Dawn - Episode 4 - DAWNING

Join The Simple Things’ Editor Lisa Sykes and our regular co-host, contributor to the magazine and author of The Slow Traveller, Jo Tinsley, as they get thinking about how spring is much better time than wintry new year to take stock of you, exploring realisations and understanding about yourself and others. If you think that sounds a bit serious, do not worry, we’ll also be doing a procrastination quiz, learning life lessons from literature and highlighting a few of the great women and their stories we have featured in the magazine for International Women’s Day.

If you are in the UK, you can try an immediate start subscription to the The Simple Things and receive the current issue straight away. Or buy current and back issues here

Thanks to our partner for Season 9, Friends of Glass, an organisation that celebrates and supports glass packaging for food, drink and cosmetics. Find out more about why glass is better for health, taste and the environment and follow them on instagram @friendsofglassuk

Editing & music by Arthur Cosslett 

On the blog

Quiz | Which member of The Famous Five are you?

In previous issues (on sale at picsandink.com)

Kitchen Therapy: Layers of onions (Issue 164)

Life lessons from Russian Literature (issue 64). Read more in The Anna Karenina fix by Viv Groskop 

Lessons from The Famous Five (Issue 123)

Gifts from the Goddesses – Contemporary retellings of greek myths (issue 122)

Life Lessons from Alice – Be curious, eat cake and never steal jam tarts from royalty (Issue 109)

Procrastination Quiz – Find it hard to Get Stuff Done, occasionally? Take our entirely scientific and extremely focused quiz and find out exactly what type of procrastinator you are and how best to overcome it (or simply live alongside it). (Issue 87)

As Good As Your Word – Using more positive language can make a big difference to your life, reawakening your confidence and boosting your happiness (Issue 76)

Wisdom: women doing what they love across the UK’s paths and roads, bridleways and waters (Issue 156)

Wisdom: Learn with Mother – women who have each inherited unique qualities from their mothers, with childhood lessons carried into their adult lives (issue 153)

Flip-thinking - turning problems into opportunities (issue 129)

Future tense: why some anxiety is good for us (issue 123)

In our Flourish Volume 4

Mental Notes – Life lessons from around the globe

Find out more

Words Can Change Your Brain by Dr Andrew Newberg and Mark Waldman (Penguin) 

50 Sentences That Make Life Easier: A Guide for More Self-Confidence by Kari

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Hello, welcome to Small Ways to Live Well. It's the podcast from the Simple Things magazine. I'm Lisa Sykes, the editor, and today's episode we're celebrating spring and new life. I'm here with my co-host, our regular contributor and author of The Slow Traveller, Joe Tinsley, and we got thinking about how spring is a much better time than the depths of winter at New Year to take more stock of you. So today our theme is dawning, realisations and understanding about yourself and others. So we're going to be exploring new ways of looking at ourselves and the world around us. And our March issue, which is on sale now, is called Peak. And as well as having a look at through the keyhole of some lovely homes and various other bits of the world, where um we're also looking in the mirror at ourselves and what we want to say to the world. And you can get this issue straight away on an immediate start subscription. And as always, we'll be like adding links in the show notes for anything else we talk about on here. So, uh Joe, are you up for a bit of self-exploration today? Do you think? Oh, I'm always, I'm always up for that, Lisa, as you know. Uh I'm gonna hold you to that. We're gonna be diving in. But before we do, let me introduce uh listeners to our supporter for this season, Friends of Glass. They're an organization that celebrates and supports glass packaging for food, drink, and cosmetics. And there are lots of reasons why glass is better for health, taste, and the environment. And over the course of this season, we've been talking about a few of them, offering ideas for how to choose and reuse and recycle glass bottles and jars, and generally noticing what a good job glass does. You can find out more about them on their Instagram, FriendsofGlass UK. There's some fun projects and ideas on there, and also in our April issue, which is out later this month, we featured some glass champions chosen by our readers, and they're good brands that are choosing to use glass to package food, drink, and cosmetics. So, as I said, we've got a little bit of a self-help theme to this episode, and and and we're literally self-helping Joe, aren't we? Because our well-being editor Bex is actually not here today. She's on holiday. So Jo and I have been digging through some of the pieces that she's written and other people have written for the simple things. And they're full of wise words and sound advice and life lessons that are going to help us and hopefully you to think a little differently and perhaps get a dawning of understanding. I think we've we've bigged that up now, Jo, haven't we? Yeah, we have. But you know, in case everyone's thinking it's going to be a bit serious today, don't worry. We've got a procrastination quiz that we're going to be doing later on. We're going to be learning some life lessons from literature. And because it is International Women's Day on the day this episode releases, we are highlighting a few of the great women and their stories that we've featured in the magazine. But with the first step, Joe, is understanding ourselves better. So, how well do you think you understand yourself?

SPEAKER_00 3:07

You know, I was thinking about this. I I think I've got a really deep understanding of myself and a really solid sense of worth. But then I've got this really wobbly, wobbly bit on the surface, which is, you know, it's probably like a fried nervous system. So it's like I've got this really strong undercurrents, but it's like really choppy on top.

SPEAKER_01 3:22

Interesting. If I take your metaphor and carry it on, I'm like sitting on the surface. I'm doing a little boat on the waves motion here, riding the waves on a boat, but I don't really like to go in the water. Definitely not too deep, and I'm not interested in the undercurrents.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

So what? You don't you don't like to dig too deep?

SPEAKER_01 3:40

No, I I like to sail the boat most of the time.

SPEAKER_00 3:44

You see, that's that is such an alien concept to me because I go I go deep. Like, you know, like not everyone's dealt with the same cards in life, right? And the way I was brought up, like I've done I've done years of therapy. Okay. And I found myself, you know, I'm really self-aware, and I'm at this point where I understand where everything's come from, why I get triggered by certain things, and then the things still trigger me, which is just really frustrating. But it is a better stage to be at, you know, to be to have that sort of self-awareness. But is there not things that you want to change?

