Latest / The Morning Edition / Bestselling author Caitlin Moran on how to have hope when Trump and the world drives you 'crackers"

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Bestselling author Caitlin Moran on how to have hope when Trump and the world drives you 'crackers" · The Morning Edition

0:03
S1: For nearly 35 years, hundreds of thousands of readers around
0:07
S1: the world have turned to Caitlin Moran for laughter and
0:11
S1: her signature nous about how to cope with life's crappiest bits.
0:15
S1: Having grown up in poverty in a down at heels
0:18
S1: English town and needing to help support her siblings from
0:21
S1: the age of 15, Moran was resilience personified. And then
0:26
S1: trump the universe, and everything nearly stole her sanity. I'm
0:30
S1: Samantha Salinger Morris, and you're listening to The Morning Edition
0:34
S1: from The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. Today, in
0:37
S1: a break from the doom and gloom of news, British
0:39
S1: author Caitlin Moran on how we can rediscover that life
0:43
S1: really is a quietly loving thing, even when we crave
0:47
S1: tech bro cash to escape it. Welcome, Caitlin, to the podcast.
0:52
S2: Oh, it is my absolute pleasure and thrill. Hello.
0:55
S1: So you've got a brand new book out How to
0:58
S1: be Hopeful. And I just want to start by asking
1:00
S1: you about where it begins in 2019, because you are
1:05
S1: feeling at that time, it has to be said, despair.
1:08
S1: You write that you're crying 3 to 4 times a day.
1:11
S1: And you say, I think a lot about purpose as
1:13
S1: I get older. Sadness and despair, a sudden flatness is
1:17
S1: always near. So what was happening? Like, how bad was it?
1:21
S2: Well, I mean, that's a combination of hormones being a
1:24
S2: bitch and the world, right? So I was that was
1:27
S2: the beginning of the menopause. I didn't know it was
1:29
S2: the menopause at the time. But the other half of
1:31
S2: it was the world. We say these things over and
1:33
S2: over again. It's a particularly chaotic time. It's a particularly
1:35
S2: anxious time. Diagnoses of anxiety are rising not only in
1:39
S2: young people, but in children. Um, it feels like it's
1:42
S2: an overwhelm constantly. The phone in your pocket, the TV.
1:47
S2: It's a 247 news cycle. And, you know, and sprinkled
1:50
S2: on top of that, you've got someone like Donald Trump
1:51
S2: being the most powerful man in the world, just suddenly
1:53
S2: saying things like, I'm going to buy Greenland. Like the
1:56
S2: human mind finds it very hard to cope with this
1:59
S2: kind of situation. So so yeah, around about that time
2:02
S2: I went completely crackers. I didn't know I was crackers,
2:05
S2: I thought I had reached a new point of sanity
2:07
S2: because I was like, okay, civilization is doomed. I'm going
2:11
S2: to accept all this information. I'm being given 24 over seven.
2:13
S2: I'm going to retreat to the mountains of Wales. I'm
2:16
S2: going to get a self-sufficient farm. I'm going to have
2:18
S2: my own water source. I'm going to grow my own vegetables.
2:20
S2: I'll have my own Iron Forge so I can make
2:22
S2: my own rakes in case they run out in the apocalypse.
2:25
S2: And I'm going to sit this one out. And I
2:27
S2: was just following the money because that's what all the
2:29
S2: billionaire tech bros have done. They've all got apocalypse bunkers
2:32
S2: in Hawaii and New Zealand, and they clearly know something
2:34
S2: we don't know. So I was just like, follow the money.
2:37
S2: But then I very rapidly found out why is only
2:39
S2: millionaire tech bros that have apocalypse bunkers? Because it's incredibly expensive.
2:43
S2: I could not afford to run away. That was when
2:47
S2: I realized that I had to go on a quest,
2:49
S2: which is always an annoying thing to realize. As you
2:50
S2: approach 50, I was going to have to go on
2:52
S2: a quest, and the quest was to stay in my
2:54
S2: normal life, in civilization, as part of humanity, and find
2:57
S2: a way to feel hopeful about the world again.
