How People Pleasing Stops Us Choosing Ourselves with Natalie Lue

My guest this week Natalie Lue is known to many people for her groundbreaking work on people pleasing, boundaries, emotional baggage, and relationships through The Baggage Reclaim Sessions and her book The Joy of Saying No. 

We talk about the emotional roots of perfectionism and over-responsibility, the pressure to keep proving yourself, and the exhausting belief that you have to “earn” permission to change. We explore what happens when you realise you’ve over-identified with being useful, successful, capable, or needed and how frightening, freeing, and vulnerable it can feel to let some of that go.

There’s so much in here about anxiety, control, people pleasing, emotional patterns, self-worth, and learning to trust yourself even when you don’t fully know what comes next. We also talk about art, midlife, changing careers, the stories we inherit about work, and the difference between striving and actually feeling alive.

Natalie Lue is a writer, artist and podcaster best known for The Joy of Saying No and her long-running platform Baggage Reclaim, which has helped many people navigate relationships, boundaries, emotional unavailability, and people pleasing over the last two decades.

Website | The Joy of Saying No | Let Go | Baggage Reclaim Sessions

Also mentioned in this podcast:

Financial Recovery by Karen McCall

My episode with Gabrielle Treanor

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hi, and welcome to this week's episode of A Thought I Kept, a weekly podcast about the one idea that stayed. I'm your host, Claire Fitzsimmons. I'm a well-being writer, a coach, and the co-founder of If Lost Dot Here, a company on a mission to get you to a better place. Each week on this podcast, I sit down with someone whose work that I admire, and I ask them a really simple question. And that is this: What is the one thought that you have kept out of all that's out there, all the overwhelming ideas about what we should be doing, what we should be thinking about, what we should be feeling, what has really stayed with you? And it's always fascinating to see what comes up. Sometimes it's something that someone's grand said. Sometimes it's something that was heard in a conversation with a friend. Sometimes it's a line in a book. And that's what my guest today is bringing. This line in a book that has stayed with her and that she has returned to over the last years that has really shifted how she's come to see her work and her calling and how she spends her time. And that guest today is Natalie Liu. You might know Natalie from her podcast series, The Baggage Reclaim Sessions. It's a wonderful show that is so much about how we can reclaim our authentic selves, really shifting our patterns, our emotional baggage, the things that are unfulfilling and unhealthy in relationships and experiences. She also has written a book that I feel like I inhaled. It's called The Joy of Saying No. Stop people pleasing, reclaim boundaries, and say yes to the life you want. I listened to this in my car, walking down the street, making dinner for my kids, and if you were with me, you would hear me say, Oh no, that's me too. There were lots of exclamation, lots of recognition, and so much hope, actually, in reading a book that really helped me understand my tendencies around people pleasing over the last few decades. Natalie is also an artist. And I say that with such pride and excitement because, yes, we spend time on her book and her podcast and her career so far, and we spend as much time on where she's going and what she is inviting into her life now, and the real joy in that. And the hope for holding on to that joy too. So here is my conversation with Natalie and the thought that she's bringing this week. And the maybe you want to hold on to as well. Let me know. Hi Natalie, welcome to the podcast. Hi Claire, thanks for having me on. You're most welcome. It's so good to have you here. How has your week been?

SPEAKER_01 3:28

It has been a bit intense because my eldest went back to university a couple of days ago. She'd been home for basically three weeks. And then my youngest had her 17th birthday, and then her cousin had his 13th birthday. So it was, I mean, intense in a good way. But I was like Saturday, it was like cleaning up after the party, onto another party, you know, readying for my daughter to go off. So much washing, just making sure she was going back with a case full of clean clothes, and also just wanting to squeeze in that last bit of quality time. But then also just life doing its thing where you've still got all these other bits and pieces to do. So I sort of arrived at Wednesday, and it's like, oh, it sort of feels like my week is kind of starting now. So yeah, it's but it's been a it's been a good week. It's been a good week. How about you?

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Yeah, they can be those lags, can't they? That you're not actually arriving at the week until much, much further into it. And sometimes I'm really shocked by I used to think the early years of parenting were really hard, that sort of zero to five. And I'm really surprised how that 16 onwards, or maybe even 13, 14 onwards, is really, really tricky. And so the the navigating, the old years, but also the go-to universities and that whole life stage. There's so much in that, isn't there, that you're also having to figure out as a parent.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Oh, totally. I was talking to a friend earlier, and she has a 10-year-old, and she was talking about like, oh, just navigating the Easter holidays, but also working for yourself. And I said, it was really funny because mine are like 17 and want my daughters 18, almost 19. And I said, when they're both around at home in the break, like it just feels like the wheels come off with any sort of sense of organization or being able to stick to your routine because it just gets filled up with other bits. And like you say, you imagine everything just gets easier and easier as you go along. It's not that it gets hard, but it I think it's just different types of hard, different types of joy at each of the stages, you know, the the ex like the G CSEs and the A levels, and then getting them off to uni. I mean, just readying my daughter to go to university last September was a full-time job. Getting all the stuff together. Oh my gosh. Like my next one will go, well, my our last one will go next year, and I'm already thinking, yeah, I think I'm just gonna really get ahead of this and start picking up bits because I cannot make it a full-time job again like I did the last time I was exhausted.

SPEAKER_00 5:48

Yeah, we have it coming, hopefully, in a year. Let's see. All goes well.

SPEAKER_01 5:54

So A levels next year as well.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

Yeah. I'm feeling the pain deeply of it as well. It's I'm feeling I'm somebody who's I will probably get on to this. Academics are really important to me. It was really important to me that I got certain grades and I performed a certain way. And I'm having to really check myself as I go through the stage and not put those expectations which were helpful in a way because I performed really well, but really damaging because I had to unlearn them for the next three decades. I'm trying really hard not to put that on my on my kids, but I feel it come up. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:26

Oh, yeah. I mean, it was really interesting when I feel like maybe my eldest was 12 or 13 and she had summer exams. And I noticed in myself that I was experiencing really, really high exact anxiety about her exams. And I was like, girl, this is not about you. Like, but I also at the same time I realized that my own stuff was very much coming up because academics were very, very like it was really front of mind for my parents, well, particularly my mother, with me in particular, because you know, when a parent decides that you are very clever or you must be very clever and you must be very academic. And then that sense of like that fear of failure, like it was so interesting to notice my emotions around a time of reports and stuff like that, and realizing, oh, like I'm projecting my own experience of that, and we were just had a much more relaxed attitude about reports. You know, I used to be like terrified of punishment or terrified of you know getting in trouble, being screamed at, being shamed for not being the kid who came home with like an A, and it's like it was either, well, how come you didn't get like a hundred percent, or did you cheat?