SPEAKER_01 4:11

Well, yes. I mean, the thing is, I don't think I'm unself-aware, it's deepness. I'm I just don't want to go too deep, you know. You're just quite happy where you are on the surface. Yeah, I mean, we're we're obviously at quite different ends of the scale on this, aren't we? And you know, I I I do see patterns and I like to think I can stop doing things or try and you know be aware of things. But it's just not at the top of my to-do list to go deeper, you know?

SPEAKER_00 4:37

Yeah, yeah, and that's fine. Like everyone, you know, I've had a lot of healing to do, so I've like had to prioritize it. But it's I think everyone comes at it from all these different angles. There was actually a piece in the um kitchen therapy series that we have in the magazine where well-being is interwoven with like slow cooking and enjoying the sensory experience of being in the kitchen. And I was reading back of this, and I find this a little bit woo. So um, but I think there is something behind it. Okay. So it's about using onions as a metaphor. So that's been used, you know, from Caroline Duffy to Shrek. You know, ogres are like onions, that's it. So Lottie Story, who wrote the piece, who's a qualified therapist as well as a lifelong cook.

SPEAKER_01 5:13

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 5:14

She was talking about peeling an onion. When you're peeling an onion in the kitchen, thinking about what other people see from the outside, peeling another layer, thinking about what people uh closer to you might be seeing. And that kind of gap between the two, like what's being seen, what's being hidden, you know, where there's more opportunities to show yourself. And I think it's quite an interesting idea. I wouldn't probably stand in a kitchen peeling an onion thinking about this, but like well, I'd I'd usually be crying if I was peeling onions, to be honest.

SPEAKER_01 5:41

But uh not every onion. Some onions are stronger than others, but if if it was a weaker onion, maybe next time I'll have a think about this because it is an interesting thing, isn't it? Peeling away the skin. Do you think you've got layers that you hide? Yes, I do. I I think, you know, I probably come across quite loud and assertive and confident, but I know I can be pierced very easily indeed, you know, and and I don't I hide that bit quite a lot, I think. How about you?

SPEAKER_00 6:08

I I mean, I think I've got a thing about being seen. So I grew up feeling very unseen, but it's only really recently, like really recently, that I discovered that I've got this kind of complex relationship with being seen. So, like, you know, growing up it's kind of safer and easier to be quiet. I think that makes me come across as shy, and I'm really not shy. Like when I see when I feel safe, I'm really extra. Do you you know, when I tell you that, you're like, what?

SPEAKER_01 6:29

No, because when I first met you, I didn't think you were shy at all. You know, when we first met, I I thought you were I I thought we were very similar, you know. But we had a lot to connect over, didn't we? But you also told me that you think you're hyper-vigilant, which I think is really interesting.

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Yeah, so I can like read the emotional weather in a room like straight away. So I pick up on everyone's moods and reactions. But it also means like if I'm talking to someone and I see their eyes glaze over, say I'm telling a story, and I see that they're losing interest or then just not interested, I just shut it down. I just stop, you know, I'll just retract the personality.

SPEAKER_01 7:01

That's very interesting. Because I would I would just change the story, you know. I just go off on a other on the story that I think this person's gonna be more interesting. Yeah. What to make it better for them? I think it probably is, isn't it? Anyway, look, I I feel like, you know, maybe everyone else might be glazing over now about our stories, but we we've gone quite deep. Let's go less deep. I I think if we listen to this back, we might be thinking, why did we say all that on our podcast?

SPEAKER_00 7:29

I feel I feel like people know us pretty well. We're in season nine now, aren't we? Well, they do now.

SPEAKER_01 7:34

Talking of stories, because we've just talked about telling stories. I've really enjoyed the pieces we've done where we take life lessons from famous literature, and we've done this a few times. It's a tried and tested formula, and they're great fun. And you know, there've been some very good writers who've done this. And so the first one I'm gonna bring up is is we did life lessons from Russian classics, right? Which, you know, a dead bearded Russian may not seem like a sort of likely life coach, but you know, books like from Tolstoy and Co. can teach us a lot. And Vic Groskop wrote a book called The Anna. Now I'm gonna I'm gonna struggle to say Anna Kareninina. Is that right?

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Lisa practiced this about 20 times before we came on here.

SPEAKER_01 8:19

I have to say, we don't we don't like fully rehearse before we do a podcast, but if there's a pronunciation, I like to press it. And she had to write it out for me because Anna Karenina.

SPEAKER_00 8:30

Just the pronunciations.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

Yeah, that's as close as I'm gonna get. Anyway, so she both wrote this book and she basically summarized, you know, they're full of gloomy people wondering how on earth they have ended up in the appalling predicament in which they find themselves, looking round desperately for someone else to blame, and then realizing that life is really extremely inconvenient and annoying, and we're all just waiting to die. But the life lesson in all of that doom and gloom is that it can be survived and even enjoyed. And you know, that the common thing of humanity means we don't actually have to live through the things this described in the books, and you know, spoiler alert, Anna doesn't make it. They show us how not to live, really, you know. Which I've read Dr. Shivaga and Anna Karinina. Um, but have you just just busy laughing at my bad pronunciation?

SPEAKER_00 9:22

I'm sorry, I'm still laughing at that. Just laughing at the spoilers. No, so I've owned the book Anna Karinana since uni, and I've carted it around to every house I've ever been in, and I've never read it. But I feel like I want to have read it. Yeah, there's a lot of books that I've got like that that I haven't actually got into.

SPEAKER_01 9:37

I mean, you know, it seems like it's about a doomed, beautiful but adulterous romance, but really it's about identity and integrity and our purpose in life. And I have to say, this is the expert who wrote the book saying this, not me. Um, I wouldn't I wouldn't profess to know. But the lesson's a good one, isn't it? Who, you know, you need to know who you really are in order to live an authentic life.

unknown 9:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:57

And unfortunately, she realizes the question she needs to ask a bit too late, really.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:01

But anyway, this other literature that's not quite so brutal or perhaps so literary and certainly easier to pronounce. What about the famous five, Joe? You read this one, haven't you?