2:59
S1: And also, we're going to get into that in just
3:01
S1: a second. But I just want to flag to the listeners,
3:03
S1: this wasn't like an artistic device. You were actually very serious,
3:07
S1: you know, redoing this remote cottage in Wales, uh, like
3:10
S1: your family legitimately. I'm going to quote what your sister says. Remember,
3:14
S1: I've researched our family tree. The skills of our forefathers
3:17
S1: were being oppressed by the upper classes and or dying
3:20
S1: of alcoholism in a ditch. At 32, we have no
3:23
S1: lineage of practical skills. So, like, you were serious about this. Yes.
3:26
S2: Oh, yeah. I mean, I mean, let me make it clear,
3:28
S2: if I'd had to make this up in order to
3:30
S2: make the book funny, I would have. But this genuinely happened.
3:33
S2: I did my first live event in Wales a couple
3:35
S2: of weeks ago at a festival that's a mile away
3:38
S2: from where I was going to buy this farm. And
3:40
S2: as I was hugging and signing people in the queue afterwards,
3:42
S2: a man came up to me and went, I'm going
3:44
S2: to get my second hug from you. And I was like,
3:46
S2: have we met before? He was like, yes, I was
3:48
S2: the surveyor that told you not to buy that farm
3:50
S2: because it was a damp money pit that would have
3:52
S2: absolutely crippled you financially. So, so this genuinely happened. And
3:56
S2: my family were Credibly wary about what was happening. They.
3:59
S2: Mummy was having a nervous breakdown. My husband was going
4:02
S2: along with it until I told him that the 6000
4:05
S2: vinyl records that he's collected over the last 20 years
4:08
S2: wouldn't fit into the house, and it would be too
4:09
S2: damp for them. And my children went there. My children
4:12
S2: went there and realised there was no Wi-Fi and then
4:14
S2: they were out. So this was literally going to break
4:15
S2: up the family. This is how demented I was. At
4:17
S2: this point.
4:18
S1: I really want to ask you about having a life motto.
4:21
S1: You say that having a motto. In your case it
4:23
S1: was I want to have a more hopeful life. It
4:25
S1: actually led you to make daily decisions that were in
4:28
S1: line with that, and tell me what what you did
4:30
S1: and how that changed your life.
4:32
S2: So yeah, well, basically it was that my average day
4:34
S2: would start with me waking up, sitting bolt upright in
4:37
S2: bed like a reanimated bride of Frankenstein, gasping. It was
4:40
S2: a bit like that scene in Pulp Fiction where they
4:41
S2: have to inject her in the heart in order to,
4:44
S2: in order to restart her heart after she had a
4:46
S2: drug overdose, I would wake up immediately adrenalized with panic,
4:49
S2: like it's another day in the 21st century and everything
4:52
S2: is terrible. And then I'd put on the radio because,
4:54
S2: as you know, a left wing, progressive, liberal woman. I
4:57
S2: need to be informed about world events. It's ignorant and
5:00
S2: callous to not know about what's going on in the world.
5:01
S2: So put the radio on immediately. There'd be some incredibly
5:04
S2: bleak headlines. Then I'd go onto social media to see
5:06
S2: what people were saying about it. And this was the
5:09
S2: first revelation that I had. I was like, okay, what
5:12
S2: is the amount of news that keeps me informed but
5:14
S2: stops me feeling that the world is falling off a cliff?
5:17
S2: And I started reading local papers. I was, I was.
5:20
S2: The thing about a local newspaper is it will have
5:23
S2: big news events and bad news events, but it also
5:25
S2: has progress and happy things in it. There's a new
5:28
S2: cycle lane. A bakery is opened. A local girl has
5:31
S2: made it to Cambridge University. Another girl has cut off
5:33
S2: her hair and donated the proceeds to charity. Like that's
5:36
S2: all the news. That's what our lives are actually like.
5:39
S2: Our day to day lives are generally what's happening in
5:42
S2: our local area, and it's good news and bad news.