SPEAKER_00 7:43

Neither of which feels very good. No.

SPEAKER_01 7:46

And I'm still in that, the unlearning that pressure, the high expectations, and finding somewhere between that where you are allowed to want things or to want to do well at something, but without it needing to be your identity, where it doesn't feel like the whole world is falling apart if you, you know, you're not basically scholar of the month or scholar of the year.

SPEAKER_00 8:12

It's so hard, isn't it? Because it's that thing about wanting to try hard and do well and attain something, but have it come from the right place, not have it come from like an external that says to you, I will only love you if, I will only value you if, and have that come from somewhere inside you that says that actually it is important to me to do this thing. I think that sort of self-connection piece can be extraordinarily difficult in getting to that place of what do I want? What do I desire? What's important to me about this, rather than what have I heard my whole life about what's important to me about this?

SPEAKER_01 8:47

Yeah, it's the it's the programming, and it's it's having to really get closer and closer to our why, because it's so interesting that we can start out with the very best of intentions with something, and then our programming kicks in. And before we know it, like I always say, I can really want to do something and come come at it from a place of joy initially, and then I'll get my people-pleasing and perfectionist myths all over that thing, and I will strangle the life out of it. So I have to be really mindful of where that pushing, striving energy comes in, but also where there's that sense of, oh, but I've got to do this and I've got to do that, and you gotta get it at that level, and you're kind of tweaking, tweaking and pushing, pushing. It's like, no, like that's that's my emotional baggage coming up. That is not really my wanting to do something.

SPEAKER_00 9:40

Yeah, and you can notice it now, like you can see the difference between what's deeply intentional, like what's deeply, deeply matters to you, and what's striving in a way that is unhealthy for you.

SPEAKER_01 9:52

Yeah, and that has been oof, like it's so funny. Like you you notice it and you really try to pay attention to it, but it can still creep upon you in various different ways with like a work in progress because you're constantly peeling back the programming. Because sometimes you don't even know that the programming is the programming. And also sometimes something feels like it's something you really want or that it you you really need it, but actually it's somebody else's wanting and needing. And sometimes it takes you going and doing the thing to realize, oh no, no, no, this is not for me. And that's all part of the discernment and learning because we can't always come at it from the sort of the logical or the intellectual, or even from the like I'm somebody who journals a lot, and you can, you know, bump up against your truths in that, but in the living of your life, you're still gonna experiment and sometimes come a cropper on things that you do, because that's part of the, oh, okay, so that really is true for me, or okay, no, it's time to let that one go.

SPEAKER_00 10:58

I want to come back to this because there's something that we do want to talk to you about, which is about how we learn and how we keep on learning. So this sort of false narrative, I think, that we have sometimes around well-being and particularly self-help, that you get to a certain place and, you know, we're done. Let's move on now. Um, and I do want to come back to that, but I also I'm conscious that I have this very important question to ask you, which is around the thought that you've kept. And there's two reasons actually that I really wanted to talk to you. And one is that one of my previous guests, Gabrielle Trina, brought a thought that you had given her, which is I get to be here. And I loved that. I loved that you had shared this with her and she had taken on this thought, and it had really helped her navigate a moment of shifting in her own life. And I wanted to talk to you because you have this was astounding to me, one of the longest-running self-help blogs. Like you started in 2005, which is extraordinary. And you have written multiple books, you have this extraordinarily wonderful podcast, you have thought about ideas, how to be a person, how to be in the world. So I'm really fascinated by what is the thought that you've kept? What is the thing that has really shaped your own life and your own experience of yourself?

SPEAKER_01 12:15

You know, right up until probably just over an hour ago, I was like, Oh, is it gonna be this? Is it gonna be this? And it's funny because I was listening to another episode of your podcast, and somebody was saying, Oh, like, you know, you almost feel like you want to have like the right thought. And it's like, but it's not really about what what people will expect of you to, you know, in terms of the Ford, it's about what has stayed with you, and it doesn't have to be like perfect. And so, as I said, uh up until an hour ago, I actually thought it was going to be something else, and then I remembered that there is something that is niggled, and it's so funny because I I read it at the beginning of a book that I actually didn't fully read, which makes it all the more brilliant, and so it was this book called Financial Recovery by Karen McCall. And it is in the it's in the forward. I got this wisdom from the forward. This it's only I don't even know if I call it wisdom. It was oh well, I'll tell you what it is. Um it was by John Bradshaw, he was writing the forward for her book, and he said, Do the work that you were intended to do, and your money worries will cease. And he experienced that thought when he was he used to do five-mile runs, I think three or four times a week, and one day he went way beyond his five miles and he got into that flow state, which I can remember from when I was training for the marathon, which seems like a long time ago now. But he got into a flow state where you're just like in your body, you're not really thinking about much, and this thought just dropped in. Um, and it it felt really powerful. Now, the funny thing is is that when I read this, I was also like I was doing a lot of running um at the time, but I think that it has stayed with me because I've gone through like I've been I was perimenopausal for for nine years and now being in menopause for just over a year. But over that period, I have done a lot of self-questioning and wondering you know, that thing that we do. Am I under my path? Is this what I'm supposed to be doing? Is this my calling? Maybe I should be doing something else. And it's it's so funny that I did not read that book. I always keep intending to read it, but this line has it pops into my head frequently. Like I'm not saying necessarily saying every day, but for something that I read at the beginning of a book, probably seven, eight years ago, it has popped in and I I realized that yes, it is about it's about money, but I also felt that it was about so much more. I felt that it was about integrity and congruence and following your light and getting out of that sense of oh, well, I've decided that I'm doing this, so I've just got to make this be the thing and make this work, and opening ourselves up to other possibilities, with the irony being that it kept niggling in different ways, and I kept interpreting it in different ways because this is this is the joy of things that stay with you, is that it can take on different meanings at different times, and it is only relatively recently when it's really kind of dropped in, and it's like, okay, you can let go of certain things and give yourself permission to do stuff in a different way. But that's from a niggling thought that has persisted over like several years.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Isn't it fascinating how it works that there is the expectation that we read the whole book, we spend time with the author, we this is what I would imagine, we read all their interviews. We really like consume a person and their ideas, isn't it? But often it is a line. It is a line that stays with us. It's this thing that because that holds some resonance and that and I like that niggling. I mean it's maddening, but I like that niggling quality to something. That it's just it's not sitting there, but it's sitting there, and you're like, what is this and what is it about it? And there's that questioning to it. Like it doesn't have to be the big moment of epiphany, like it doesn't have to be like, you know, I suddenly have complete clarity. What it can be is like, I am now living with this question, and that question isn't answered, but I know there's a question here for me, and I know there's something here for me. When you were sitting with it and hearing it, was that a piece about that you're not doing the work that you're intended to do? Was it that you didn't know what that work was? What was that? What was in that like the the niggly gap of it?

