Latest / WHAT I'VE LEARNT / What I've Learnt - Kerri Sackville

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What I've Learnt - Kerri Sackville · WHAT I'VE LEARNT

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_00: I was alone in the middle of a forest hanging from a zipline 50 metres above the ground.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_00: This was not within my comfort zone.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a suburban mum whose idea of adventure is to get a double shot of coffee in my mocker.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Still, I was with my two daughters on holidays in Tasmania and we had decided to try zipling for fun.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: The journey up the mountain had been exhilarating, but when I reached the top, the ride jolted to a halt and I was left dangling alone in mid-air.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's the opening of Carrie Sackville's incredible book, The Secret Life of You, which I have been reading over the weekend because it really engaged me.
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's really a fascinating insight into what it means to be alone, not lonely.
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, as children, we're often alone creating, exploring, thinking.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: Children seem super comfortable being alone.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think Carrie has captured something very important here and something I'm looking forward to talking to her about.
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_00: Carrie Sackville, welcome to the What I've Learned podcast.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_01: So good to be with you, and I'm loving your background.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it is all about self.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: As we know, it says everything distracted me, but most of all, self.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a Patty Smith quote, and it's very famous, and it sits behind me through every podcast, and it's very relevant to really what we're going to talk about, which is really.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: It really is.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: And it was just interesting.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's a David Bromley and it's quite beautiful.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm going to just put up a little vision of it so you can see.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: It is really very poignant because you talk about and have written this book, which is a really interesting expose of how one stays connected to oneself and how important it is, but how challenging it is.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: So talk to me a little bit about the ziplining story, is a wonderful entree into.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: I had this vision myself because as somebody that terrified me when I read that because I thought I would also respond to the same dangling above the forest in a zipline stuck.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and it wasn't it wasn't um a fear of heights.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_02: I'm not at all like afraid of being up in the air.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_02: I knew that I was safe.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_02: I knew that the ride would come down, but it was the extreme solitude that completely freaked me out.
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_02: I had never felt anything like that before.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_02: And my instinctive response when I was dangling up there amongst the trees with my kids' kind of tiny little specks in the background was to reach for my phone.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, that's just that's how instinctive it is for that kind of connection back to civilization.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_02: Of course, my phone wasn't with me, my phone was down with my children.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and all I could hear was my breathing and the trees rustling.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: And everything felt very far away.
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I was left alone with my thoughts.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_02: And in that moment, I was completely terrified.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_02: And just that ride, kind of judging back to a start and going back down the hill was the most overwhelming relief.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_02: And when I got down to the bottom, I was trying to work out why was that so scary?
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_02: Like, why is it so scary just to be left alone with your thoughts in the universe?
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_02: And that kind of prompted everything.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: But then I didn't revisit that until 2020 when we were all in lockdown.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_02: I'm here in Sydney and you in Melbourne had your own horrors to deal with.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I found myself with a huge amount of time alone.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_02: And I dealt with it by constantly, constantly, constantly being on my phone.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_02: And that was making me more and more and more lonely.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_02: And then I sort of remembered that period of time on the zip line and thought there is something in this.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I am scared to be alone with my thoughts, and this is something that I need to work on.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's what prompted the whole, I guess, journey.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_02: I don't like the word journey when it talks about kind of Yeah, I saw that, yeah.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I read that too.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: It's true, it's true.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_03: It was a journey.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what what is really interesting about what you've written is, well, you're a mother of three, is that right?
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you have and you've been divorced for for I don't know how long has that been now.
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_02: I've now I've now been divorced for God, over 10 years.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I thought you touched on so many interesting aspects of all of this.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: So obviously, lockdown brought into high relief a whole range of things, including people who were single parents.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: You know, there was a whole raft of people that were left not just alone with their own thoughts, but literally couldn't leave the house.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: And we all know how yeah, dramatic that was.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: But I thought what you've opened up is a very interesting discussion about, you know, if you think about, and I was reflecting reading your book, because when we were children, like I remember when I was young, and I'm sure you're the same, and we are a similar vintage, we really just there were no phones, there were, there wasn't that level of distraction.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: You'd sit in your room as you you refer to in the book, and you just ruminate and you'd just be, and you'd just, you know, play your guitar for me, that was something, or, or read your books, or it was never really even a thought about needing to be in this hyperconnectivity in the way that our we all are now, and uh our kids and also ourselves.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_02: It's a huge problem.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I did reflect a lot about that and realize that what's happened these days is that we are losing our casual moments of solitude.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, what I talk about in the book and what I went through myself was not suggesting that any of us go off and spend like a week in a silent retreat.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_02: Like a lot of people do that.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_02: If you want to do that, that's great.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_02: The most I did was take myself off to a house on the on the coast for three days, and I still was in touch with my kids and still, you know, went to the coffee shop and ordered coffee.
