0:03

Bigger than us. The book is

0:06

largely centered on this idea of meaning, right?

0:08

That's the kind of overarching purpose

0:10

for writing the book. It's trying to find meaning in a messy world

0:13

and at the end of the book in part four, you

0:15

start to conclude that, you know, the real

0:18

meaning in life is connection in its various

0:20

forms. So I guess my question for you

0:22

is what is it that for you now is bringing

0:25

meaning in your life? What does meaning mean

0:27

to you in your life now? And yeah,

0:30

where do you find it? I

0:33

find it in really simple

0:35

places like going for a walk and

0:38

that sounds a bit too sort of casual and

0:40

flippant, but I do. I try and

0:43

go for a walk every day and I went

0:45

for a walk this morning, super early. It was, sun was

0:47

still rising. It was pissing with rain. It's bloody horrible.

0:50

But when I'm out, I might be listening

0:52

to music. I might go without my phone and just walk.

0:55

This could sound very cheesy, but I'm often

0:58

brought to tears because I

1:02

extract myself from the, oh my

1:04

God, my kids are late for school or

1:06

I haven't done this email or how

1:08

am I doing with this or what's failing with

1:10

that or just let it all go

1:13

and

1:14

I'm lucky to live near a very green space so

1:16

I can walk around and look

1:18

at trees and see there's green

1:20

parrots in the park and whatever

1:23

else is going on in nature and

1:25

be humbled by it because it's humbling

1:28

when you really notice it or

1:30

at night, look at the sky. If you're

1:32

lucky to live in an area where there isn't too much light

1:35

pollution and see one star that

1:38

might not even be there anymore because we

1:40

can't talk about physics. It's gonna blow my head off. But

1:42

you know what I mean? Look

1:44

at the greatness of what is going on around us

1:46

rather than at your phone or the smallness of, oh

1:48

my God, my house is a shit, how everything's messy.

1:51

Look outside of that. I have

1:53

to do that every day so I don't get

1:55

bogged down with, am I doing this right?

1:57

Where do I fit into society? How successful am

1:59

I? all of this greatness

2:02

and how short life is,

2:04

how short life is, and that

2:06

in 200 years, none of us are going to be here.

2:09

That's humbling. It's not bleak, that is

2:11

humbling to get up every

2:13

day and think

2:15

there's a whole new load of generation, like people

2:17

and things that will be happening and systems in place

2:20

and technology or whatever it might be that I

2:22

won't be around for. So I have

2:24

to get up and be grateful and

2:26

do all that stuff I want to do today, not

2:29

next year when I'm braver, in 20

2:31

years when I'm older and quirkier

2:33

and more eccentric. I've

2:35

got to do it now. So I

2:37

have to find that meaning

2:39

connection. This is bespoke,

2:41

it'll be different for everyone, but for looking at the bigger

2:44

everything,

2:46

noticing that I'm on a floating ball in space, noticing

2:49

that all of this is changing always and that there

2:51

are trees

2:52

thousands of years old and I'm just 40

2:54

and what do I fucking know? I have to

2:56

get myself out of this small structure

2:59

that we've created on a societal level and

3:01

look at the hugeness of

3:03

all of it. And remember, when you look at

3:05

that hugeness, that we know fuck all.

3:08

Because we can't even get our heads around the

3:10

fact, like what is infinity? No,

3:13

I can't even go there. We don't know

3:15

anything.

3:16

We know nothing. And we

3:18

have to keep coming back to that. As soon as we start going, yeah,

3:21

I know everything about this and that and I know more

3:23

than you. Small,

3:26

small lives, small. I

3:28

want big, expansive, I don't know anything.

3:31

I'm here to learn, here to learn. And

3:33

I won't be here in however many years. So

3:36

gratitude. It's funny because I

3:39

mean, yeah, what you're saying is just beautiful

3:41

and very, very true and powerful. But

3:43

from that, I was realizing

3:45

that

3:47

my own self-importance is a curse, right?

3:49

So like if I log into Instagram, the little like

3:51

thing will tell me how important I am today and then I'll get sucked

3:53

into that. Or if I'm a good enough mother because

3:55

I didn't pack the right thing for sports day. And it's like

3:58

the system we've created, the kind of like. matrix

4:00

we live in sucks us into believing our own self-importance

4:03

and that, you know, the color of my nails really

4:05

is consequential to anything. And as you look

4:07

up at the stars, you realize that you are just a... Speck.

