Latest / White Fox Talking / E56: [Adventure Mind Series] - Exploring the Importance of Adventure to Wellbeing and Mental Health with Belinda Kirk

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E56: [Adventure Mind Series] - Exploring the Importance of Adventure to Wellbeing and Mental Health with Belinda Kirk · White Fox Talking

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Hello and welcome to the White Fox Talking Podcast.
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: I'm Mark Charlie-Valentine and, as usual, I'm joined by Seb.
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: How are you, hi?
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: I'm okay.
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: Where are you in the world today, at home, really?
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's a different background this week, mate.
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: Well, I can choose.
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I can't for one.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: That's another technical glitch that we can look at, because it won't do a background for me.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: I don't know why.
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Not enough capacity.
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: I think a little bit like myself.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: We can work that out between us next time.
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: Cool, the White Fox Talking podcast is sponsored by Energy Impact.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: So, joining us today and, as we had our little pre-chat, thank you very much, belinda Kirk, because I know you're a very busy person and it's good to actually get you online or get our diaries aligned.
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: Hello.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Well, no, it's great to talk to you and thanks for inviting me on.
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: I'm a kind of busy person, like everyone seems to be too busy, but I also only work part-time.
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: So when I am working, I'm very, very busy and, more importantly, my most important job is to be a mum.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: So I also only work part-time.
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: So when I am working, I'm very, very busy and, the more importantly, my most important job is to be a mum.
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: So I spend I'm very protective of that time.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: So I'm very busy as a mum and I'm very busy with my, my work that I'm very passionate about yeah, I think both I know, but I've been, I've been trying to, I've been having some sort of talks with a therapist, with me, emdr, and trying to make time for myself, and what happens is it ends up getting filled.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: You make time for yourself and something comes along and fills it.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: So it's ridiculous.
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: And Seb knows how to fill time, don't you Seb?
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: I do indeed, yeah.
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, if there's a bit of free time, I'll fill it to make sure there's no free time yeah, so cool.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: So welcome Belinda, would you?
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: It is definitely, and I yeah, as we spoke about, in the sort of area that we're going to talk about today, with trying to give information about mental well-being, then there's a lot to do, isn't there a never-ending, never-ending cycle, really?
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: I think one of the things I'm trying to do more now than I've ever done in my life is not to be too busy, and it's for my mental health and it's to just enjoy life, because if you're doing even if you everything you do you're passionate about and you enjoy, if there's too much of it, you haven't got time to reflect, take a breathe, you know.
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: Just just enjoy it enough.
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: So I'm getting much better at saying no.
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: I think also having kids, having a little one or having kids you value your time differently, because the time that I do on my projects and my charitable work and my paid work and the things that I really love doing and are very much part of my I feel, very much part of me and who I am.
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: If I spend too much time on that, I'm losing time from my son.
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: If I spend for me, it's a balance as well, because I'm trying to keep my own identity.
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: I like using my brain, not just to play games, but also I don't know write books and do stuff as well.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: So it's hard, isn't it?
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: But it's very important to say no.
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: It's hard to say no, though, sometimes.
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: So what I'd like to do is if you could give us and the listeners a brief introduction about yourself and then what I want to talk about.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: You know a bit about that, about your background, and then on to sort of explores, connect, adventure, revolution and adventure, mind to wrap, and let people know what you're actually doing and what we want to talk about today yes, so for most of my I've led groups on expeditions, lots of jungles and deserts around the world.
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: That's been my main.
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: I suppose that's been the largest part of my career.
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: That took me into taking a lot of film crews and scientists and all sorts of other groups of people into remote places.
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: As an expedition leader I've always enjoyed taking especially young people on expedition and seeing this life-changing transformation happening in front of my eyes.
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: Specifically, or with everyone, but particularly with young people, it can be a very important time of life, those teenage years, so that sort of led me into what I do now.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Years, so that sort of led me into what I do now, which is I'm very much I want to campaign and write and think and help support the adventure for wellbeing and adventure for mental health communities out there.
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: So there are people who are working in this area adventure therapists or occupational therapists or outdoor leaders and I've written a book called well, it was called Adventure Revolution.
• 4:25
  Speaker 2: It's really confusingly changed its name to Adventure Mind.
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah, oh, I'll put it down.
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: Same book, different title, so you can actually buy either version at the moment.
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: But it is the same book, so don't buy two and think they're going to be different.
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: But the book is going to America.
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: It went to America last month.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: We got a lot of feedback about the title.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: We got a lot of feedback in Britain about the title not saying what it was because it is around.
• 4:51
  Speaker 2: You know it's the first argument.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: It's the first book to explain why adventure is essential for mental health and wellbeing, and so we needed to change the title and it also wraps into my other work that's come out well, has all been tied up with the book.
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: The book is the manifesto.
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: It's the argument as to why we should use adventure in our lives and in our societies to improve our mental health and well-being.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: But also it's not just a book now.
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: It's a larger movement.
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: It's a community of practitioners, a wider community than that.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Really, it's a set of conferences called the Adventure Mind Conferences.
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: It's also a website, and on the website will be a directory, so there'll be people if you want to find out more about how someone can help you with your mental health or wellbeing via adventuring.
• 5:40
  Speaker 2: That's part of the website it's going to launch quite soon and we there's also an adventure mind grant, so there's like a whole load of things around trying to really promote adventure for well-being and adventure for mental health again, there's a lot there isn't there.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: We've just spoke about you're making time for yourself, but there's an awful lot going on there.
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: Just listening to it sounds daunting, without actually being part of it well, it's been about 10 years that I've been really really banging this drum around.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: We need to rebrand adventure.
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: We all talk about adventure as something that's for elite people it's like a death wish thing and for about 10 years, I've been really researching this area, promoting this idea that adventure is for everyone and it's beneficial to us.
• 6:23
  Speaker 2: It's not a.
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: It's not a luxury, a frivolous luxury or and it's not just for, you know, elite athletes.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: It is something that we can all incorporate into our lives, for and for the better, to help us live better lives right.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: so if we were to go right back how, what was your pathway into finding that adventure was for you and you know some people don't get the opportunity to adventure or maybe the limitations how did you basically set on this?
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: What is a life, career, life path now?
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: I think really the very first time I was adventuring, the first time I became an explorer, I think when I was about seven or eight years old, and I was very lucky that back in the sort of eighties kids had a lot more freedom to just roam.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: We were less worried about cars because there was less of them.
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: We were less worried about stranger danger Thank God, we didn't have smartphones and stuff, so all of that was in my favor.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: We obviously have a lot of problems.
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: Well, maybe it's not obvious.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: I believe we have a lot of problems for our young people because our society is failing them and we're not giving them that kind of freedom and playtime.
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: So I was really lucky I was able to, and also I specifically was lucky because I lived on the Channel Islands for a good chunk of that time, that young, young childhood and so I was really free.
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: I was on Alderney, there was hardly any people there, there's hardly any cars and I would just roam free and that gave me a lot of autonomy and excitement and it's where you you build and find new pieces of yourself and build, I suppose, a love for adventure.