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: But what's happened is that in the past, we all had moments of solitude during the day.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_02: It was a normal part of life.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I had my own room from the age of probably five or six.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_02: And if I was in my room, I mean, our phone, our landline didn't stretch to my bedroom.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_02: None of us had phones exactly.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so if we were in our rooms, we might have had a clock radio.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_02: And that was literally it.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_02: That was the extent of our connectivity.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_02: We just didn't have televisions, of course, computers hadn't been invented yet.
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: There was no internet.
• 6:15
  SPEAKER_02: And so if I was alone in my room, I was either reading, I was either writing in my journal, or I was just daydreaming.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: If I was standing in a queue, if I was walking to school, if I was sitting on a bus, you know, if I was eating my breakfast, I remember I'd read the back of the cornflakes pack.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_02: We all did.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: We all used to do that.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: We all did that, yeah.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, what you said earlier about how kids are very good at being alone.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: We were all very good at being alone.
• 6:41
  SPEAKER_02: Unfortunately, right now, kids are actually losing that capacity to be alone because we are giving them devices from the time they can they can hold an iPad, basically.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_02: Correct.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and I'm certainly not like I'm not dissing parents.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I'm a mother of three.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_02: I know you do what you need to do, but it's the age that we live in.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_02: And so what happens is for all of us and for children, because we have devices, every moment of quiet, every moment of idleness, every moment of solitude becomes a problem that we solve by picking up our phones, right?
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_02: So we don't ever have to be alone with our thoughts anymore.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_02: And so we very rarely are.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_02: And then what that what that means is that it starts this cycle that we lose the capacity to be alone with our thoughts.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_02: When we try to be alone with our thoughts, we don't know how to do it.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_02: We panic, we get anxious, we get lonely, and we turn back to our devices.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_02: So it's this constant cycle that has been created by a few different things that I talk about in the book.
• 7:38
  SPEAKER_02: One of them is social media, another is, you know, the culture that we live in, and there's a whole lot in that.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_02: But things have changed.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_02: And we humans are not supposed to always be alone, but we are certainly not supposed to be never alone either.
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_02: And it's really bad for our brains, it's bad for our mental health, it's bad for our relationships, it's bad for all number of reasons.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um I totally agree with you.
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you really, you know, things that you raised, which I've often thought about, for example, what I think it also makes us is hyper-vigilant, hyper-busy, hyper, there's this sort of hyper stimulation.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: And actually, I did have this discussion with my daughter who is, you know, in her 20s, and really she has made a real point of corralling some of the space.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: And she goes up into her room and she's a musician and she's an actor, and she's very into it, and she said, I can't create unless I have that space.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I said to her, I actually understand because how can you create?
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: You and I are writers.
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: So I can't write and I can't research unless I had that space.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: But carving that space is really challenging, and not, you know, not like even if you're researching on your phone and suddenly something comes up and it's distracts you, and you go on another, and we you talk about that as well in your book.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I was really had a very interesting discussion about that with her.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I think we we need to show much more respect for the need for space, and that's what your book talks about.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_02: Absolutely, and creativity is a really interesting one because you know, your daughter you said is is in her 20s.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_02: I've got um my two older kids are in their 20s, and one of my um two is an artist, and she spends a lot of time creating, and she's able to put down her phone and do that.
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_02: But I've noticed a huge difference between the way that my big kids use their phones and the way my 15-year-old does.
• 9:27
  SPEAKER_02: And they had some time without smartphones, they weren't raised on smartphones.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_02: Now, smartphones, you know, are incredibly addictive.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_02: They're designed to be addictive, they use gambling technologies to like keep us hooked.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_02: And so I think my big girl was able to find her creativity because she had a space from that.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_02: You know, she found that very early on.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_02: I worry that the younger kids aren't even getting that opportunity to have that space because they're never disconnected and they don't, and much more than the the kids in their 20s, they are constantly connected and never get a chance to to just sit with their thoughts and sit with doing nothing.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, boredom is so important because it's important that we find our creativity, you know.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_02: You 100%.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_00: And she said that exactly what my daughter said.
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: She and and I agree with you.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's it's like we've lost that capacity to be bored or to be even restless, like it's okay.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_02: Oh yeah, oh yeah.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, you and I are writers, so we have that kind of creativity, but everybody is creative in some way.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not even just talking about making art.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, you need that time to be creative, to have original thought.