SPEAKER_01 16:47

Well, what's so interesting is so as you said, I started bankage reclaim in September 2005, and that felt like this is my calling, this is the work I was intended to do. I am doing this, and I got a lot of joy out of it, and I still do, but I over this last decade I've been in and out of what do they call that? Like that road of trials, you know, where I think they refer to that, is it in the hero's journey or heroin's journey?

SPEAKER_00 17:15

It's the hero's journey, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:16

Yeah, and you know, basically you kind of you feel like you've kind of gone off the path, you're coming up against yourself, you know, your various foes. It's the wrestle really within yourself, and you go through these different, these various struggles, difficulty, challenges, and through that you'll end up being more into yourself, you know, you get clearer about what matters. But I think maybe part of why this stuck with me is because it's really interesting to feel like you have a calling that there's definitely there was something not even almost something gifted in it. Like I've taken my own experiences and used that to help many other people around the world. And I stumbled into it. You know, I started off by writing a personal blog, then a year after that I started baggage reclaim. So, you know, in in June, I would have been blogging for 22 years, or you know, online writing 22 years, I don't call it blogging, and baggage reclaim will be 21 in the autumn. But I think that because I was finding the business of doing this tricky, it really stopped me in my tracks when I heard what he was saying, because then I was like, oh my God, does this mean that I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing? Like, shouldn't it be easeful? And so there was that questioning that it brought from it because then it was like, oh my gosh, like should I be doing something else? Which is a question that has come at me in various different guises. Now, to be fair, like I'm 48, I'll be 49 in the summer. I grew up in a time where there was this sense of you work the same thing until you're 65 and then you get your gold watch and your VCR. Now, obviously, that is not the the life that we are living now. But of course, our programming is is from all the way back then. And so I don't, I've never bought into that. I I always thought the idea of staying in the one place until you're 65 or whatever, I always found that a bit like, really? But at the same time, isn't it interesting that when we're working for ourselves or doing our own thing, that we can create our own version of that where we just assume that everything will stay the same forever and ever more and that you'll want it the same, it'll look the same, you'll just basically want to get up each day, you know, write, make podcasts, whatever else. And it was like, oh my god, like how ridiculous is it that I even on some level thought that I would just be satisfied. Not that it was about dissatisfaction, but why wouldn't I want something different along the way? And that's that question, and then hearing what what he he said in this book, it kept something kept coming at me, going, am I doing what I'm supposed to be doing? Now the supposed to bit, I was always always find that quite interesting as as I I pay attention to words like you and the supposed to yeah, it always crosses a little bit with should, which I tread carefully with. So I it's not really about what I should be doing in that very sort of oppressive sense. It was what if there's more to what I think I can be doing than I already am. Like, what if the way I'm doing it was one expression of it, but there are other potential expressions that I am blocking myself off from because I feel like, oh, what well, this is the thing. And then tapping into your the academic and the the sort of the perfectionism, for me, there was also this sense of, well, you can't and of course can't is in the same thing as the shoulds, but you can't go off and do something else if you haven't, if you haven't quote unquote like made it like super successful, the other thing's super successful first. So you gotta get that all sorted and tied it up. And it's like what if there were of course there were different ideas of success, and success isn't always like super financial. And don't get me wrong, like it's not like I haven't like had my financial successes with work, but I found it really tricky at times business-wise. Sometimes all you want to do is just make shit. But yeah, just sometimes all you want to do is is make shit, put it out there, share, help, serve, and not be like, oh my god. And and of course we internalize a lot of stuff along the way about what it is to run a business in this world. And so I think that the wrestle the This reflected in me was like, is there something else? But then being like, no, but it's baggage reclaim and it's this work I'm doing, and like I can't go and let that go. Which it turns out, like I don't have to let that go and be done with it. It's just letting myself have space to do other things that also serve the same aims and light me up in similar ways.

SPEAKER_00 22:24

It's interesting because my sense of you before talking to you was something around longevity of an idea. Like one of the things externally that I was seeing was this idea that you know the longest running blog, this podcast that you've had, this work that you've done consistently around people pleasing. And it's interesting to hear that there is something on that that has served you and has maybe not served you, that there is something about that tenacity and that keeping on going and the striving that we mentioned at the beginning. They're like, well, it's been built, I've created this, it exists, it has to live. Like it has to live, and it probably has to live in a similar form at the be that I set out for it to live. And also the questioning that sits and has sat alongside that. And I'm wondering how you kind of receive that idea about the longevity piece and what that has offered you, if anything.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

