Making Art in Messy Times [275]
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Hi and welcome to Art Juice. This is honest, generous and humorous conversations to feed your creative soul and get you thinking with me, Louise Fletcher. And me, Alice Sheridan. I just was about to say with me, Alice Sheridan. I know, but I thought it. That's so weird because I thought it. And then you said Louise Fletcher and I thought, no, that's wrong. Oh, hang on. No, that's right.

Maybe. So we're like mind melding. We've been doing this so long. It's the Spock mind meld. So this week, we thought we'd have a chat about, well, basically the world going to hell in a handbasket. Because wherever you live in the world, it does feel like that. Post-COVID, it almost feels like nothing ever got back to normal anywhere. And we've got wars and we've got

politicians telling us how hard life's going to be. That's if you live in the UK and we've got price rises and we've got all sorts. And in America, we've got some people who are very happy about what's happening, some people who are devastated. And the whole thing is just crazy. And we've both had in our groups, a lot of people, a lot of conversation or comments about

what it means to be creative in this. Well, Alice is shaking her head. So I'll say I've had lots of conversations in my groups about people asking, what does it mean to be an artist when everything's happening like this? And wherever you are in the world, you know, when things feel crazy, if I'm unhappy with what's happening, if I'm struggling financially, if other people are struggling financially, if I worry about people in war zones, whatever,

and I can't do anything about it, how can I then be in my studio painting? Or I just can't focus. I'm too worried. Lots of people get really worried about other people or they're reading the news a lot and they get really worried. So it's kind of a general sense of that approach to what's happening when things get... how we handle when things get bad that we thought might be interesting to talk about.

I mean, personally, quite a few years ago, I decided to stop watching the news. Hang on, before we go into this, I think we should preface this with saying that this is not going to be a political conversation. It's not about politics for me. It's more about, and this has always been important, and I think this is an important part of making art, and I think it's part of your role as an artist, is

Part of what you do as an artist is catalyze, if you like,

your responses, whether those be externally sparked responses or internally triggered responses to the world and the world around you. Like if we don't have any of that, if there is no emotion in your work, if there is no source that drives it, it's a bit, quite frankly, it's a bit AI generated and we, you know, no one wants that too.

So for me, this is about learning to understand and harness and use and respond your emotions in a way that takes it into something for good. And when I say good, I don't think it means beautiful or whitewashing or clarifying. There are so many different outcomes that can come as a result of this. What doesn't help is getting into the panic. And that's just a general rule.

human way of navigating our emotions, which I think as adults, we have to put effort into learning how to do. So although there are maybe political situations that triggered this, this is a much broader subject than this. Yes, because the upheaval that makes you feel like you can't create could be a personal one, a family one, an internal one, as well as an external one. And

This is where I was going to with the idea of, for me, not watching the news because it's about what you were just saying. How in a world that's upsetting, whether it's your family or the outside world, do you then control your emotions and then navigate forward? And for me...

If it's a family situation, it's about putting boundaries up where I can and then managing my way through that. And if it's an external situation, it's about putting boundaries up where I can. And one of my boundaries is about not letting all that stuff in all the time. So during COVID, for example, I have a friend who is quite anxious person anyway, and she

he spent a very large amount of his days watching the news, following what was happening every minute, what the case accounts were. And so his reality of COVID was completely different than mine, who wasn't doing that.

Because I wasn't aware of when it was getting better and when it was getting worse and who was dying and all of that. I was just making sure I, if I wanted to wear a mask, I wore a mask when I went out and I mostly, you know, was here anyway, because we're all locked down. And it was just very striking example at that time of how we can live in the same reality and

and have a totally different experience. Because for me, that time was my one of my most creative times, because I wasn't doing all that. And so that goes back to what you were saying about this idea of choosing how to respond. But the question is, that comes to me when I think about this, am I burying my head in the sand when I do that? Like, am I just not

being realistic? Am I just saying, well, I'm fine, so I'll just... But does me watching the case numbers go up help anyone? I mean, to a degree, we all do that in life anyway. I mean, life as a whole has fabulous bits and life as a whole across the world has always had deeply traumatic distressing parts. There is an essential inequality that is