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_02: Because if you if you don't have the time to reflect and to think and to get in touch with your own thoughts and your own opinions, all you are doing your whole life is consuming the thoughts of other people.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_02: So every time we pick up our phones, what are we doing?
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_02: We're reading content or we're looking at videos made by other people.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_02: And we need time to have a break from that just to get in touch with who we are and what we think about things.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I feel like, you know, it's getting harder and harder to find the space to ask ourselves who we are, what we want, what we like, what we think.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we're we're getting bombarded with influences.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't just mean the social media influences, I mean influence from everywhere, influence from our friends in the group chats that we, you know, are connected to 24-7.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_02: Influences the media because we're consuming media content.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_02: And as much as I love podcasts and I'm on a podcast now and I listen to podcasts, you know, when you're it's someone in your ear consuming.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_02: When there's someone in your ear all the time, you're never listening to your own voice.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_02: So how do we have original thought without space?
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_00: I think you also talk about another really important issue, which I I found which resonated, which the badge of honor of busyness.
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_00: And and and I think this is something that is really of the last five to ten years, this badge of honor of busyness that has become toxic.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: So that basically the, you know, and you talk about that, the more frantic, the more busy that I'm flat out, I'm frantic, I'm oh my God, you know, and we all suffer from it.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, I know I do it, uh, you know, because I've sort of lay it.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_00: But that part of that is, you know, the it's almost like running from the silence.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, absolutely.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_00: You know, and it's and yet you need it because it's actually your fuel, right?
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: Like, and we all do it.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: And and so I talk about that too with my kids, but also very interestingly, is my husband, who you know, he owns a law firm, and he's very, I need, I just I've got to, you know, he'll just sit quietly.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_00: He has a capacity to just go, I don't need anyone, I don't need to be on Instagram, I need to just be quiet.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: And that is that's such a and it's a skill.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm a skill, you know, yeah, you know something.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's really inquired.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I'm sort of like always buzzing around out, meeting for and for jobs.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_00: But I think it's very hard for women.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, because I interviewed a lot of people for um the book and you know, I interviewed a male politician who said that that he finds it really important to, you know, go away and think after it sitting in parliament for exactly like he just needed the quiet and he just needed to avoid group thinking to get overloaded.
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_02: And then I interviewed, um, I interviewed Sally Openmeeder, who's a media personality, and she was talking about how you know she has such a busy life, and she actually carved out time for herself to take, I think it was a two-day break away from the kids.
• 13:22
  SPEAKER_02: And it was a really big deal.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_02: And she posted about it on Instagram, and all these women were messaging her saying, I'd love to do that, but please don't, please don't post my message.
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_02: I wish I could do that, don't tell anybody.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_02: It was like we women have really brought into this idea that if we're not busy all the time, then we're somehow slashing on to that level.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, we're not good enough, we're not doing enough.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas men don't seem to have that problem.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_02: Even the busiest men, like, you know, I see my father who's got a very big job and literally will come home and just kind of you know lie down.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas women come home from busy jobs and they're still, they're still going and they're still running.
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_02: And we we need to buy out of that.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: Like we need to, because it's we're hurting ourselves more than anybody else.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: The world can manage without us for a few minutes.
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: We are, you know, we are hurting ourselves when we don't give ourselves that that downtime.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_02: We need, we need the quiet, we need the solitude for our brains to power down.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_00: They're not meant to be active all the time.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: And it is a bit a choice, and I think that's what you also talk about.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's about choosing how you want to live and choosing to make that time to be alone or to to be quiet and it's okay.
• 14:33
  SPEAKER_00: So it actually is in our control if we make that choice.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I say that to my children, you have to actually make that choice.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, my other daughter, who she's a doctor, she has no choice.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: She's 16 hours in the hospital.
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: She wouldn't know if it's day or night, right?
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: She wouldn't even know.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, so she'll just say, I just have no choice.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just, but that's not necessarily alone time, but sometimes it is on night shift.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: She's just got to be alone with her thoughts and process what she's dealing with.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's actually a very important skill and resource.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if you shut that down, we become ineffective as well at what we're trying to do.
• 15:06
  SPEAKER_00: I can't interview someone if I haven't taken the time to research and understood quietly what they've written, what they're doing, who they are.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: So it is, it is also about just taking some time to be effective too.
• 15:20
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't have to be just doing nothing.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_02: It can be especially in a huge job.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if she is, you know, working 16 hours and then she has even five minutes in a break room, but in that five minutes she's scrolling through her phone, then she's really never giving her mind the chance to power down to feel her feelings, to kind of debrief about what yeah, feel her feelings, debrief with herself, check in with herself.