Oh, yeah. So the longevity piece has uh it's funny because there's there's light and shade to everything. So the longevity piece has has is is actually important to me. It's really funny. So yesterday, yesterday I was in Tesco, as you do, popped in to run a quick errand, so I'm at the checkouts, and a woman approaches me and she says, I just want to say uh thank you for everything that you do. And she then just goes on to explain, just you know, that she my work has really touched her and she said, I think it's important to tell you this because it's very easy to forget how much of an impact you're making on people. And just she doesn't want to sound weird, but you know, I've seen you here in Tesco a few times, but I've been afraid to come over. But then you were right here beside me, and I was like, let me come over and introduce myself. And I felt tingles sort of rush up in my body. Now I have experiences like this, whether it's online or in person. People will say to me, Oh my god, now quote back something I've written or or that I've said, you know, on a podcast or wherever. And um, and I'll be like, Yeah, and I I have created so much, I've written so much, I've said so much that I sometimes forget what I have said. Also, because honestly, it's it's often felt like it's it's I mean, I I don't want to call it channeled, but I know that that's what some people would would would maybe call it, but like where I sit down to write, and there was a a good long stretch where there was stuff just pouring out of me. And I've shared various different ideas over a long period. And I when I try to think back, like where did that idea come from? I can't even tell you. I can't tell you like how I decided to say, you know, love, care, trust, and respect in that order, you know, or I can't tell you when I decided, you know, to start saying I always deserve love, care, trust, and respect, or I always deserve more than crumbs, or where the idea for like the five landmarks of healthy relationships, or I mean, I do remember how I came up with future faking and things like that, but the point is the longevity is it is important to me, but the shade side of it is that it can become the rod for your back because you can look at it and go, yeah, but like I I've been doing this for like 20 years, well almost 21 years, or actually when you factor in the year of personal blood, like 22 years, and it can also you feel it honestly like baggage reclaim is older than my children, and it's not that I see baggage reclaim as a as a as a child, but it is something that has been in my life since I was 28, I think. Yeah, 27, I think, actually. It's it's been in my life like all that time, and so there is this we were in a relationship with each other, and I have all of this the I often ask myself the question, like, you know, what what will I do with all of this work in the future? But if there is a gift to share with people, but I also have to allow myself to move on in in different ways. We were talking about our children, we'll go off to university, for instance, and we will also move on in different ways. We're still mothers, we still have our kids, but life will shift around itself and we will have to exist in a different way. Like life has been different since my eldest went off to university last year, and in the same way, it was that sort of realization that I can still have that longevity with baggage reclaim. And and I've been being described as prolific by people, like just the sheer amount of stuff that was shared. But the thing that I learned with that that was part of the rod for your back is that you you need to respect respect your creativity, because what can happen is you can be putting all of this stuff out, not even just for creativity, actually, and it's it's a part of the respect in the self, respect in the creativity, respect in the process. But it was like you're just putting all of this stuff out there, and I would I wouldn't even remember like some of the stuff. You just move on, move on, move on, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And when I really started to re-examine my relationship and work over the last decade, I realized that a lot of the stuff that I had internalized around my worthiness was in academics and perfectionism, over-responsibility, so this sense of, well, you started this thing, and so you have to serve the people who like it, and it doesn't matter about what you need. Um, you need to be brilliant. Um, you need to like if you're gonna move on to something else, you have to make, you have to fix every little thing that you that needs fixing or tweaking, tidy up, whatever it might be. And gradually that has unraveled over the last several years. That's trauma that is pushing at me to do those things. That's not coming from a place of desire, and actually it had a real impact on my sense of joy with work and my sense of connection to it, because there was this constant feeling of, well, that's not quite good enough yet. That could be better. You need to bring that up to an A plus standard, even though actually at wherever it was, it was changing. And in some cases, as many people have said to me, saving lives at wherever it was, and yet there was this sense of I was treating it like it wasn't good enough, which inadvertently is like treating yourself like you're not good enough. There are different ways to be, we have different chapters in our lives, and sometimes the way we see something, so for instance, the way we see the problem is the problem. And I think for me, where I realized the a blind spot had emerged was that, you know, going back to what I'd said, do the work that you were intended to do and your money worries will cease. Putting aside the money, uh I'm more thinking about the the being intended to do. And I realized that the blind spot was that you can be intended to do various things, and it's not just like one true line, and you're not abandoning the other thing, like actually that can be folded into this other channel. Yeah, sometimes it is that you just move on entirely from that and you're done. I've seen that with people actually online that they've done various things and they're like, right, I'm done. I'm gonna go off and do this other thing.

SPEAKER_00 30:08

It's interesting that you mentioned that idea about like giving something up in a sense, because sometimes I feel the shock of that. I don't know whether you experienced that that way too, but I I have seen people make those, not even like those tiny pivots, but those massive changes, and say, okay, that was that part of my life. I have shifted into this other part of my life, and I can feel in me that visceral shock of wait, you get to do that. Like there's a real weight you get to do that. And that is my programming, which is you show up, you keep going, you make it work, like you make it work, and that tenacity I've always seen or I have seen as a gift. And also I'm becoming increasingly aware of the shadow of it, that that maybe you know, the freedom that might come with the like I've done that now. Let's shift, let's move on. And it made me think about there was something that I started to notice in your work recently that this letting go quality that's coming in. Like I've sort of seeing you, like you've written about this, you have been talking about this, and this idea that maybe we don't need to have all the control. And maybe it's enough to you're laughing. And maybe it's enough to just see what happens. That doesn't feel like enough, like weight enough for me as an idea, but it totally is weight enough as an idea that we can just in a sense see what happens, and that I think you've talked about this sort of set safety and security and just holding on so tightly, and there's a sort of protective quality to it. And there is something in that in this, the the letting-go-ness of everything. And I just wonder if you might take us through that experience of sort of moving from that tight quality of holding on to allowing for something else. And maybe for something else you don't even know what it's intended to be.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

