What if healing requires fierce self-compassion?

Your emotions are not a fault in the wiring. They are signals from a nervous system doing its best to keep you alive.

I’m joined by Matthew Bushell for a wide-ranging, deeply human conversation about enoughness, bipolar disorder, addiction, shame and the slow work of rebuilding self-trust. Matthew shares how learning “external” strength in the army shaped him, and how that same drive to push through could hide what was happening internally. We talk about what bipolar can look like beyond stereotypes, why transitions can be so dysregulating, and how self-protection can delay the support we actually need.

From there, we explore a different way to think about mental health and healing: not fixing a broken machine, but cultivating a living system. We unpack self-compassion as a practical skill, the power of trauma-aware and somatic approaches, and simple reorientation practices that help you come back to the moment when your body wants to fight, flee, freeze or fawn. Matthew also shares a clear learning from adopting a reactive dog: safety changes behaviour, boundaries protect relationship, and care is a system not a slogan.

We end with a big societal question and a grounded answer: trust. Not blind trust, but chosen trust in good people who can sometimes see what we cannot see in ourselves. If this conversation helps, subscribe to I Am Enough, share it with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more listeners can find it.

You can connect with Matthew on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/yourbipolarcoach/

Thank you for listening and taking the time to explore our podcast.

Earthaconter: Connection, Exploration and Expansion
www.earthaconter.org

Transcript

Welcome To I Am Enough

Lyn Man 0:00

Welcome to I Am Enough, the space where we explore journeys back to our forgotten birthright of enoughness, to draw natural wisdom along with awareness, acceptance, and compassion. To support each of us on that journey and embrace our wholeness. Despite what society tells us, each one of us is enough exactly as we are. My name is Lynn Mann, and I'd like to welcome you to this space where we explore enoughness, people's journeys along the path to feeling I am enough, and look at what can support each of us on that journey. Hello and welcome to another episode of I Am Enough, the space where we embrace our wholeness. So today I'm delighted to have with me Matthew Bushel. Now, Matthew was introduced to me by Alex Papworth, regular contributor to this podcast. And I have never had the pleasure of having a conversation with Matthew before, but having looked through his profile, I'm really looking forward to seeing where this goes. So Matthew spent 25 years exploring, learning, and understanding systems through his lived experience and training. He sees our emotions, body sensations, and thoughts as providing us with information to increase our awareness of our nervous system rather than something to fix. This exploration started with his own experience of living with bipolar disorder, where he learnt resilience meant finding your shape again. So taking a multidisciplinary approach because people are complex, Matthew draws on evidence-informed practice, systems thinking, trauma-aware frameworks, along with somatic and body-based methods to support individuals and groups who are navigating mental health challenges or building their own emotional fitness. This is through coaching, training, speaking, and writing. For Matthew, this is an ongoing journey to restore reverence for relational care, where our emotional health is a capacity to be developed. You can find out more about Matthew and connect with him on LinkedIn. So, Matthew, welcome and thank you for joining me today.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

Thank you, Lynn, for having me here. And yeah, I'm looking forward to a conversation with you. I really am.

Army Lessons And Inner Conflict

Lyn Man 2:33

Okay. Thank you. So I just want to first go to your own experience. Just to see, and and linking that to what you learned personally through your bipolar disorder and how that has shaped what you do today.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Wow. Okay. So what's coming up for me when you say when you when you ask them that question is I learned not to believe too much in what I'd learnt actually. That might sound like an easy way out of the out of the uh a question, but I'd learnt so much stuff. I went into the army, you know, and you learn by rote, so you're really learning specific things, really specific, tangible competences and skills. And and the kind of belief that you develop when you're doing all these different things is that this will this this this will kind of keep you in good stead forever, this is going to mitigate these problems, or this is going to protect you from this kind of the reality is not that actually. And one of the things that I was never really aware of while whilst I was learning all these external sort of outward skills, like how to be strong, how to run at the mounting, how to shoot, I was learning all these things, and it was absolutely, you know, kind of heavy and leaning in towards that external kind of skill set. There was n there was nothing internal other than, you know, things like courage and determination. Okay, those things were spoken about. So you kind of I became the master at pushing myself without necessarily knowing what it was doing to me during during that kind of push. So I so I learned that sometimes I can't I can't sort of entrust learning to the outside world, if you like, because it can lead it can really get me into trouble. Uh and I don't just mean me ending up in a situation where you know I've done something wrong. I mean literally I could I could die, I could end up, my nervous system could actually be too. And then there's the other side of it when people are actually kind of insincere and maybe doing things to you and with you that that shouldn't happen, you know, and that's and that's a different level of abuse. But I learned to try to cultivate an orientation to what's important and what's necessary and what's needed the hard way, because I ended up at rock bottom many times.

Lyn Man 4:43

And I I love that internal versus external, and and it's almost like coming what you're describing is actually learning to come back to your own inner wisdom and what your body's telling you. Just to help myself and and others understand more because you you know, you talk about you talked about there how you know it's impacting your nervous system and you could literally die. Now, bipolar isn't something that's talked about a lot other than seeing the the swings is what you hear about. So how does it show up or how did it show up for you and have you built that resilience through it?