• 15:42
  SPEAKER_02: And so that's you know, not everybody is going to be able to go and take a full day off here or you know, have a weekend of solitude, but everybody can take those few incidental moments.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, the number of people who literally will take their phones into the toilet and sit and scroll on the toilet, or have a podcast blaring while they're in the shower, or when they're in the car.
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_02: Like we all get those incidental moments, and that's a really good place to start.
• 16:06
  SPEAKER_02: It's not enough in the long term, but it's a good place for people to start.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_02: And it's so funny because, you know, something I wrote about, like with the culture that we're in at the moment, we're all very concerned about the right to self-determination, right?
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_02: The right to live how we want to live, to be who we want to be.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_02: All the young people, you know, I've got two young adults myself, and and I completely support them in that and try to empower them this to be the person they want to be.
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_02: And if you never actually stop and get to know yourself, how are you going to be that person?
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_02: Like exactly.
• 16:38
  SPEAKER_02: Who is this person that you're trying to be?
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_02: If you don't value yourself enough to spend time with yourself and to figure out who you are and what you want your life to look look like, what are you fighting for?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_02: It's sort of like they're all fighting for the right to be themselves, but they don't value that themselves enough to spend time with them.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_02: So it's it's it's cyclical.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: I think also the real question that your book brought up for me too is what what is everyone so afraid of?
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: What is like I think there's a fundamental fear.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_00: And the interesting thing is I was reflecting because um recently we had a loss in the family, so there was grief, and and I'm sure, and I know you've had your own experience with grief when you lost your sister.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of the day, grief is also, and you talk about this, you talk about the fear of death, the fear of loss, the fear of the feelings.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that is a real fear of pain, and which is a very fundamental human condition.
• 17:35
  SPEAKER_00: And in fact, you then go on to talk about literary greats in a way who have taken the time to really become very isolated and and and step out of the world in order to feel the pain, to re in order to, whether it's a Shakespeare or to whoever, to write, you can't do that if you don't go there in a way.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that was really interesting because I think that has a big part to play in what we're exploring here, which is huge, huge.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_02: And I think, you know, I I want to say, and I made the point in the book that not everybody is safe to be alone all the time.
• 18:11
  SPEAKER_02: So if you are in active crisis, if you're having a mental health crisis, if you're severely traumatized, um, then you know, you're not looking a space to be alone with your thoughts.
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_02: But for the vast majority of us, we need that time to feel our feelings as well as think our thoughts.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_02: So there's two different parts to it.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: And in terms of feelings, our society in particular is really bad at dealing with pain.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we we have this weird idea that we should be able to go through our lives without pain.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: And if we have pain, it's kind of aberrant, it's it's not right, it's not normal.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_02: We have to kind of push push it away or yeah, push through as as as quickly as possible.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_02: And we somehow talked about something that I know very well because I've experienced it.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I lost my sister, she was 37, she was my best friend, my only sibling.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_02: And pain, pain isn't like a consistent, um, terrifying, overwhelming feeling.
• 19:05
  SPEAKER_02: It's it comes in waves.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_02: So the one way you can guarantee that pain is going to stick around is if you keep trying to push it away, because it's going to find a way to come back and bite you on the bum.
• 19:14
  SPEAKER_02: But if you actually allow yourself time to sit with your pain, you'll find that it comes, it overwhelms you, and then it recedes again.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: Then it comes later and overwhelms you and recedes.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_02: But then the waves gradually, gradually over time get less and more manageable, and you can find a way to live with it.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, one person that I interviewed had lost a child.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and obviously it's the worst possible loss one can have.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: And she set aside, I think it was 15 minutes every morning to sit with her grief and sit with her pain.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_02: And this was, you know, quite a while down the track.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_02: And she would allow it all to wash over her, and then she could take a deep breath at the end of that 15 minutes and get on with her day with a smile.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: And that's the key.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, if we're if we're less terrified of pain, if we understand and accept that pain is part of the human condition and allow ourselves to feel those feelings and give ourselves space and time to do it, then we're going to be able to move through it and make it more manageable as we continue on with our lives.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's that's a very good point you raise in the book.
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: I think the other thing I also found interesting was you referred to the notion that being alone is there are there are strong cultural aspects where anybody who's alone is like, are you okay?
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Have you repartnered?
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Are you you know, and I mean, you uh having been through divorce or having been through and and that you're treated as if somehow by being alone.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Whereas I know lots of people that are alone that are really happy and thriving and doing really well.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you can be alone in a relationship, you can be alone while you're wholly connected.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_00: So that was great.