Oh, yeah. I mean, when you were saying that, obviously you saw me laughing, and it's because, like, oh the I am programmed to want to be in control of all the things. And that comes from a childhood where I felt so out of control in in a myriad of ways that my way of learning to be in control was the people-pleasing and the perfectionism and the overgiving and the overthinking and the over-responsibility. Just do do the familiar, do the known things, everything will be okay. And it's like the thing that I often say is, you know, is it that you like have this really high attention to detail? Is it that you like are fastidious about timekeeping, or is it trauma? That's not to say that you know, wanting to be, for instance, on time or the attention to detail that those are terrible things, but where does it come from? In that same period over this last 10 years, I found myself that just felt like there was I was in this wrestle, was in this road of trials. Like, honestly, something would come along and I'd be like, oh my gosh, like what now, universe? Like, why have I not learned enough? Have I not been through this thing enough already? And then I go, Natalie, you know the deal here because you talk to people about this stuff all the time, and you know that it's going to come back at you because there's another level to go at. And how would you know that you've actually learned what you've learned unless it comes back at you again in another form and you get to, you know, go again? And so one of those times was that my father had been diagnosed with cancer in the 20s in the summer of 2016, and then it became apparent he was not gonna make it. And what was so interesting was to see like all the control stuff come up, and I was like, well, but when? Like, well, how long has he got? And when is it gonna be? And this was like the the sort of the concentrated thought. And then one day, remember it was in my kitchen, it was in the winter, and I was upset, like, but when and is it gonna be done? And how can I possibly organise my life and blah blah blah? And then I just heard like it sounded like it was coming from outside of myself, but it was me. And it was like, why do you need to know when he's going to die? Like, what difference would that make? Because I could know when he's gonna die, and I'm still gonna freak out about it, and be like, so it could be like, oh, like it it could have told me he is going to die on March 28th, uh at 5 50 p.m. And I could have then just spent all that time in between, like, oh my god, freaking out, and but you don't know. And so what I had to lean into was the not knowing I had to surrender, and this lesson kept coming back at me in different uh ways. So, like last year I was diagnosed with cancer after having a hysterectomy, and the irony being that I had already agreed agreed to this book project to let go a few months before when I was getting ready to have a surgery, and I'd seen it as, oh, I'm going to like recover from my hysterectomy, I was gonna chill, and then I can noodle on my ideas for this book. And four weeks after the surgery, I go I get a cancer diagnosis, and I then have to wait to find out if it has spread. And I remember it was probably about a week after, because the the first week was horrific um after getting the diagnosis. Like I it was just it was horrendous. I couldn't sleep, could barely eat, I was so scared. And then I remember I actually started laughing my head off one day, and I said, You couldn't make this shit up. You agree to write a book about letting go and surrendering, and then you get diagnosed with cancer, and you are now waiting on this thing. It was so I actually start like I was in fits of laughter um from it, and I was like, life is really funny, and now I have scanned, have to be scanned for 10 years, and at the moment it's better be three to four months, mine space out slightly afterwards, but basically I'll be doing this for 10 years, and I was like, Oh, I see what you're doing there, life. Good old professor life, because I have been pushed into a place where I went for a period last year where it was like, I just don't know how much uncertainty I can handle. If I've got this uncertainty with my health, I need more certainty with work. And then I thought to myself, but you didn't have certainty before you had the diagnosis either. It's a false sense of it, but it's like now that I know that I'm navigating this thing. And so what that's done for me is ironically, I wrote the book about letting go and all these different experiences that have taught me about surrendering and the my obsessing about being in control of things, even though that's not what you think you're doing, it's all the things that you do that you think is just part of being you. So it's like, well, these are the things that Claire does because this is, you know, this is how Claire's learned to do things. And you don't realize that some of those things are actually about controlling the uncontrollable. So it's like maybe it's trying to control other people's opinions of you, maybe it's just controlling the environment and your sense of feeling like at ease and safety. Maybe it's about like, no, no, no, I don't want to be in control of that. So trying to control, not being in control of the thing, or sometimes you're trying to control being in control of the thing. And see what I kept learning again and again is Natalie, you have learned to be the is this particular way because you think that you are in control of this thing, and life keeps coming back at you and going, Girl, you are not in control. In fact, the other thing that I often hear, because this could have easily been the other one, is that line from Ghost, which is my joint favorite film of all time with Coming to America, is when Odame brand says, Molly, you're in danger, girl. Like that line has stayed with me, like my entire life. So that is that sort of pops up periodically where you can just I can see Oda May Brand, Whoopi Goldberg, just being like, Natalie, you're in danger, girl. And so you will hear that, and that's what will crop up for me with this sort of control thing. And so last week, uh I and I thought, oh, the timing of this, because I'm talking to Claire. So I went to a workshop called the third chapter immersive, a friend of mine, Remy Baker, runs it. And so that midlife women, and it's like figure, you know, when I say figuring out, this is the space, she held space for us to really just get a sense of where are we at now, where have we been, and where might we want to go. I thought a lot about letting go because I had to write about it last year. But the irony was that I finished writing a book, and then I realized I was learning so much more after writing the book, and I was like, the first thing was having to, so I am an author of several books, but I realized after I'd already written the book, I was like, I over-identified with being an author, and I need to let that go. I will always be a writer, but I need to let that go because what happens when you over-identify with anything. So I know people who really over-identify with being a mother. And I'm not saying it's a terrible thing, just like it wasn't a terrible thing for me to over-identify being an author, but what it does is it narrows your view because you have in your head what it is to be this particular thing. And when you over-identify with it, it becomes like, oh, this is your defining thing. So that defines what you perceive as your options. And that means that when you bump up against things that are difficult, when things are not going the way that you expect, you will not allow yourself to consider other things because it's like, but no, like this is what a good mother does. Or in my case, it was like, oh, but like, you know, they're also like these things should be happening. You know, you and I were talking about publishing earlier on. And so what, you know, you think, oh, I, you know, you you get the book deal, and you think all these different things are going to happen. It doesn't, but you do see it happening for other people. So there's a part of your brain going, well, hold on a second, like, how come that didn't happen for me? And then it's like, oh, uh, but I should be doing this, I should be doing that. And you've now put so much of your energy into this thing that you you feel like you need to try to make some other things. So it's that theme again. I've put some energy into this thing. I feel like I need to make it better than it is, rather than realizing, okay, well, it hasn't shaped out to be the way that it is. We don't have to make it out to be a terrible thing. It's just not going to be the plan that we thought it was. What if we let go of that version of things and breathe out and go, okay, well, what can be here instead? So I had to let go of this author identity because it was really, it was constraining me. It was bringing a lot of angst. I never had angst about being a writer, but the author thing seemed to bring just a lot of compare and despair and like, oh, like burba, but like I was like bored of myself, like thinking about the publishing experience. The other thing then, in all this letting go, is I was pointed out to me by a few different people because I was raging. I went to Macmillan for like six weeks of counseling to help me process the diagnosis. I had there's a lot that I needed to process, and a lot of it was feeling like I was in a bad dream, and I just basically wanted to wake up and go back to my life before I had the surgery and the diagnosis. And she said, That Natalie is dead. And I was like, whoa. And then I was like, oh, and she isn't was not the first person, like a few of the people said it in different guises. And it is, and it this can this doesn't have to be just about cancer or illness or whatever. When we're like ruminating about all these things that we think we're supposed to be doing, and oh, I've got to go and fix that thing before I allow myself to have the permission to go and do that thing. What if the version of you that did those things? Yes, she, yes, she's within you, but what if like that's moved on now? Like that version of you is done, and it is what can you, what are you now? What might you want to be in in future? And so at first I was like, oh, because the part of me is like, oh yeah, but if I could just go back to before, I didn't even know I had cancer when I had the hysterectomy. So even if I went back to the day before the operation, I would still be nicely with cancer. I have no idea when I had the cancer, so I can't go back to how it was. All this stuff has happened, I cannot change it. And that has then permeated into the rest of my life. So I'm at this workshop last week, and I realized that it's like I have to upset the thing that I have been fighting against, which is I don't have to fix and tweak and all of these various different things before I get to do other things. I am an artist. I have been saying that about myself in various ways, but not really allowing myself to fully integrate into that. So it's like little hints and pockets of it here and there. And I would be like, oh, I think about art all the time, I think about my art practice all the time, but it's like, oh, I need to go and do that thing. And I basically never have, I was never having time, I say never, but like over the last few months, for instance, I've barely touched anything. And I came out of that workshop and I was like, I need to prioritize my art practice. I have to stop fighting this. This has been a niggle for for what's felt like the longest time. And it's like my brain has gone, yeah, we do really, really want that thing, but get all your other shit sorted out first. I get that right first. And look, I get it. Like we have financial concerns, like I have financial concerns and stuff. But I'll tell you something, my going and doing things the other way wasn't exactly like making everything hunky dory and perfect either. So, what if there's just another way and you have to feel your way into like the unknowing of it and the darkness of it? Well, or can you also see it as the lightness of it? And it's like what becomes possible when you commit? When you allow yourself to go, I'm going to prioritize this thing. And the fact that you prioritize something doesn't mean that you're going, right, well, everything else is cast out. It's you're aligning, you're coming into integrity with what matters. That doesn't mean that I don't like baggage reclaim is abandoned, but I realize I keep on flipping nearly 21 bleeding years of my life to this. I'm allowed to want to do different things. And what's so interesting is as soon as I made the decision, my brain started to reorient itself around this decision. Because then it was going, okay, well, if art's gonna be like the majority of your time, okay, well, this you'll do this at this time, you know, after that. So art always comes first now. Like I unless. No, no, no. I've said that art comes first, and then the the other types of work come after. So it's like, okay, well, this is when you've done all that, that's when you get to do this thing. So now that it's not that that's the afterthought, but it's the thing that is around this rather than my art being the afterthought, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 45:03