Alcohol Crisis And A Missed Diagnosis

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Well, I'm really grateful for that question because when I was describing what I learned, I wasn't doing it with awareness of that word bipolar dis, you know, that that phrase. I was just kind of telling you a little bit about kind of you know the y the young me and the kind of things that were cropping up. But actually there was a lot of inner conflict uh that was going on because actually the level of self-doubt that that was actually inside, you know, my brain. So my thoughts were they were conflicted, they were they were often, you know, it it was full of paradox, so I really didn't necessarily I didn't have a huge amount of trust in myself. So of course it was that really lends itself perfectly to entrusting that to other people, entrusting that kind of you know, that kind of you know, my safety to others. But I knew instinctively something was wrong. So that just deepened the fight, that did that deepened the crisis, if you like. I knew something was wrong, I didn't know what to do. So when you talk about these swings and stuff, actually what you've got is you've got me responding and reacting consciously, unconsciously, just you know, just almost just being just being a living consequence of the life within and around me. But I really wasn't, I really wasn't in the driver's seat, for one of a better word. I really wasn't that aware, but but I wasn't totally absent either. So it was a very it was a very difficult way to try and explain this, is the fact that I felt that I had some kind of inner wisdom, but it was more intuitive than kind of knowledge-based. I didn't quite know how to articulate it. So when bipolar disorder actually cropped up as a term, whilst I was in the army actually, I was actually home on leave and I had a huge alcohol problem. Now, the the story gets quite difficult to explain because I went into the army with an alcohol and substance abuse issue that I wasn't that aware of. I I grew up in councillor states and I think I uh used uh drugs and alcohol as early as 12 years old. And and and in in really unacceptable ways as well. We're talking quite qu quite quite unacceptable stuff. But there was it was kind of like the culture of just youth. Um, you know, where were the adults is the question that we always used to ask to ourselves. Where were they? Well, they might have been at home, it's not necessarily the story that it appears, but certainly we were out doing things we shouldn't have been doing, and it's a crucial time when your brain develops and your emotional emotions develop and stuff. So I went into the army actually to escape a life that I knew wasn't the one I wanted. So a few of my friends had died already at that young age. Some some had already, when I went to the army at 17 and a half, some had already gone into prison, some were already drug addicts, and they'd they they they later in life died as a consequence of that drug addiction. So for me, I was escaping. Day one, me getting on the train to go into the army was an escape from a world that I instinctively knew was not what I wanted, or I didn't really know what I wanted, but it I just knew it wasn't that. So I thought, well, the army will open up many other doors. When I was on leave, because there was a problem coming I had huge problems with transitions, got moving from one culture to another, coming back home, times had changed, people were different. It was just awful. I felt constantly displaced, as if there was never really a home for me. So of course I started to turn on myself, thinking that, well, you know, there must be a reason why I feel this way. Perhaps the reason is I well, the silly things like I don't deserve it start cropping up, other things like, well, maybe I've got I honestly thought that maybe I because I fractured my skull when I was about 14 from a drinking incident and ended up in sort of ICU in the hospital for a long time, and you know, everyone was very worried about me. So I I thought, well, perhaps I've damaged my brain so much through this behaviour that's why I don't feel right. So I I had all these big questions, and when I was on leave, I'd been very, very drunk, and I just hit got bottom and was an emotional mess and was crying and agitated and that high-level anxiety where you know you can I can't settle myself. So I just sort of threw it all away and sort of essentially sort of said, Yeah, I need help. And I remember my mum took me to to the doctor's actually, had an emergency appointment, and I actually remember hearing the words, you know, do you do you or has anybody in the family um you know got bipolar disorder? And they said this to my mum. My mum said, Oh, yeah, my brother has, and that's the first I'd heard of it. So then they started talking, and actually I was sent through for an assessment pretty much um within 24 hours, and the consequence of that assessment was going to be sectioned or not sectioned. Now I was in the army, of course. So what happened is is by the time I'd sobered up, and this is a really important part of the story, but by the time I'd got I'd got some degree of resource back within me, uh, of course I was gonna protect myself and I was gonna make sure that my freedom was not gonna get taken away because I was very good at that. Hence, you know, I'd already escaped this life, and I was so I so I escaped it again. So that was the first time it was mentioned. I basically just did what I did in the assessment. They sort of I blamed, I blamed sexuality, I blamed gender, I blamed, I blamed money, I blamed mother, father, brother. I just sort of said, look, I'm fine, but I'm really angry about all this stuff. And the junior psychiatrist, and you know, as soon as someone told me they were a junior, I was like, okay, well that's good, I can exploit that. I was really shifty, you know, I knew how to protect myself. So I was out of there, they sent me back and sort of said, no, he's okay, you know, he's just having he's just drunk too much. Went in the army and avoided it for another 10 years. So I avoided it for another 10 years, but it sh it kept showing up, this conflict, this pendulum swing. As soon as my self-belief came back, I was applying it, doing it, people thought I was charismatic, and and then of course when it left again, I was crushed and I couldn't communicate and couldn't talk and and I couldn't understand it, but accepted it as who I was, but didn't enjoy any of it. So I accepted what I didn't like, and then it was finally, I think, in when I actually went to university, so I left the army, uh, I worked and did stuff, and then later in life, and when I was about 26 or 27, I went to university and did a creative writing degree. And it was actually during that degree that a few other academics sort of said, you know, are you okay? Because they were seeing this kind of behaviour, and they sent me through to the academic uh mental health team and the you know people who would support you know me basically to actually try to try to complete the degree. And then the conversation started getting a bit you know deeper, and and and I sort of told them about this past and I said, Oh, it might be useful for you to re-engage with your doctor and so on. So then I think maybe in my third year I was actually formally diagnosed with bi code disorder. So it was a very different journey to what listeners might imagine. It's a long, a long journey. So therefore a long answer.

Lyn Man 11:40

No, and I I appreciate you you sharing that and and what's you know, going back to that inner protection and that's almost what's coming through. It's like you there was something in you that just kept you going until almost you're in that space to to be able to to work with it. Does that maybe they're not the right words?

Self-Compassion And Protecting The Inner Child

SPEAKER_01 12:13

No, no, what you've said, what you've said it brought another word up for me, and I I said to you before we started that I often like to talk about the word that's come up just to get beneath it a little bit. And compassion came up, and the reason why is what it's become over the years, it's become an awareness that I've got now of uh my own self-compassion. I I didn't understand that at the time, and actually I was self-sabotaging and being very cruel to myself. I always used to say this thing to people that I used to be quite obsessed with the stigma that other people, you know, kind of the way the ways in which other people stigmatise me, but never did I really um scrutinize or pay much attention to the way I did it to myself. And actually, what I recognise now is that thing that protected me was a version of myself that I now protect. Actually, I now protect that version of myself ab above all others. Yeah, I'm not it I will always I I will sacrifice any other because what I realize is that that aspect of myself is protecting the little boy that wasn't necessarily protected, and I've done a lot of work in this space, so whether or not I would articulate it this way had I not done this work, I don't know. But I I feel it's something very timely and it goes right back, you know, it feels like the the oldest part of my wisdom is you know, take that boy's hand, protect him. There's a reason to be self-compassionate, because of course we're talking about myself, and that will serve you best in the long run. And it's turned out to be true. And like I said to you before, I've tried all different strategies and you know, being smart or you know, trying to be an entrepreneur or trying to be rich or trying to be a writer. You know, I I've kind of modeled myself in so many different ways, but unless self-compassion is at the forefront, the patterns continue. They you know the cycle seems to continue. So I so I have to lead with that.