• 20:48
  SPEAKER_02: I thought such a weird, like we have such a strong focus in our society, um, in our culture, on relationships and on relationships and socializing as like the pinnacle of happiness.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_02: So as long doesn't matter what you achieve in your life, it doesn't matter who you are or what you find important.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_02: In our culture, if you're not in a relationship, you're somehow pitied, you're treated as lesser, you're treated like it's a tragedy.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_02: And you know, I was married for 17 years.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_02: And I can tell you, not once when I was married, did anyone say to me, Why are you married?
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 21:22
  SPEAKER_02: But when I was single, because I was single for the better part of about eight and a half years, you know, I had relationships, but I was single for most of that time.
• 21:30
  SPEAKER_02: The number of times I was asked, Why are you single?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_02: Like, and people would actually say, What's wrong with you?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_02: You know, what like or they'd say, Oh, don't worry, you know, you'll you'll find someone.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, being single or living alone, they're all treated as somehow these kind of almost like a train station where you're waiting on, like waiting for the train to take you to happy cobbledom.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_02: And being single is a perfectly valid way to live your life.
• 21:56
  SPEAKER_02: There's great joy in being single.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_02: I was much happier single than I was.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_02: When I was married.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: There you go.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_02: Living alone is a privilege.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, living alone isn't nothing to be pitied.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, again, particularly, God given housing prices and everything now.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_02: People who can afford to live alone are really privileged and should not be pitied.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of the time, people, I mean, studies have found this that people who live alone are far less lonely than people who are coupled, particularly if they're in unhappy relationships, because they make an effort to stay connected to their communities, their families, their friends.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_02: And we all know that you can be way more lonely lying next to the wrong person or being in the wrong person's company than you can by yourself.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_02: And loneliness has far more to do with your connection to yourself than it does to how many people are in your lives or in what capacity or whether or not you're partnered.
• 22:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that was also fascinating because really that is almost like an aberration in our community.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if it's something that has always been around.
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, and you talk about the definition of spinster versus bachelor.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_00: That was really interesting.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_00: Sounds great.
• 23:12
  SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah.
• 23:13
  SPEAKER_02: And why do you think, I mean, we've got the TV show The Bachelor, when they decide to have the female version, they didn't call her the spinster.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_02: They called her the Bachelorette because the spinster is just so pitiful and sad.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: You know, and but it hasn't always been like this.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_02: And and again, something that I write about is, you know, back in previous generations, solitude was something to be revered.
• 23:34
  SPEAKER_02: You know, artists and musicians and authors and adventurers, you know, they would set off, like adventurers would set off on these epic solo journeys, and everyone would go, Wow, you know, this is amazing, Godspeed.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_02: Poets and writers would go and and retreat to um, you know, a cabin in the woods for months, sometimes years at a time, and everyone would say, Wow, they're going to go and create great art.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_02: And they would have patrons who would pay them to do it.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, to go into the middle of nowhere and write or create.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: Nowadays, you say, I'm going off into a cabin in the woods for a month, and people will be like, Oh God, are you okay?
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_02: Are you having a breakdown?
• 24:08
  SPEAKER_02: And it's it's like weight.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: And the first thing we think of when someone says that isn't, wow, they must be so comfortable in their own company.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, they must have such a rich inner life, wow, they must be so creative.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_02: We think, ooh, a loner um doesn't like people, probably a psychopath, you know, probably going to end up a max murderer.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's just this weird cultural construct that has no bearing on reality.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, we also have, as I wrote, this extrovert ideal.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: I was about to say, yeah, the introvert, extrovert, that was fascinating to me because I do think that's a really interesting notion that you can be actually an extrovert who needs alone time quite quickly.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, oh, 100%.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_00: And you talk about that.
• 24:52
  SPEAKER_00: So, so yes.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: But we we, you know, our culture values extroversion over anything else.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, there's so many articles online about, you know, for introverted people, how to be more extroverted.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: Why do introverts need to be more extroverted?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: Not because there's anything wrong with introversion, it's because we've created a society which values extroversion more than introversion.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: There's tremendous benefits and joys in extroversion.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, sorry, introversion.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: Introverts are often very creative.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_02: Introverts have a rich inner life, introverts um are very comfortable by themselves.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, introverts have so much to offer the world, but we seem to value people who are loud, who are sociable, who, you know, can be the center of attention.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_02: And that's just again a very modern phenomenon.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you talk about a hybrid.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_00: What's the hybrid?
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: It's called Oh, ambivert.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: Ambert.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: I thought that was it.
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: I like that concept.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so I would consider myself.