5:45
S2: And it was around this point I read a really
5:46
S2: interesting survey from America. They asked Americans two questions. The
5:49
S2: first one was, do you think your country had a
5:52
S2: bad year? And the majority of Americans said, yeah. And
5:54
S2: then they said, did you personally have a bad year.
5:57
S2: And they all went. No, my year was actually quite good. Like,
5:59
S2: you know, it swings roundabouts, but generally I'm okay. And
6:02
S2: it was around that point that I realized that at
6:05
S2: the moment, given how chaotic it's been in the last
6:07
S2: 10 or 15 years, it's seen as impolite to say
6:10
S2: you're hopeful.
6:11
S1: And you make an interesting point in your book, which is,
6:13
S1: I guess, maybe the shortcomings of gratitude and even keeping
6:16
S1: a gratitude journal, which I think a lot of us,
6:18
S1: we see those in self-help books, we get a bit angry.
6:20
S1: We want to maybe punch a wall, but you're coming
6:22
S1: to our rescue here because you actually talk about how
6:25
S1: you've been an optimist your entire life. You said, I
6:27
S1: love being grateful, I love this. You said that, you know,
6:30
S1: you've always been, quote, appreciative of anything and everything that
6:34
S1: scores above not actively shit on the Pantone Moods chart.
6:37
S1: Love that. So why was that not enough? Tell us,
6:40
S1: tell us. I guess it's limitations because clearly that did
6:42
S1: not keep you from nearly going off the deep end
6:45
S1: in 2019.
6:46
S2: Yeah, because it was because if the if the pressure
6:48
S2: is basically if the underlying tone, which it does seem
6:51
S2: to be, is the world is terrible, how do we
6:53
S2: save the world? And then the realization is you can't.
6:56
S2: No one can save the world. Like, kind of like,
6:58
S2: that's too big an ask. No one can save the world.
7:00
S2: But what can you actually do? You've got to do grateful.
7:03
S2: That's what makes you feel better at the end of
7:05
S2: the day. So simply things like donating blood, I it
7:08
S2: still blows my mind that more people don't do it
7:11
S2: because it's seen as like an altruistic thing. You've got
7:13
S2: to go and have some blood taken. First of all,
7:15
S2: you get quite high when someone's taken a pint of
7:17
S2: blood out of your body like you are pleasingly woozy,
7:19
S2: like you're kind of like one and a half pints drunk.
7:22
S2: But secondly, as you watch that bag of blood being
7:24
S2: taken away on a trolley, you know, the next person
7:27
S2: who sees that is someone who is probably dying, like
7:30
S2: you have sent this, you've sent love, you have sent
7:33
S2: love and compassion for the world to someone you don't know.
7:36
S2: It's like a letter that you've sent out into the
7:37
S2: world and someone having the worst day of their life.
7:41
S2: Your bag of blood is going to come into that
7:42
S2: room and change everything for them that you, you know,
7:45
S2: their loved ones are praying around the bed going, please,
7:47
S2: can something help my, you know, my mother and you
7:50
S2: are the thing that helps their mother. Your bag of
7:52
S2: blood hundreds of miles away from where you donated it
7:54
S2: comes into that room and you've saved the day. You
7:57
S2: are a tiny superhero. So these are the moments. It
8:00
S2: was it was starting to compile a list of things
8:02
S2: that you can actually do as a human being. Yeah.
8:04
S2: You can't save the world. You're not going to give
8:05
S2: a speech in the UN, but you can save someone's
8:08
S2: life by donating blood. And it's little moments like that
8:11
S2: that like, you know, at the beginning of my quest
8:13
S2: to feel hopeful that I really clung on to because again,
8:16
S2: if you're on social media, so much of the messaging
8:18
S2: is everybody's awful. Everybody's out for themselves. Like society does
8:22
S2: not work. Everything is broken into two factions on a
8:24
S2: variety of issues. And whatever you love, someone else hates.
8:27
S2: And as soon as you say what you stand for,
8:29
S2: a load of people will want to stand against you.