Lyn Man 13:55

That that's really beautiful actually, that that self-compassion. Because I think that that's very often something we we just don't even consider. And we can we can say we're compassionate to anybody else, but so often not to ourselves. But I also just want to go back to that that kind of that inner child and that that kind of the archetype and just that recognition that actually it was that that little boy that hadn't been protected, that needs to be protected. And and I think for me, having that knowledge, because it's something I've also worked with, but having that knowledge that we have these uh these different archetypes aspects, whatever terms you want to to use at different stages in our lives that actually at times, if we don't start to come from that place as being the responsible adult now and nurture them so that they don't go back into that acting out or you know, spiraling and the let the wounds because it it in a way it's a it's a wound. So going back, I'm just going back to one of the things you said, it's not about fixing. And I love that because too often these what could is shown or what is talked about is we have to change, we have to fix. And it's for me, it's always it's an evolving journey. But coming back to what you said about self-compassion, it's doing it with a compassion and being that mature adult who's compassionate to the self and embraces all the other parts and is a compassionate to them. So we're not trying to push away what we feel is wrong about us. We're embracing it with that compassion and learning from it.

From Fixing To Cultivating Yourself

SPEAKER_01 16:08

Yeah, and I'm I'm listening to myself kind of just and and I don't always hear words, but I'm just I I can metaphors of gardens come up for me quite a lot because you know, when you're really trying to attend to a garden, you don't attend to a particular flower by stomping on all the others or or or uprooting them. And then there's something else that's just come up and and it's often come up over the years is you know, if you get impatient because the flower hasn't bloomed, you don't, you know, it's not wise to start digging them up. It it's it's wise to to wait and and to be patient. And I think that's not necessarily how I lived much of my life. It was with it was it was at a pace, it was quick, it was reactive, it was volatile, it was aggressive. And it was because it was because actually the the leading archetype in my mind, which is connected to fathers, brothers, you know, men in my life and also the army and so on, you know, that that was the that was the model, that was the role model, that was that was the success story, you know. If you if you if you're that kind of person, you're going to make it. You know, it was I grew up with people idolising the cray twins. Um not necessarily because our life was similar, but because they were just idolized, because they were just and there was a fantasy at the heart of my young life, particularly in the Estates, and that it was all about being tough, it was all about being strong, capable, and dominant and powerful. So of course, you know, little me, the Massie, the the boy, really, you know, had to hide away. There was no other choice because it had absolutely no place in that world. So I often describe, yeah, if you know, if you if you look at yourself in that way and you sort of say, okay, well, you know, I don't feel good in the role that I'm in. Imagine you're a gang leader, you know, I don't feel good in this role anymore. Well, well, how'd you fix that? Well, you can't apply any kind of tool that you know of that's gonna write that kind of, you know, that's gonna correct that system. You have to go through pain and agony to try to extract yourself and and to deal with the consequences. And I think that happens kind of inside out in a way. You know, I had to sort of I had to learn I had to learn. I I don't want to say construct a new identity, but I had to try to understand what kind of garden I was I was in, yeah, and then what kind of influence I had and how close that influence came to me. I had literally had to start from from the ground up, so I was like, well, how far can I extend my art, you know, what's my soil, what's my turf, what can I what's my capability here? And I was often asking other people that, and after an endless journey of realizing that nobody could actually really tend to that but me, you know, that then there's further breakdown because you're like, oh gosh, that's disappointing. You know, I thought, isn't that mummy's job or daddy's job, or sit, you know, so that there was a great disappointment in that and a great great grief in that actually, because then I started to become a a little bit more drawn to the deeper, darker things of loneliness that with the real existential kind of well, if this is the truth, then where's my fa you know, where's where's my beings, where's my family? So I had a real I had a real I think an embittered view of the world. The more I learned about history, the more disappointed I was about the present, you know, the the more the more doubtful I became about the future. So actually to try and tap into something that could keep me going was it felt impossible. Um so of course drugs and alcohol felt like the solution, prescription drugs felt like the solution as well. It's like, well, I don't know how other people are doing it. How are you actually being so enthusiastic? And then the irony was people say, but you're the most enthusiastic person I've met. I'm like, because it's in me, but but I would suppress it because it wasn't able to do very much. So I think uh I shifted from fixing to I mean, I use words like cultivating or trying to or or just exploring, and I say, I say now I use it, so it was like self-recovery. I I believed in this idea for a long time of you know, I've got to recover. Then I realized I'm not recovering anything at all. I didn't know anything, I don't know what I'm recovering, so it doesn't work for me. So I went through drug and alcohol sort of rehabilitation for about two years at one point, and and they used the word recovery a lot, and I was like, it just doesn't feel right because you know they took me back to like childhood, and I was like, I don't want to go back, I don't want to be there. That's like I didn't feel love, I didn't feel I didn't feel things. And I'm you know, let's not blame parents, I'm just saying I didn't feel, I didn't feel, I didn't get the sunlight, something happened. Can we do something else? And I suffered quite a lot whilst trying to do that with um complex post-traumatic stress because the more I was asked to sort of, I don't know, do stuff with it, the more difficult it became to sit with it because I didn't know what to do with it. And then I felt a bit more judgmental. I was like, well, if I don't know what to do with it, maybe that's another bit of there's another s another sign that I'm so broken I can't be fixed, you know. So so I had to move away from that whole kind of frame of reference of fixing and meddling and and you know, it wasn't I wasn't in the army anymore putting up satellite dishes, I wasn't connecting wires, that's where the system stuff comes from. It wasn't, you know, I'm not mechanical. I'm not mechanical. But that's actually what I was looking at myself as a mechanical object that could just be meddled with. Once I started to look at it more like from an ecolog ecological perspective of well, okay, i i I'm a I'm a plant and people can study me all they want, but they if they if they dare to go inside, they're gonna injure me, you know, with it with a scalpel. So they can't they can't they can't do that. They can only suggest and you know, gesture towards and so on. A bit like you would if I was growing a sunflower, you might go, maybe it's not the right spot. You wouldn't you wouldn't get your sword out and start chopping it up and saying, you know, there's something internally wrong with it. You wouldn't do it. That would in fact, if I started doing that, you'd go like, no, don't do that. That's not the way to to help the sunflower. So cultivation, gardens, kind of, you know, more more natural metaphors really help me to rebuild a relationship with myself in in a way that wasn't easy to reject. Made it more difficult for m for for that part of myself. to sort of say, well no, that's wrong, that's wrong. Because I didn't have the language for it.