• 25:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm probably an ambivert too.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: Like I need a lot of quiet time, but I'm like, I love socializing too.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_00: So it's where you get your energy from.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_02: So I I get my energy from both.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_02: So I can spend time.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: I like I I need a lot of time by myself.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_02: I need a lot of time to recharge and and um to think my thoughts and to be creative and to calm myself.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_02: And then after a period of time, I'll sort of create the company of other people and get energy from that.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so and I think probably most of us fall somewhere on the ambivalt scale where we need some contact with with people and some you know, contact with ourselves.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: We all need connection with ourselves and with other people, but the two are really connected.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, it's it's it's a complicated kind of thing to explain, and I go into it in the book, but but the less connected you are to yourself, the more then you're going to turn to other people, I guess, to fill you up, you know, to fill your cup, to give you what you need.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_02: But the less connected you are to yourself, the less you're able to meaningfully connect with other people.
• 26:46
  SPEAKER_02: And so the less satisfying those interactions are going to be, and so the more frantic you're going to be for connection.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_02: And so this kind of cycle continues.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_00: It makes a lot of sense that, to be honest.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: I do understand it.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's very, you explain it quite clearly.
• 27:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's really common and it's become almost endemic, like it seems to be everywhere.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: And so to have this conversation around, I like also the title Secret Life of You, because in doing that, you don't you talk about it in a broad spectrum way rather than just you two can be alone.
• 27:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not the way, you know what I mean?
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I wondered, was that interesting when you were trying to capture the essence of this story?
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: I went through, I went through a few different titles.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: But what I landed on was, and what I feel so passionately is we all have a secret world in our own minds.
• 27:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and you know, Michelle de Montaigne, I referred to this, um, called it the back shop of our mind.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_02: And I love that we all like have this back shop that we can retreat to.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_02: Um, but he lived in an age where you didn't have distractions like you do now.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: And what's happening is that our modern world and our culture and social media and our devices um are constantly distracting us from the secret world of our minds.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: And when I you know did my research and I read about people who have survived long periods of solitude, so people who were in jail or people who did you know epic adventures by themselves, they all can delve into the kind of the rich inner life in their own heads.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: But we all have those.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we all have a wealth of memories, we all have imaginations, we all have fantasies.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_02: And so many of us don't actually explore them.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: And what the one I think great takeaway of the book is that I wanted to encourage people to explore their own minds because if for no other reason then we are all unique, we will find other people in our lives who we get on with, who we connect with, but we're never ever going to find anybody exactly like us.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_02: And if we don't get to know ourselves, then we're missing out on you know a huge opportunity.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_02: We are the person who will walk with ourselves for the rest of our lives.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_02: Other people will come and go.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_02: You know, our children grow up and leave home.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_02: Friends, you know, come in and out of our lives.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: Our partners either will die or leave us, or even if we are together for the rest of our lives, there will inevitably be times in any relationship, whether it's a best friend relationship, whether it's a partnership, where your your partner will not quite get you in that particular moment.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely.
• 29:26
  SPEAKER_00: And then that's normal.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_00: Normal.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: But I think you're absolutely right.
• 29:30
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very important thing.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: I think, you know, I was in India last year and there was a strong focus on meditation, which I think is an interesting way to access that doorway for people.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: It is hard, it requires enormous discipline, but part of that, the reason is, is it does actually give you a little access to that back shop that you talk about, if you can do it, and which is why a lot of people are embracing meditation, silent retreats, as you mentioned, which a lot of um I have a friend who does a lot of silent retreats and swears by it and says, you know, her corporate husband literally it was transformative for him.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: It changed his entire way of thinking, being, because he got back in touch with the back shop, which I love that reference.
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_00: So I think I think people need what you've um raised is is definitely on slate for a lot of people because they can't sustain a world and a life where they have no access to it.
• 30:24
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_02: And it seems such a shame as well.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I kind of imagine being on a boat, right?
• 30:31
  SPEAKER_02: And yet you're stuck on a boat, but you've got one other person on the boat, and that person is an interesting person with ideas and thoughts and feelings, and you're on this boat with them for the next 30 years.
• 30:40
  SPEAKER_02: Imagine not talking to that person.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: Imagine not getting to know them.
• 30:43
  SPEAKER_02: You're going to want to get to know them.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_02: They're your companion, but we're our own companions.
• 30:47
  SPEAKER_02: And if we don't get to know ourselves and what we think and who we are and what we feel and what we imagine and what our fantasies are, we're missing such an opportunity.
• 30:55
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, one thing that that is really practical that people can do that I do a lot, that I always did do, but I didn't have a name for it, is thinking for pleasure.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: And so many of us, the only time we actually get into our minds is if we're worried about something or we're catastrophizing or we're imagining this terrible thing that's going to happen.