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: I think everyone has a love for adventure.
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: If you look at children.
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: We're all built with this love for adventure.
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: It's just that we grow out of it.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: It's not that it's not for some people, but anyway I digress.
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: So I was lucky to have an adventurous childhood.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Then we moved to Bristol and I was a teenager and I lost adventure.
• 8:24
  Speaker 2: The wonderful Duke of Edinburgh Award brought me back to adventuring.
• 8:27
  Speaker 2: I heard about it, I hadn't done, I hadn't had access to camping and adventuring and that sort of outdoor stuff for several years and also I was a teenager and I think teenagers, you just want to rebel from whatever it is that you've been doing or your parents want you to do.
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: You just have to have a very healthy bit of rebellion time then.
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: But I heard about Duke of Edinburgh and it was like a light went off when I went on the expedition part, because it was the expedition part that drew me to the whole thing.
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: Then that led me to other expeditions.
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: I was eight, when I was 18, I think I did my Duke of Edinburgh around 16.
• 9:01
  Speaker 2: Then I did some more adventures in Britain because of it, sort of more micro expeditions.
• 9:07
  Speaker 2: That then led me when I was 18, I wanted to go to Africa.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: My grandfather was a scientist.
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: He was a zoology professor in Africa.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: So I'd heard all these stories of Africa and I went off to Africa as an 18 year old on my own, much to the sort of horror of my parents, a for wasting time and not kind of getting a job or going to university or something, and B because I was like going off to Africa on my own.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: But I just felt this call to adventure and I think that that Duke of Edinburgh award, that path, had set me that way.
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: So then I basically joined expeditions.
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: I raised the money, I was a tea lady, I was working in shops, I was just living at my mum's house, I was just doing everything I could to save as much money as possible to go on expeditions.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: And then I became more and more experienced.
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: It was like an apprenticeship, and then eventually they started to pay my insurance and my flights.
• 10:06
  Speaker 2: And then eventually they started to people started to pay me to, you know, be an assistant leader or then a leader, and I kind of just worked my way up because I'd found something that made me feel completely alive and that was I just loved.
• 10:20
  Speaker 2: And so that's and I should probably mention now as well, if I'm not talking too much.
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: I had had a really difficult childhood.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: I'd had this idyllic time in some ways, that I was free for part of my childhood and I had this outdoors time.
• 10:37
  Speaker 2: That, I think, was my saving grace, no question.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: But I'd also, during my childhood, I'd experienced a lot of violence, repeated episodes of violence, and so my self-esteem was like rock bottom and obviously then going into teenage years as well.
• 10:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, teenage years is not great.
• 10:57
  Speaker 2: We don't serve our teenagers, we don't give them rites of passage, we don't honour our young people, and so all of those things on top of each other, but particularly the violence and the low self-esteem.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: When I found Duke of Edinburgh and then I found something that I was good at and that I loved and made me feel that there was another opportunity, another way to see the world, another way to see myself it just gave me massive hope, and I think adventure definitely saved me at that point.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: If I hadn't found adventure again in my teens, I don't know how I would have coped.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: So that's really why I'm so passionate about adventuring.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I was going to ask you then actually, and you sort of started alluding to it there is what these first adventures gave you as in sort of qualities you discovered about yourself, or sort of any resilience and strengths that you didn't realize without going on these adventures yeah, so in my book I very much explain about.
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: I think one of the greatest gifts, especially in those early adventures, is that you find out what you're capable of and that you find that you're capable of more than you think you're capable of, and that at anyone at any time in their life.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: It's like the world opens to you.
• 12:11
  Speaker 2: It's not just hope, but there's this whole reframing of who you are and how you can live and who you can be, and so I think it's any activity adventure is really good at this, but you could also do other activities.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: It's very positive psychology.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: I love the idea of doing things that build you.
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: There's great therapy, like in a CBD kind of traditional way, but I love positive psychology and this idea of doing things that build you up.
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: And for me, doing adventure showed me that I was not useless, I was not incapable and worthless and all of these things that I believed about myself as someone who had gone through that trauma and that violence at a young age.
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: If you go through and obviously you know all about trauma Obviously everyone's trauma is different and everyone's experience of trauma is different, but you can feel very, very isolated, very worthless and for me, the biggest thing at of my in my life was that I found out that I was not worthless and that there was hope.
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: There was just like I could do things, and I could do things that maybe other people couldn't do.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: I could be better at certain things.
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: It's not about a competition, but like I could actually do stuff, and that was empowering, really empowering yeah, I think, like, just like you said there, you know, mental health is an it's individual.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: It's individual to each person and we seem to have, maybe not so much now, but recently, previously we've lived under labels of, you know, depression, trauma, anxiety, and these people that have been suffering from these have been pigeonholed.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: But each case is actually individual and I suppose, on an adventure, maybe five or six people on a in a group could all be at different, different stages with their own mental health, and some may not have mental health, but everybody can advance from being on that adventure yeah, I'm a great believer that we talk about mental health and we.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: It has such a negative connotation, doesn't it?
• 14:05
  Speaker 2: It's always about, if you say the words mental health, people think, oh, poor mental health, like there's an illness.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: We all have mental health because it's like we all have physical health, so we all have mental health.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: I don't think there's anyone on the planet that doesn't have, at some point, poor mental health because you might be grieving or you might be going health, because you might be grieving or you might be going.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: You know, there's things that happen to all of us and we are all wired differently and we all can cope differently with different things.
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: But, yeah, I think we all have.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: I think that labels are useful in some ways, but also labels are not useful in other ways, because you know, for example, if you have some sort of anxiety, you probably, or possibly have had depression at some point because they're so closely linked.
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: If you've had trauma, you'll probably have experienced potentially all three.
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: And then there's so many different variations of all of these things.
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: It's a bit like, yeah, I don't know, I think we're all just too different and we experience too many things, yeah, in such variety that it's labels are helpful at times and and not.
• 15:10
  Speaker 2: But I I'm blathering a bit, I think it's just I don't know what I'm trying to say now no, I think, um, I think I don't know.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, it's this thing.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Uh, you know, of people being, you know you get a label.
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: So my label is I mean, at the minute, my label is that bouncer from leeds that have pts, ptsd or has PTSD.
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: So PTSD and depression for me, which I didn't really know.
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: I had depression because the PTSD was such a roller coaster.
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: But my PTSD is maybe totally different to the next person's and my reactions to that PTSD are totally different.
• 15:45
  Speaker 1: My experience, because they're mine, an individual, but a personal opinion, and we keep coming back to this on podcast, and this is probably why we do it and why we're sort of very interested in the outdoors and adventure, getting people like yourself on.
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Is that I've forgotten what I'm saying now?
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: No, is that there is something to be gained by going back to this thought of being surrounded by nature and adventure and even going back to, like childhood and play, you know, but we seem to have cut all this off and by just pigeonholing someone, we're saying right, you've got PTSD, you need counselling.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Well, maybe you don't need counselling, maybe you need something different yeah, I also.