Lyn Man 22:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

Or the wisdom. It just felt more true. I hope that kind of covered some ground there.

Lyn Man 22:13

It's covered a lot of ground. But but I'm just, you know, just where you finished, it's that kind of coming back to that it felt true. And it's tuning back into you and almost like that deep knowing. So just having that awareness that, you know, and I think words are so powerful. But they can also be so they can either support us and empower us or they can disempower us. And I think it is, it's that having that awareness that you you went through well that recovery, you know, that word does not work. And it's not about fixing. So how do I take it and find something that does work for me. And also what I'd link there is going back to what you were talking about that when you said the architect you know the it for me it was the the warrior, that's what came through. It was like you were taught you had to be strong. You had to to have that inner courage, you had to stand up and fight. Yeah in the same way the warrior can also come from that that that piece of that coming at things in a totally different way. And it's almost like you transitioned from from one to the other and in that cultivation you you had to show so so much strength to actually to not give up and to actually say well hold on this isn't working for me. So what does? And to know that you wanted to keep moving forward you wanted to it's almost it's like it's seeing that chink of hope and you were determined to find that find that light. So going back to your garden metaphor you know everything within the garden grows not just because it's there but but it takes so much cut else coming in. But it needs the light it needs the water it it needs to be the seed needs to be there in the first place. And actually the seed is one of my favorite analogies because the seed has everything within it. And and even if it lies dormant it has everything in it to stay dormant until it's ready until the conditions are right. Right. And that's what you're you're talk what I heard you talking about is there was something there that an inner strength that guided you to create your own conditions.

SPEAKER_01 25:18

And I I'm the word weed is is is cropping up for me because you know I I much prefer sunflowers and beautiful flowers and things like that but actually the level of resilience that I now associate with myself is much more befitting for awful words like weeds and cockroaches because I tell you that's that's that's how it has happened it's happened that way. So you know I and I I'll I'll I'll briefly sort of say it was because of an unsuccessful a few times unsuccessful suicide attempts that actually I continued to live and then after those situations there was such strength of emotional feeling around around ideas of and I say ideas because they're just feelings and now I interpret them differently but at the time I felt guilty I felt disappointed I felt uh you know these are the words like oh gosh you know I haven't succeeded this is terrible I I felt regretful regretful not for doing it but for success for not succeeding so it's such a a a convolution if you like of of um thoughts that came up because of the emotions the emotions themselves now that I'm I'm I'm older and wiser and a bit different I realise it you know it's just pain just agony just agony and and and really really no word belonged actually in that space and when you talk about this warrior you know that I actually do feel as if you know the in my in my circumstance this warrior that's grown from the weeds if you like is a warrior that you know is able to protect the flowers or that's how I see it because I'm still you know when you were talking I kind of had this kind of I call it a spiritual moment where I saw my I sort of felt myself as a boy you know with someone just gently sort of holding you you know your chin sort of saying it'll be okay that kind of thing and that's the level of kind of gentleness that we need with ourselves in this world I believe it has to be so delicate and delicate things suffer. Delicate flowers you know the dog will jump all over the the flower patch and the and the most delicate you know flower will get will get the most harm done to it. But to be able to actually I don't necessarily use the word govern but but to be able to curate your life in such a way so that actually you can protect the delicacy the delicateness within us you know that kind of real the thing that needs protecting the most which is that kind of inner wisdom and to do that with a kind of fierce self-compassion like the warrior with the fear you know I'm kind I'm caring I'm loving but I'm fierce I can be fierce and you know if there was ever you know god forbid a a real issue within society I would show up with that fierceness and I would try and protect the people I loved and the people who deserved and needed to be protected. Of course there's ethical questions in there and I would I would try and find my way but that fierceness is within me and I and I've I've embraced that these days whereas I thought the job at one point was to get rid of that because that was the the thing that was associated to all the self-destruction that was the that was the the aspect that drove me into you know drink too much or or to feel most of the pain as a consequence of my behaviour. So a lot of a lot of pain was consequential the the pain the pain that was most persistent was it was it was more subtle and and more pervasive. It was more kind of insidious is a word it was like deeper deeper deeper stuff easy not to notice. So I kind of found it easier to deal with what I call shallow pain pain that was easier to attribute to real life circumstances because outside of that kind of sphere of living I was I didn't have anyone I didn't have anywhere to go. So I didn't know how to to figure it out whereas these days I'm a little bit like you know there's a deep deep earth beneath this ground and and and there's stuff going on and we don't know what's going on but it's there but there are principles. There's principles going on and like you say it's around energy it's around light it's around sustenance it's around nourishment so these skills and all these kind of bits of awareness I don't know I just kind of skipped that it was kind of you know eat your egg and chips after school and you know get out of it. You know I didn't l I didn't make the link as a child between what was going into my mouth and into my body and actually what was in my heart and soul and kind of you know what I mean? I didn't the connections weren't there so I grew up quite ignorant of this stuff.

Coaching As Reorientation And Somatic Awareness

Lyn Man 29:43

It's remarkable but yeah and but even with that I think that's often the the case in the in going back to our parents do what they know at the time and it's almost like we're here taking this journey further than they ever could have gone. With that and and I think it's just going back to you know what you you said about learning to embrace rather than vilify that that warrior aspect of you. But I just want to now move it so you know you're doing a lot of work with with others now and helping others from a looking at mental health in a different way. So you know you you talk about taking this multidisciplinary approach which has been you know your training your rifle experience and how you put things together. So what like when you're working with with others in whatever way, because different ways what to you yeah I guess how does that work? How does that what does it look like I guess?