8:32
S2: And this was part of the quest, is like finding
8:34
S2: places where that is not true. So that, you know,
8:37
S2: in that blood donation center, these, you know, these buildings
8:39
S2: that are requisitioned for a day to donate blood that
8:41
S2: are like cathedrals of goodness and humanity. And then the
8:44
S2: next thing I did was I accidentally stopped using my
8:47
S2: headphones when I was out and about simply because I
8:49
S2: lost them.
8:50
S1: This is pretty shocking, actually. Um, I mean, I might
8:52
S1: start with what is I probably say, the most shocking
8:56
S1: moment in the book, actually, because you are the only
8:58
S1: person on this train. It's around midnight. Uh, you're the
9:02
S1: only person and you hear something shocking.
9:04
S2: So I'm the only person on the train who is
9:06
S2: not wearing headphones. So I've lost my headphones a couple
9:08
S2: of months ago, and I've made a conscious decision to
9:10
S2: stop wearing them because I've started realising that if you're
9:13
S2: walking around with your headphones on, you're not really present
9:16
S2: in your life. You are listening to a piece of
9:19
S2: music that a thousand, a million other people are streaming
9:21
S2: at that moment. You're listening to a podcast that thousands
9:23
S2: of other people are listening to, but you're not listening
9:25
S2: to where you are and what's happening in your life.
9:28
S2: And we and so, so I've given up wearing my headphones.
9:30
S2: I'm on a late night train and suddenly I hear
9:33
S2: this terrible screaming sound. It's like it's the sound I
9:36
S2: have never heard before. And then a man shouting in
9:39
S2: absolute desperation and the train screeches to a halt. Everyone's
9:43
S2: still got their headphones on. No one looks up and
9:45
S2: I can just hear this man going, help her. She's under,
9:47
S2: she's under. And then the doors burst open and all
9:50
S2: the emergency services come in. Finally, everybody takes their headphones
9:53
S2: off and they're going, what is it? What is it?
9:55
S2: And it turns out a woman had thrown herself under
9:57
S2: the train and a man had tried to save her,
9:59
S2: but he could not. That was, she had died. And
10:02
S2: as we were all being herded off the train and everyone,
10:04
S2: all the people who were in the carriage were going.
10:06
S2: What's happening? What's happening? Because they haven't heard what's happened.
10:08
S2: They're just. All they know is they're being herded off
10:10
S2: a train. And as I walked home, I was like,
10:13
S2: so often you hear people saying, the modern world makes
10:16
S2: me feel disconnected. I, you know, I'm disassociating. I feel
10:19
S2: like society and community doesn't exist anymore. I have this
10:22
S2: really weird feeling of like, I don't know where I am.
10:24
S2: Everything just sort of doesn't join up. And it's like, yeah,
10:28
S2: because you've got your headphones on, but you're not there.
10:30
S2: Like I, I was the only, you know, someone, someone's
10:33
S2: last moments. If I'd been wearing my headphones, no one
10:36
S2: would have heard them. Yeah. And that seems like such
10:38
S2: a profound moment. Like if someone's calling for help in
10:41
S2: a street and everyone's wearing headphones, who will go and
10:43
S2: help them. And so I have not. It's been a
10:45
S2: very profound moment for me. I'm just I do not
10:48
S2: wear my headphones anymore. I'm like, no, still be present. Yeah.
10:51
S2: I have this revelation when I was out walking in
10:53
S2: the rain and I didn't have my headphones and I
10:55
S2: was furious. I was like, now I've got to sit
10:56
S2: under a tree, it's raining and I'm going to be bored.
10:58
S2: I can't listen to a podcast. Oh, yeah. And then
11:01
S2: within about 30s, I was like, oh my God, I
11:03
S2: have not heard the sound of rain on Leaves of
11:06
S2: Trees for decades because I've always been wearing my headphones,
11:09
S2: and suddenly it turned into this kind of symphonic play.
11:11
S2: It was like you could hear the screeching of the
11:13
S2: bus brakes and the sound of the rain running into
11:16
S2: the gutters, and the sound of people running for shelter
11:18
S2: and laughing. And it was like, I'm in a play like.
11:21
S2: And the play is my life. Every day is like this.