SPEAKER_00 10:10

Uh yeah. I mean, there's there's a lot to learn from the famous five. If you set aside the elements of Blyton's work that haven't aged well.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Yes. Like Anne.

SPEAKER_00 10:18

Yeah, yeah. So whenever there's something dangerous to do, Anne gets left behind to boil some eggs and make the beds. But you know, that aside, you know, it's all about eating well and getting outside. So how can you not get behind that?

SPEAKER_01 10:28

That's practically the simple things raised on detra, there, isn't it? Eating well and getting outside more. And lashings of ginger beer, of course. I'm a huge ginger beer fan, possibly from reading a lot of famous fives.

SPEAKER_00 10:40

Yeah, and they're and they're all they're big fans of cold water swimming, which I'm obviously a big fan of. Absolutely. I don't know how many times I didn't even know it was from here, but there's always room for ice cream, is is a phrase I use multiple times. And that that was from the famous five, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Yeah, and they never let a sunny day go to waste, do they? You know, that they they kind of there's always time for an adventure. And actually, our next episode next week is going to be about larks and adventures, isn't it? On spring mornings. You know, take inspiration from the five and do it. Yeah. I don't forget Anna Fanny's famous advice, of course, pack a warm jersey and a towel. You never know when you're going to need them.

SPEAKER_00 11:13

I mean, I always do. Don't know about you guys, but I always do. I've actually I've started introducing my daughter to Enid Blyton. My favourite book growing up was The Magic Faraway Tree. Did you ever read that?

SPEAKER_01 11:23

Oh, yeah, yeah. And and I read it with my daughter too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:27

Yeah, it's so good. And um, yeah, so it's about a family of children who discover an ancient tree that's so tall it reaches up into the clouds, and at the top there's a ladder, and every time they climb it, they're transported to a different world. So from like topsy turvy land, or there's some horrible world, like the land of Dame Slap, who's this horrible teacher. Oh, yeah. And a land of take what you want and a land as do as you please. And I don't know why, it's just a real sort of escapism. So uh yeah, we're beginning that journey.

SPEAKER_01 11:52

So um you you probably won't be reading the next one we did with uh your daughter yet. I don't think I'm not sure I I know enough about this either. Greek myths, retellings. I mean, they're they're having a bit of a moment, there are quite a few out there, aren't they? But I have no classics knowledge at all, right? And you know, to the point where in my general studies A level, I put the Hercules as my answer on a multi-choice section about Greek gods, because I knew one of them would be him and I didn't know any others. So it's pretty basic, you know. But you you say you see, you think that Greek myths feature in our lives a lot, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 12:26

I do, I think they're everywhere, yeah. And I think um I think I can't remember if I've read them, but I feel like I know them because even if you haven't read The Odyssey or the Iliad or you know, they're who doesn't know the story of the Minotaur in the Labyrinth? And you know, it might be because we've been watching J Jason and the Argonauts and Troy and you know, things like that. But you know, I read a lot of fantasy books and these same tropes get told again and again and again. And then I interesting, you know, being the journalist that I am, I find it interesting when I go back to the old texts or like at least Wikipedia and you know, work out where they came from. Very interesting. I feel like if we were to think about it, we'd actually know quite a few of the old stories.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

And and there'll be life lessons there, because all good stories have life lessons, don't they? Yeah, so what we'll put links in the show notes to these various pieces in back issues, by the way. And if there's anything on the blog that we've done on them as well, we'll we'll add that in too. But my favourite one is Alice in Wonderland. We did lessons from Alice, right? And honestly, who doesn't want to be a bit more Alice, really?

SPEAKER_00 13:24

Yeah, so whimsical.

SPEAKER_01 13:26

She's like such a flawed heroine, isn't she? You know, she's charming, but she's foolish and she's brave, and it's like it's great. Everybody wants to be Alice. I mean, I've got two daughters called Alice, of course, because I've got a stepdaughter and a daughter, both of whom are called Alice.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

I love the story behind that one for another time.

unknown 13:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

So we we're big fans of Alice in Woodenland in our house. Yeah, but it, you know, the rarest lessons from Alice. The first one, and probably the most important one, is relish the journey as you're falling down a rabbit hole. And how many of us forget to do that?

SPEAKER_00 13:57

Yeah, and I think that's what's interesting when I was reading the piece and it was talking about the slow journeying cropping up again and again. So, like when Alice asks the cat which way she should go, and he says it depends where you want to get to, and she said, I don't care where. Brilliant answer. And he says, like, then it doesn't matter which way you go. And it's like, she's like the original slow traveler, it's all about the journey rather than the destination, which I like.

SPEAKER_01 14:22

And um, you know, obviously they believe the impossible, that's the good thing, even if it's not six impossible things before breakfast. But she stands up to power, you know, she stands up to power with the bullying queen of hearts, and you know, and if you take nothing more deep out of it, the you know, there's the useful things are you know, be curious, eat cake, and never steal cham darts from royalty is probably probably you know good starting point.

SPEAKER_00 14:44

They're good take homes, aren't they?

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Yeah, I love a fun fact. There was a a little footnote on this piece which I just I'd forgotten about, but you know, the blonde Alice in the blue dress was obviously that came about because of the Disney film, yeah, in 1951. But the original Alice who inspired the story, who was I think it was the daughter of a don of the guy I can't, he's he's called Charles, so I can't remember his last name, but he he wrote as Lewis Carroll. Um, she was a brunette with a fringe, not blonde at all. So there you go. It's fun to read a book though, isn't it, and find meaning for your own life. I I I like the fact you can find deeper engagement even with a fairly fluffy book, you know, because sometimes he I don't know whether you do it, but I'll read like a book that's quite, you know, serious or important and you know, kind of feels like proper literature, and then I'll have to balance that with something quite fluffy afterwards, you know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:38

Oh, I absolutely do that.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

Yeah, yeah. But it's quite nice when you can find some meaning in the fluffy one because you feel a bit more justified then, don't you?

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 15:47

But in the end, it's all about paying attention and what need paying attention to what needs attention, actually, isn't it? And checking in on yourself.