SPEAKER_01 31:06

Yeah that's a that's a great question and I and and once upon a time I might have answered by referencing so many of these other things that are kind of behind the words in the description and the introduction that you made and and the word multidisciplinary you know I worked as a physiotherapy assistant in a in a in um a hospital which was for people with your mental health issues and brain injury and so on and of course I'd be a part of a multidisciplinary team so I learned that actually what this means is is you know there's many people representing certain types of perspectives and ideas and and then being a bit of a polymath you know I'd studied all this and and I looked into all of them because I didn't understand my role. I'd even though I was playing a role and I'd been in you know I part I got the job interviews and I spoke quite well and I had this knowledge and I learned there was something inside of me that was always like you know I don't know I don't know I don't know and I need to know more in order to be comfortable with uh believing that and it's because I think I questioned what was done because of course I I'm not entirely certain that I would do to others exactly what everyone's done to me so therefore I was kind of like well is this the right thing for these people so I had to study them I had to learn them I had to understand. So multidisciplinary just represents many perspectives I think really and many approaches and I'm and I don't think I would say that any one of them wins uh for me. What I draw from now when I'm in conversation actually with anybody so really it's probably happening here with you and I I just use myself as a barometer. I use what comes up I use what I you know my worldview is not representative of everybody's worldview so curiosity is absolutely key I'm curious about you as a person and others and curious about kind of how they arrive and and you know what that journey looks like to them and how they explain it and how they rationalise it and how they then go from kind of there to where to where they are and what that is about. What kind of is is that a problem that you're trying to solve or is it a kind of feeling that you're trying to change. So really I don't know what's happening when it's happening but I try to explain it as you know it's more about being curious and trying to discover some kind of orientation. So it's because I often feel very disorientated to to the world. So the way that I bring myself back is you know it's not like some big grand project or big grand plan. It's actually in the moment reorientation I think okay well hell I'm a little bit okay so what what do I do then? But I get like that with ideas and subjects and and books and so you know if I go into any one of these disciplines I'm lost after you know after maybe a few days of study and I'm like okay I I guess I get I get it I'm I'm kind of yeah this is kind of okay but how does that work in the real world? So I get disorientated really fast and I see this as an abstraction. Now this is makes me feel like when I was in the army makes me feel like when I left home to go into the army to escape I feel like we're always being displaced and we're always being moved and we're always wanting to leave or return we're always in transition and I find that that really is dysregulating inside on a profound level on a on an unconscious level so for me it's more about being able to come back to each other in relationship in a way that is not complex but just makes us feel comfortably oriented to this moment and almost capable of capable of accepting what we've left behind by coming back because actually we can go back we can go there again together. We can go back into the conversation we just came back from yeah you know and and we can kind of trust that there's going to be some residue there of what we spoke about you know you're bringing your knowledge and awareness and so on and I'll and I'll bring that too. But let's come back and let's then then let's venture out again together. And I think what that does when I'm doing it it gives me more confidence that I can do that again and again and again and again and what's what I've taught myself over time is that's very very useful when you are shock when you're when you're shocked into into in in in into a kind of arrested state where you know I can't I either I'm gonna run to protect myself or I'm gonna fight to protect myself or I'm gonna freeze or feign. And I don't always know when these things are happening because of course I'm a mature adult now so I'm not gonna fight okay so but but actually my body's still fighting even if I'm not fighting okay I'm not gonna flee because I've got these responsibilities well I'm still fleeing or I'm not gonna feign because I I've I'm I'm much better at managing my contracts and boundaries now so I know when this is not acceptable. I'm still feeling the desire to not have I don't want this confrontation. So my body's going through this all the time all the while and if I don't manage to bring myself back I don't like to call it tethered or anchored because I I realize one day what I'm I'm literally not so that doesn't work for me because I can literally move around and this idea of tethered and anchoring is is helpful but it isn't true for me. I I've never been tethered and anchored in in into position but the feeling of being trapped has been there so I I get you know tethered and anchors and traps and things and I'm like I prefer to feel like I'm swimming and riding waves and things like that. So when I'm working with people it's it's it's really about not disorientating them and really helping them to try to find some way of returning to what's on their mind, what they're dealing with what they're contending with. And in the mental health space you can imagine that level of disorientation and confusion and self-doubt it's it's off the charts and I have experience of that. But it's also not playing out in an abstracted sort of you know that it's actually going on in the body so that's where the somatic stuff comes from because I didn't even know the word uh gosoma until I discovered it but I'm much more caring and considerate of my actual you know this stuff the actual body nowadays because I realise it's the best barometer I've got it's my best source it's it's the most accurate way for me to change my day. If my heart's beating fast and I'm sweating okay do something about that because otherwise it's like um I say to people you know if you my my uncle was a sailor and he used to say to me you know one degree off you know can can result in a in a in in a very very different uh sort of um lo location in the end uh a kind of you know in terms of an ambition if you if you're thinking about it in terms of ambition you know you'll be miles away from where you wanted to go. So you have to kind of just ride the ways you have to kind of be able to sort of say oh that's not quite the right way now many of us we don't practice that which means we might come back once a month to this sense of what am I feeling on or worse maybe two or three times a year or maybe once every ten years and that's where you know tidal waves of regret and and and and anger might come I've wasted ten years and my fear is my my fear is is almost you know having that realization at the end is like oh gosh you still didn't get it after all this after all these lessons you know I don't want to sort of be on my deathbed at 61 and it's like oh you you still forgot you still forgot to embrace life after everything you learned you forgot that would I you know I would just kick myself if that was it. I I want to sounds quite morbid but I want to go out sort of saying I did the best I could to embrace what I knew was there for me to embrace that where you know that's what I want to do. So if I get wrapped up in stuff and I feel like I've been hijacked I try how can I come back? Because it's the coming back that I believe will give me the best chance to not regret. And I try and bring that into my work without it being too confusing. So it's done with words it's done with gestures it's done with movement it's done with just not not hierarchy. So even I I'm almost I'm almost a little bit shy of the word coach these days with I kind of in some spaces I prefer the word you know we're kind of peers we're kind of on this level because we're having a conversation because you've got more wisdom about you than I'll ever have about you so I I I try not to encourage people to be too to believing me too much. You know, don't believe in me too much because it's you that you've got to believe in you know I'll just kind of be alongside you whilst you're trying to orientate yourself to what that means. I hope that gives you a kind of idea.