11:23
S2: If I take my headphones off every day, the world
11:26
S2: is out there providing all this gossip and drama and beauty,
11:30
S2: and if I've got my headphones on, I'm missing my
11:32
S2: actual life.
11:37
S1: We'll be right back. The last, I guess, practical tip
11:41
S1: I wanted to ask you, because there's heaps in this book,
11:43
S1: is of course, what you did with your own garden.
11:45
S1: So I'm just going to start by just cluing the
11:47
S1: listeners in that you're not natural to nature, as it were.
11:50
S1: So you googled, can you buy sparrows at some point?
11:54
S1: The answer is you can't. Uh.
11:57
S2: Capitalism has failed us there.
11:58
S1: Yeah. So what did you do to your garden and
12:00
S1: how did the family react to this?
12:02
S2: Well, I had and the thing is like, you can't
12:04
S2: do this when your kids are little. So I, I,
12:05
S2: you know, the garden still looked like it was as
12:07
S2: it must be if you have small children and you know,
12:10
S2: there was some nice flower borders of plants that I
12:12
S2: bought from a garden center and it looked very nice,
12:14
S2: but there was nothing alive in it. Like if I
12:15
S2: went outside and had a cup of coffee, I was
12:17
S2: usually the only living person thing in it. Yeah, there
12:20
S2: were no butterflies, there were no birds. And I remembered
12:22
S2: I'm old enough. I'm 51 to remember what dawn choruses
12:25
S2: were like in the early 80s. You know, I can
12:26
S2: remember if you left a light on in a bedroom
12:29
S2: and a window open. When you next walked into that room,
12:32
S2: there would be a bolus of moths flying around it,
12:35
S2: thousands of them. And it would be the job of
12:36
S2: everyone in the house to take a rolled up newspaper
12:38
S2: and smash those moths to death. And so now, in
12:41
S2: the 21st century, people are going like, you know, the
12:43
S2: decline of moths is like 90%. They're all dead. I'm like,
12:46
S2: oh God, that was me.
12:47
S1: Yeah, that was that was you single handedly. Yeah. When
12:49
S1: all the bees die, we'll know where to come to. Yeah.
12:52
S2: It's my fault. We we, you know, we spent the
12:53
S2: 80s killing insects as children, and now as adults, we're like, oh,
12:56
S2: my God, Britain is the most neutral country in Europe.
12:59
S2: So I, so I was like, okay, I want birds.
13:01
S2: Tried to buy them on Amazon, failed to do that,
13:03
S2: then googled, how do you get nature and found this
13:06
S2: rewilding project that's happening in Sussex. But the things that
13:09
S2: I took from that was it's very simple for you
13:12
S2: to bring nature to your garden. If you make a
13:14
S2: nature place, the nature will come. And in the UK,
13:17
S2: the collective size of all of our back gardens is
13:19
S2: the same as our national parks combined. So if only
13:22
S2: 1 in 10 people just put in like, you know,
13:24
S2: a tiny pond, it can be like a plastic tub
13:26
S2: and then add a small patch of grass to grow.
13:29
S2: We would get what I got, which is in the
13:31
S2: end that my species list now for the things that
13:33
S2: I've seen in my garden is over 100. And on
13:35
S2: the very best day of my life, I looked out
13:36
S2: the window having my breakfast cup of tea, and there
13:38
S2: was a peregrine falcon washing its wings in my waterfall,
13:41
S2: and that's in north London, where I had never seen
13:43
S2: any nature before. So. So these are the these are
13:46
S2: the hopeful things. We can all sit there and go.
13:49
S2: The environment, you know, Global warming. What can we do?
13:52
S2: There's not that much we can do about global warming.
13:54
S2: You know, that's going to be down to the boffins
13:56
S2: and governments. But we can make nature come. We can
13:58
S2: make a nature place and the nature will come.
14:01
S1: And I want to ask you, though, because you have
14:02
S1: such a visceral description in this book about when you
14:05
S1: hear this like aural symphony, I guess we'd call it.
14:08
S1: You say, I mean, it does bring you to tears.