SPEAKER_00 15:54

Hmm. Yeah, because I guess wellness can feel quite complicated sometimes, can't they? An expensive and time-consuming Definitely, yeah. Yeah, and I think I think sometimes it's all about the basics, isn't it? It's about keeping things simple, having a good night's sleep, or you know, a morning walk or a catchment of a good friend. I mean, that's something we've uh featured before and keep coming back to, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Those pillars of health, yeah. No, we'll give it another mention and put it in the show notes because it's such a common sense feature. And sometimes it is just about tuning into something really small and appreciating it, isn't it? And you know, I did this earlier today. I was making a herbal tea and I got out these really lovely glass teacup and saucers. Because with a herbal tea, isn't it so nice to see the colour of the tea?

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

It was the classic thing. I was putting the kettle on waiting for it to boil, and I was thinking about this because you know, sometimes it's just nice to go off on a drift on a tangent, isn't it? And uh anyway, it's quite handy that it's glass because I'm not sure our supporters this season, friends of glass, have even thought about the aesthetic pleasure of herbal tea served in a glass cup. But um, but they do know a lot about glass packaging, and but I like it very much. And I oh it's the same in summer, isn't it, when you're having a real citron presse and it looks all beautiful on the glass.

SPEAKER_00 17:02

Oh, I love that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

Yeah. I love I love the right glasses for the right drinks. It's why I'm not a big fan of those huge gin goblets, because they just fill them with ice. You know what? What do you have your gin in? Well, anything, but I just I just don't like them when they're filled with ice and they just feel a bit Yeah, yeah. No, I I don't know. I I always thought a gin and touric was better in a tumbler, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:25

No, I agree, I agree.

SPEAKER_01 17:26

There's a really um just I was g giving our friends, Friends of Glass, a plug here, and um and then we got carried away. But actually on their Instagram at Friends of Glass UK, they've got a really good uh one of those ASMR things, you know, the the sound that that makes you feel it's the sound of a drink being poured from a bottle where you get that lovely glugging noise. Yeah, and um and it's just really lovely sound.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Yeah, it says little moments, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Anyway, sorry, that just yeah, I'm not going to I'm not going to attempt to link to what we're going to talk about next because uh we do I don't have one, but it's actually International Women's Day on the 8th of March, which is the day we're releasing this episode. So we thought it was going to be a good time to talk about some of the amazing women we featured in The Simple Things.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

And Joe has interviewed quite a few of them, haven't you? So you've picked out, I think, two or three, have you?

SPEAKER_00 18:16

That you're going to Yeah, three, yeah. So I I I write a lot of these um wisdom features, which is where you take a theme and then you interview, say, three or four women on the same theme who come at it from different angles. And I love doing these features because I always do sort of do it as a 30-minute phone call, and like so much comes up within that time, and you get such insight and such an inspiration and motivation from these women. So they're like some of the favourite things that I do.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Just thinking about it, Joe, isn't it interesting how this is when you start that phone call, you've never met this person. Yes, you've done a bit of prep, you're bit of background research, but by the end of it, you know, 30 minutes pure conversation with someone, you get to know someone pretty well, don't you? Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's exactly how I feel. And I always come away feeling just really, I don't know, vibrant and excited. And yeah, no, I really enjoy them. So the first person I was going to talk about was textile designer Sarah Campbell, who I actually interviewed last week, that she's going to be in the April issue. Yeah, such a wonderful conversation. So she was talking about the reasons why we're drawn to patterns, because she's a pattern textile designer. And she was saying there's patterns everywhere from the seeds of a sunflower to the months of the year. And she says when we recognize patterns, it feels very reassuring. It makes us feel safe. Interesting. And she was talking about what happens when you notice a disruption in a pattern. So it's how, say, astronomers discovered planets is when they notice that a constellation was being interrupted. That's how we discover interesting things, or like we notice it in our bodies, like when there's a pattern, like the rhythm of our bodies. When that's interrupted, we notice something's going wrong. And it's just um it's just really interesting that that you know we're we're drawn towards these patterns in textile, say.

SPEAKER_01 19:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

I never thought why, because it has that kind of reassurance in it.

SPEAKER_01 19:56

Yeah, the constancy of it, yeah. Very interesting. Oh, I'm looking forward to reading that because I haven't seen that piece yet.

SPEAKER_00 20:01

No, it's because I haven't written it.

SPEAKER_01 20:03

Who's your who's your other one? Next one.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

So the next one was fitness coach and wild swimmer Vivian Rickman on why swimming outdoors feels different to in a pool. And so, first off, like when you're in a body of water, like you leave everything on the shore. Like you, you know, you don't have your phone, your laptop, but you know, all of your emotional baggage, you literally leave everything there, and it's just you in the water. But I mean that's the same in the pool, right? But she says it feels infinitely different to swimming in a pool because in a pool you're safe, you've got lifeguards, you've got steps to get out. Whereas open water, it's like it's empty, it's blank, it's like a survival thing. You've got to swim, you've got to breathe calmly just to like not drown. And so you focus on the there and then.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

That's what scares me about it. That's why I'm not very good in open water. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:44

If you can do it in a in a way that you that is, you know, suitable to your swimming strengths and and you feel safe enough to do it, but it actually makes you feel really present because of those things, because you can't be thinking of other stuff, you have to be there in the present. And that's why, you know, I love both pool swimming and and open water swimming, but there's something really special about swimming outdoors, it makes you feel feel different.

SPEAKER_01 21:06

Very interesting.

SPEAKER_00 21:07

Finally, there was um Amber Smithwick, who runs a Filipino restaurant called Aurora Casino in Shepton Mallet. And it was part of this really lovely feature where we interviewed four women who had carried on in their mother's footsteps. So they had perhaps done the same thing in their work or they'd inherited something and then done something really interesting with it.