Breath, Boundaries And Being A Companion

Lyn Man 39:23

It does but I actually I really love that because what you're saying you know first is the coming coming back coming back home to yourself. So having that constant not constant it's maybe the wrong word but have just having that awareness and that you know that that transition and I think you know transition is a a difficult space for for anybody because it's like oh I've done this now you know what and it but almost what I'm hearing is like in that transition it's like okay come back in. Okay, how are you feeling what's going on and but really listening to yourself and before you move on to the next thing but letting it's it's building and this is going to sound really strange, but it's building a relationship with yourself, with your body and it and I guess you know for me it's like it's not just about one body. It's like we have our physical body, our emotional body, our mental body you know, our energetic body our spiritual body however people want to look at it but it's they're all so interconnected and everything's so interconnected that we have to pause and take that moment and listen. And um you know this week I've been doing some work a friend of mine is a breath work practitioner and I've been doing some breath work with her. I do it on a regular basis but this week you know it's just been very simple breath but that coming back in and asking yourself when you're doing it okay what am I holding or whatever the question is that you want you know what's going on within me right now. But being kind because it's a gentle breath. But at the same time I'm gonna go back just jump from that to where you ended and that walking alongside somebody so you're not they're you're you're walking with them to help them come back into themselves. You're giving gentle guidance as to to what they can do but reminding them it's their it's them. They have to make the decision. It's not your decision absolutely Yeah okay come back into yourself what do you feel but along with the walking wisdom the word that's coming up is witnessing but also holding the space so that they can go there. Because emotion and I know there's so much more talk about emotions these days. But it doesn't make it easier for people.

SPEAKER_01 42:41

And and going back to what you said earlier about often it's the surface level that people are will will go to and will deal with but often there's this deep it's for me for me it's it's it's it's it's it's at the heart of what we what when I asked you I asked you about this podcast and I am enough and it's at the heart of the eye as far as I can see and when you're talking about relationship it's it's why I use these words reverence for relational care because it's not just care of one another but it's care of ourselves within the complex existential whatever words the complex kind of experience that we have because like you've described there's you know people say people say also they describe all sorts of ways I wear many hats, I play many roles, I do all this well I like to sort of say well I have different functions you know I'm gonna be the guard in the minute I'm gonna be the chef I'm gonna and that makes me kind of a little bit more relaxed around it because I'm not fully defined by that role and I'm just functioning in a different kind of way. And I think having that reverence for relationship which I used to I used what I found really helpful was thinking about intertidaltidal zone On like beaches, and I I often do this because when I'd walk along the beach, of course, I love the shore and I love I love the way it coalesques and and that feels a little bit like emotion. Sinks calm and they wave and they go, and so I can kind of I could kind of understand it, and I'm like, okay, this is quite nice, and actually it's quite refreshing, and okay, this is here, okay, it's gonna go, and this is gonna be good, and that helped me understand that you know there's a temporality to this and so on. But some things never kind of went, and I was like, okay, well what's what's that about then? I've got this kind of uh I mean in the last few days I'll I'll be you know willing to describe I've had a kind of pensiveness in my chest, a kind of it's kind of pensive, which means I feel like I'm neither here nor there. And and of course I'm here, so what do I do with this? But but it feels as if a kind of neither here nor there type sensation. And I'm like, okay, well, what is this? So I've done the breathing, so now I'm kind of I'm thinking of waves, you know. I'm coming, I'm going, it's okay. This is all but actually then it's still there. What's what is this? And I think well, in some ways, you know, we'll look walk along the beach and then we'll see a rock pool. And there's no there's but and it's protected by a whole bunch of rocks and there's water in there, and there's life, but there's the wind is not affecting it, and the waves is you know, and it's got and like oh there's different there's different places within this place that I'm trying to cultivate as home. There's different places within the place, okay, right. And there's different times, there's different time zones, and there's different there's different paces and speeds and you know, all the words that we can throw in there. Basically, it's much more beautiful than we probably like to look at it as. You know, this is like we're the most complex things. Well, um I mean, I don't know. I don't know what a flower really is like. So of course, from a subjective perspective, you know, it's it's it's wonderful, it's beautiful. So it's like, you know, let's let's approach all these ex uh dimensions of our experience with a degree of curiosity and ask ourselves how we've come to know what we know about it, you know, should it be going that fast or that slow? Should it come and go? Is this uh why is this here for longer than that? And so I'm and I think this has come from you mentioned uh because I did first on about transitions and breath. When I used to, and you and something came up for me, when I used to walk through doorways, I used to be quite apprehensive about what was beyond the door. So so I used to and and that sounds like quite literal, but it it was literal, but it was not necessarily contextually true, because it was about trauma and it was about, well, I just don't know what I'm going into, and I really wish I could know because I'd be able to self-regulate better. So I would as I went through the doorways, I would go and I would and I would step through on the out breath. I would step through on the out breath. It was a little anchoring moment just to get my body, okay. Well, I don't know what's there, but it could be different, and that's okay. Let's be curious. Let's let's look. Let's take our time. Because when I was young, I used to just go in and and move through because actually I didn't really want to be there. And if it was a if it was a social circumstance, I'd probably move through, drink on the way, and get out the other side. Because actually I I wasn't comfortable slowing down, actually. I wasn't comfortable closing my eyes, I wasn't comfortable looking inwards. When I saw blackness, I was scared to death that I was going to be swallowed up by this big, vast abyss void thing. I had to make friends very quickly with slowing down. So when you say come back to the breath, it can be very nervous, it can make people feel very anxious coming back to the breath. So I think the whole point of walking alongside and witnessing and holding the space, it's more kind of like being a companion. So I think someone said to me this week, you know, you're like a you're a professional, a friendly professional rather than a professional friend. And I think I love that because I'm like a you know, I'm a I'm a friendly professional, which means I I I will honour boundaries and you know I care about myself and others so much that if I ever presided over the wrong thing, you know, I'd fire myself and and and and that would be the end of it, you know, because uh because it's that it's that delicate, it's that sensitive. And if we can take that level of care to ourselves after such experiences and such trauma, I just have faith that that will probably do more than most of what has been tried already.