14:11
S1: Tell us what it does to your insides. Like, what
14:13
S1: do you feel in your body? What are you feeling
14:15
S1: in your brain when you hear that?
14:17
S2: Well, to put this into context, the dawn chorus in
14:20
S2: London at the moment is maybe three very skronky crows
14:24
S2: honking each other, and there's a bird that has learnt
14:26
S2: to impersonate the sound of a car alarm. So that
14:28
S2: is the current London Dawn chorus. Whereas I can remember
14:32
S2: the dawn choruses from my childhood that would start with
14:34
S2: a single black bird. And then gradually, one by one,
14:37
S2: all the species would join in and they're harmonizing with
14:39
S2: each other and playing off each other. And it just
14:41
S2: builds and builds. And there's something about it's not purely beautiful.
14:44
S2: It's not simply beautiful piece of music. It is so
14:47
S2: raw and elemental and almost, almost angry with the power
14:51
S2: of the joy of being alive. It's such a visceral
14:53
S2: kind of like, this is the sound of life. Like,
14:56
S2: this is this is every other living thing. Seeing the
14:59
S2: sun coming up once more and going, there is another day.
15:02
S2: We are still alive. And I can remember when I
15:04
S2: was a child, I believed that it was the sound
15:06
S2: of the birds singing that made the sun come up.
15:08
S2: That's how powerful it feels. So this as I opened
15:10
S2: the doors that this rewilding estate and heard the first
15:14
S2: dawn chorus that was more than three sad crows. For
15:16
S2: the first time since my childhood, I sobbed. I was like,
15:19
S2: it's still here because the. Because the lesson was things
15:22
S2: that were undone and can be done again. And that's
15:26
S2: the lesson everywhere. We think these things are gone forever
15:29
S2: and they're not. If you. If we choose, we can
15:31
S2: bring these things back and we can't do it on
15:34
S2: a global level or a national level, but we can
15:36
S2: do it in our gardens. And that power is addictive.
15:40
S2: You know, that that that knowledge that you can make
15:42
S2: a tiny difference and that you will benefit from it
15:44
S2: and all these living things will benefit from it. And
15:46
S2: I now think of them as my guests. You know,
15:48
S2: I sort of like I open the windows every morning.
15:50
S2: It's like, oh, look, I've hosted the most fabulous nature party.
15:53
S2: They've all come. Thank you guys. Thank you. Stay a while.
15:56
S1: That's incredible. And so now you don't have to be
15:58
S1: that person in H for Hawk. Like you don't have
16:00
S1: to go, you know, go out to, you know, learn
16:02
S1: how to train a hawk or something like and, you know,
16:05
S1: live in deprivation.
16:06
S2: It would I mean, I thought about this when I,
16:07
S2: when I was at the beginning, when I was going
16:08
S2: on my quest, when the dream of the farmhouse died,
16:10
S2: I kind of, you know, I'm a middle class white woman. And,
16:12
S2: you know, I understand if you're going through a midlife crisis,
16:15
S2: what you need to do is either go on a
16:16
S2: very long walk over some cliffs and discover yourself, or
16:19
S2: raise a hawk or a hare from, you know, and
16:21
S2: learn some important life lessons and stuff. And I was like,
16:23
S2: I simply don't have time for that. I cannot go
16:25
S2: and walk a 600 mile path, you know, I cannot
16:27
S2: raise a hare from scratch. I live in north London.
16:29
S2: I have a busy job. But but so the quest
16:32
S2: was a you know, I mean, it's always it's always
16:34
S2: quite dolorous when you realize the quest is inside you.
16:36
S2: You've got to go on a quest inside.
16:38
S1: For those of us who don't like, you know, one
16:40
S1: of my favorite authors, Anne Lamott, I think she quoted
16:42
S1: one of her friends who said, you know, I try
16:44
S1: not to go inside my head at 3 a.m. it's
16:46
S1: like a dark alley at 3 a.m.. Like it's just
16:48
S1: not safe to go there.
