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Say It Now: Making Amends Before It's Too Late · The Rooted Soul Podcast

• 0:00
  Good evening, and welcome to the Rooted Soul podcast. It's Alan MacDonald.
• 0:05
  TheRootedSoulBooks.com is the website. Alan at TheRootedSoulBooks.com is the email.
• 0:11
  And Alan MacDonald IRE is my Instagram handle.
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  As always, we start with some housekeeping.
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  There is a special offer on the first collection, which you can get through
• 0:20
  my website or directly on Amazon.
• 0:22
  UK and Ireland at the moment where the, well, on the EU.
• 0:26
  £5 for the paperback, euro equivalent. £1.77 e-book and the euro equivalent,
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  and I really appreciate there's been an uptick in sales again which is wonderful
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  and I want to try and get that first collection out there as much as possible
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  as I said before as it's helped people,
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  there's lots of content on the website I put stuff up on social media as well,
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  and there's the live show Friday 26th of February 2027 the MYX hotel the exchange
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  sessions Christchurch in Dublin with UK and US dates to follow afterwards will
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  be an evening of songs and stories and poems and,
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  some music afterwards with some musicians that I know, good Irish music session,
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  never did anyone any harm.
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  But on to the podcast this evening.
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  I've been reflecting in a positive manner a lot lately in between life madness,
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  around, you know, I've talked about the themes of people we lose from our life
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  and in life who are still here.
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  I've written a couple of poems recently. I've been thinking about the theme
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  of making amends or saying things that need to be said.
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  And I had a few poems in mind that I'll read, the latest one,
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  King for All Days, I'll read towards the end of the podcast.
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  But I had a recent reminder of someone I've known for a very long time where,
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  we are in each other's lives on regular basis and.
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  Something I should have said a long time ago in terms of a kind of an apology,
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  or an explanation and didn't realize for a long time what happened then might
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  have been very hurtful, whatever meaning for it to be.
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  And I made the decision to have that conversation. But in addition,
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  to be a little softer on that person, we often react, you know,
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  to how people react to us in certain situations.
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  And it's we can sometimes think when that person doesn't react the way we would
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  or we think we would we only see it negatively or as a kind of a dig at us or a problem with us,
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  and very often it's not the case at all,
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  and you know with this person that i know for some reason i'd forgotten for
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  a long time that they're very stoic and they don't show much emotion.
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  They're a very kind person And I thought for a long time that,
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  that everything was shut off to me.
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  And in reality, all I needed to do was soften up a little on my side and open
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  up a little on my side and reach in.
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  And that's all it took. And it's not a negative or sad thing at all.
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  It's, it's wonderful to, to realize again, that we all have that power at times,
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  you know, and we can get a bit tired of, I get it, you know? So.
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  I've been lucky enough in my life, as contradictory as it might seem,
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  to have lost people in my family, for example,
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  where I had the time and we had the time as a family to have the conversations
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  that you want to have, to tell those people what they mean.
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  Very often people are taken from our lives or just gone from being around us.
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  And it's only then that you realize it's too late. People say,
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  well, before it's too late, as if you're going to definitely have a chance to
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  realize when it's well the clock is ticking you don't in most instances some
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  people are gone in the flash and that's it,
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  and I'm very much more direct these days but also you know I've kind of shuffled
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  the deck in my life and the things that I've shuffled to the front are what's most important to me,
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  you know the people who've I stood by and who stood by me you know good times and bad.
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  And again, as I said before, people who are quite forgiving.
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  And I'm going to read a few poems.
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  Of course I want people who are forgiving. I fuck up so often, I need it. So...
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  I'm gonna, this is one I wrote relatively recently, actually,
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  and it's called Stoking Aces.
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  With an ace up her sleeve, she had the cards to play, but she chose to give
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  him reprieve, so both can win another day.
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  So long at the table, others well gone, upping ante when able and not seeing both at one.
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  Laying down their weapons for so long looking only at the arsenal.
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  For a new dawn beckons, one where old battles are farcical.
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  A lesson to step back. Remember who you were. Sentiment and not shellac. Prioritizing care.
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  Learn this early and often, as it's sometimes too far gone. To be the one who
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  softens, so the other can follow.
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  With an ace up her sleeve, I'll help find the play. And if only one can achieve,
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  I'm fine with it that way.
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  No one is just two people realizing that.
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  That I had a boss who said to me before a few years ago, you know,
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  I had really debated and argued with somebody on a number of different issues, which were correct.
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  And he said, yeah, you're right. And I heard about that. Yeah.
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  And they were, how long ago was that? And I was like, I was about six or eight weeks ago.
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  And he goes, that's wonderful. He goes, and it seemed like she was wrong on
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  a lot of that. So he goes, yeah. He said, can I ask you a question? And I said, yeah.