SPEAKER_01 21:25

Oh, it was a lovely set of features features. This, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:28

It's really nice, wasn't it? Yeah. And um, so this was about how important food is to connect us with home. So even when home is quite an amorphous concept. So her mum, Aurora, taught herself to cook traditional Filipino dishes only after moving to the UK from Manila in the 70s. And it was this nostalgia because she could only write home in those days, and she needed to connect with her family, and so she did it through food. And then, you know, years later, when Amber Anber was um was growing up and she in lockdown, she felt she wanted this connection to her family. And to her heritage in lockdown, she started making meal kits for people in Bristol because it was reminding of her mom and she realised that you know she could help other people feel connected during a time of massive disconnection. And it was just like the various ways in which we connect food to home was just uh just really nice to explore.

SPEAKER_01 22:17

I think I think everybody has a bit of that, don't they? Everyone has something that a food that reminds them of home. I mean, maybe not always good memories, but they certainly connect. And actually, of course, it's Mother's Day when we do our next episode next week. So we we will talk a little bit more about mothers and daughters, I think. Well, mothers and children generally, actually. We have a little series called Excellent Women in the Mag that we run in our good things section, which is our roundup of positive news around the world. But we we we've talked quite a lot, and I've got we've got a lot more to say. It's time to do our story. So I'm going to I'm going to not mention them, sorry. But um, but that they are we are a women first mag, I think, aren't we? It doesn't mean we don't feature men, but we definitely have more female authors write our stories, give their opinions, contribute to what I treasure. It was nice to hear those stories though, Joe, on International Women's Day. And in fact, our read aloud story this episode is about a woman who's feeling let down and needs to escape. I have to admit it is not an unreasonable question. It's the kind of thing people in a relationship ask each other every day. When will you be home? What do you fancy to eat? Shall we watch another episode of that show? It's an entirely reasonable thing for Ryan to ask me. The trouble is that as of today, we have very different ideas of where home actually is. I started to suspect a few weeks ago. It was the little things at first. Calls left an answer that once would have been picked up on the first ring, a new aftershave, the shadow of something I couldn't decipher when he looked at me. And then I noticed he was starting to stay late at the office more often. A sudden weekend conference in York came up, and he couldn't quite look me in the eye when he mentioned it. That's when my heart knew, I think. But it wasn't until today that I found the proof. I stare at the departures board above the station concourse. The train back to Ryan leaves in fourteen minutes. I should take it, I suppose. We're adults, we need to talk. But the trouble is I'm not sure I can face him. Not yet. So where else could I go? I have plenty of friends who would welcome me with wine and warm hugs, a temporary solution lasting a night. Or I could go to my parents. They'd be sympathetic too, albeit with an inevitable undercurrent if I told you so. But their house isn't my home. They moved there a few years ago, and it's comfortable but not comforting. And then a memory uncoils itself, a vision of jade green waves topped with meringue foam. The wind blusters across the cliff tops and past my ears, battling against the roar of the sea as it crashes over the rocks and rages into the golden sand below. Sunlight warms my skin. A single seagull cries as it wheels across a cloudless azure sky. Overlooking it all there's a small whitewashed cottage, and inside that there's a woman who always knows exactly what to say, even if it isn't what the listener wants to hear. My grandmother Agnes. It isn't the place I grew up or even where I was born, and yet I remember feeling a connection when I stood on those cliffs, gazing out at the ocean, a stay a strange sense of belonging that flowed through the soles of my feet and up into my core, winding itself around my heart and speaking to me as though it had always been part of me. And unknown to me until this very moment it stayed with me. Now when I needed somewhere safe and welcoming to lick my wounds, it speaks to me again. Come it says in a voice as warm and sweet as honey. Come home I hesitate. My grandmother will be delighted to see me. She might not even be surprised. But is running away really the answer? Not running away, the voice inside of me whispers. Running towards Sasha, did you hear me? A note of irritation creeps into Ryan's tone. I asked when you'd be home. Yes, when? The voice echoes, biting my lip, I glance up at the departures board again, and see a train to Penzance leaves in five minutes. I picture my grandmother waiting on the doorstep, framed by roses, and something twists within me. Soon I blurred, turning on my heel and running across the concourse towards the ticket machine. I'll be home soon. And you know, haven't we all wanted to run away for a while? It was a sad story, but you kind of felt like she was doing the right thing, wasn't she? Taking some time. As talking of procrastination, we promised a procrastination quiz, if I can actually say the word procrastination. Like all our quizzes, not very scientific, in the best spirit of the best women's magazines. We all like a quiz, right? Sadly, we haven't got this quiz on the blog, but we will put a link to it because it was in a back issue. The quiz was, you know, if you're finding hard to get stuff done occasionally, take our extremely scientific quiz. So I'm gonna read the first question out, Jo, and you can tell me how you think you'd approach this, okay?

SPEAKER_00 27:46

Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_01 27:47

So you stayed with friends recently and had a great time. How do you go about the thank you note? Tricky.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

Oh gosh, thank you notes. It's like my kryptonite. Yeah, so after after my wedding, this is like 15 years ago, like I'm not married anymore, but I designed and made thank you cards. I wrote them all, I put on the addresses, and then they never got sent. No way. No, they it's awful. I feel really awful about this. They just sat in the box and I don't know why. It's like I got 90% through the task and then I stalled. Like, you did all the hard bit. I know, and but this it this happens all the time. Like I'm really good at washing, drying, and folding clothes, terrible at putting them away. Which I always find really um unexpected because I feel like I'm a finisher because I'm a magazine editor. Like that's what we do. That's that's our main job is to finish things.

SPEAKER_01 28:35

Yeah, deadlines are the thing, aren't they? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

So I should be good at that, but I uh I don't know why. I'm not.

SPEAKER_01 28:41

That's very interesting. Yeah, yeah. I want you know what, I wonder what it is that stops you.

SPEAKER_00 28:45

I don't know. I don't know if it's something about expressing myself or I don't know. I've got a friend who sends me a birthday card every year since I've been 18, never sent a one back. And I've got another friend, the author Dan Richards, who's written for the magazine, and he's amazing at writing letters. There's always, you know, they're always funny, they've always got pictures, and I love receiving them and I rarely return them. And I really hope, Dan, if you listen to this, please don't give up on me. No, like I really love getting these letters, and I will, I will write back one day.