Lyn Man 48:22

Yeah. There's some it's interesting for me that that word curiosity keeps coming through. And I I love that because it is having having that curiosity, and it's interesting I think as well, because it's often something that you know we have as as kids. And it's uh almost stamped on going back to that you know, things are are delicate. But going back to what comes up is it's that remembering to have that as a childlike mind, that doesn't mean acting out. What that means is actually being open and curious to what's going on. And but as you're that's what I see is almost the the young child walking along like that with the old with the uh the mature adult there being that guide w whatever word and it it is that thing. And I think the other thing that's really come through is that words are so unique to each one of us and it's finding our own words to describe things. But but just seeing that that image of if we can let that uh child aspect of ourselves be curious but know that we have that that inner resilience, or we can build that inner resilience to walk into the next room or to to take the slow breath, to slow down and to not run away. And I think you use the word capacity the word capacity and it it is, it's that you know, it's something my my son said to me over over Christmas was about building capacity. And I think it is that that thing that we're not fixed and we evolve and grow and on this pathway you know, we it's taking one step at a time. You know, you talk about the the the sea and that that analogy for the coming and going, the m analogy with the the emotions and but the different environment there, including the rock hills, for me it's always the mountain and the pathway up. It's never straight up. You know, that actually is the most difficult route if we're forcing ourselves, you know, even going back to what you're saying as a child that I'm strong, I'm going straight up. And it's like, yeah, right. It's like we go we we follow we follow the pathway that's there. And sometimes it's like there's a fork, sometimes it's blocked, sometimes it just curves around following the contours. But it's our pathway. And with that it's about it's the word owning comes, and I don't know if that's the right word or not, but but it's it's I like I I like it because sovereign was coming up to me.

Dog Training As A Lesson In Care

SPEAKER_01 51:53

And I struggle with the word I struggle with the word sovereign because it reminds me of authorities and and like um and and and royalty and so on. But actually, when I when I use the when I personally use the word in kind of like a more natural a a nature's way, yeah. Somebody somebody once said to me, a got a guy that I think Alex has has read as well, big mentor of mine, uh Dr. Alan Rainer, he said, when I was talking about loneliness and feeling excluded and feeling like I didn't belong, he said, he said, you know, only he said, nature herself will never exclude you. Only some people in some places will. And it's and that and that really rang true to me because that was actually my experience. My experience was some people were really, really kind, but they weren't my fathers or my brothers, or and I'm not saying they were unkind, so you know, people listen. What I'm saying is is they were strangers. So I was like, well, okay, well, this is this is interesting, but what happens to our relationship now? And it's like, well, this is just me and this is just us, and this is just something I'm sharing with you. And I was like, okay, so it so I became more curious about my own exploration. I was like, okay, so what is what is exclusive? Who's asking me to leave? Who's telling me not to stay? Who's telling me to stay when I don't feel comfortable? What so I started to look at things in really simple ways, and I started to protect myself in terms of almost like a mod like self-moderating. Okay, should I be here? Should I be there? And when you were talking, I think sometimes we do overcomplicate it because of course we believe too much in the power of our own perspective or words. So if I was to say to you, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, then you've described it this way, but actually this is the way. I mean, that's that's nonsense, right? And the way to the way I've so I've recently taken in a new dog, so I've adopted the dog, and this has been a long-term ambition. And the dog has come from you know kennels, so it was in the kennels for for for four months, so it's it's had all this kind of you know noise and this kind of chaos and this kind of level of dysregulation that I feel I know a little bit about, but I'm not a dog, right? So how how do I really know this? And just to cut to the chase, I I've been taught by a dog trainer that actually when you introduce the dog to other dogs, because the dog's really, really reactive. Hmm, I was very, very reactive as a as as a young man as well. So when you introduce the dog to others, it needs to feel safe. Okay, if it doesn't feel safe, it will try to save itself. So, of course, what does that look like? It looks like the dog barking and growling and trying to scare the other dog off. And I've put this into practice and it's worked, and it's something just shifted in me. And it's so simple, but I don't know why we get I don't know how it became so mixed, missed up and complicated. Even if it's my dog who I love, if my dog is dominating another dog, you know, 60-40, so my dog is just being a little bit too much of a bully, and the other dog is not protected, then that dog will develop into a in into a very defensive dog. And actually their relationship will break down. So what I have to do is I have to say to my dog, you don't treat the other dog that way. That other dog matters to me. I mean, whose dog is this? But that dog matters to me. So I have to get involved and say, no, you don't treat that dog that way. And my dog becomes a better dog as a consequence of my love for another dog. And that is how it feels to me to be the truth of the world, in the sense of if if I was witnessing someone be cruel and mean to you, okay, and somebody else that I love is witnessing that too, then actually somehow my relationship with them is compromised if if I allow my relationship with you, even if we're strangers, to be compromised. It's like there is a system in this, there is a relation a relationality in this. So I think that you know, we are where we are in the world a lot because we we don't have the influence that we perhaps want or instinctively feel we would like to exercise. But in our smaller, you know, where we live and where we kind of play and where we work, and we actually do have a lot more influence than we sometimes uh credit ourselves as as as having. And I think if we if we do understand our own sense of agency and sovereign sort of capabilities, i.e., I'm here in this land, and I get to I get to say to you, I don't think that was really kind to that person. And it's a and and and I would rather that not happen again. Well, who do you think you are? Well, I think I am me, and saying this, and I fare better for actually voicing that, and then the people I'm with fare better. And one way then, you know, we do see new cultures emerge. And what's the culture? It's a garden, it's just you know, it's but using the dog analogy helps me to simplify it. You know, there's no frameworks in that, it's a simple you're being too dominant, you're being too unkind, you're not respecting the other the other doggy's need for space, you know, you're sniffing it too much. It's very simple and quite raw, but you can actually translate that into a kind of the human world quite nicely. Um sometimes.