• 31:13
  SPEAKER_02: You know, we use our imaginations for that.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_02: We have imaginations.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_02: We can very easily imagine the worst, but we can also imagine good things.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_02: And one kind of easy exercise is just to sit down and try, even for five minutes, to imagine something really wonderful that you would like to engage in a fantasy.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_02: It could be, I don't know, winning the lottery or having a conversation with someone that you'd like to have a conversation with.
• 31:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, or it could be replaying a really special memory.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I spend a lot of time when I'm, you know, when I'm trying to calm myself down, I'll go for a wander in my head around places that were really meaningful, me, meaningful to me as a kid.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_02: So I go for a wander in my head around my late grandparents' home.
• 31:53
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we used to go to Surface Paradise a lot as kids, and I'll kind of take a walk up and down Cavill Avenue in my head.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah, I remember that.
• 32:00
  SPEAKER_02: I think I can do that too.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I kind of look in look in cupboards.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_02: I often replay movies in my head.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_02: Like I'll just I obviously not the whole thing from start to finish, but I'll replay scenes of movies that I really loved.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, I'll kind of sing songs to myself in my head, and we can all do that.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_02: It's just like a muscle that that you need to practice using um instead of kind of reflexively, I guess, turning to somebody else and and you know, hey, having their thoughts or or their imaginings or or their content on social media.
• 32:30
  SPEAKER_00: And how challenging have you found it?
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: Because it requires an element of bravery to go on this path and to explore this.
• 32:36
  SPEAKER_00: I'm sure it were there were times when you were like, this is really hard, this is quite difficult.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, do you think that you feel strengthened by going on?
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_02: Oh God, I do now, but it was it was unbelievably hard.
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_02: And to be honest, I only got into it because I was at just such a low ebb and I really felt that it was try something new or I don't know, collapse.
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, I it was the silly, it was 2020.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, we were in lockdown.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_02: I was having some really serious health problems.
• 33:07
  SPEAKER_02: I have an autoimmune condition that at the time was was quite uncontrolled.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I'm in the media, the media had taken a huge hit in COVID.
• 33:16
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and so I had very little work, had three very unhappy children at home.
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_02: Actually, that's not true.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_02: My youngest was quite happy doing online schooling and kind of playing Minecraft with her friends when she should have been in maths class.
• 33:26
  SPEAKER_02: But my two big kids who were doing university online were really miserable.
• 33:30
  SPEAKER_02: And I was lonely, I was unhappy, I had a lot of time to myself, and none of my normal distractions were available.
• 33:38
  SPEAKER_02: You know, I couldn't see my friends, I couldn't jump onto a dating site and you know, chat to some random man and kind of have a flirtation because no one was dating, couldn't see my mum, couldn't go for a walk around my local shopping center, which I love to do.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so all I was doing was scrolling through my phone, like almost compulsively.
• 33:57
  SPEAKER_02: And I realized that was making me feel much more disconnected, much more lonely.
• 34:02
  SPEAKER_02: And I got to the point where I thought something has to give.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_02: I have to do something else.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_02: I have to learn to just stop and get and be with myself and learn how to comfort and support myself, like I would try and comfort and support my kids or my friends.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_02: My friend, yeah.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_02: And it was incredibly hard.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_02: And in the beginning, I would literally, my whole body would be screaming out for distraction.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not exaggerating, I would just almost be twitching to pick up my phone.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_02: But I forced myself not to, and I started going for walks, just going for walks around my neighborhood without my phone and thinking my thoughts and you know, taking long baths without my phone.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: And then I started just sitting and thinking, and I did a lot of journaling, which I find really helpful.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_02: Very helpful, yes.
• 34:45
  SPEAKER_02: And then when I was able to, um when we were able to, you know, leave uh I think five kilometer radius, I I then went um and stayed in the house.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: My parents have a house on the coast and I stayed there for three days by myself.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_02: And it was a huge learning curve for me, but I feel so much stronger now and so much more able to, I guess, emotionally regulate myself.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so much more able to support myself.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_02: So when things get difficult, I can actually talk to myself and I can comfort myself.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_02: And when I say talk to myself, I mean quite literally sometimes.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_02: You know, if things get difficult, say to myself, it's okay, Kez, it's all right, things are gonna be okay.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_02: I can talk myself down.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_02: When I do have moments of feeling disconnected from other people, which as I said, everybody does.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_02: There's going to be moments in the best relationship where you just feel distant or and and I don't panic anymore because I can I can connect to myself and I know that those moments of disconnection are normal and and pass.