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  And he goes, can you remember any of those key points that you were arguing for nearly an hour?
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  And I went to answer and he said, before you say anything, he said,
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  you're like me, you end up fighting every battle.
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  And he said, you need to step back, be a little softer and really think about, is this important to me?
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  If it's not, you can let someone else take the control.
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  Let them do it a different way. And you'll find that person,
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  I think will be much more amenable to, to you going forward.
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  And he was right. Like my father used to say, you can, an old Gaelic football
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  term, I guess, you can let some, you don't have to catch every ball.
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  You can let someone go over your head.
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  And it's about picking your battles. But it's also about, you know,
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  it doesn't have to be most of the time. These things don't have to be battles.
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  It doesn't mean you let people treat you badly.
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  And I was never, you know, I always like to think I'm never unkind or cruel,
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  but I do often see things as a battle in my life or have done.
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  And it is that fight or flight response.
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  And now the writing has really helped this and wonderful people around me.
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  I know what's important and who's important. And there were people who were
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  always in and around my life who never walked away, never left.
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  Not that many did. And some of them probably a good reason to.
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  I focus on those people now and it makes life so much easier and so much more fun,
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  but it is a difficult thing when the conversation i have had to have and will continue to have,
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  is one that goes back a long time and you do think to yourself when such a long
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  time passes is it stupid to to bring something up,
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  but actually if you have something to say on it and it's positive or it's to
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  say sorry or it's to say you know this must have come across the wrong way or,
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  then i always think it's a it's fruiting to say it,
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  and it's that thing in life where and it isn't these are friendships relationships
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  it can be love romance whatever,
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  i'm a real believer that positivity care and love that's put out there is never
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  wasted so even if it's not reciprocated even if it's not accepted even if it's
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  thrown back in your face you've done the right thing and in the terms of.
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  This is a poem I don't think it's in any of the collections actually but it's
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  a very short one and it's called Departures because I wrote it in an airport.
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  See? See how clever I am with titles? No one stands over a casket wishing I love you was said less.
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  Don't wait till the moment passes from chance to bygone regret.
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  When you feel it, say it. Let them know even if they dismay.
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  Don't join the ranks of the lovesick.
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  Leave the casket with nothing to say.
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  And that was someone I reached out to and said that to, you know,
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  no one stands over a casket wishing they'd said less.
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  And I'm a firm believer in that. And I move forward in that vein now.
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  You know, I used to be the person I'm thinking of actually was just talking about a minute ago.
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  If I felt there was any kind of step back, any kind of coldness,
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  rather than reaching in and put my arms around that person and saying, are you okay?
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  Like, do you want to talk? Is there, you know, do we need to talk? Or is there something?
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  I would then get defensive. Well, if that person's been like that,
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  I'll be like that. And it's such a waste of energy.
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  And I've a few people in my life who have their own situations like this.
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  And sometimes it's just about dropping your shoulders and stepping back.
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  You know, I don't know why this person is being like this.
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  It may be about me, it may not be about me, but the only way to find out is
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  to have the conversation in a non-combative way.
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  I spoke about a friend of mine early on in the podcast where he came to me when
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  I met up with him and pulled me aside and said, look, I wasn't happy with the last time I saw you.
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  X, Y, Z reasons. I'm not angry.
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  I'm sure there was stuff going on, but I just wanted you to know it hurt me a little bit.
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  And the way he put it across was so emotionally mature and intelligent that
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  I couldn't get defensive about it.
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  I just had to say, geez, that's not at all what was meant, but absolutely I'll
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  sort that out. And that was it.
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  It's not even ripping off a plaster because they can hurt sometimes especially with my hairy arms.
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  Is just sometimes going, actually, do I need to say something?
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  So do I need to tell someone they hurt me? Do I need to ask someone if I hurt them?
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  And just do it. You know, it can be very cathartic.
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  I'm going to read you another, actually I'll read another poem in a second.
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  I was thinking about, you know, I think a lot about literature and,
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  you know, I've dealt back into reading again, and books, and poetry, and,
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  but in literature, there's a lot of these, like I said, we don't know when too
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  late is too late, very often in life.
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  That's where regret comes from.
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  Very often, people don't regret while there's still a chance to fix it.
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  You know, it's when that chance is gone, that's when the regret comes in.
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  And the person I talked about earlier, I was told by someone 20 years ago actually
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  i won't get into that i was told by somebody after it happened you know you'll
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  regret it if you don't say something because you really didn't do the right thing there,
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  and it was it's just very interesting to me you know i've always considered
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  myself relatively open and i suppose we all do but yet they're those conversations
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  that we don't have and i was thinking about king lear.
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  And it's only when he he holds his daughter's lifeless body in his arms that,
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  he realizes the mistakes he made and what he'd done and what he'd lost.