Trust Others To See You Clearly

Lyn Man 56:27

Yeah, I love that. If I try. Yeah. But you're right, it is very simple. And and it's when it comes back to for me, it's it's that respect when we take it back to humans. So yeah, it's it's interesting. I have one final question for you, and I've loved the way the conversation has gone so far. Possibly a bit of a change now, but what is it? Okay. So if you could change one societal belief to benefit humanity as a whole, what would it be?

SPEAKER_01 57:06

Okay. That's a big one, isn't it? So what's come up for me is is what normally comes up when I'm trying to explain something that I'm not quite fully able to explain yet. So it's because when I was in therapy once and I was so distrusting of other people, and I think this is true for many people in the world, and I was distrusting of people and scared, and I really wasn't growing relationships, I was doing the opposite, I was destroying them and really pushing people away. And I found myself in a therapeutic situation whereby um I was being challenged about this behaviour, actually. And I said, you know, I don't need people, there's nothing, there's nothing people can offer me that I can't offer myself. What a what a statement. And and this particular therapist introduced me to Jahari's window and and and and the idea that there was a real good reason for me to learn to trust others because there's always something about myself that I can never possibly know. And what I learned that meant was that I really, really, really good at understanding my subjective experience and good at understanding my feelings, and if anything, you know, I've perhaps become quite dominant in that area in terms of that internal reflective space, which can actually have its negative consequences as well, actually, in terms of functioning, showing up in the world. So if I don't, if I don't learn to trust others as actual, you know, aspects of my sort of natural neighbourhood, my kind of actual life, and trust, really trust that they can see something in me that I can't see in myself, then I can't grow. And I and I learned this and it and it and it made me start saying, Well, who, oh gosh, who do I want to trust? I started to ask the question, who do I want to trust? Not who do I trust, which basically kept me in a rested state of, well, nobody, and that's that. It was like, who do I want to trust? And then I found myself wanting to trust people that I had no business asking to trust me or me trust them. And I was like, hmm, I've got this strange thing. I know you don't know me very much, but I kind of really want to trust you. I kind of I like what you're doing. This feels interesting. And it's like, you can trust me. And they were in like, oh, oh, really? What? And there's no we don't have to sign any paper with it. No, I'm just a person and you can trust me. And I started to rebuild trust in people and in humanity by this. So I would want people to to understand that actually there's always an aspect of themselves that they will never ever know unless they trust somebody else to share it with them.

Lyn Man 59:25

That's beautiful because there's there's multiple layers of that. So there's the actually the power of trust, not of yours just yourself, but trusting others, and actually by everybody learning to trust each other and coming from what's truly within them and being open and curious that actually we can really change the world. But at the same time, there's also that Leah going back to what you said that when you can trust others you're allowing they can see things that about you that you don't see. And there's such a a vulnerability there as well. And and it's almost that it's it's taking down the internal defenses rather than going from okay, I can only trust myself to actually seeing that we all have a place in the world, and the more we can come from that that place of I trust myself, I trust others, then the more we can all grow and evolve.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:55

And and and and love ourselves and love one another, I think I think I I carried around with me distrust for myself and distrust of others, which was cultivated and essentially you know, I evolved into that in into that way of seeing the world, and I accepted it and I I protected it in many ways. I I refused to change because it became me and all this kind of stuff. So I trusted in it. In many respects, I sort of entrusted all that stuff that happened. I was like, go for it, okay, fine. This is and actually it didn't serve me very well, and only when I became curious did I think that that could change. And so if you think what's the bigger risk, or what's the lesser risk, you know, the you there's far more to gain in trusting good people to to be better reporters of the good aspects of yourself than than than than you are at reporting the worst aspects of yourself because I think that's what I'm trying to articulate. You know, we can look in the mirror and say, you are not great, you are not good, you you you're a failure, and all this. Um and we and we and we come in and we we trust that far too often. Must be true, right? Must be true. Well, what's up with trusting Lynn to tell me that actually this was a nice conversation? What's up with me trusting that? You know, I'll I'll go away and it'll be like, well, was it, was it, was it, was well if I if if I entrust that to Lynn and allow Lynn, you know, that that kind of sovereign kind of presence in my life to sort of say, I'll I'll not I'll be the judge, I'll be the giver of of of that perspective because you can't give it to yourself. Yeah, you can't, you can't, I can't do that. It's impossible for and you can't give it to yourself, so I'll give that to you. And I think there's something very I don't just want to say useful, it's kind of understating it. But it there is something very practical in it as well as beautiful and lovely around loving yourself and all these things we can say. There's something very practical in that as well, in terms of day-to-day actual, you know, shifting from this kind of real disempowered state that we can often be in to a more empowered state. I think there's something very practical in there. And almost non- not mystical, you know, that's lovely, but this is quite actually no, this is kind of a skill.

Lyn Man 1:02:56

Yeah. And it and it's what allows us to move further on the the path. Yes. Actually we can we can step forward from that place rather than holding us in that more crapped state. Yes. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:14

I would agree. And it's been I absolutely lovely speaking to you. I think it's just been the word for me is nourishing. I you know, I feel like we've walked along the beach shore just looking at some stuff.

Lyn Man 1:03:26

Yeah. Oh, thank you. I love that analogy. And yeah, I have s so appreciated your your openness, your curiosity, your just going where the conversation needed to go. So thank you so much for that. So you're welcome. Um I've really enjoyed enjoyed sharing a conversation with you.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:49

Me too, me too. I think it's the best way to it's the best way to journey together is just just having a um a what what what I call a mutual conversation, a conversation that really actually is about uh us both being here present together and just trying to kind of uh be together in a way which is also settling us in a way. It's also kind of enabling us to feel calm, uh self-compassionate.

Lyn Man 1:04:14

Yeah. Lovely. Well, thank you. Thank you too. Thank you for listening to this episode of I Am Enough. We hope you enjoyed it and are inspired to see yourself as enough and create possibilities. If you would like to discover more, please visit earthaconter.org.