It absolutely does. I have a million questions around that, but I'm actually just gonna go to one. Do you think that art is what you intended to do?

SPEAKER_01 45:12

Yeah. Yeah. I I'm really I I had a realization, say two, three days ago. So I grew up in in Ireland. I was born here in England, but I grew up mostly in Ireland. And I grew up in, I mean, Ireland is a very, very creative um country, um, anyway, a very very literary country actually, but it's very creative full stuff. Um, but I grew up in a very creative part of um Ireland um in Dublin, and I went to school in Dorkey, which is like where they have like the Dorkey Book Festival, but there's like lots of like so much creativity around there. But I went to art school every Friday from 13 through to 18 in Dorkey. I made art all the way through childhood. I read, I'm a heavy, heavy reader, so I don't ever remember not being able to read. I didn't grow up aspiring to be an author, and that only I've only fully tweaked that a couple of days ago. That is something that happened along the way. In is you know what happens, you start doing something, and like, oh, well, have you got a book deal yet because you're a blogger and so I self-published, and that that felt very in integrity with me, but it was like, oh, but that's the next thing along the way. It's like you've arrived. I had always wanted, I'd always wanted to make art from when I was a kid. Funny enough, I always loved writing as a kid. I read poetry, but art. I I had actually, yeah, art was what it had always been about. But it and it's so funny, it has come a calling so many times, and I've just been like, yeah, but not now because I'm doing this. Yeah, but not now. Oh, but is that path to go? Well, where but about the money? And I'm like, oh my gosh, like Natalie, why am I fighting why continue fighting this? When when you get told that you that you have cancer, that you've had cancer, you you have the catastrophic thinking. And the first things you think about, let me tell you, is not work. The first things you think about is your loved ones. It's you like I was like, oh my god, I I I I want to be here. Like, I want to be around. And so then you have like this fear of dying and this fear of not being around, and you imagine that you're gonna have like, you know, like you'll be sort of galvanized into action, gonna sort out my work, and that's not what happens because in my case I froze. But then I spent I was so afraid, it felt like I was living in quarters last year, like the scans and all that type of thing. I came into this year, and the other day I said to myself, what's the feckin' point in being terrified of dying and and saying you don't want to, you know, you don't want to get, you know, you know, you want to be here, you want to be around. If you're also gonna be terrified of living and you're just gonna be tweaking and okay, fix this and sort sort everything. I've got to sort everything out because what if I go to this appointment and they tell me that I've got cancer again and I've got to have treatment. So I've got to get the business right before I allow myself to make art. And it's like, I understand that thinking, but it's also pretty messed up. And and I say that with compassion for myself, not with like judgment. It was like, actually, Natalie, make your art now. Like, make your art now, let everything else sort itself out around it. Other solutions will present itself because the way that you've been looking at this over the last, not even just the last year, but in different guises over the last several years, it's not working. So let it go. It doesn't make me wrong, it doesn't make me foolish, it doesn't mean I failed. It's like there's another way.

SPEAKER_00 48:36

That sounds like such a relief in that. Like I'm just hearing this absolute freedom of choosing that. And I see with creativity again and again how it can be the hardest thing to choose. I used to work in the art world, I worked with artists, I worked on exhibitions, and I have seen frequently how the thing that we long to do, the calling, is the thing that we never get to. And also how that can be generational. So I've also seen like my daughter is extraordinarily creative. I think she's an artist, and I there have been generations there that have turned it down again and again and again. And my hope for her is the not turning down the thing. So it makes me very excited for you personally to hear you go through that and to think there is this.