prevalent in all of life and always has been. And I remember having these kind of conversations with my children, particularly as teenagers, but still now about, you know, what direction is the world going in and feeling the same thing from my own teenage. There were various things in my own teenage years that you felt. They felt huge. They felt impactful. They felt like, what is the point? You know, how can we live in the face of all of this? And it's

you know when you're a teenager you don't have the wherewithal quite to to know how to manage it and to put it into perspective and um i mean we were all going to die of aids and the world was going to dissolve in acid rain and yes ours was new a nuclear disaster for me there was a program on tv threads about a nuclear disaster in and the aftermath in sheffield

So it was very realistic. I'm sure it's not if you watch it now, but it was very realistic and felt very real. And I must have been about 12 or something. And I really thought, okay, I'm not going to be an adult. That's it. I'm going to die.

But the interesting thing is it's a deliberate part of growing up. It's a deliberate part of adolescence. It's why like teenagers often get into like really quite extreme science fiction and fantasy because it's an extreme, like we have to face the worst things and let our imaginations run riot into that. But then the second part of it is we have to learn how to manage that and come back to that.

What is the space that we're living in now with an adult view? And it's different parts of your brain in action. There's that absolute immediate fear response part, which is inevitable, but it's still viewed through your lens of your own experience and

what beliefs you hold, which you've learned from previous experiences. So if you tend to relate to things by looking at the worst and approaching things in a nervous or an anxious way, that is the history that you've taught your body to respond to things in. And it's real. I'm not saying it's not real.

But there are also things that you can do that bring yourself back into a state where you can come in with a little bit more of an adult brain, a calmer brain, where you're not making decisions about your actions, about your responses in that almost reflexive, triggered, flight-fight state. Mm.

That's the difference. This is a question that comes up for me a lot when I'm helping other people. How do you recognize when you're in the triggered state versus when you're just reacting appropriately to something? What does it feel like? Well, I think I wouldn't want to presume how it feels for different people, but I think this is the question to ask yourself.

We know the difference in our body between how we feel when we are settled, when we are happy, when we are motivated, energized, wanting to connect with other people. All of those things are from a kind of, they come from a rested, nurtured state. And we also know how we feel when we are anxious, when we want to fight, when we feel guilty.

all of those things that are usually triggered by something else, even if we then have an internal response to it. Yeah, I think in my body it feels very sudden and like violent and like I want to push away the thing versus when I just want to act on something that feels unfair or wrong.

And it's more calm and determined. It's almost like steel. I know that's a cliche, steely determination, but you feel that steel of like, no, this is not going to happen. I'm going to resist this in whatever way versus that sudden, like, and it feels out of, I don't feel like I'm in control when I get triggered. And I was saying to someone this week that that triggered feeling is

This is what I learned from Georgina Noel, actually, who's been on our podcast. I didn't know this for most of my life, that that triggered feeling is telling me to just look at myself and see what's happening rather than respond to the outside, like to go inside and see why did that really make me feel that way? And then my second step is...

and what can I do? How can I respond once I've identified why I felt that way? Or do I need to respond? I think there's another step. I think there's another step, but you make an important point about that it feels very fast, and it is very fast. It's not something that physiologically you can overthink and prevent. Like when we have a response to something like that, that happens, it happens so fast in our body, that bit, we're in that state. But you've

can't move very easily from that place into what I'm talking about is this kind of, okay, well now what do I do about it sensibly? We're not sensible at that point. We're not, we're not, we're not thinking sensibly. We're washed over by this emotion, but there's a processing element of it that needs to happen to return us to something that's more rested. And that can be very, it's interesting. You talk about wanting to push about things and,

something like that physically, like if you can stand up and physically push against the wall, lean into it with your whole body weight and push back against the wall, that will help process that emotion through your muscles. It will help the adrenaline work through your muscles and it will help it dissipate quicker. Go for a walk fast, like get your heart rate up fast. It helps all of these things process. You know, talking to other people about it

and the connection and feeling like you're in a place with others who agree with you can also be

very grounding and bring you back down again. But I think often what people do is they talk to other people not to feel rested and calm down. They talk to other people to hype it up more. That's what we see online. And it's totally understandable because it takes us into our, I'm not alone here. This is terrible. There is something awful going on. What can we do about it? What can we do about it?