16:50
S2: And I very much understand that. I can remember at
16:52
S2: the age of 11, just thinking, at some point, I'm
16:54
S2: going to have to learn how to control my brain
16:55
S2: because I can imagine anything and anything can sort of like,
16:58
S2: you know, I could see faces coming out the ceiling.
17:00
S2: I was a very overimaginative child. But the great thing
17:03
S2: about doing hope and doing good things, you know, and
17:06
S2: these are again, it's, you know, I am not Greta Thunberg.
17:08
S2: I am not, you know, I'm, you know, I'm not
17:10
S2: a Nelson Mandela, but if you spent the day giving
17:12
S2: blood and picking up some litter and feeding some birds
17:15
S2: when you're lying in bed and that little weasel part
17:17
S2: of your brain is going, are you actually a dick?
17:19
S2: Are you a bad person? You've got a list that
17:21
S2: you can counteract it with and go, no, here's some
17:23
S2: good things I did today. You know, we're constantly in
17:26
S2: argument with ourselves, kind of going, am I a good
17:28
S2: person after all? And if you've done hopefulness in that day,
17:31
S2: that's why my motto has been, if you've faced with
17:34
S2: two choices in any day what you're doing, choose the
17:37
S2: one that will make you feel more hopeful at the
17:38
S2: end of the day. And suddenly those three a M's,
17:41
S2: they become quite pleasant. If I wake up in the
17:43
S2: middle of the night now, I just lie there imagining
17:44
S2: what I'm going to do in my garden with the
17:46
S2: fabulous humanitarian thing that I did the day before. Like
17:49
S2: it's I'm kind of allow myself to like myself, which
17:52
S2: by the age of 51 is overdue.
17:54
S1: I love that. So would you say to sum up,
17:56
S1: would you say that's what you got out of picking
17:59
S1: up the trash and, and giving blood and, you know,
18:02
S1: only thinking doom and gloom for 20 minutes before you decide, okay,
18:05
S1: there might be something I can actually do about this or,
18:08
S1: you know, cultivating this incredible natural Paradise in your own,
18:13
S1: in your own garden, in, in a suburb that I
18:14
S1: will say, I'm sure it's very lovely where you live.
18:16
S1: But before this happens, I believe the locals are using
18:19
S1: your front garden as something like a tip. Like if
18:21
S1: people are just, there's just trash everywhere, right?
18:23
S2: Oh yeah. It's all just empty vapes and buzz ball cans. Yeah, yeah. No,
18:26
S2: it was an absolute shit pit. And yeah, no, I,
18:28
S2: I cleared that up. So, you know, I was at
18:30
S2: a bus stop a couple of weeks ago and it
18:31
S2: was pouring with rain and my bus was delayed by
18:33
S2: 20 minutes. And in previous years, my technique for dealing
18:35
S2: with like a suboptimal 20 minutes would be to simply
18:38
S2: pretend I'm dead. I'm going to die for 20 minutes
18:40
S2: and wait for this bus to turn up. And with
18:42
S2: my new found hopeful quest, I was like, no, I'm
18:45
S2: going to find a way to love this 20 minutes.
18:46
S2: I'm going to listen to the rain. And then I
18:48
S2: was like, oh, what are those two people arguing about
18:50
S2: over there? What are they? Oh, and see if I
18:52
S2: can listen in on that. This is a good argument.
18:54
S2: What's that shop? I don't even know what that shop sells.
18:56
S2: Maybe you should go in there for a minute. Oh,
18:58
S2: in that garden, they're growing a rose that I haven't
19:00
S2: seen before, but they're on the same soil as me,
19:02
S2: so that would probably work in my garden. I'll take
19:03
S2: a picture of that and go and smell it. And
19:05
S2: suddenly that 20 minutes is brilliant and just sitting and
19:09
S2: waiting for a bus for 20 minutes in the rain,
19:10
S2: you can choose, you know, it's like when Mary Poppins
19:12
S2: goes snap, the job's a game. You've got to find
19:15
S2: the spoonful of sugar in every. And we all have
19:17
S2: terrible things that happen in our lives. I'm 50. Most
19:20
S2: of my friends are dealing with like, you know, parents
19:23
S2: dying and troubled teenagers and terrible illnesses. And even in
19:27
S2: those days where you're dealing with these awful things, the
19:30
S2: awfulness is usually only, you know, if it's a terrible day,
19:32
S2: 2 or 3 hours of actually dealing with it. The
19:34
S2: rest of it is still your day, and you can
19:37
S2: choose what you do in that day. How can I
19:40
S2: make it as magic as possible?