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: I really believe, from my personal experience and from meeting and talking and interviewing so many people in this area as well, is, I think there's no one size fits all, and also that even adventuring or being in nature, these are all wonderful things to help with our mental health, but you might also use a long.
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: Sometimes they can be a doorway to the next level of therapy.
• 16:44
  Speaker 2: It might be talking therapy, it might be CBT, it might be EMDR, it might be.
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: You know, there's so many different types of therapy out there, and I think as you evolve as a human through your life, different therapy might be good for you as well.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: It might help you at different stages.
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: But I think adventure well, is particularly underused and undervalued, and it's also free or almost free.
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: It can be done pretty simply.
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: Although it sounds intimidating I will talk about that more later it truly can be done pretty much for free or very simply, and it's also there's non-toxic.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: There's no side effects, apart from good ones like getting fit, physically fit as well, and so I think we just need to think about the arsenal of weapons we have to help us.
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: Maybe weapons isn't the right word, but you know we have this toolbox and we have so many things that work for us and not all of them work for everyone.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Cbt everyone goes straight to that sort of thing.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: You know that's what you will get from the NHS, but it only works in 50% of the cases and most people aren't told that.
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: You know, a professor of psychology told me that and I was just like wow, you know, I had a feeling it probably wouldn't work in all cases for all people, but 50%.
• 18:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, why are we only focusing on that?
• 18:03
  Speaker 2: We really have to be more open to what we have, the opportunities we have, because we have a massive mental health crisis.
• 18:11
  Speaker 2: So we really should be using everything and adventure, just to say because I completely believe that nature is good for us and being in nature is good for us.
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: But I would define adventure as choosing a challenge in nature.
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: So it's not just about being in nature, it's about choosing something that challenges you as well.
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: So it's the just about being in nature.
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: It's about choosing something that challenges you as well.
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: So it's the difference between forest bathing and exploring a forest, or you know, that's the sort of the difference I think Choosing adversity, choosing challenge, choosing to be a little bit outside your comfort zone.
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: That's where the nature effect goes into like plus plus.
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: So by adventure you always mean outdoor kind of activities, because the way I see adventure, I mean anything could be an adventure, like cooking a new meal or painting something or writing something down or trying something new, like you said, being outside your comfort zone.
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: But it doesn't always have to be outside.
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: We all see the benefits of nature being outside, but I guess a challenge can also be an inside challenge.
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: Does that make sense?
• 19:16
  Speaker 2: Oh, I totally agree.
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: I think a big message for my book is that you use adventure as a way to stretch those muscles so that then you go to the rest of your life your cooking, your career, your relationships, you know whatever it is and then you can be more adventurous because you've stretched the muscles in the most natural way.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: I think adventure is so powerful because it's the most natural way for us to behave.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: We're born hunter gatherers.
• 19:44
  Speaker 2: We're supposed to live our lives.
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: Every day should be an adventure for us, because that's how we evolved.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: That's who we are.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: There's this evolutionary mismatch the way that we live now and the way that our brains and bodies have evolved.
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: To work is to be a hunter-gatherer, not to be someone who's sat in front of a screen and not moving around enough, and also having these routines and not being.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying that we're not challenged.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: We're challenged in ways that are very unnatural and very bad for us, and that's part of the reason we have a mental health crisis.
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: I'm talking about natural challenge, so it's a very.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: That's why it's such a hard thing to.
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: That's why it took me so long to try to narrow down what is it that is adventure, because, yes, what you're talking about starting a business, trying new cookery, asking someone out on a date that you've always wanted to do, I mean anything brave like that, anything out of your comfort zone.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: This is all adventurous behavior and adventurous mindset.
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: But an adventure is this idea of just getting back to our very, our very grassroots of who we are and just like being a hunter-gatherer almost for a day or for an afternoon or an evening.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: You know, just choosing a challenge out in nature is the best way of doing it.
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: I think yeah, you mentioned earlier about adventure as maybe God.
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: When you mention adventure, or when we mention adventure, it seems to have this elitist pre-connotation of you.
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: Know, you've got to go climb something the highest or sail something the furthest.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: How would you, just following on from Seb's question there, what would you, what would you, what would you say for anyone thinking, maybe listening to this and thinking I want to go on a bit of an adventure, what, what would they, what's, what could they do?
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: so I think you have to choose your mountain, as it were, and I think the best way of starting is actually not to intimidate yourself out of it so you never actually get going.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: So that's a really important step, because the first if you've already done some adventures, you're probably a bit hooked.
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: Maybe you've had a break, because life throws us, you know, bad stuff that we have to deal with.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: Or we just get too busy, which is also life throwing us bad stuff that we have to deal with, or we just get too busy, which is also life throwing us bad stuff, and we don't make time for it because we're not prioritizing it.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: So you might already have had adventures in your past.
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: You might be a cyclist or a hiker or whatever it is that you like to do surfer, get back to it.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Choose something that, even if you've done it before.
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: Choose something that you know how to get back to it.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: And it's not too intimidating If you've never done adventuring before and you feel like, oh, that's just not for me.
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: I'm just I kind of like the sound of it, but I don't know where to start.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Make it super simple and make sure that that's you know.
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: Just commit to making the first step.
• 22:25
  Speaker 2: You could do something like camp in your garden.
• 22:27
  Speaker 2: If you've got kids, take them out.
• 22:29
  Speaker 2: If you haven't got kids, get your neighbors around all.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: Camp in your garden.
• 22:32
  Speaker 2: I mean, just do something that's outdoors a bit out.
• 22:36
  Speaker 2: You can test out your tent.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Borrow a tent if you don't have one.
• 22:39
  Speaker 2: You know there's so many of these adventure sort of communities and stuff.
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: Everyone talks about kit so much and I always want to want to say look, it's not about the kit, it really isn't.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: You don't have to buy all the latest gear.
• 22:54
  Speaker 2: Try and blag what you can borrow from mates, because everyone's got a tent, or not everyone.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: A lot of people have got a tent in the garage that hasn't been used in years.
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: They'll lend it to you.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: They'll like to know that it's having a bit of use.
• 23:06
  Speaker 2: You don't need the most expensive boots, the most expensive sleeping bag.
• 23:12
  Speaker 2: If you're going to not walk that far, you could take a duvet.
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: I mean, figure it out.
• 23:17
  Speaker 2: Try not to let the kit be a barrier, because there's all these barriers that get in front of us.
• 23:21
  Speaker 2: So intimidation is the first barrier.
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: Make it simple.
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: Camp in your garden.
• 23:26
  Speaker 2: If you've done camping before, maybe try camping wild for the first time on Dartmoor in Scotland.
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: Unfortunately, you can't officially camp in other places in Britain, but it's not criminal to trespass, so I'll leave that with you to make your own decisions.
• 23:41
  Speaker 2: But obviously, always be respectful, and don't you know?
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: I think that we should have more rights to roam, but I'm always respectful of both the environment and also any landowners.
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: It's very important that we respect the environments we go into.
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: So go wild camping.