4:11

The universe doesn't really give a fuck about you. And

4:13

that is liberation. It's liberation from all the pettiness

4:16

that consumes our mind.

4:17

But I also think as much as

4:19

we are... I

4:23

don't want to use the word insignificant, but as tiny

4:26

as we are in the grand, grand scheme

4:28

of things, I also

4:30

alongside that truly believe that we are

4:33

supported by all of this

4:35

greatness, not necessarily by

4:37

the societal structures that we see and

4:39

that we are told about constantly, but

4:41

something bigger, something inexplicable,

4:44

something that you might not even be able to label or

4:46

want to label. But I do believe

4:48

that there is support

4:50

there. What does that

4:52

mean for you? Because you start to write about this in the

4:54

book. Well, I have never aligned with a

4:56

religion. So it's harder to

4:58

talk about it eloquently because when there's

5:01

the infrastructure of religion, you can talk about a

5:03

God, a way of being

5:05

and a system that works, which is beautiful. I've

5:08

never had that growing up. I've never aligned

5:11

or felt drawn to it. But I deeply

5:14

feel that I can communicate with

5:16

the world around me, which in turn,

5:19

when you get on the sort of macro, micro, micro

5:21

level is within you. It's all

5:23

the same thing. We are made of the same stuff.

5:26

So that might link to non-religious

5:28

prayer and having a communication

5:31

with that something bigger. It

5:33

might also be the law of attraction,

5:36

which you touched upon earlier, where you are manifesting

5:39

the things that you're cognitively

5:41

thinking about and focusing on. You're seeing more

5:43

of what you're focusing on. So, you know, look for red

5:45

cars when you stop listening to this. You'll see

5:47

bloody loads. Like look and

5:50

see what you're wanting in your life

5:52

and more of it will appear. Lots

5:54

of the things that I talk about in the book

5:57

describe and support

5:59

that. there is something bigger at play

6:02

that we are part of that we can

6:04

feel supported by, which will hopefully then eradicate

6:07

loneliness or people feel

6:09

disconnected from the world around us and

6:12

then force more into sort of habitual negative

6:14

cycles or whatever it might be. So

6:17

there

6:17

are lots of ways that I think you can tap into

6:19

it and that you can explore

6:22

it and have fun with it. It's exciting, like

6:24

doing a little ritual in the rituals chapter.

6:27

I love doing rituals. That's such a

6:29

gorgeous way of honoring a moment for you

6:32

to place meaning into something, for

6:35

you to seek the meaning, find

6:37

it and honor it. There's a meaning in everything. We

6:39

just, it just passes by because we're in a bloody rush.

6:42

So hopefully in the book, I go through lots

6:44

of different ways in which I, you

6:46

know,

6:47

I can articulate

6:50

what that means to me and some of it might resonate

6:52

with you, some of it might not. But for me, I found each subject very

6:54

exciting. It

6:57

was a new communication

6:59

tool to communicate

7:00

with everything around me. The way you approach

7:03

those topics as well, you approach it in a very humble way and

7:07

a way that feels very inclusive in the book. So

7:09

like I could investigate

7:11

the idea of like non-religious

7:13

prayer because

7:16

it didn't feel like wishy washy. You described

7:18

it in a very human way as being, you're speaking, you're

7:20

kind of putting your thoughts out there. You don't know who you're

7:22

doing it to. But, you know, a lot of people, when they write

7:24

about these topics, would probably

7:26

give it a name and a place, whatever. So it felt

7:29

very, very relatable. And I actually probably,

7:31

when I was reading that thought,

7:33

I could see how non-religious prayer would help me in my life. Yeah.

7:36

What is non-religious prayer? I'm

7:38

so glad that you've said this because that was

7:40

my whole aim for this book, was

7:42

for this to be everyday

7:45

stuff. Yeah, exactly. It's not woo woo.

7:48

It's not exclusive to a certain demographic who

7:50

can afford to do it and they're in the right

7:52

time and place to do it. This is, we

7:55

can all do it. This is the basics. This

7:57

is the basics of life that we're sort of ignoring.

7:59

And it's the simple and it's

8:02

the fun and it's the curious. And they're

8:04

the things that we usually lose because we're in a bloody rush.