19:41
S1: That is amazing. Does it ever? Does it ever? Does
19:44
S1: it ever fail you? Do you ever have days where
19:45
S1: you're just like, you know, you have semblances of that,
19:48
S1: of that previous self that so many of our listeners
19:50
S1: that definitely I have experienced so much in the last
19:52
S1: few years where you're just like, it's too much and
19:55
S1: you just feel filled. You know, I've had, I've had
19:56
S1: those days and I'm not depressed, but I've had those
19:58
S1: days at 6 p.m. where you're just like, I just, yeah.
20:03
S2: Oh gosh, of course this isn't. Yeah, no, I haven't,
20:05
S2: I haven't taken a magic serum that stops me having feelings,
20:08
S2: but I've learned not to take my feelings so seriously
20:11
S2: because they do pass. Like your emotions are like the weather. And,
20:15
S2: you know, if you sit there long enough, it will pass.
20:17
S2: If you, you know, you don't take them too seriously.
20:19
S2: The problem is that we tend to have an emotions
20:21
S2: is what I learned with my anxiety. We tend to
20:22
S2: have a physical emotion of anxiety or depression. And then
20:25
S2: what our busy monkey minds do is go, well, why
20:28
S2: do I suddenly feel anxious? Why do I suddenly feel depressed?
20:31
S2: And that's when you start worrying with the, you know,
20:32
S2: the horrible list at 3:00 in the morning. And if
20:35
S2: you have, if you know that it's an emotion that
20:37
S2: will pass, you can sit back and not take it seriously.
20:40
S2: And with the thoughts that you have in your mind,
20:42
S2: you can simply start replacing them with good things. Instead,
20:44
S2: you just go, okay, monkey mind. You're not going to
20:47
S2: give me the terrible list of awful things. You're going
20:48
S2: to go across the list of all the good things
20:50
S2: I did yesterday. If there's one job that you can
20:55
S2: have as a human being, and particularly if you're still
20:58
S2: on social media, it's not retweeting the awful people. It's
21:01
S2: finding someone who's doing something good and pointing at them
21:04
S2: like that's, that's one of the primary jobs of a
21:06
S2: human being. He wants to make the world better, find
21:08
S2: the good stuff and point to it, find the helpers,
21:11
S2: find the people who are out there who've got good
21:12
S2: ideas and be a fangirl of them. Give them the
21:15
S2: support and love, rather than wasting your emotions on hating
21:18
S2: the people who are making things worse.
21:19
S1: Well, that is such a lovely note to end on.
21:22
S1: Your hopefulness is absolutely infectious. So thank you so much, Caitlin,
21:27
S1: for your time.
21:28
S3: It's been absolute pleasure. Thank you so much. I could
21:30
S3: talk to you all day.
21:44
S1: In other news today home buyers are holding back from
21:47
S1: the spring property market even as house prices fall. Fewer
21:51
S1: new listings. A fear of overpaying and a lack of
21:54
S1: urgency are keeping many from taking the plunge, according to
21:58
S1: the latest auction data. And the freight firms at the
22:01
S1: center of a major organized crime investigation have been kicked
22:05
S1: out of Australia's customs system and had their licences cancelled
22:09
S1: after raids by the Australian Border Force uncovered hundreds of
22:13
S1: thousands of vapes, illicit cigarettes, nicotine pouches and a haul
22:18
S1: of other contraband. You can read more at the age.com.au
22:22
S1: or smh.com.au. And our podcasts are overseen by Lisa Muxworthy
22:28
S1: and Tom McKendrick. If you like our show, follow The
22:31
S1: Morning Edition and leave a review for us on Apple
22:34
S1: or Spotify. Thanks for listening.