#903 Field trip - Let me bore you to sleep (Jason Newland) (11th October 2022)

Hello and welcome to jasonnewland.com. I'm not sure if you can actually hear me okay, but this is a walk and talk podcast. Let me bore you to sleep. Going for a walk in the field.

It's not windy so it should be okay, but I don't know. I'm not sure either way I'll upload it. If it's a little bit, there might be parts of the recording that's a little bit muffled and not a huge amount I can do about that to be honest.

It will be, it will be what it will be. But I'm hopeful. I'm hopeful don't you know.

Yes. So we'll just see, see how it goes. See how it goes.

So I'm just walking down the end of my road. Can I just go into the field for me afternoon exercise. Unfortunately, there's people around so I might stop talking for a couple of seconds.

So yeah, I'll stop. I'll stop talking when people in Amy, because so I'm using my microphone, my new one that's portable. It's not new, but it's new ish.

And I got it plugged into my phone. I got my phone in my hand, because I'll be honest, I don't really trust my phone in my pocket. So I switch off the recording.

And that's no good. So what I'll do is I'm in the field now. See, that's how quickly I started talking just as I left my building where I live.

And I'm now in the field. So it gives you an idea of how, how close the fields are to where I live. So and it's a lovely day.

It's really nice. It's fairly late those half to gone half to. In fact, it's 244 in the afternoon.

And that's not late late, is it? But it ain't morning. It's no morning. So there's no wind.

See, this isn't so good with this wind. I might see if I can get some kind of wind muffler for this microphone. There might be one.

There might be one. And I try not to touch the microphone, the microphone part with my hand. So if it is a bit smudgy, if it is a little bit I don't know, not like perfectly clear, then at this point, they just turn it off because it's probably this is probably as good as it's going to get.

Um, sound wise. I don't know what it's going to sound like until I get home and listen to it. I hope I hope it's going to be all right.

But you know, as I said, I don't know. My lower back's playing up a little bit. So I guess that's a sign that we're getting into autumn.

Not fall autumn. Yes, thank you. It's where did fall come from? I don't understand how you come up with fall.

Don't say oh, it's the it's the rhyme. No, you don't change your season just so it just so it fits into a rhyme. Autumn.

There's even words autumnal that are kind of just to describe the autumn season. I don't get it. I don't understand.

I have to I have to Google that. Because I mean, maybe, who knows, maybe if you go back far enough, maybe the Anglo Saxon days, they used to call it fall. Because people used to fall over.

I don't know. Because of the moist hills. I got an itchy leg now.

So what I'm doing is I'm just walking around the outskirts of the field. This is like a new thing that I started doing. Not new as in well, it's not new.

But it's I'm doing a different route. That's what I mean. Not route route.

Now I'm doing it. I'm taking a different direction. Because if I walk up the path, then I'm more likely going to come across someone someone to be around with a dog or whatever.

And I quite like to just walk without seeing anyone. So what I do is I walk around the outskirts of this field here. And so far, I've never come across anyone yet.

Which is good. I just like the I like the peace. Really feeling the need to get away at the moment.

For some various different reasons, personal reasons. I don't mean travel, I don't mean go on holiday or anything like that. Just I want to get away from here.

I want to go somewhere. It doesn't even have to be nice. You know, ideally, where there's a beach.

So I can go for walks on the beach. That is something I definitely, definitely miss. Even though it's been a long, long time since I lived near a beach.

I miss it. I still do. You know, I used to, when I lived, I used to live in a town that had a beach when I was a kid, from the ages of seven to, I don't know, what was I, 19 when I moved.

So I had a beach and I used to go there regularly. It's not like one of those things where you live near something and you never use this, you never go to it. You never use the resources.

I lived in London and never go into any of the art galleries or the museums, Madame Tussauds, all the theatres, you know, it's like they're all there, but you don't use them, which is kind of a bit like when I lived in London. But here, I actually, when I lived on that beach, well, I don't live on the beach, but when I lived there, I did go to the beach very regularly. It was my go-to place to go for a walk, a bit of solitude, a bit of thinking time.

I used to enjoy being able to look out at the sea and not have anything blocking the view. And I know you can do that by looking into the sky, which is kind of the same thing, but you have to look up for that unless you lie down. But I just liked the times when there's no boats, no ships, none of those.

Well, a lot of beaches are now being ruined for that, for people, because of the windmill things that they have, the energy, what do they call them, you know, that produce energy, those big windmill stuff things. Anyway, I think they're, it's not that they're ugly, but where they're placed, I think it ruins the beaches, ruins the scenic aspect of looking out at sea, because they're huge and they're in the way. This is a personal opinion.

They're important. I know for conservation and to produce electricity and stuff is great, but you know, I noticed that when I went to Lowestoft. Lowestoft was a place I used to go to when I was a kid, because it's not that far from where we used to live, about an hour and a half, two hours.

And Lowestoft, Yarmouth, all those kinds of places, and they were lovely. They had some of the best beaches you'll see in the whole world. Not the best sea, but the best beaches, like really beautiful sandy beaches.

When I say in the whole world, I've not traveled enough to really make that declaration. But, and I've, for me, for my life, during my life, the only beaches I've really been to, generally, have been English beaches. And out of all the ones I've been to, Yarmouth, Lowestoft, and Lowestoft, are two of the best beaches, as far as sand goes.

The one I used to live in, the town I used to live in with the beach, was, I'd say like 75% pebbles, which I didn't care. I mean, there's part of the beach had sand, but it's mainly pebbles. So, but it didn't matter, really, if I'm honest, to me.

I never used to get upset about it. It wasn't a big issue, not really. I've only been talking for 12 minutes.