But it stays just in that looping whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop, whoop. And that at the end of the day doesn't serve you very well. I said that to someone this week and it was about something in my course that by posting into the Facebook group that

And getting everyone to agree and validate your feeling, that's just another way of pushing it away because you're not dealing with the feeling. What you're doing is just what you said, getting some other people to say, yes, you're right to feel like that. And that might feel good in the moment, but as you say, it doesn't solve the problem.

So that for me that calming down this sounds absolutely nuts but because I live in the countryside I get in my car I drive somewhere I scream as loud as I possibly can and that just seems to get all that out of me it's like and then I feel like really tired and

as if I just had like massive sneezes and then I can kind of I can tell when I've returned to normal I can tell when I've returned not normal but something calmer that I so whatever that is for you there is a yes there is that process and I didn't mean to say you can go whoosh and then okay let me be calm there's a middle bit yeah but once you get to that okay

Am I going to get dragged? Hang on. But also, it doesn't have to be that extreme. That...

that calming can be as quick and as simple as noticing that that's happening. Like you've got the, the, the worst you can just, it's bringing that awareness to starting to notice where you're in a situation where you're responding. And that usually happens after you've started doing it in inverted commas, the wrong way, because that part is inevitable, but noticing that and then thinking, hang on a minute, I,

No, this is something that I actively want to change, but I'm going to do something. So if you're in a conversation with someone else, say, this isn't helping, I'm just going to take five minutes. And it can be as simple as walking, breathing. Breathing is the one system that we can control. That's why everybody comes back to breathing. And it sounds really simple and it sounds really obvious, but it has a huge calming impact.

on your body that brings you back into that state where you can make a decision. But like, you can do all sorts of things. The walking, why walking in nature helps because it actually sends signals to your brain about you being safe and about looking around your space and working with your peripheral vision. And there are things that you can do with your eyes that bring that more actively into being.

But it's not a, I'm thinking myself out. It literally sends the signals to your body of, oh, okay, I'm okay. It's okay. I read a funny headline yesterday, actually in the Guardian, which said scientists finish three years study and determine that it does always feel better in the morning. And I was like,

It took you three years to work out that if you just wait past the emotional drama of whatever it was, it will feel better. Like we all know that that's just one of those funny things that it seemed a bit pointless. But however you get yourself past that triggered state, then I see I have people around me that do both things. One is, okay, what can I do about this?

If that's political, maybe they go on a march. If that's personal, they take some actions. They do something. And then I've got other people in my life who go, well, what I can do about this is complain and moan and get depressed and feel helpless. And it's not to judge because there are reasons why both people have the reactions that they have.

But I really try to be on that side whenever I can of, okay, what can I do to either? Because we're talking about a wide range of situations here. Sometimes what I can do is absolutely nothing to the situation.

I can't change the war in Ukraine. I can't personally do anything about that. Can I do anything that makes me feel better about having contributed? Can I make paintings about it? Can I write something about it? What is there something I can do for me? Or is there something I can do in my life to make my life and the lives of the people around me better?

I always go towards that. And this is where I struggle, though, because sometimes I feel like, is that just selfish?

Because yes, I can make my life better. I've got agency. I can, somebody once said, you've always got, if you've got a driver's license and a credit card, you're fine. Like I've got a driver's license and a credit card. So I can take myself out of any situation and put myself somewhere else if I want to. But is it better?

I know it doesn't help to sit and watch the news on TV or sit and dwell on a personal situation forever and ever. But on the other hand, is it wrong? This is the question I hear from people for me to be enjoying myself making paintings when maybe my friend lives in Israel and everything's gone to hell there. Or, you know, I'm worried about my father who's ill.