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: If you haven't done it before, it's free.
• 24:01
  Speaker 2: You just need to blag some kit and have just about enough to keep you dry and warm.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: You don't have to go even that far off the footpath.
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: Wild swimming is a great one.
• 24:10
  Speaker 2: I jump in a river near where I'm very lucky, I live in the middle of a national park but there's two other ladies and we're about 10 minutes from this river, equidistant between us, and we jump in the river once or twice a week and it just makes us feel alive and it's always a good day when you've started with a world swim.
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: You can try parkour.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: If you're in a city and you can't get out of the city and it feels too difficult to get on a train and so on, and you want to do something closer.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: You can do parkour.
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: You could try climbing walls.
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: I know they're a little bit expensive.
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: There is a bit of a I mean there is a monetary barrier to that, but just see about.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: If you've got kids, you could see if there's a club for them and I mean, see what there's possible.
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: I think it's always worth just trying to see what's possible.
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: Beavers and scouts and whatever you know, the whole scout movement is brilliant for kids and my son is straight away he was straight away signed up to beavers absolutely loves it.
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: There's actually geocaching.
• 25:06
  Speaker 2: That's free, you can get free.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: You can explore your town, city or, if you're lucky enough to be out in the countryside a bit, you can do an exploration by finding this treasure hunt on a geocaching app.
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: There's loads of accessible stuff that will give you a taste for it and it will give you an introduction to adventure.
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: And I think the really great thing about starting on adventures is that the more you do them, you get this feedback loop that motivates you to make the effort to go and do another one.
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: Cycling, I mean there's brilliant cycling routes if you've got a bike or if you can borrow one.
• 25:41
  Speaker 2: So what are the barriers?
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: The barriers are like this yeah, it's this idea that it's not for me, or, if it's too scary, start small as you can, small as you want, or start as big as you want.
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: It's really up to you.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: It doesn't have to cost a lot of money.
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: You don't need all the kit in the world, but I think the main thing is just to start, just to go.
• 26:03
  Speaker 2: Okay, I've always wanted to do something like this.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: Oh, another great tip is to get a mate, find a friend who wants to do it.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: There's some really good communities on Facebook, on Meetup, on different internet sites.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: There's some really good adventure communities that are local or national and you can join up, find people in your area who want to do similar sort of stuff.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: That is a massive key to feeling.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: The reason the three of us, for example, go world swimming is because, once we've agreed to do it, I'll see you at 8.30 30 at the river.
• 26:31
  Speaker 2: There's no signal at the river.
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: We can't just bail out because we can't be bothered in the morning or be like, oh, it's going to be a bit cold.
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: You know, there's something really empowering about having a teammate to go with.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, and there's some great information on the website on websites the explorers connect.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: Website's got lots of top tips about how to go wild camping or how to go wild swimming or what have you.
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: But there's loads of other great books and there's a lot of resource out there about how to get going in adventuring.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Somebody listening to this might say well, hey, we're listening to Belinda Kirk talk about adventures.
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: What adventures have you been on?
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: Or some that you'd sum up because you have got been on, and or someone that you'd sum up because you have got vast experience and a guinness guinness world record holder as well.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: So you've not mentioned any of this.
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: What's why you've been so modest?
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: well, do you know what?
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: I've led groups.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: I'm so old I'm 50 next year and I'm like, oh, we're doing a 50th journey actually with my mates from school in university that us old ladies are going to go cycling at some sort of long distance cycle.
• 27:31
  Speaker 2: It's not going to be record breaking or anything, because it's not.
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: It's really not the point.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: And the older I've gotten, the more I've realized that it's not about impressing people or getting Guinness world records.
• 27:40
  Speaker 2: When I look back on my career of 30 odd years of leading groups into wilderness, the thing that I'm most proud of is taking those young people on adventures and we're taking anyone.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: I've.
• 27:51
  Speaker 2: It's mostly been those, particularly that that age group, but but various adults as well, people that I've taken on adventures and I've been able to help them find a new.
• 28:00
  Speaker 2: It's changed their lives.
• 28:02
  Speaker 2: It's like they found a new way to look at themselves and it's kind of it's been a step in a to a whole different life.
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: I was very lucky that my first expeditions and adventures did that for me.
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: Duke of Edinburgh, my first expedition out in Africa.
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: It changed the opinion that I had about myself and it changed my whole route in life.
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: So the Guinness World Record and stuff and the sort of record break like these other big.
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: I've worked with lots of celebrities.
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: I've run trips for Bear Grylls, Ray Mears, Chris Ryan, David Attenborough some amazing people.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: It's great working with talented, interesting people.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: It's great going to great places.
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: But genuinely the thing that actually means anything, the meaning, comes in what I've been able to.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: I've been a catalyst, I've been a little tiny part of the puzzle, helping people to change their lives for the better, and I think that's so.
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: Those are the things I'm most proud of.
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: And I think if you talk to anyone who does, who works in passion projects, who works for charities or who volunteers in organizations and so on, the stuff that you look back on is the time with your friends and your family and the stuff that you've made a difference in the world.
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: It's really not the you know, it's not the extrinsic sort of validation of like having letters after your name or having you know like that stuff's really nice.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: You know to kind of, I'm a fellow of the RGS.
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking about letters often Fellow of the RGS.
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: I've got like a degree and I've got a second degree and you know I did all that jazz.
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: You know all that jazz.
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: No that's, I don't want to belittle it.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: All those things count, but really the stuff that counts is your relationships and your for me, and the stuff that you do.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: That actually changes the world.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: And at the moment I you know especially as a mum now, because my little boy is six and especially coming up to like this, I think, as you old, hopefully you get wiser, as you get older or something, or at least you get perspective.
• 30:02
  Speaker 2: I just think the world is in such a mess we don't value the right things, and it's terrifying and it's be very easy to get very anxious, because I'm very naturally an anxious person because of my background and so on.
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: I think some people just are naturally anyway.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: It makes me really good at planning expeditions, though, because I can see every what if I'm really good at that.
• 30:23
  Speaker 2: But I think the world is in such a state and it would be very easy to become very disillusioned and just to give up and just to think and overwhelmed.
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: But adventuring has given me strength.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: It's given me a lot of fun and a lot of joy, and when I've been able to help other people it's given me a lot of meaning, and I think those are the things that actually build resilience and they build a good life, and I wouldn't say I'm getting everything, everything right, but I'm trying to really focus on the stuff that I get right and do more of that.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: I'm blathering, by the way, what's the?
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: question.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: I do have to just pull you up on one point, as I sit here on the wrong side of 50.
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: That 50 isn't that old actually, yeah, so so one passage in the book that I and it's early on in the book is when you took a young lady away and she was very sort of introvert and then you made her a camp leader and then, if this is correct, without me going back to the book and then a mother met you outside back in the UK and asked what you'd done to her little girl.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Can we refer to that Because I think it's a lovely little story?
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: And you know in the UK and asked what you'd done to her little girl.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, can we refer to that Because I think it's a lovely little story?