SPEAKER_01 49:37

I can't fight it anymore. I just and it does you know, it's it's so funny. We often imagine that when we're fighting something that it feels very obviously like fighting, and sometimes that is the case, but sometimes it's the rationalizations, like being very like very reasonable and logical and practical that is the fighting. It's the yeah, but no, not now. Yeah, it is not now not now. And I'm like, no, uh, I I just I can't anymore. And the freedom and the relief of that, and uh, and yeah, there's been it's the same thing in my family where that there's been that talent, but it has been pushed away. Um, and I don't want to, and you know, my eldest, she is at university doing illustration and animation, and it lit lit me up that she wanted to do that, not for me. That's just so she's just followed what she feels like doing. And I remember my husband being like, Oh, but is that practical? And I was like, No, we're we're not doing that. Like it is practical because it's what she feels called to do. And now he's like, once we started doing university tours, it really like it was like, oh, like I totally get this now. But he just saw it in that very sort of academic, very practical way. And it was only when he was in those spaces where they were talking about different types of things that you can go and do with that, he's like, oh wow, like there's like a world of opportunity there. But it's like I need to give also that to myself. And and and the funny thing is, is I can't turn off whatever it is that I have been expressing through the work I've already done over this last couple of decades. It's just gonna show up in other forms. It doesn't have to be always like the blog and blah, blah, blah. Like I can do it, it's just expressed in a different way. Just allowing myself to be, I want to be playful, I want to, I want to enjoy myself and just not keep restricting.

SPEAKER_00 51:33

All right, Natalie, with that in mind, I want to try something with you. So, you know, I said at the beginning we were going to do these five words, and we were going to go through the five words from your book. I wonder whether we take the energy you're bringing now, which I'm so excited for, like I totally feel it, and we see what comes up with those five words with this. Would that be interesting? I just because I what I don't want to do is take you back. And I wonder whether this happens sometimes. That author framework, you know, there is a tendency that, you know, as somebody who's hosting you, that I want to honor the work that you've done too. Like I want to take you back to your book. I want you to, I want everybody who's listening to read your book. And also, you're also bringing this whole other perspective on it, in a sense. Like you really are bringing this whole other way of being in relationship to your work, your practice, your life's works, your calling. And I feel if I just went back to that and just said, tell me about gooding, we're gonna lose some of that, yeah. That kind of, you know, that quality to it. But I do think there's something, as you're even speaking to this, that is around all these things about how do we step into the thing? How do we step into the enughness of something? So let's see if this even works. There are five words in the book, and the reason that I actually wanted to bring these is that many of them I am aware of, many of them I've never heard of in that context before. So if we're thinking about let's try and keep it in the framework of calling or intention or about who we are and who we want to be. And what if we start with efforting? Because there there is something around around this for me, particularly with the creativity, that I think is really fascinating. And I say that because creativity can feel like something that we strive to do, but it's not the thing, if that makes sense. So it's like it's allowed in certain ways. Our efforts are to be rewarded in other places, right? But probably not in creativity, not. What would efforting mean in this context, do you think, for you?

SPEAKER_01 53:37

I think that it is that we ignore ourselves with the pushing and the striving and sort of being like, oh, you know, gotta throw the effort at it. You know, if you do enough, if you put in enough effort, if you give it 100%, then you know, you will get the results. So if you if it if it feels easy, then you're probably not giving it enough effort. And so I think that in the context of this work that we're talking about, it is about letting it be easy. Like, don't make it unnecessarily hard for ourselves. Like the fact that it feels hard doesn't necessarily mean that we're actually putting in the best of ourselves. We just might be setting ourselves up into a trap. Like, what if we reflect on what would we allow ourselves to do if we gave ourselves permission to not always be on a struggle bus? I mean, I don't know. What would we do? It's it's because there is this thing of like, and I've had these thoughts myself, like when you think about, for instance, allowing yourself to do the things you feel called to do. Oh, but that just feels that almost feels too easy. It almost feels too obvious. And then there's also, and I notice some of these thoughts creep in, like, even in just like what I'm on day 10 or whatever, being you know, fully committed, and it's like, yeah, but like you're gonna like what about you basically you almost want to impose the the art version of the publishing industry on it. Oh well, like you're gonna have to like do da da da da da da and pour out of the thing. It's like, no, you're not gonna do that, Natalie, because you're gonna suck the joy out of this thing before it's even like took up. You can chart your path in this however you want to do it, and you don't have to follow the formulaic routes.

SPEAKER_00 55:25

And in a sense, what you could be doing then, because it's there's some sort of comfort in efforting, what you could be doing then is bringing back the friction that is familiar to you, the friction that does make it hard. So the art practice might be the easy thing for you, the friction might be occupying a space as an artist in an industry that expects certain things from you. Yeah. And so you could reinsert those things if efforting is the place that you want to go to. Not you don't want to go to that, but it's familiar enough to to you that you would want to return to it because of its safety.

SPEAKER_01 55:57

Yeah, absolutely. That does that does make total, total sense. Like that you could it's like when you become self-employed because you want to have freedom and flexibility, and you're tired of all the red tape or whatever that you deal with, the bureaucracy at work, and then you become the worst boss you ever had, and you impose all of that bureaucracy and red tape on yourself.

SPEAKER_00 56:20

So if you're in the avoiding space with this, what would that look like?

SPEAKER_01 56:26

The avoiding space of it is there's a duality with things because, for instance, our efforting ways have have helped us out in in various ways, but there's obviously a shade to that. With the avoiding, when you're faced with really paying attention to what you feel called to do, leaning into yourself, there is going to be that fear of one discomforting yourself by allowing yourself to prioritize what matters to you, but also because you feel like you're going to be discomforting others, like who am I to want to do this thing? What if my pursuit of what makes me light up, what I think matters to me, this path that I want to go on? What if that upsets other people or ruffles their feathers and I don't meet their expectations? Um, and then you're in it, and I think there just there could be that temptation to uh avoid it's like, okay, I'll do it, but I'm gonna kind of just do it in the safe way, follow the expected path, because then, and of course, it's still not gonna, there's still gonna be an avoiding in there because it's like that fear of conflict, that fear of criticism, that fear of discomforting. But actually, if we allow the the fear of the criticism, or if we allow that sense of the potential for criticism and the conflict and for the discomfort to actually be something that we can what's the word I'm looking for, but like turn that into something that we can utilize in our practice, that we could actually really kind of turn that on its head and really allow ourselves to come forth and allow whatever it is that we're leaning into to come forth as well.

SPEAKER_00 58:07

Yeah, because that also speaks to that relational piece, isn't it? Because we can know what we were intended to do. We can really choose our calling, and other people have thoughts about that, other people have expectations and are making assumptions of how you were spending your time, how you're showing up, what happens to this legacy that you've had in other domains of your life. And so it's not in isolation, like the things that we hope for, the things that we intend to bring in, in a sense, there is that the point that it meets ourselves and how we accept that of ourselves, but it's also the point that that meets the world and how we what we do with that piece of it and that kind of confrontation piece, or maybe the acceptance, hopefully, piece on that side too.