Should I still be doing this thing that I enjoy? Do you ever have those thoughts? Because I don't think there's an easy answer to that. I think this comes down to, again, us as humans and having the ability to hold a duality of a situation at the same time. We're not saying that you might come. Can you rescue the world? No.

Some people can't, not everybody can. Some people do. Like some people will take these, take these very strong emotions and feelings and wish to help a cause and they will spend their life in pursuit of helping that. And I think probably some of the distress comes from

We all wished maybe that we would do that. And we know that the reality is we're not prepared to. So then you've got to own that a little bit, haven't you? I can bitch and grumble and moan about something. But if I'm not actually prepared to do anything about it, how much do I really care? And that's a tough, that is a tough thing to look at. And

Maybe we can't all go around and be doing that for the world. But I what I think is I think what you can do is look at your own impact on yourself and on other people. And I think if we make it super simplistic, if we make it super simplistic that there are terrible things and good things, right? Two hands.

Can we always control the terrible things? No. Can we have an impact on the good things? Yes. And that comes into things like just having conversations that are supportive, loving, encouraging, making sure we call things out when we see things happening in a way that isn't

welcoming and inclusive and supportive do we keep quiet for our own good because if we're doing two things if we're on the one hand complaining and moaning and then when something comes into our immediate sphere and we're not brave enough to say hang on I'm not comfortable with that conversation well my favorite one is uh my favorite one is did you really just say that out loud

Or just asking somebody to really explain their thoughts a little bit more is really, really interesting because it usually takes them to another place. And often these ideas that people have got, they've just pulled on board from something and they haven't really thought about them. Well, I absolutely... And I think we have a responsibility to do that. I really do think that we have a responsibility to do that for ourselves and for others. But I think it's really important that we come at it from a...

calm space when we come at something from that triggered space it usually never really works well does it you know what what I absolutely dread in a social social situation which I've been in a couple of times recently where I'm the outsider and

So I'm just getting to know people. I dread any sentence that begins with, I know we're not supposed to say this anymore, but, and I'm like, you see, but they know it. Yes. And they're always very old. They're always very old. So they're from a different generation. And I dread that, that just always means bad things are coming. And it's just like, I, you just want to go,

please freeze this moment at this point because if my friend were to say that that's very easy you know i'm sorry i totally disagree with that that's offensive and you shouldn't have said it but when it's a stranger who's frail and old and you're in a setting where you're not familiar that's a lot more difficult

It is a lot more difficult. And it's also something in family situations that I have got in trouble for. But I also reach points where I'm not prepared to sit and listen. Oh, I won't leave it in my family. So if somebody says something like that, I know we're not supposed to say this anymore. And then they say it, I'd say, well, why have you brought that up now then?

Yeah. Oh, totally. Why are you telling me that? Why are you expecting to listen to that without response? So yeah, in a family, not, not hesitant to call out old people, but I have been in some situations where it's really difficult to,

Because I don't know anyone so in those in that last situation. I did not say anything I removed myself from the conversation immediately Yeah, and I wondered afterwards should I have said something but I would have totally alienated myself from a situation where I was trying to get to know people it's those moments that I think we have to be honest about that like you said we don't always do the thing and

I mean, what she said wasn't even that bad, but I didn't like it. You know, and I should have said something. I used them for that as well, though. I was watching something the other day. I don't know if anybody knows. There's a TV presenter here, Greg Wallace. And I don't know the ins and outs of everything, but he's obviously behaved in various ways towards people of different races and women and people.

there was somebody who had been involved in that and had seen things and then she was talking about it and people said to her why didn't you say something at the time then if it was so bad why didn't you say something at the time and she said and it's a very good point because at the time you feel threatened like your sense of space and reality is threatened so you're you are already you're in that triggered response which is not the place to come at it from

And you are threatened because you had a lot of power. Yeah, you are threatened. Exactly. Yeah. A little bit of giving yourself grace to how you respond to things in that immediacy.

The other part about responding, though, that I think is really important is that we have to think about our role as artists. And that sounds really pretentious when we're not, you know, in MoMA and things. But still, I think we have a role. Yeah.