8:06

So non-religious prayer,

8:08

which my friend Donna Lancaster has taught me about

8:10

beautifully, I was probably already doing it

8:13

to an extent because

8:15

I've always had some sort of communication with

8:17

sometimes I'll say the universe or whatever. Sometimes

8:20

I just speak or I'm just in

8:22

my head. Like

8:24

before I go to bed now, I'm more sort of disciplined about

8:26

it in the fact that I'll put my head on the pillow

8:29

and I'll say, first of all, a prayer

8:31

of thanks for whatever's gone

8:33

that day or

8:35

just the general state of how I am. I'm

8:37

healthy, I'm in a warm bed. God,

8:40

thank you for that. Like whoever you're talking to, thank

8:42

you for my warm bed. That's so lucky.

8:45

Then I'll go through a list of people that

8:47

I want to send a message

8:50

of

8:50

prayer to, whether it's someone that's in need

8:53

of help, of support

8:55

and that they find some comfort. And

8:58

then I'll go to the tricky a bit, which is to

9:00

ask for something that I need. And

9:03

I find that bit

9:04

sometimes quite hard again because of everything we've talked

9:06

about. I

9:08

deserve this. I deserve a little

9:11

help in this department or some guidance. And

9:14

I think as long as you think of it as a fun,

9:16

curious thing to do, what's the

9:18

harm in it? You're not signing

9:20

up to some sort of like new

9:23

religion or cult that you're joining. It's

9:25

a fun thing to try to

9:27

have and watch for the results.

9:30

That's what I would say. Be curious in

9:33

what happens next. And the guidance, if you're

9:35

looking for the signs that appears

9:38

like weird coincidences and stuff that happens

9:41

that you can't ignore, you can't

9:43

ignore them. The signs are everywhere if you've got

9:45

your eyes open.

9:46

Some people are just so unwilling to step

9:48

outside of the measurable.

9:52

And what I mean by that is, well, I can't, I've

9:55

got KPIs for my life. So if I post on Instagram and I need likes, if

9:58

I do this, I need money. If I do this, I need. What

10:00

you're talking about there is going for a walk in the park.

10:02

How do I measure the return on investment? If

10:05

I do a prayer at nighttime, how do I measure that

10:07

this is working? What do you say to people

10:09

that think in that school of thought, which is a lot of people, specifically

10:12

men?

10:12

I would say measure

10:15

how good you feel. Measure

10:17

how, like talking about

10:20

how connected you feel is difficult

10:22

because you can't quantify that. You

10:24

can't see it. You know, it hasn't got

10:26

a flavor or a color. What

10:29

is that feeling of connection?

10:31

So first of all, look at all the times where you felt

10:33

disconnected. We can all remember

10:35

a time we felt hugely disconnected

10:37

from other people, from nature,

10:40

when

10:40

you are buying shit you don't need, disconnected

10:44

from the natural beauty that is around

10:46

us when you're bored and you're sat around thinking life

10:49

shit, they're all moments of disconnection.

10:52

So just when you feel the opposite of that, you're

10:55

getting the return. And also I think

10:57

it's, we've got to stop looking at the

11:00

return. We've got to start

11:02

looking at just being, and it's not always

11:04

about being the

11:07

best, the most successful, having

11:09

the most,

11:10

whatever it is, quantifying anything and it being

11:12

the most, it's about being part

11:15

of a

11:16

huge network of people

11:18

and animals, please can we not forget the

11:20

beautiful animals out there that we're just totally

11:22

disregarding all day, every

11:24

day who have probably more of a right to be on this

11:27

planet than we do. We are part

11:29

of a huge mass

11:31

of connectivity and we can

11:33

feel the beauty of that. We can feel

11:35

that energy pulsing through

11:38

us whenever we choose to. We deny

11:40

ourselves of it all day, every day.

11:42

And we're about the singular, the insular, what

11:44

can I get? What can I do for me?

11:47

It's not

11:48

global, you know, parts of the world, more

11:50

so in the east. Still have much

11:53

more connection, obviously to nature, but also

11:55

to community, to each other, to

11:57

not looking for a social pecking order.

11:59

to be part of something. When

12:02

you feel part of something,

12:04

you feel alive. And it hasn't got to be like

12:06

you being at a party with loads of people, but

12:08

you feeling part of a movement, a collective

12:11

in a non-exclusive way. It's not about then others

12:14

being outside of that. Feeling part

12:16

of something, just feeling your connection to nature. That

12:19

is a beautiful starting point in

12:21

any day to feel that connection. The

12:23

rest is a bonus. If you can feel

12:25

that, that is a lovely, lovely thing.

12:27

It's not a return like what can nature give me, what

12:30

can other people give me? How can I feel part

12:32

of this rather than separate

12:34

from it? Our separateness has

12:36

caused us so much pain

12:39

and we don't even

12:39

see it.