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: And you know in the world that I work in, or some of the work that I work in with young people, and I see the addiction to mobile phones and sugar and distractions and convenience, and then you get something like this where a young lady's gone away.
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: So if you could just give us a little quick account of that.
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, young ladies got away.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: So if you could just give us a little quick account of that.
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I did a lot of expeditions very young, so I built up a lot of jungle experience and I was asked at the age of 26.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: I was asked to lead a big expedition into the peruvian amazon and this was for the british exploring society.
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: So I had about 100 and I think it was about 120-odd people working in different groups around the Pacaya-Samaria Reserve in Peru and there was a lot of young people on the expedition and a lot of scientists because we were doing scientific work, and there was also some Peruvian scientists and some Peruvian young people.
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: So that was kind of the dynamic of the team.
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: And I met this young woman called Alice on the expedition who obviously had had a difficult start in life and was facing a lot of challenges and when she first started the expedition she wasn't integrating very well.
• 32:42
  Speaker 2: She obviously had a lot of confidence problems and I realized now I didn't realize at the time, but I realized now that I saw myself in her I think a lot.
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: And what it turned out or how it turned out later is I found out she'd actually had, she'd had some self, she was self-harming, so her depression and so on, her lack of confidence.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: So obviously a lot of our society is you know, cotton wool, take care, don't trigger.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: There's all these kind of words and phrases that we use, and I'm not saying that those don't want to just make it easier for her.
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: I actually want to give her some responsibility and, I suppose, make it harder for her, because I wanted her to lean in and take responsibility for this expedition and also I wanted her to socialize better.
• 33:40
  Speaker 2: So I gave her this job, which meant that she had to go around everyone in her team and be like the kit person, and so she was like checking that they had all the right kit at base camp so that before they left base camp she was like coordinating it and that was her role and it meant that she had to talk to everyone, that she had a really specific role.
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: I think it's great to have responsibility so much of.
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: We don't respect our children or our young adults and we don't give them enough responsibility.
• 34:10
  Speaker 2: We don't respect our children or our young adults and we don't give them enough responsibility because we don't like respect them enough.
• 34:13
  Speaker 2: You know they're very capable.
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: My little boy is six, and I'm already trying to remind myself of this but also kind of wow, like he's so capable of so many things.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: You know he's got his own knives, which of course we've trained him in.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: He does he cooks for you know he'll.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: He does a great scrambled egg.
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: There's all sorts of stuff, but anyway, I digress a bit.
• 34:35
  Speaker 2: But so what I wanted to do is to give her responsibility and to give her some confidence, and so she took this role on.
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: She wasn't really excited about the role, but she, she took it on and actually after the first sort of like worries that she had a lot of anxiety probably about it, she got on with it and she spoke to everyone.
• 34:52
  Speaker 2: She took this real control and then it just grew.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: She like she's her role in the expedition just slightly tweaked then and therefore her path started to really change.
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: It all was going well, but she was still struggling, it was still hard.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: She went out, they, they left base camp and the different groups went off to different parts of the jungle, and it was probably a few weeks before I saw her again, or a couple of weeks before I saw her again and I went to visit their group and literally when I saw Alice the next time.
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: I almost didn't recognize her.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: She had her shoulders back, she was sort of striding about.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: She had actually, she had actually put herself forward as the camp manager and she was like in charge of everything.
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: She was like bossing out orders and she she'd like she, a light had come on for her and she had found this new way of being.
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: And I've seen that and also I've spoken to so many outdoor leaders who work with specifically with young people who are troubled or excluded from school and all these different measures that we have.
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: People who maybe don't always fit into our society or who have had a lot of trauma, specifically do well, I think, in adventuring, because it's a much more natural space, it's completely different rules and ways of being and it's also a very level playing field.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for her, she just looked and behaved completely different and it was so exciting to see.
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: And then six months later again, we all met back in London at the Royal Geographical Society to present the expedition and so all the kids were there, all the young people there, all the different scientists and all the different jungle leaders and so on, and we all gathered at the Royal Geographical Society and we had royalty there to kind of watch our presentation and stuff, which was very cool.
• 36:40
  Speaker 2: And in the queue to get in, this woman came up to me and she just said what have you done to my daughter?
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: And I was just like oh.
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: And I was just like oh.
• 36:49
  Speaker 2: And I immediately thought, oh God, I'm in trouble Because there was the girl that was bitten by the bat, there was various parasites that the young people had picked up, and I was like, oh, no, I'm.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: You know, I wasn't prepared, I wasn't prepared to like defend myself straight away.
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: I was like, oh, what's going on?
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: Anyway, she ended up hugging me and just just telling me how wonderful things were and how her daughter, who'd she had, who'd had a lot of struggles and a lot of troubles, who's had no come out of herself, was helping at home, was having more, had more friends probably the most important thing, her grades were better at school and of course, it turned out that this was Alice's mother.
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: But I didn't know at first and I was just like wow.
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: And it was the first time that I realized that it's not just me that it works for, because this was like 18 years ago, 19 years ago, it wasn't just for me.
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: That adventure had a lasting impact on my mental health and my wellbeing.
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: Maybe not the first time, but it was the first time I remember really, really believing this is something that can work for lots of people.
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: This is powerful, like this is not just something that helps you in the moment.
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: This has a lasting impact on how you can be and how you can turn up in your own life.
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: And that's amazing.
• 38:05
  Speaker 2: And why aren't we all shouting about it, like why aren't we all telling people about this and why don't people understand how it works?
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: Because that was kind of the start of my journey into trying to learn about psychology.
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: I've kind of retrained myself in psychology and read hundreds of papers in this in different areas around this, in outdoor education and all sorts of things around really trying to understand why adventure is so powerful at helping us live our best lives I think it's a great little story because I think I can relate to it, as in people that have, or anyone that's had, an issue maybe a mental health issue, or maybe mental health, maybe a sorrydivergence we seem to just hold them at arm's length.
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: But I honestly feel that a lot of these people have got hidden superpowers and we should, you know superpowers, but we should let them shine and work with them.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: If I refer to my own story, then whatever I put myself through on an adventure is probably never going to be as bad as what I went through with ptsd, and it's like it's when I went then that I look back on and it has been said that before I seem to be okay under pressure, but yeah, but if you compare with what I've been through before, then then it's all right.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: You know, it's just steady.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: I'm only.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: It's only either wind, rain, snow and finding shelter and enjoying yeah but even more than that, it's not just about surviving, is it?
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: It's about thriving.
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: I think that's the key as well, because you're quite right, but it's also about finding out that I know that when I in my younger years, I was just I was doing okay, I was functioning, and I think a lot.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: There's a lot of mental health actually in our society that is hidden so much because people are just getting by and they're surviving, but really we should be aiming to thrive and to live.
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: I keep saying it to my friends and reminding myself all I want to do now is I just want to live.
• 39:58
  Speaker 2: I just want to have a good life, do stuff that is is important and matters, but also have a lot of fun, hang out with people that enrich me and just yeah.