When you have a heartbreak or a terrible situation and you go for music that makes you feel a certain way, or you look for poetry, or you read a novel and it really touches you and makes you think differently, this is why art exists. And if all the artists...

Just give up and say, well, this is it. We can't paint when people are being doctors and heroes and doing all these things. We should be a hero. Then there's no artist. Then there's no music. There's no poetry. There's no paintings. There's no, for me, point to life anymore.

No Netflix either. Netflix is our film. None of the things that we enjoy either that are thought provoking or that are reassuring and comforting, depending on what we need at any given time, that's all created by artists. And for us to belittle our role in that, because maybe our TV show isn't on Netflix or, you

Still, we have a role to play in that. And I think within our little community of people around us, we're shining a light in that little community, even if you're an artist who doesn't show their work or sell their work even, you are still shining a light for other people around you by doing the thing that you love and dedicating yourself properly to it.

And on whatever scale you make out, I think it's important. And I think it affects other people around you. But we think being a doctor is more important. But we were not born to be doctors. That's clearly I would not be a good doctor. I wouldn't have even got through medical school. Yeah, I agree. I think I put it into like there's two parts of that, aren't there? One is this idea of which side are you planting your flag as it is?

you know, are you going to be consumed by the worry? Are you going to feed, if you like, which part, which side are you going to feed? Are you going to feed, feed the good or get obsessed by the bad? Right. And the more that you can feed the good for your own sake,

Like it changes things. Like when you're, if you're in a room with other people and somebody is tense and upset and frustrated, you can feel it. You can feel it. You can feel that tension. Some people more than others. Okay. Some people are more empathetic and aware of it than others, but you can still feel if somebody comes home and they've had something and they're angry. Likewise, you can, and it can exacerbate situations. If you have two people like that, you know, then you get more friction and,

If you just see your role as taking care of yourself, which includes all the boring basic things of feeding well and moving and getting out and sleeping well and doing things that you enjoy, what it actually does is it expands your capacity for the things that come in that are unknown. And it will also have an impact on other people around you because that sense they will pick up on.

Yeah, I always think of it like if someone, well, this actually happened to us. We were in a big shopping mall in Canada years ago and a man fell from the top of the escalator or jumped, I don't know, crashed from, and it was like three stories down. And

This I was only in my early 30s and I was completely frozen in panic. I didn't know what to do. I just stood in shock. And my husband, he just went into this complete calm state.

organized everyone. He was like, right, you call an ambulance, you do this. It was amazing how calm he was. And I saw in years after that he was always that way in when a crisis happened, he just switched to calmness, even though it wasn't always a calm person. And I was utterly useless in that situation. I remember clearly I couldn't move.

my panic and my being triggered, whatever triggered that response in me made, made me useless. And Phil was completely useful and made a difference. And that, that is what it's like. If we try to respond to something that's bothering us from that panicky triggered place or that angry place, just like I'm so furious about what's happening and I'm going to

We're not able to actually respond. That's what you're describing, I think, is that calm response is going to be more powerful. It's slightly different. What I'm saying is he probably also had an immediate response to that, but he channeled it into a different direction. Mm-hmm.

So if you were tracking his heart rate and cortisol levels, he probably had that same kind of spike to an emergency situation, but he's got maybe a different history of dealing with it and he can put it into something that in that moment was more helpful. Then probably afterwards, he probably had a little bit of, oh, wow, that was quite a bit of a shock today, wasn't it? What I'm talking about is not so much...

that as the fact that if you are taking care of not being in the sort of hyper aroused state all the time and i mean and this is like one of the things i've had to learn about massively like rushing from one thing to another all the time all the time all the time and being in a panic about it taking time to give yourself the pauses that we need between activities um