SPEAKER_01 29:10

Joe's using this as a plea to not fall out with a note. When my daughter went to university last year, I thought I'm gonna start writing to her. I think that'll be fun. And I even bought some really nice letter writing paper and things like that, and I wrote a couple of letters to her, and she was really chuffed, you know, because it it's it's slightly weird, isn't it? Because they can't just be full of news, because obviously you text news and you get news in instant forms, and so it was they were more thoughtful than that, and she really liked them. And I was thinking, this is great, this is going to be a whole new kind of form of thing. And then I went to see her and she'd pinned them up on her pinboard in a room so any of her friends could go in and read the letters, and she just didn't have the concept of the privacy of a letter, and and it really put me off because I thought, oh, I don't really want them to be like, you know, they're just to my daughter. You'd always be thinking that, wouldn't you? That this is going to be on the noteboard. Yeah, and it was like, and it was it just made me realize that you know, letters people treat them differently, don't they? I think if I was doing a thank you note, I'd just toss off a really scrawly note and then feel bad that I hadn't put more thought into it, you know.

SPEAKER_00 30:14

Do you know what? I think that's what I need to do. I feel like it's a perfectionism thing.

SPEAKER_01 30:18

Okay, all right. This is there's another one here. I'm gonna, and this time I'm gonna I'm gonna read out the actual answers and you can pick which one re most relates to you. Okay. So you've got a long report to write for work, you've kept the weekend free to get it done. How are you going to make a start? Right. A, the key here is to do it once and do it well. So you'll probably have a planning day, do your research, really think about the best way to approach it before you begin. Okay. B, it's really only a four-hour job. You'll just get it done on Saturday morning. All you've got in the diary is a haircut, a coffee with your sister, and that lunch workshop you booked in. There's definitely a bit of me in that one, I think.

SPEAKER_00 30:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 30:58

C, you're on it like a car bonnet. In fact, you're off to a car boot sale this weekend. Last time you were there, you accidentally bought a vintage typewriter. Hey, maybe you could get that out and clean it up and do the report on that. That's very funny. D, in front of a box set after a Sunday roast, you always write better when you've got a deadline looming.

SPEAKER_00 31:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

That sounds like you do it on Sunday night last thing, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_00 31:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

And E, you're dreading this. So you've asked a couple of colleagues over for lunch on Saturday in the hope that one of them will help you get started, or better still, write it for you. At least you'll have some fun first and you'll be bound to pick up some ideas. Where do you go with those, Joe?

SPEAKER_00 31:39

I think B. I think that it's it's almost like there's a side quest. So it's like, you know, when you've got a like the only time that I, you know, really clean the house is when I've got a deadline looming because it's like, oh, I'll just do this other thing because that'll help me feel more calm.

SPEAKER_01 31:55

I only have a clean mine when my mum's coming.

SPEAKER_00 31:58

Yeah, fair.

SPEAKER_01 31:59

You're right. It is about procrastinating, isn't it? That's exactly what it is, really. Um yeah, I know, and so I I mean I did the whole quiz on myself, I think you did as well, didn't you? And there were kind of five types of people come out of this. And I think most of us probably actually blend more than one, but mostly A's is well, what did you come out at, first of all?

SPEAKER_00 32:21

Um, despite saying B to that one, I came out as mostly E's, so which was optimistic. So it's like you don't like to rush life, plus once you've disappeared into a procrastinatory wormhole, you discover untold treasures. Procrastination is a bit of an art form for you. So I think this is really true because I I assumed I was going to come out as a perfectionist, but I actually um I really don't like to rush. You know, my website and my Instagram is literally slow Joe. And so it's like, gosh, I'm not a perfectionist, I'm just slow.

SPEAKER_01 32:50

Well, once again, Joe, we are kind of opposites because I just live by rushing. You know, rushing is what I do, it's just ridiculous. Yeah, no. Um, so I was B the time bender who's always convinced you can do more in the time available. I mean, whether it's getting to somewhere on time, on you know, in the car or transport, or whether it's it's like fitting certain things into an afternoon, I always, always overestimate it. I am a time optimist. And yeah, it does say you're not late or lazy, you just have an unshakable confidence that everything will be fine, but sadly an inability to spread time.

SPEAKER_00 33:29

I mean, I think that for for an editor of a magazine, I feel like that's fairly good because you do get it done.

SPEAKER_01 33:34

Yeah, I mean, it has to get done in the magazine, doesn't it? But yeah, I anyway, it's fun stuff. I think we're all a procrastinator of some sort, aren't we? I mean, the other ones for reference, so people can identify them with the perfectionist, the easily distracted, and the overconfident. So um the overconfident, I like this when it says, you know, you once left an essay till the last minute, dashed something off in an hour and got a great mark, so you're convinced that you work better under pressure and you just got lucky. Anyway, right, moving on. So we're we're because we're talking about, you know, it's the dawn season and this is dawning, we're finding sunshine in our heads. I love that idea. I love that idea of finding sunshine in your own head. Positive thinking, you know, it's and and we're all guilty of not doing enough of it, aren't we? There was a great piece that we ran, and I'll put the link to it. Um, and it was basically about positive talking and how positive words can make a big difference to your life and boost your confidence and happiness. So these two neuroscientists, Andrew Newberg and Mark Waldman, wrote this book, Words Can Change Your Brain. And so single words like peace or love have the power to just regulate stress, and conversely, negative words like no, I can't or I'm useless stimulate the brain's fear centre and it releases stress hormones that then impair your logic, reason, and communication, you know, which makes complete sense to me, I think. You know, it's not just positive voices out loud, it's the ones in your head as well. So negative thoughts can breed. And and what they found is that women particularly tend to use self-deprecating language. And it's interesting, isn't it? I've tried to be a bit more thoughtful about this, and I I use the word just in emails quite a lot.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

Yeah, and I've tried to remove it. Oh gosh, same. Yeah, yeah. I'm always editing out.

SPEAKER_01 35:28

Yeah, exactly. I just want to do this, like it's not that important. When it is important, and it's like, why am I making it sound less important than it really is?