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  Cain and Abel was the same where, you know, Abel, am I my brother's keeper?
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  And again, it was only when he destroyed his brother that he realized all that
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  envy, all of that competitiveness, all of that supposed hatred turned to ashes in his hands.
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  And these are good things to keep in mind. It's not that You should always be,
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  there are times when you, and I've done it recently where, you know,
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  you've done your part, you've done what you can do, but most of us don't even do that.
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  We let things fester. I've seen it with, with friends of mine where,
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  of many different stripes,
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  where I feel a breakdown in a relationship that they've had or a friendship,
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  is fixable with a conversation, apologies on both sides and how do we move forward?
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  And instead it's left. And you always know when people, you know,
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  will talk angrily, but they will talk about that situation often,
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  but as if they don't care, but you're still talking about it. So clearly you do.
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  And don't do that guys as i say whatever is put out there that's positive is never wasted,
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  and and the other person may have good reason to reject or not reciprocate but
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  it's still not wasted and even if they've bad intentions and that's why they
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  don't it's not wasted you're doing the right thing you know on your side and
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  the second collection of mine,
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  i mean the clues in the subtitle the rooted soul acceptance of joy when it comes
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  out and you will see phases and parts and poems,
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  and it's not about sadness and it's not about regret it's about acceptance and
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  the reason the acceptance is there,
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  is you either move on from a situation to understand that you know not everything
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  is permanent or nothing is permanent.
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  Or you try or you try you fail or you try and you succeed but it is an acceptance
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  of all these things that happen in our lives and i suppose me making sense of
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  things and you know because i'm an overthinker and an overanalyzer,
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  of why I react sometimes the way I do.
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  And I'm not perfect, or I'll probably react defensively to something and work
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  this week, and that's okay.
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  But it gets easier and it gets better, I think, when...
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  You know, it goes from not actually realizing to realizing after you've reacted,
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  I shouldn't have reacted like that.
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  And then over time, most of the time you don't.
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  You step back, you take a breath, you think about it, and then you react.
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  You know, then you throw something at them.
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  Once you've considered, I need an object heavy enough that it'll hurt,
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  but not so heavy it'll kill them.
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  So you know,
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  of these poems are, I like this one, this is friend zone.
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  Don't focus on the people gone, take care of those still here.
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  The ones discreetly cheering on, the versions of you that you fear.
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  We often overlook the friend who never went away. The one who saw you at your
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  worst, who was non-negotiable to stay.
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  Whether you're to blame or someone else's shame, it doesn't really matter cherish
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  all who don't build walls and never deceive or flatter.
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  That's something i feel quite strongly about actually you know we sometimes
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  don't see the people that are right there beside us whether it's family friends
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  or whoever and they're quietly there,
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  you know helping you through your worst and cheering you on at your best and,
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  you know it's two years on now really from,
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  when i was kind of started to come out of the worst period of, of my adult life.
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  And I still don't forget that.
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  And part of the reason I do all this is, is to help me to not forget.
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  And, you know, I write different things, horror anthology and different poems
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  on, you know, politics and everything else.
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  And these things are, they're wonderful, but they, they help me reflect,
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  but not in, not in such a negative way where you're constantly kind of thinking about it.
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  And I'm always interested in what people think. I get a lot of emails and messages
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  from people after they've listened
• 15:56
  to these podcasts. And I'm always interested in what people think.
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  If you think I'm full of shite, like, what do you think if there's a better
• 16:03
  way of doing this? I'm always interested in what people have to say.
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  There's also, I've talked a bit before, and I'll read a poem about this shortly.
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  There is also, we have a tendency to one dimension people.
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  You know, they're all black and white.
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  We see one part of them, and we think it's all of them.
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  Particularly sometimes if it's negative. We don't agree with them politically,
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  or they've done something in their life, or done something to us.
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  And this is what I'm talking about. I know I've read this before. This is called labels.
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  Sure, he's an insert label.
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  To box him on a shelf then I'll be able to not look at myself or views that
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  I hold because it's his that are bold sure he's an insert label a melt,
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  from little adults hate can grow starting with this theme we dehumanize and
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  don't empathize drawing on our own lines for the regime,
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  not really it's just about it's fairly straightforward obviously it's not like
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  I'm translating it from Latin for you but,
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  I've stopped labeling people, certainly those close to me,
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  and started conversing with them more.
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  And those interesting conversations, trying to find out what makes somebody
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  tick or why they think the way they do, you know?
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  Like I talked about on the live Instagram last night, which is lost in the midst
• 17:26
  of time because I forgot to save it.
• 17:29
  A poem, Sean McGuire is his name, and he's published through the Lost Soul Events.
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  And it was a wonderful poem about Shane McGowan and Henry Kissinger.
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  So he's really talking about Henry Kissinger through some of the lyrics of Shane
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  McGowan and other stuff. And it's a very, very clever poem.