To be rested, to be gentler. What I've noticed is like between my husband and I, then I just, I don't get so triggered by situations as I used to do, not even between me and him. I'm talking about me and me three years ago, that kind of state. And I think that's what we have a responsibility for. And that's the part that sort of does come down to a choice, not necessarily in the moment, but in the bigger picture, you have a choice about how you,

things, how you learn to deal with things. Are you actually paying attention to all of that side of it too? Because I think when you do, you do see, yeah, there is a place for all of this. You know, what side of that, what side of it are you feeding? And, and you simply cannot be useful to whatever it is you want while you are furious because you see this. So to give an example that does relate to politics and this relates any way you live in the world, um,

Imagine the party that someone that your spouse doesn't agree with takes power and they start doing things and your spouse starts ranting. This was probably just me, but I know it's friends as well. Spouse starts ranting constantly and everything that person does is igniting their anger so that the point where they do something that actually needs attention, you're not even listening because you've just heard it so many times. Like,

There's a lot of overreaction that happens when we're triggered. Do you get what I'm saying? Do you know what I mean? So...

It's like the boy who cried wolf. So when the wolf thing happens, everybody's so that they don't even notice the wolf thing happen. We need when we're calmer, when we're thinking about it more rationally, we can separate those things as well. If we're constantly in this triggered state of fear, which is what I think to go back to my original point, the news is designed to do.

The news is designed to keep us in a triggered state of anxiety, not just about politics, but about the car accident. Like the local news is even triggered to make us feel there's bird flu coming. There's, you know, this is happening. That's happening. We think there'll be a new pandemic.

People are, you know, doing this, doing that. People are going to all die from drinking too much. People are going to die from eating too much. People are not eating enough. People, whatever. It's constant. And if you read the paper or watch the news regularly, it's a bombardment on your senses of anxiety and fear. And it's designed to do that. So you tune in the next night to see if there's anything else to be frightened of. And also, you know, it is 24-7. I mean, it is...

If you open yourself up to it, it is relentless and 24-7 now. At least a while ago, it used to be like the news was on at like one o'clock news and six o'clock. I mean, my parents still sit and watch the news at six o'clock every night and then worry about it. And I'm like,

Why bother? You're watching it. Although it was quite funny. Last night, my husband came down here and we were talking about, you know, we were talking about news and stuff that has gone on and changed. And then he said, did you hear about the asteroid? And I said...

You heard about the asteroid. Vaguely from a worrier. Yes. Isn't something going to hit the planet? I said, oh, what? Is there an asteroid going to hit Earth? And he said, yes. In something like in 2030, I'm getting it wrong because I'm not paying it that much attention. Yeah.

But in 2032, there's an asteroid coming. They've just discovered it and it's going to hit Earth. And I was like, oh, well, that's quite soon then, isn't it? So, OK, right. We've got a few more years. We better get on and do things then. And he said, oh, well, there's only a 1% chance that it's going to hit, which in some sense sounds quite high. And I said, oh, I haven't heard about any of that. He said, yes, it's been on the news for about two days. Right. I could have spent two days thinking,

worrying anxiously about it. And now I just think, well, nothing I can do about that, is there? Like... No. And somebody did tell me, somebody who watches the news did tell me that there was an asteroid coming and they don't know where it's going to hit. It did just make me laugh, though, because we were talking about all the things that were going... Yeah, have you heard about the asteroid? And now there's an asteroid hitting Earth. Like, okay, all right, bring it on. Yeah. But I...

It's important, this stuff, though. It is important because I just think ultimately, for me, it comes down to how do you want to live your life? And I'm not trying to whitewash things. I'm not trying to whitewash things. And I think there are all experiences and times where either...

our emotions get the better of us, of course, because we're people, or there are situations that feel very unmanageable. And I don't think there's anybody who has a life that's free of that, really. I was just thinking, can you imagine if they had 24-hour news in like the 1500s?

And they had 24-hour news, the plagues come back and London's burnt to the ground and Henry VIII has chopped off another wife's head and he's running around changing all the laws and taking us away from Catholicism and making a brand new religion just so he can marry the woman he wants to marry that he's having an affair with.

And all the things that were happening then and all the illnesses, oh, you know, lice are coming now. Oh, there's a plague of this now. Imagine. I mean, it was so much worse. In many ways, we live in, well, in all the ways, I think, we live in the best time of human history ever to be alive. Yeah.