SPEAKER_01 58:50

Yeah, because we we are in relationship with everything. And I think when we find ourselves sort of in that wrestle with ourselves, but also just that fear of like, oh my gosh, what will people think? When we hear that, like, what will people think? What will people do? It's like, hold on a second, what is that that's showing up for me there? Um, and we don't we don't have to hate on ourselves for noticing that we're having these thoughts. They only make us human because we're all carrying around this stuff, but we it is being conscious of, oh, that's interesting. That when I think about doing something for myself, when I think about pursuing this thing, these are the thoughts that show up. Like I'm going to be displeasing others. Why might that be? And having that curiosity about that can lead us again closer to what we are intended to do.

SPEAKER_00 59:35

I'm conscious of the time, so I would like to offer you one of the three. So suffering, saving, or gooding. Which of those would you think, as the recovering people pleaser that you are, would come up as you're choosing the work that you're intended to do?

SPEAKER_01 59:53

Uh oh, this is a tough call. Really tough call, but I'm going to go with, I'm gonna go with the saving, actually. I'm gonna go with the unexpected one because I was leaning a bit more towards gooding and suffering. But actually, I'm gonna go with saving because there has been this sense of, oh, but like all of these people, like they expect this, you know, they're expecting certain things of you because you've helped them do this thing. And what if you're not helping them? It's like you have this sense of responsibility to others, and that shows up for a lot of people when they realize, oh, I want to change my career or I want to go and do something different. But like, what about these people that expect me to be this way and I'm helping in this way? And what if I can't help in that way anymore because I'm doing this? And it's like actually, what if you actually save yourself through allowing yourself to be like let other like instead of giving so much away of yourself to everybody else, what if you gave some of that to yourself and saved yourself through what you're doing?

SPEAKER_00 1:00:57

Yes, and that's allowed to. That is very much allowed to.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:04

When saving is our is our uh people-pleasing star, like our dominant star, because we can have more than one, we're actually trying to save ourselves through going around fixing, helping, healing, and rescuing others. And it's like, actually, what if you allowed yourself to live your life and that allowed you to heal the thing that you're chasing in others and giving so much of your way yourself away to, you can actually give to yourself?

SPEAKER_00 1:01:28

And I do want to go back to your thought then. So, given where you are and given that it has niggled at you, how do you think it will continue to niggle at you, given what you've just shared, about really stepping into your calling? Do you think you've solved the question?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:46

So I think a part of me would like to think that, but what comes now is the surrendering and trusting. Because it's one thing to to listen, it's another thing to keep listening. So it's like, okay, I finally listened. I'm now going to go and focus on this. But what happens when maybe things are sticky or I have to get you know really vulnerable, or you know, is it gonna be like, okay, I'll go back to the thing that's familiar? It's like like having to trust, even though you don't really know what the path ahead looks like. You like you're taking a step, any step, however imperfect it might be. And it's that that takes a great deal of trust because you already you have the thoughts of, yeah, but Natalie, how are you gonna make money? I don't know. And it's like, okay, like these are vanid questions, but do the work you're intended to do. Like, listen, listen to don't renege on your decision, because what happens a lot is we we make decisions, and because the perfectionism and the people pleasing and all the things kick in, we want to know exactly how things are gonna be. And because we don't, we backtrack on the decision before we've really had a chance for that decision to take hold. But how can we, as ourselves, and even looking at our higher selves, you know, it goes slightly spiritual with that, but how can we, how can life know that we're serious about the thing that we say we're serious about if we backtrack them two seconds later, at the moment that we think, oh, this is not meeting my expectation of how I think things are supposed to be. So I think that the next phase of this is okay, so you finally committed, but have you committed? Like, are you gonna not and it's not that they have to stick to it, like in fact, at Remy's workshop, she said something brilliant, something like, what would you allow yourself to do if you didn't have to be perfect or permanent? And I was like, Woo! Because the way we're thinking about this, I have to know this and it has to be the thing for all time. And it's like, oh, I just need to allow myself to move forward. I need to allow myself to release and let me see what I get to hold on to gently, not vice grip instead.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:51

Natalie, thank you. Thank you for like letting us witness actually today. Like I feel like this conversation is all about really figuring it out very openly, very vulnerably, very honestly. Like some of the things that you are thinking about and you are in a relationship, and that's occupying your life and your thoughts right now. And this sounds like it's it's been really recent for you. And there's a kind of a newness and a tenderness to it as well. So thank you for sharing that too. Thank you for being on the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:18

Thank you for having me, Claire, and giving me the space to explore this sort of like I honestly felt emotional in parts of our conversation. It was a really, really rich conversation, and I I really appreciate you holding space, as they like to say, for it.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:33

So I will leave you with one question that I ask my listeners every week, and it's this one. Will you keep this week's thought? Do the work that you're intended to do, and your money worries will cease. This is such an interesting one, maybe, to try on this week. Like, what's the niggle of this for you? What comes to mind when you think about a calling? What's the thing that is insisting for attention and is saying to you, enough already, I'm right here. Pay attention. So let me know whether this is a thought that you will keep, share, or even forget. And whatever you do with this thought, I would highly, highly recommend that you do read Natalie's book, The Joy of Saying No. Stop people pleasing, reclaim boundaries, and say yes to the life you want. I found it incredibly fascinating. There is so much in it, and you might find yourself underlining passages of it, making loud exclamations as you read it on the tube, going to work, and really making something visible that maybe has been invisible to you for a while that might really help as you overcome your tendency to say yes, or to avoid, or to save others, or to not feel your feelings, or any of the. Above or any of the other things that Natalie goes into. And I would absolutely recommend that you also listen to Natalie's podcast, The Baggage Reclaim Sessions. There are wonderful interviews over there as well. There is so much wisdom and thought and intention. It's a really wonderful resource to really help navigate ideas about letting go and self-worth and chasing and people pleasing and avoiding and saving and all the things as well. So do check out that podcast. I am so grateful that you spent some of your podcast listening moments with me today. I really enjoyed this conversation. If anything came up for you today that you feel like you need more one on one support with, then do come over to if loss. Bye for now.