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: So I think so much of it is, and I think adventure is a great way to find mechanism like to help your mindset to go in that direction and also, you know, to have a lot of joy.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: At the time you can experience awe and joy and all of these things excitement in the best possible way.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: So can I bring you.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: We'll go to the book Adventure Mind.
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so what drove you to write that?
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: What inspired you to write that?
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: I'll be honest, I think it's a great book.
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: Oh, thank you, I do think it's a great book.
• 40:40
  Speaker 1: It's got loads of references in it's very extreme, you know and it talks about all these qualities that you can gain or discover about yourself from adventure and true life stories.
• 40:50
  Speaker 2: So yeah, Thank you, I'll send you the tenner later.
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: Basically, I had talked about this book for years.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: It was the book that I wish I'd found.
• 41:01
  Speaker 2: It was the book that I wish I'd found.
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: It was the book that I wish I'd been able to read in my 20s, because I started to realize how life-changing adventure was for me, but I couldn't find a way of explaining it.
• 41:13
  Speaker 2: I wanted someone to explain it to me.
• 41:16
  Speaker 2: I just wanted to find a shortcut.
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: It's like how do I use this better?
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: Why is it that people are saying, oh, time to get a real job now, time to grow up, get a real job.
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: When's your next holiday?
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: Love that one?
• 41:29
  Speaker 2: And it was like no, there's something else.
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: This is something that's building me, this is something that's helping me and healing me.
• 41:38
  Speaker 2: And why don't we understand this?
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: Why don't we appreciate this?
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: And so, purely out of curiosity, I just started researching this area and I literally have read hundreds of scientific journals and papers about this.
• 41:54
  Speaker 2: It helped that I did a biology degree, so I was not totally terrified of the thought of reading scientific papers, because they are quite difficult to get through at times.
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: They're not written in English, but I was fascinated.
• 42:09
  Speaker 2: I was just curious and I wanted to know.
• 42:11
  Speaker 2: So what I did is, over years, I just started reading, reading more, started to put together theories and ideas based on what I'd seen, basically because I could see that certain things worked again and again.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: 30 odd years of taking people into the wilderness, you witness in firsthand and you also learn as I think outdoor leaders have great skills at empowering and developing people, and that you know how to lead a group and you know how to bring the best out in people, and then those skills they go back home with them.
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: So I could see that there was something there, but I was out of curiosity.
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: I researched it and I spoke to more and more scientists as I was researching and I kept asking them would you write this?
• 42:57
  Speaker 2: Could someone just put together an argument as to why adventure is so good for us?
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: Do you think someone could put a paper together about it, like a scientific paper or even a book or some blogs?
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: I want to understand and I want to tell people about this.
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: So I almost asked other people to write the book for several years, and then I started to talk about this book as if it was like this book I'm going to write this book because it needs to be out there and I've done all the research.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: And then COVID came along.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: My whole, all of my adventure plans, because the reason I never really also sat down to write the book was because I really didn't.
• 43:32
  Speaker 2: I just wanted to have adventures.
• 43:33
  Speaker 2: I didn't want to sit down and write a book and you get busy.
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: Life's busy, isn't it?
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: And it's hard to write a book because you have to earn a living and you have to do all these other sorts of things like that and pay the mortgage and stuff.
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: But then COVID came and I thought if I don't use this opportunity then I'd be crazy.
• 43:51
  Speaker 2: You know, I've been wanting to read this book, I've been wanting to write this book for so long, and so I used the COVID lockdowns to write the book.
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: I already had all the interviews, I had all the research because I had just done it out of curiosity for so many years like a good seven years at that point of just researching, not full time, obviously, but really really passionately interested.
• 44:12
  Speaker 2: And I had a lot of theories because it sat in my head for a long time.
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: So I had theories about how these things fitted together.
• 44:20
  Speaker 2: The writing of the book was so hard.
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: I mean, without having done lots of adventures I wouldn't have had the resilience to sit through and keep going.
• 44:28
  Speaker 2: But I also like so many things in life, it was really hard but it was really well.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: It was like really worth the effort.
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: Another thing that you learn out of adventuring you know the pain that you go through at times trying to write a book.
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: It comes out in the end because you have this, you finally get out what you're trying to say.
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: And the very process of writing is that extra level of computation in your head where you're trying to get the ideas down and actually your ideas evolve further by simply putting them down on paper or on typewriter whatever not typewriting on the laptop, because actually processing them in that way really helps you.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: Once you try to eloquently explain what you believe and feel, you have to then find words for it and also link it to science and come up with theories or link it to existing theories.
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: So it was a really brain twisting experience because it's a popular science book with lots of adventure stories, but in order to distill the science I had to really understand it to make it, to distill it into an easily understandable, easy to read English.
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: That's also engaging and hopefully engaging and also clear to people.
• 45:42
  Speaker 2: You know I'm trying to create the argument for adventure for being good for our well-being, so it took a lot of brain twisting but I'm just so proud of it.
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: It was the book I'd love to write more.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: Now I've gotten hooked on the idea of writing words and people reading your words.
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: It's such an honor.
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: I mean it's like amazing.
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: The book has its own life.
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: I get emails and Instagram messages and stuff of, since I've read your book, my whole family.
• 46:09
  Speaker 2: Now we'll go adventuring and it's helped everyone's wellbeing and I mean it's so wonderful to get that sort of feedback because it's worth the effort that you put in.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: But this is always going to be the most important book I've ever written.
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: It might be the only one I'll ever write.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: Nothing else might get published or I might never finish another book, but it was the one I had to write because I think it needs to exist in the world and the book itself has had this amazing ripple effect.
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: So many people now talk about the ideas from the book Advent.
• 46:41
  Speaker 2: Adventurers, psychologists, researchers, organizations are you know the whole of adventure, mind the book and and then the conferences and so on.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: It's all had this, it's all reaching out and making real ripples and real change, and that's really exciting yes, couldn't agree more.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: Honestly, I do.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: I don't tend to read because of certain issues I've got myself, but I do.
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: I know.
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: I think I'm on my third time of listening on the audiobooks in the care.
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: Honestly, I don't tend to read because of certain issues I've got myself, but I think I'm on my third time of listening on the audiobooks in the car, so I spend an awful lot of time driving to my outdoor areas that I'm working to and listening to audiobooks, rather than just listening to music and obviously, learning.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I pick something up from it every time, so it's brilliant, thank you.
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: Can we now talk about adventure mind, the conference and what that the aim of that?
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: I know there's another one planned, so we can talk about that and give yourself some plugs.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so adventure mind is now a website adventuremindorg.
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: It's a collaboration of organizations and individuals who want to get this message out and to promote adventure for mental health, adventure for wellbeing.
• 47:49
  Speaker 2: The conference has been going since I think I sort of launched the whole idea and got the idea out there in 2019.
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: So way before COVID hit and there's been I'm trying to remember there's been three conferences.
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: Now no-transcript, a LinkedIn group, but the conferences are there about really showcasing and also pushing the research and the practice in this area.
• 48:43
  Speaker 2: What's going on in this area?
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: Who's doing climbing for wellbeing?