But we just have a lot more awareness of what's happening. Not to mention all the wars that were going on around the world and even around the country. Scotland's invading again and they've just pillaged and raped in Cumbria again.

all of that was going on constantly, but you didn't know about it. You just knew about your little world and you looked after that. Yeah, and this is where the switching off the news that can be criticised as putting your head in the sand, I don't think that is a criticism that holds because we're not designed to know about all of this stuff beyond our own. We're not designed to operate that way. Yeah.

So, I mean, I do think this comes down to making responsible decisions, actually, about how much you let in or how much you don't. But, you know, it's also true talking about worlds being awful. We did also watch American Primeval on Netflix. Have you watched that? No, I don't know what that is. Oh, it's about, I think it's in Ohio. Sorry, my attention to detail is a bit pop, but it's about the settlers...

the native people in the state, the people arriving and the Mormons settling. But the amount, the amount of massacre, pillage, bloodshed. I mean, it's an extraordinary series and it has been criticised. It has been criticised. Various people have got views on it. But also you watch it and you think, oh, here comes someone else with an axe.

It doesn't sound like I'm going to watch this. No, it wouldn't be on my recommendation thing. But I did also come away thinking about it, thinking, blimmin' heck, the things we give our brains to worry about compared to that. Yes. We're all right, really. We're all right, really. We're all right, really. And I think that's the thing. We're all right, really. And I think...

you know lots of the things that i'm the tapping and you just doing there this i'm tapping butterfly tapping you cross your hands over on your chest so that you have your hand left and right and you just tap them alternating on your body and that bilateral signal is you know that is also something else that sends signals back to your brain that you're okay it puts you back in your body it puts you back in your current situation do that with some breathing you physically notice your body calm down stress release

and we know about this stuff now so why use it you know are you choosing to live in this permanently anxious state

Are you? And if you want to know about any of these calming techniques that Alice is talking about, there's a lot of stuff on YouTube. There's so much stuff, really useful things that I've used because I do suffer from anxiety attacks and sometimes panic attacks. And there's a lot of really useful, simple things you can do. There's some very interesting people to follow. And some really, you know, there's some really good studies that have backed it up now. But

So there's two things, aren't there? What we're taking from this is being aware, notice where it's coming into play for you, taking ownership, what you're going to do about it. And I think that that is also an important part. If you feel that strongly towards something, do something. Don't just talk about it. Do something. What can you get involved with on your level? Mm-hmm.

You know, there are ways that we can work for good, but I do also think it's okay to do it in your own small sphere. Yeah. You know? So I just have a little what's inspired and it's not even what's inspired, but it's perfect timing given what we're talking about that I found a new podcast and it's not new. It's old. All the podcasts have been going a long time when I find them and it's called

dish or the dish dish with um Angela Hartnett who's a chef and Nick Grimshaw who was a Radio One DJ and it's just a joy it's like half an hour and Angela cooks the guest a meal and she's a Michelin starred chef so she cooks these amazing meals and

And the guest is always someone famous and they sit down and chat over this meal. But, you know, I've listened to a few of them now and I've never listened to one where I'm not smiling from start to finish. I love Nick Grimshaw. He's lovely. I really love that podcast and it's just cheered me up. And yesterday I listened to Steve Coogan, who love...

But also Stephen Merchant. If you want one to listen to, that's hilarious. Stephen Merchant is a really good one. And most of the guests are British, but they're not all. So if you're an American or Canadian or Australian, listen to this. You won't necessarily know the celebs, but it doesn't matter. You don't need to. They're just lovely conversations. I think anything like that, when we can remind ourselves, and this is what it's about for me, it's like,

bringing us ourselves back into experiencing personal human connections on an intimate level, because all of the things that we're talking about that are bad, they're big and all encompassing and they're obviously they're affecting unique individual people. I'm not saying that. But the thing that we're scared about is the sense of big badness.

Whereas when we actually go out into the world, I'll tell you a story. Do you want a story that's going to lift your spirits? Yes. So I was doing a membership call the other week and I was kind of twiddling with my fingers like you do. And I thought, oh, something's not right here. And I suddenly realized I didn't have my wedding rings on.