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_02: So it's been incredibly important for me.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_02: I spend now a lot of time very happily alone with my thoughts, and I can't imagine going back.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_02: I can't imagine ever giving that up.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_02: Um, how liberating is the same.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think it's been liberating at many levels from which you've just outlined, but also you really had to push through.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I like the fact that you showed courage and you said that it came from a place that was difficult, and that in fact it required you just being disciplined enough to say, I can do this, and crossing that bridge.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_00: And now, as you say, you you know, you you can't look back.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I think it's really helpful for a lot of our listeners because many would feel similarly, I have no doubt, that I mean, after all, wow, it's a pretty you have full access.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_02: So, you know, and you and you know, I did give the book to um a couple of friends who I knew really, really struggle with being alone.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_02: And it's incredible how resistant some people are because you know, when I was writing the book, I did a little survey and I asked people, you know, do you ever spend time alone with your thoughts with no distractions?
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_02: If so, why, if not, why?
• 36:54
  SPEAKER_02: And a lot of people were saying, absolutely, it's you know, I need it, it's I can't cope with that alone time.
• 36:59
  SPEAKER_02: But the people who didn't sometimes got very, very defensive.
• 37:02
  SPEAKER_02: It's like, absolutely not.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_02: I have no interest in looking to see what's in my thoughts, absolutely not.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_02: I need to be busy all the time.
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_02: And so a couple of of my friends who were very, very resistant, I gave the book to.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_02: And and I remember one in particular saying, saying, look, you know, I'll read it, but I'm not gonna change and I like who I am.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_02: And she read the book and she actually messaged me and she said, Wow, like thank you.
• 37:26
  SPEAKER_02: You know, she said it was very, very confronting.
• 37:28
  SPEAKER_02: She felt like you were inside my head, but but thank you, thank you, and is now just making small changes to her life.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_02: Um, because when you're really resistant like that, it's all about fear.
• 37:38
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like it's like you said earlier, you know, when someone is is frantically busy all the time, we all know people like that who never ever stop, who go from you know, one project to another, they're constantly active.
• 37:49
  SPEAKER_02: And you think, what are they running from?
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_02: Like what are they trying to avoid?
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_02: 100% if they were quiet.
• 37:55
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I'd like to thank you for opening that doorway for all of us.
• 38:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think the book is a wonderful expose of some of the really important issues we've talked about today.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, I just I think you've really embarked on something very interesting.
• 38:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope there's more discussion around it.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: We I certainly got us chatting over the weekend about some of those issues.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: And even if it's a dialogue that that helps the next gen as well as our generation.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: And even older people, like I was actually thinking, you know, because I was speaking to my mum who's older, and we were talking about that notion that, you know, when they were young, this wasn't even a conversation.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: This was, you know, her parents would go away for a few months on business, and they you know, you just had to like hang out and just work it out and just be.
• 38:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that was also so all the different generational um for older particularly that they are going to be alone.
• 38:49
  SPEAKER_02: You know, most older people will like one of the couple is going to die and reconcile that.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_02: Their friends will die.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_02: And and it's so important as you get older to learn to be comfortable in your own company and to learn to be okay with yourself and to manage periods of solitude.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_02: And it's so important for the youngest generation.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_02: I think as parents, you know, I really want parents to understand that this is, you know, that that kids need to be able to kids need to be encouraged to continue to embrace alone time.
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_02: Kids naturally do embrace alone time.
• 39:20
  SPEAKER_00: But they need to be supported to do that.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_02: They need to not get sort of hyper busy and booking in this and that and this and that because and for us to think it's a problem if they want to retreat to their room and quietly sit and play or read a book or or you know just.
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_02: Let's be honest, we did that.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we did that.
• 39:37
  SPEAKER_00: All I have a memory of growing up is just playing endless records on our record player and playing music and just thinking and being.
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I hope that we retreat back to that a little more than we have.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_00: And I thank you for opening the conversation and for joining me on the What I've Learned podcast.
• 39:53
  SPEAKER_00: It's been an absolute treat and really, really excited to see what you do next.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: And hopefully, there'll be more and more conversations around this very important issue.
• 40:03
  SPEAKER_01: I really hope so, and thank you for having me.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: It's been so it's just been such a lovely conversation.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: I've enjoyed it a lot.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks, Carrie.
• 40:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: The What I've Learned podcast will now be coming to you weekly, with new episodes released every Tuesday.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_00: I'm blessed to have so many wonderful guests coming on the show.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: So check out my What I've Learned Instagram for updates.
• 40:31
  SPEAKER_00: Meanwhile, stay tuned, kind and curious.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: Love Dad.