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: How are they doing it?
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: How can we do climbing to improve our mental health or how can we help?
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: This particular theme of this conference is very much about accessibility.
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: So it's like how do we particularly help people who are not accessing adventure to do more to help their mental health?
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: And I think those groups that don't access adventure are often the same groups that have the biggest mental health challenges statistically.
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: The conference this year is in November.
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: It's November 21st, it's just before Kendall, so the Kendall Mountain Festival is literally it comes straight afterwards.
• 49:22
  Speaker 2: So if you get up to Kendall for one, you could easily fit the two in.
• 49:26
  Speaker 2: It's an amazing community of people two days on site, so you also meet amazing like-minded professionals, adventurers I mean amazing sorts of people.
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: It's been a real launchpad for a lot of people or a really good turning point to help with their work or their research or what have you.
• 49:45
  Speaker 2: So the conference is in november.
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: The details are on adventuremindorg and, yeah, and it's also growing into being more than that all sorts of different collaborations where people are donating a lot of their time to try to get this message out there and to help more people use adventure for their mental health right, I think I will be there if seb allows me to.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: Am I allowed the time off?
• 50:12
  Speaker 3: well, book your holidays now, I'll approve I was there last year in sheffield.
• 50:16
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it was great.
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: I think, like I said on the day, you know, it's great to see I describe myself as a survivor now, you know, ptsd survivor and if we'd have had things like this 24, 20, you know, 20 odd years ago, then it would have been a lot easier, the path through would have been a lot easier.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: I think, because I just, you know, when I, when I, in reflection, you mentioned, you know, taking time to reflect and in reflection, the first thing that I did to sort of take time away from the ptsd was go out.
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: Go out and get in the mountains and do the walking, and this is what sort of led in a general direction to where we are now.
• 50:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's great to see that people are, you know, such a mix of people as well.
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: You know like, say, practitioners and leaders, scientists, like dave gallagher we're going to get back on and we're not going to just talk about the negatives of mobile phones this time, I've promised him.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: So, yeah, it's brilliant, thanks for putting that on.
• 51:08
  Speaker 1: And of course, I know it must take a lot of time and effort.
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: Can I just ask one more question?
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: To be awkward, and it's been on my mind since you asked the question, charlie, about what can an individual do, how an individual do, how can an individual go out and join an adventure.
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: What do you reckon we as a society can do?
• 51:27
  Speaker 2: It's a good question.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: And also, I just wanted to finish up on what you said earlier.
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: I, I set up the conference and now it's actually run by university of central lancashire and, and this year bendrig the brilliant charity bendrig and it's being held in there at their venue.
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: So I must mention that because they are doing a fabulous job.
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: What can we do as a society?
• 51:46
  Speaker 2: Well, I sort of touch on that in the final chapter of the book, but I've had so many more thoughts since as well.
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: There's so much we can do.
• 51:55
  Speaker 2: I mean, if you look at our schools, we have decimated the adventure opportunities in schools.
• 52:01
  Speaker 2: And I think, even if you don't read my book, even if you don't, if you're not into adventuring, I think there's just this in is this like innate feeling that we all know that kids should be out finding their, you know, seeing what they're capable of, and in the outdoors doing adventurous types of stuff, and that by not doing this sort of stuff, they're not learning to cope, they're not building coping mechanisms as well as they're not getting fit, physically fit as well.
• 52:29
  Speaker 2: So I think we should.
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, how do you do these changes.
• 52:34
  Speaker 2: This is something that this is a big question.
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: I think I'd love to see Adventure Mind.
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: The final piece of Adventure Mind will be in campaigning, maybe, and in coordinating campaigns.
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: It's something that's on the next list and already having meetings about and so on.
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: We should be getting adventure days in schools.
• 52:51
  Speaker 2: We should be allowing more field trips, just as I had when I was at school.
• 52:56
  Speaker 2: I did way more geography field trips and stuff than kids do now at school.
• 53:01
  Speaker 2: And also our playgrounds.
• 53:03
  Speaker 2: Our playgrounds could be a lot more.
• 53:05
  Speaker 2: People get worried when you use the word risky, but let's use the word risky.
• 53:09
  Speaker 2: Playgrounds should be designed to be more challenging for kids.
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: If kids learn to manage risk as children younger than when they're adults for the first time, they actually become safer because they learn how to manage themselves and manage their own risk.
• 53:27
  Speaker 2: If we just cotton wool kids given these playgrounds I've seen some school playgrounds they're just blank, they're just a bit of asphalt.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 53:35
  Speaker 2: They're just boxes of nothing.
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 53:38
  Speaker 2: Put planks in there, put tires, put movable pieces.
• 53:42
  Speaker 2: And I'm not just saying this because I fancy putting in junkyard playgrounds.
• 53:47
  Speaker 2: There's masses and masses of evidence that junkyard playgrounds are good for kids Physically, mentally, they build more coping mechanisms.
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: They're better at looking after themselves.
• 53:57
  Speaker 2: There's huge amounts of evidence about this and what's really really interesting is also that there's less.
• 54:04
  Speaker 2: There's a great study that I mentioned in the book and there's more been more done since.
• 54:08
  Speaker 2: There's some great studies, particularly in New Zealand, where they've put more risk into the play times at some schools in New Zealand.
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: What they found was that the kids actually got hurt less because they were taking more responsibility for their own safety.
• 54:22
  Speaker 2: So they were actually becoming safer.
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: And 10 years down the line from the other research that's been done, I would say that they'll be even safer because they will be able to look after themselves and risk assess.
• 54:33
  Speaker 2: But what was really really interesting is that bullying went down in these schools.
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: These kids were finding a way to live more as they should, play more as children and get rid of some of these frustrations or whatever, because they could really let off steam and take responsibility and therefore take pride.
• 54:49
  Speaker 2: So there's all these complex things going on, but literally just putting junkyard playgrounds into every school would be a massively positive step, as well as things like residentials and field trips and more of these things, which I know cost more money, but what we're paying our taxes for.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: That's the sort of you know we have a mental health crisis.
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: We should be preventing this, not just handing out antidepressants later.
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: So that's a big thing.
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: Social prescribing is a brilliant thing, you know.
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: More and more of our GPs, more and more of the NHS should be focused towards social prescribing, giving out green days, adventure days, community days, you know, experiences that help again prevent and alleviate mental health.
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: We shouldn't just be as a society.
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: We're so focused and this isn't the doctor's fault, the NHS's fault.
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: This is our societal problem.
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: We're so focused on the end result and things have to get bad and then we try and fix them.
• 55:43
  Speaker 2: Well, let's try and prevent.
• 55:44
  Speaker 2: Let's really really try to prevent.
• 55:47
  Speaker 2: But also I mean this I've got so many ideas.
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: This is such, I mean god, why anyway, there's so much we can do and it's so easy and so cheap and so effective.
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: We could put climbing walls like.
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: We shouldn't even build any more government buildings without putting climbing walls outside of them.
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: We should like encourage parkour.
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: It's practically free to do parkour.