I never take my wedding ring and my engagement ring off. I don't take it off to do the gardening. I don't take it off to do the washing up. I don't take it off. And I was like, it's missing. And I suddenly realized I'd taken them off at the gym when I was lifting my big barbells. And I'd left them sitting on the gym machine, diamond ring,

And the wedding ring. And I was like, oh, okay. I need to call the gym. Couldn't get through. Couldn't get through. Couldn't get through. And my husband was like, well, they'll be gone then because the cleaner will have found them. Like someone's just sees it. They'll just pick it up and put it in their pocket.

And I went down the stairs. We go down the stairs. My gym's not very swish. It's like going into a dungeon. So I go down the stairs and sitting behind the desk was the manager guy who had helped me with deadlift exercises.

like getting my form right yesterday. And I thought, oh, it's him. He's going to recognise that it was me there at the deadlift machine where I'd left them. And he looked up completely blank faced. And I thought, oh, he doesn't recognise there's nothing. And I said, do I need to sit down for this? But I left too. And he said, oh, we've got them. Then he triggered. But the point is they'd been sitting in a London gym for

Someone had found them. Someone had handed them in. People on the whole, and I truly believe this, if you give them the opportunity, people are good people. Can I tell you one too, and we'll end on these positive notes. When I lived in New York, I went to the dentist. And in New York, you leave your car in a car park and someone comes and drives it to a spot because they're on these lifts. So I'd left my car, they drove it in, went to pay the dentist, no wallet.

Oh, I left my wallet on the top of the dashboard. I'd left it on the dashboard. Couldn't pay the dentist.

Couldn't get my cab. I thought I can't get my car back They won't even give me my car back now that the attendant will have taken my wallet, but I can't get my car back So the dentist lent me $20 to go get my car so I went back to the car park and I got to the little pay thing and the guy went he left your wallet and he pulled it out and these people get paid nothing and he handed me back a wallet full of cash and credit cards and I've never

loved someone so much in my whole life because I was quite skint at that time too and I was like worried about you know what's going to happen and so I gave him like a giant tip and he didn't even want that he was like no no no but yeah people are good for the most part. I think a lot of people are good and I think that's the challenge in this really is making sure that you're paying as much attention if not more to that side of things

as the negative side of things. Yeah. Because that is the place where goodness springs from and you can nurture that. It's like, which part are you going to water? And just notice when you get up in your own head. Which I love because it puts you back in control. Which are you going to water puts you in control. Sorry. We all do it on a regular basis. Like even that thing of sitting down, you know, when you do, if you do sit down, if you do watch TV, what are you going to watch? Yeah.

You know, and there are times when there are times when and this is interesting where you feel you've got the capacity for it. That's when you might choose to watch something that is a bit challenging on TV. Like when we're actually feeling emotionally quite tender. What do we watch then? We eat food that makes us feel good and we watch things that make us feel good. But we know how to do this stuff. My favorite thing is Gogglebox. I just love watching Gogglebox.

love goggle box you'd never finish watching goggle box without having a laugh having a hoot deciding who you would want to have dinner with yeah and i just think when we go back to human connection it's it's good and if it's not good then you need to change your humans bagsy i go out with the bagsy i go out for dinner with the two that in the caravan in hull oh yeah they're my favorites

Yeah, very good. So, yeah, choose your humans, live with your emotions and look after yourself. Don't worry too much. We do worry. We do worry, but that's our natural human. We naturally go towards the negative, so we need to consciously move ourselves away from that. Yeah. Yeah.

Right. Okay. Well, hopefully we've helped a little bit. Yeah. And I recorded an interview yesterday, which I hope to get. Maybe it will be the next one coming out, which is going to be so positive and inspiring. You are going to absolutely love it. And again, came from a purely random human connection online. Just totally random out of the blue.

And yeah, it was an absolutely delicious conversation. So that is coming for you soon. Fabulous. So we'll see you soon. Bye. Bye.