendship, uh, moving on, letting go, self love,

self-worth, uh, mental health and so on.

And then, because Instagram literally it limits you

with in the sense of like the, the amount

that you can really share in terms of the words.

And this was before reels,

so I created the YouTube before reels came out.

Reels are like recent, isn't it?

It's like the last six months or so.

So YouTube's uh, I've had this channel

for like a year and a half now.

And, um, I decided to create the YouTube channel

because I wanted to talk about certain

topics in a lot more detail.

So my recent videos are a lot more like a heartbreak one I

love, but I've got productivity on there,

I've got self-care on there, I've got self worth on there.

I've got a variety of things on there actually.

Um, and in terms of what I share on YouTube,

it really depends on what works.

So on YouTube, my audience is a lot more

oriented towards love and towards, you know, relationships.

Instagram is a mixture of everything.

And then I've got TikTok as well,

and TikTok is basically an extension of the Instagram

and I just post, um,

whatever I share on my Instagram, on my TikTok.

And then I've got a blog and a monthly newsletter.

So in my blog, it's the same thing.

It's like life advice, uh, general how to, um,

it's about self-worth and healing journeys and so on.

And then I've got books which I, you know,

write a lot about, uh, self-love and self-worth and so on.

And then I'm working on my self-help book right now,

which is specifically about self-love.

So it's, there's no relationships.

Well, there is relationships in relation to self-love,

but it's literally like a book about healing and self-love.

So, um, the way that I, that I usually do it, Simon,

is it just depends on what my audience of

that particular platform really enjoys.

So my YouTube audience at the moment enjoys when I give them

advice on like, relationships and dating

and one-sided love and heartbreak.

And then my audience on Instagram is just a mixture

of everything essentially.

So yeah, I just kind of, you know, create videos according

to how I'm, the responses I get from them. Yeah.

Cool. And what's the, what's the best place for people

to connect with you website wise, if they want to, you know,

check out your books and get connected

with all your social media platforms?

So the main place to go would be my website, which is uh,

ruby dial.com, so R-U-B-Y-D-H-A l.com.

That's got my Instagram on there.

It's got my Facebook, it's got my TikTok,

it's got my YouTube and it's got my blog.

Everything is one place. But essentially, if they were just

to like Google me, if they were to type Ruby Doll, uh,

on Google, my Instagram would come up as well

as like all my other social medias as well.

So yeah, I guess the best place would be

to just type my name on Google.

Um, I'm on Instagram as well,

and then I, on Instagram, the username that I have

for all the platforms is essentially the same.

So it's r doll, writer on Instagram, on Facebook,

on TikTok, everywhere. Everywhere. Yeah.

Wonderful. Well, I'll make sure that all

of those links are in the show notes so people can come

and check out your amazing stuff.

But I really appreciate you coming on to talk, um,

talk about, well, we spoke about so many different things,

but I really appreciate your insight

and, uh, your time today, Ruby. Thank you so much.

Thank you for having me, Simon.

I really appreciate it, and I had a great

talk with you. So yeah, thank you.

Wonderful. Well, that is it for this week

with True Hope Cast.

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