• 56:08
  Speaker 2: Most schools could do parkour easily because they've got all the gym equipment.
• 56:12
  Speaker 2: Then, when they're a bit older, they could go outside and use.
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: The whole point of parkour is a freedom of movement through whatever's there.
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: I know everyone's thinking, oh, broken bones, and so on.
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: The problem is, if we don't allow kids to take these steps and adults, then they're going to be.
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: Instead, they're going to be cotton wool, they're going to be getting overweight and unfit, they're going to have heart problems later on, they're going to have a host of mental health problems and they're not going to be living their best lives.
• 56:40
  Speaker 2: So I mean there's, there's so much that we can do.
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: I mean, don't get me started on politics, because our politics in this country are just broken and I don't care if you're blue or red or whatever, it's just broken.
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: We need great leadership and we need, we do need to change a lot of things.
• 56:56
  Speaker 2: But and that sounds very intimidating, but you know, if you do adventures, you get empowered and you also know that you can change the world.
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: So I think, together, we just need you know we need to ban school, ban phones from school, we need to bring in more adventures.
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: I know I've talked a lot about kids and schools, but I think we, we can all do the rest of it.
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: We're adults, we can, we can help and support each other to do adventures as adults and through social prescribing and so on, so we should maybe as community.
• 57:24
  Speaker 2: There's some great communities online.
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: Like you know, adventure queens and love her wild, and I don't want to miss it.
• 57:32
  Speaker 2: There's so many good communities out there trying to help people network for adventure, so there's there's good stuff going on, but yeah, we need a whole lot more yeah, I couldn't agree more with you, billinda.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: I was hoping you were going to go on a political rant then, because it saves me doing it, because I generally do that as somebody that's sort of I've spoke about it so many times on this.
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: You know, when I was at school getting, oh, I just had a bit of disruptive behaviour, but nothing, probably because all we had was a school field, you know, and and played football, but full of energy, and then got thrown out of my classes into the gardening club because I was the bad kid and went out tree planting and you're like, wow, this is amazing, you know.
• 58:09
  Speaker 1: So that was an actual result.
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: And then, because of what's happened to me and then us working in this industry and seeing that we had danny giblin on recently about education intervention and the young people that are being cast aside by schools because of adhd and maybe behavioral or learning difficulties and coming to going to tao activities and engaging in outdoor adventure and becoming, you know, you see these people, you see these young people grow before you and getting great results.
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: So, yes, fantastic, but fantastic results there, but it's not available to everyone, is it?
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: This is the problem.
• 58:45
  Speaker 1: Like you say, I think it's difficult for governments to not do something that they're not going to be able to quantify, isn't it?
• 58:51
  Speaker 1: It's like you say everything goes bad and then they try and fix it.
• 58:55
  Speaker 1: Well, can we avoid it by just getting back to basics, including?
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: I'll be honest, I don't think young people should be going to school till they're a little bit older and sat learning academia when they should be learning.
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: Or I think there's a forest school in there, down in cornwall, where they don't for younger, for toddlers, where they don't have any play indoors, it's all outdoors, which is fantastic well, actually, you know, I homeschool my son, which is why I don't have enough time to do my other work projects.
• 59:27
  Speaker 2: But no, I completely agree.
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: I think four is very young.
• 59:30
  Speaker 2: I mean, I'm very fortunate though we are older parents, so we're by no means rich, but we're not struggling with it.
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: In your 20s you've got enormous mortgage and you're trying to build your career and you just can't bring in enough.
• 59:44
  Speaker 2: And I totally realise there's a lot of people in this country who could not home educate, although some of my friends who are you don't have to have huge amounts of money to home educate, but it does take the pressure off if you don't both have to work full time all the time.
• 59:58
  Speaker 2: So we're prioritising his young years as not being in school, because we don't think that school is going to serve him as well as being outdoors.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: We're going wild camping on Dartmoor tonight.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: We're going to climb.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: We're climbing all the highest points of Devon and Cornwall with his little best mate, who's also home educated, and you know, otherwise he'd be at school, which would be fine, like some schools.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: Obviously, different schools are different and some of them are very good, but when they're young, yeah, I don't think.
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: I don't know when he'll go to school, but when he's older he's only six now, so I think there's a little bit more time for him to just grow physically.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 2: You know, that embodiment of being able to know what your body can do in the, in the and how the environment works is such a key part of development at this stage.
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: And also social skills, like true personal development skills, youth, a child, finding out what they can do, being free, playing, playing is so important.
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: There's a really good new book actually I've started reading about and there's some great stuff that was presented at Adventure Mind about play and how play is so important, not just for kids but for adults.
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 2: Anyway, we'll get on a whole other conversation.
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, play and adventure are much more closely aligned and interwoven than I'd realised before I did the conferences.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 2: Play is important and it's important for adults too.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, well, maybe that might make a second podcast, belinda, if we can manage to get our diaries to match up, because this has been a while in the making.
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: No, it's all good.
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: Like I said earlier on, it's just, you know, everyone's got so much, so much on just with life anyway, but then obviously trying to with a mental health thing there's, there's so much to go on, so much scope it's.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: Which way do you go next?
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: This is the thing, is it?
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: It's a mess, but there is choice.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: There are some lovely opportunities.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: We have choices.
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 1: Yes, there are.
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and hopefully.
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 1: I mean.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 1: The aim of the podcast is bringing information to people.
• 1:01:57
  Speaker 1: That's, you know, freely available for them.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: So now they can hopefully be directed to Adventure, mind and you book and explore us, connect and get some information off there yes, thank you no, you're very welcome, cool.
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 1: So I think that's a good place to wrap up because, as you've said, there, your son is waiting to go wild camping and I think that is valuable, extremely valuable.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: We will be doing some more podcasts with speakers from adventure mind and we will get this out and it'll be a little series.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 1: Before well, I think I want to get dave back and talk about the.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 1: He wants to get right into the positive neuroscience of adventure, which I'm looking forward to, although, although blow my mind, rather than last time, we just got dragged off into mobile phones and things and negatives on that.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: So but l Linda, thank you very much for joining us.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: I hope the weather's kind to you down on Dartmoor on your mini-exped.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 2: Thank you, it's been lovely talking to both of you.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: Thanks for inviting me on and yeah, well, we've come out of this long winter and we finally have some good weather, so it's like, hooray, you had three days last.
• 1:03:05
  Speaker 1: I was three days in the latest, last week on a mountain leader assessment and I actually felt heat and I was, I felt, under climatized.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: I'll be honest, it was.
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: It was hard work, but I've got a few more of them coming up, so I'll get my, get my own adventure minded.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: So brilliant, thanks for joining us.
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 1: We will get all the links on the podcast information.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, thank you and I'll see you at.
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: Adventure Mind.
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: See you at Adventure Mind.
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 2: Thanks very much.
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: Thank you, cheers, bye-bye.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: And if you would like to support us and help us keep the podcast going, then you can go to Buys a Coffee or you can click that on our website, whitefoxtalkingcom, and look for the little cup.
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: Thank you.