SPEAKER_00 35:36

I'm I'm always editing out sorry as well from emails. Like, sorry, this is late. I'm just doing this.

SPEAKER_01 35:42

Very interesting, isn't it? And and uh you know, again, I think a lot of people do that. Uh, you mentioned about busyness as well, didn't you?

SPEAKER_00 35:48

About Yeah. So I mean, I still try not to do this. So when someone asks you how you are, like the instinctive response is often busy. And it's almost glorifying this idea of busyness, but also telling yourself, like, I'm it's it's quite stressful to be always like, Oh, I've I've got too much to do. I'm I know you know, I'm not quite coping with all this stuff. But yeah, no, I one of the things I struggle with in terms of negative talks, it's not being down on myself, it's it's what it's not telling the good stories. Uh so when someone asks, like, oh, how's your holiday or how have you been? Yeah, you know, you might be like, Oh, well, it was raining, so we did this. And it was like rather than sort of saying, you know, the positive side of things.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

Yes. Is that is it because you think that feels like bragging somehow if you had a real good time?

SPEAKER_00 36:29

Yeah, I think it's an I've always thought it's like a northern thing. So like you don't blow your own trumpet or someone's gonna kind of knock you down off your pedestal. That's what I don't know if that is what it is, but um, you know, and it's it's good to say in your head, like, tell the good story because it gives people permission, the other person permission, to tell their positive stories first as well.

SPEAKER_01 36:47

It's sometimes it's as simple as replacing a word, isn't it? So you know, when someone says how skipping are you saying fine, say great. You're pleased to see them, you're great, you're happy right here, right now. Say great, you know, and replace should with could, yeah. There's all sorts, isn't there? You know, and and you have to think about the positives as well, don't you? Like, you know, if you say I'm too quiet, the positive of that is I'm a good listener.

SPEAKER_00 37:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:10

Or the the opposite, I'm too loud, you know, you're gregarious and enthusiastic. So it is just about rethinking it.

SPEAKER_00 37:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:17

I I really like this idea, and I think it's a good one if we're talking as we are this episode about fresh ways of thinking about ourselves and taking a new look at ourselves. We can just make a few little changes there, can't we? I think we've done a good job showcasing Bex's work today, because we we talked about a lot of things she writes for the magazines, but one of the sections she does, and she started this only a couple of years ago, and it's really good because there are so many well-being books out there. And so Bex and I decided that if she read most of them and then distilled the best ones for the readers, wouldn't that be great? And then, of course, if you're really interested in that subject, you can go and buy the book and read more about it. So we have this section called the big idea, and it's thinking that literally can change your life. So they've got one big idea in these books. You've picked out one that you really resonated with you, haven't you?

SPEAKER_00 38:05

Yeah, so it's 50-50 sentences that make your life easier. Um and this one sentence was um I've changed my mind. And it's you know, if you're someone who over-explains, it's really good to like just have a short, simple, complete statement like that that you can just leave hanging and you don't have to go into more detail. You can, you know, give yourself permission not to have to over-explain. You just say, Oh, I changed my mind. And you know, having these sort of like sentences you can go back to can actually be really empowering.

SPEAKER_01 38:33

Very good. I like that. So that one's called 50 sentences that make life easier, and we'll put the link and the author's details on in the show notes. But there were a couple of others, I won't go into them, but they I'll I'll put the links to these as well. But one was flip thinking, which is how you turn problems into opportunities. For a while, in fact, I bored our team at the work stupid with this, because for a while I adopted the in what way is this a gift to absolutely everything, because I just wanted to try it out. And actually, eventually it became a bit of a a joke in the office that I would say, even when it was going badly, you know, in what way is this a gift, which can be a bit annoying after a while. But it is that idea that you flip it around, and there always is a gift, you've just got to seek hard for it sometimes. And the other one that I really liked was called Future Tense, and it was why a bit of anxiety is good for us, which you know, we are uh gen, you know, we are quite anxiety-obsessed, I think, uh now, aren't we? And and this was basically uh saying that some anxiety is actually very good. So they're great ideas, these, and um, I'll put the links in the show notes. We've been finding a lot of purpose in this episode. So we've got one more thing that we wanted to talk about, and we joined that that was we actually featured it in Flourish, our uh well-being bookazine, which if you you're not familiar with that, Bex edits an anthology of some of our best well-being features each year in a well-being bookazine called Flourish, and we redesign and update them. And this one, um, volume four, is out now, so we'll add a link for that. And this one was about life lessons around the globe, and you know, because like people will probably have heard of LaGombe or Wabi Sabi, the Japanese one. Um, but there's a couple that we particularly like, aren't there, Joe? So do you you you talk about yours first.

SPEAKER_00 40:18

Yeah, so this was embracing the Dutch concept of Nixon. I don't know if I'm saying that right, but it's um it's all about letting go of the busyness that so many of us live with. And yeah, so it directly translates as doing nothing, but it's more about doing something without a purpose. So giving yourself a break and aspiring for a simpler, less pressurized lifestyle. Uh so it might just be simply listening to music, gazing out of the window, people watching in a cafe, cuddling up at home with your pet. So being um idle and giving yourself permission to do that, which I am well behind.

SPEAKER_01 40:50

Nice. It's you know, it's that phrase, isn't it? Um time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. I love that phrase, it's one of my favourite phrases. So I'm gonna talk about the Finnish way of sisu, or as we call it up north, grit. Grit. I think they're pretty much the same thing. But yeah, but it it's the Finnish art of courage, and sisu is about, you know, it's about harnessing the strong, brave, determined person that is within all of us that sometimes gets pushed down by fear or self-doubt. It comes from a Finnish word, sisus, which I'm definitely pronouncing wrongly, but it basically translates as goods. Okay. Yeah, so it is like grit. And you know, it goes back to Finnish history and their long fight for independence from Russia. And um, I think you know, Finnish people pride themselves on strength and resilience and they thrive from challenge, hence the cold water bathing and hiking in the wilderness. But it does apply to mental resilience, doesn't it? Where you know you have to bounce back from failure and carry on through hard times. So harnessing your own sisu by saying yes, even when you're afraid of what the outcome can be, is a really interesting idea. The whole thing that makes it sound a bit scary, you know, you do have to remember, don't you, that the biggest obstacle in your way is probably you.