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  I haven't got it to hand now because I'm not at home, but it is two people where
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  Shane McGowan was all about peace and love and forgiveness.
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  And at your very worst, we could still be loved people and loving people and
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  then you have Henry Kissinger who was known to be quite the warmonger and certainly
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  in Southeast Asia and he was a war hawk,
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  in the US and an advisor to,
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  many presidents and I think he was in was it Nixon's was it Nixon's cabinet,
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  but I thought that was kind of you know McGowan is someone who's I love that melancholy that.
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  You the misfits you know that people don't really they label see what i did
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  see how clever that is there i wasn't even thinking about that but they label
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  so i often saw it with shane mcgowan where,
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  certainly as he got older you know he had a very slurred way of talking and,
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  so he was almost brought on to some british chat shows as a he's a pisshead
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  irish singer but he was a poet a wonderful human being you know a songwriter,
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  and just amazing and i'm not taking the piss when i say this there's some really
• 19:02
  great interviews he's done they're on youtube if you put it to 1.5 times the speed,
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  it brings him actually to normal pace of speech and the interviews are a lot,
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  easier to you really get his stream of consciousness and his thinking.
• 19:19
  But he was a wonderful guy.
• 19:21
  I'm going to read this one because I love him to bits. Measuring our dreams.
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  Covered in the cloak of silence, I hear you talking in my head.
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  Sing Shane McGowan poetically crowned, the best to put paper with lead.
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  Singing lonely and solo transported to Soho, rainy night here in my room.
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  Love lost and care tossed, but never to be lost, the king of the lovesick and doomed.
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  And I took so much from his lyrics, pair of brown eyes, body of an American,
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  rain night in Soho. There's so many of them.
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  That line I've talked about before, that covered in the cloak of silence,
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  I hear you talking in my head. Sometimes I wake up in the morning,
• 20:01
  the ginger lady by my bed. That's the whiskey bottle that is young.
• 20:06
  The cloak of silence, I hear you talking in my head. It's just beautifully written.
• 20:13
  And again, it's about regret. He's talking about a woman clearly is no longer in his life.
• 20:18
  He made mistakes probably and doesn't feel he can ever make recompense for them.
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  But as long as people are here, you can always try.
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  I'm going to close out tonight with the poem I wrote.
• 20:32
  I might finish with too.
• 20:35
  Let me start with well-known acceptance. Acceptance isn't about the wait,
• 20:40
  taking on permanent strain.
• 20:43
  It doesn't shackle you to guilty traits, or stay on that driverless train.
• 20:48
  Acceptance isn't the boulder in front, stopping wounded villain's journey.
• 20:53
  It's ending cycles firmly ensconced, of halting lessons learning.
• 20:58
  Acceptance is that it's sad, the ending morbid and teary.
• 21:02
  It removes the sackcloth and ashes clad to your mind, tired and weary.
• 21:07
  Fry your tears when they must fall and head towards your life and enjoy the
• 21:12
  tears without guilty fears for the one not at your side.
• 21:17
  It's a recent one I'd forgotten about actually.
• 21:20
  I've written so many of them, but I think that speaks for itself.
• 21:24
  The acceptance. That's about, that's not about amends, it's about acceptance. It's done.
• 21:30
  And it's time to move on and accept that it's done, whatever that is.
• 21:36
  So I'll finish with King for All Days. This was written yesterday.
• 21:42
  You don't become a king by being crowned, but by pulling those up with you,
• 21:46
  the friends who are about to drown when rising up from every subdued.
• 21:51
  You don't become a king by slaying dragons. True courage is empathy for the weak.
• 21:56
  Leadership is leading by example, not by the nose and trampling on the meek.
• 22:02
  You don't become a king by walking alone, with others scattered at your feet.
• 22:07
  The sword of Damocles above your throne, but a king doesn't use that pressure to retreat.
• 22:13
  I believe no one needs to be the king. Standing above, isolated and observed.
• 22:18
  Maybe love and loyalty is the thing. Kinship over kingship is no less than we deserve.
• 22:25
  That guys as i said it's the rooted soul books.com where you can get the book
• 22:30
  on special offer for the for the moment until the second is,
• 22:34
  published and you can go directly to amazon that's where this sale is there
• 22:39
  are other sites that it's on but it's on sale there at the moment,
• 22:42
  alan at the rooted soul books.com as always guys i welcome the feedback,
• 22:47
  if you want to like and follow as well podcasts i really appreciate that or
• 22:51
  leave a comment under wherever you're watching it it just It helps with the
• 22:55
  algorithms and there are people discovering the podcast all the time.
• 22:59
  So it's absolutely wonderful.
• 23:02
  And Adam McDonald IRE is the Instagram handle.
• 23:04
  And as always, guys, better living within.