SPEAKER_00 42:03

Yeah, true.

SPEAKER_01 42:04

Anyway, easier said than done, but but it's something I would like to kind of harness more often. We're not setting intentions this season, are we? We we're going back to old intentions.

SPEAKER_00 42:15

We're holding our sound selves accountable.

SPEAKER_01 42:18

We are, and we've done this in every episode so far, haven't we? So I I pulled out something that we talked about in episode four, awake, of I think this was season five, wasn't it? It was it was this time last year, the spring season. All of the all of our old podcast seasons are still available. So they're and they're you know, they're they're they're very listenable at whatever time of the year you listen to. I said quite confidently, I am going to start getting dressed properly when I'm working at home. And you know, I don't work in my PJs, but I do sometimes find myself in the kit I wore to a class or dirty dog walking clothes, and I said, I'm going to start dressing properly again, mainly because I'm just not wearing half the stuff in my wardrobe anymore. But I think it's going to make me more alert, awake, and feel more at work. And I haven't done it. I mean you're dressed properly right now, Lisa. Yes, but that's I don't know, because I had to leave the house today. I had to go to the office this morning. It's when I'm working at home. It's it's the days when I don't have to leave the house, really, apart from to go walk the dog.

SPEAKER_00 43:16

So you haven't done it?

SPEAKER_01 43:18

No. Um, I feel, but the thing is, I I am trying to shake up my day because generally my routine is in a rut at the moment. And look, I'm gonna tell you about Joe, our art editor, because I I know you know Joe. But you know, when we used to work in the office, Joe's very smart, quite almost dapper, I would say. And he still now he was been working at home for several years now, and he gets dressed every day, including shoes, right, as though he's going to the office, and he does eight till four rigidly. Those are his hours. He likes to finish early so he can have some day left. And he starts at 8 a.m. And he I just know he's got the his full kit on, and I think that's great. Sometimes he said he'd even walk round the Block first to feel like he was commuting.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

Isn't that a good idea? Yeah, I mean, talking about the clothes thing, like I I have the same intention, but I do struggle with it. So I'm always buying like nice things on vintage. And then I end up dressing in the same kind of warm, comfy clothes because I work at home as well.

SPEAKER_01 44:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 44:16

The same sort of stuff. And sometimes I'll like wear the new stuff for the school run and then get home and then put on the comfy layers. It's not that I'm trying to wear anything fancy for the school run, like not at all. Like I genuinely don't care what people think. But like if I get home and something is not comfortable, like the waist of my jeans is too tight or something like that, I have to change it because I've got to sit there for you know for eight hours or whatever. Yeah, of course. Yeah. Not in a school day. But saying that, saying I don't care what people think, like I do feel an influence of where I live and how I dress, because I've lived in lots of different places. And it was only when thinking about this question that I thought about it. So when I lived in Brighton, I'd go away for the weekend, I'd go hiking in Yorkshire or something like that, and I'd come back and I'd be uh muddy, hiking boots, a good waterproof jacket, a backpack, you know. And I'd come back into the station, beautiful Brighton station, and I'd feel really out of place, right? Because everyone is so expressive in Brighton, you know. But I also, on the flip side of that, like I also loved that about Brighton. I'm living in Bristol same, that you can be really expressive and you don't feel out of place. So, you know, I could try new things out and nobody would bet an eyelid. And then there's things, there's things now that I'd wear in Brighton. I'd wear in Bristol. They're a bit too much for Shepton.

SPEAKER_01 45:24

It's so true. No, I I have that because I'm a big green welly wearer when I'm out in the woods. And but if I if I go to the supermarket afterwards, you know, in my green wellies, I feel ridiculous.

SPEAKER_00 45:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:36

But I'm gonna tell you, I'm gonna tell you a um an apocryphal story about a new outfit there, Joe. But just be careful where you wear it. So we were having a party. In fact, you were there because it was our delayed Christmas party in the new year, and I'd got myself a brand new dress. I was needing to, you know, do something different. I was I'd been injured and I was uh fed up, and so I'd bought myself this new dress for the party, and I set off for the bus, and there were road works outside our house, which meant I had to walk down to a further bus stop down the road, and our road it was it was rainy, and a bus came past me and threw water all over me and the dress.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 46:15

I mean, it was just it was a proper Bridget Jones moment. I was literally dripping. I had to miss the bus, go back to the house, get completely changed, find an outfit in five minutes, you know, and it was just and now this dress is like brand new, and I have worn it since. In fact, I I wore it to make my video for the magazine the other day, but it's already the soil's reminder of a bad thing. Does it always make you think of that moment? Yes, and and it's my new dress, and I never even got to wear it before it's now a bad memory, clothing with bad memory. You need to give it some good memories now, don't you? I know. Anyway, even if I don't manage to dress well every day, I am going to take a look at the Friends of Glass website for some eco ideas. And thanks very much to them for supporting this season of our podcast. It's really nice to work with partners who are doing good work. So, to learn more about why glass is better for health, taste, and environment, you can visit their Instagram at Friends of Glassuk. And you know, I'm not much of one for going deeper, as I probably said right at the beginning of this episode, but I've enjoyed this Joe. I've enjoyed us talking about this stuff, you know. Yeah, I think it's been a really thought-provoking episode. I mean, hopefully you have too, and uh, hopefully our readers have, uh readers and listeners have. Yeah, a thought-provoking episode, hasn't it? But we're back next week, but more in our comfort zone, I feel, because we're doing an episode called Spring Mornings, and we're going to be capturing that feeling you get when larks and adventures, or even just the possibility of larks and adventures, beckons you from your bed. I can't wait. Are you ready for that, Jo?

SPEAKER_00 47:46

Yeah, no mean either. See you then.

SPEAKER_01 47:48

So that's bye from both of us. Remember, our March issue is on sale now, and April is coming soon. The links to subscribe or buy a copy are in our show notes, and thanks very much for listening.