Ow! I nearly poked, I actually did poke myself in the shoulder with a, ow, and the ear, ow! Now that wasn't, I'm walking, trying to walk on the grass, away from the mud of the field. Now I did this journey three days in a row, and I've never banged into that before. I feel like I've cut my ear, ow! It just shows you how I need to focus on what I'm doing.

I think that's the problem. I should be able to talk and walk at the same time. I should be within my, be, the word remit comes into mind, I don't know if that's the right word.

I should be able to do that, I should be able to accomplish those two actions together, together. So I haven't made any recordings for a couple of days, and part of that reason is because I didn't want to, couldn't be bothered. Didn't feel the urge, didn't feel the, you know, I couldn't be asked.

Although what I have, bloody, I can hear that, but they're doing that just on purpose, they know I'm recording, how would they know? There's bushes, they can't see me, that's stupid thinking, isn't it? The whole world's got it against me, idiot! So, what was I saying? Oh, I've been working on my website, and yeah, I've been working on my website, decided to try and build it up again because I lost all the content on my website. I think it was quite a few months ago, and I couldn't get it back because the website host does not hold that stuff, doesn't store it, which I was a little bit surprised about.

So I'm starting to rebuild, but what I've done is I'm doing it differently this time, I'm trying to make it more easier to search for stuff.

So all I've been doing is working on the Sleepy Boring Objects podcast to try and make that section correct. And when that's done, I can then, if I'm happy with it, you know, sort of duplicate that with the other podcasts. So I'm doing it with one that no one listens to, well, not many people really listen to the actual podcast itself.

They do listen to the podcast episodes when they're on other podcasts. So I'm doing that at the moment. It's very time consuming, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

It's given me a focus the last few days. So I've been doing that since, I don't know, the last five days maybe. And it's coming together okay, actually, because I need to do it on the website.

And also have it so it works on the phone, because most people who visit my website will visit it on the phone, using their mobile phone. But it also needs to work on a website as well. I've not tested it on a tablet, which I really should, but still not many people, according to the statistics, not many people really use tablets to access podcasts.

Apparently, I was surprised at that, really. So what am I doing? If you can hear a little squish, a little squish of water every now and then I've got a bottle of water in my kangaroo pouch in my top, just squashing about a bit. This is where Andre used to like to sleep.

So I was throwing myself off by mentioning Andre froze me off. So yeah, um, I did think because it is is one of the issues, right? I produced so many recordings. So many, I mean, really, thousands and thousands of recordings.

And even on the actual podcasts themselves, most of them are hidden, or not really easily got to. And you may say, what do you mean? What do you mean? I want to walk down this way and walk a different way. Hope I don't get lost because I got lost yesterday.

I ended up phoning someone and I took a different turn in while I was talking to them. And I was so engrossed in the phone conversation that I realized that I didn't know where I was. And these fields look very similar.

You know, they're just, they're almost, well, you need to, I think I need to notice landmarks next to the field. Sometimes trees are falling over or houses and stuff. Do you have to try and map it in my head? I'm a little, I'm a little bit like a pigeon.

And by that, I don't mean I like pooing on people's heads. I, I seem to always find, well, I do. I don't seem to, I always find my way back home.

Now everyone can say that, can't they? Really? Unless there's one person listening to this thinking, no, I haven't. I left my house in 1973 and I'm still lost. You know what I mean? Generally, we all find our way home, obviously, because it's a pretty bit of a silly statement.

Yeah, it probably is actually. No, but I do. I always find, I seem to find my way back.

Everyone does. Damn it. I thought I was special.

I thought it was my special power. Damn. No, we always, we all do that, Jason.

We all find our way home. Otherwise, how, you know, the world would just fall apart, wouldn't it? Be a bunch of people just wandering around, banging into each other. Do you know where we are? No, I don't.

I've been lost six months. I only came out for a walk. Blimey.

I came out to pick some flowers. I don't know where I am now. I love my accents.

No one else does. Right. I'm going to walk up here.

I'm going to walk back so I know where I am. So someone said to me, you know, because I took this microphone with me when I went away a few weeks ago, a month or whatever ago. And someone said, your new microphone sounds much better than the one you're using now.

This is when I got back. I was like, okay, why don't you use that one? So that's not good to hear considering um, this is only like 20% of the price of the microphone I've got. And the setup I've got there is like a couple of thousand pounds worth of stuff to record.

And this is, I don't know, 260, 240 or something. Ah, but hey, to be fair, it doesn't matter. Is it about cost? It's something's fat.

So it sounds better than I probably would use it all the time. But you know, I've got, uh, I don't think it's my equipment. That's a problem.

I think it's my ears. I'm sniffing now. Now it's my nose.

I'm not sure if I've really got um, good ears for, for listening to recordings. I thought I did, but I listened to the, I listened to the recording. So I've got the recording studio set up the zoom recording studio.

I've got the microphone, uh, I've got the amplifier, all this other stuff going on. And of course, I need the equipment to edit it on, which is the iPad. So that's, yeah.

So that's a, another big bunch of cash that I paid for that. So yeah, it basically, it's quite a lot of money went into making these newer recordings, but I'm not sure if I've got the right ear. So I listened to him and I just, it never sounds right for me.

Never sounds right. And, um, you know, even using other, other software to amplify everything afterwards and to make it sound, uh, supposedly better, the correct volume, blah, blah, blah. And even then, I'm not sure, but then I thought, you know what? Everyone's different.

And they, everyone's got their own likes and dislikes. And some people, for example, cannot stand, cannot stand the whisper recordings. Like I really detest them.

And I say this because I've had enough people tell me like send me messages, lovely. Thanks. Uh, but there's also those people that absolutely love whispers, the whisper recordings, the ASMR stuff.

And it's weird. It's, it seems to be either you love it or you really don't like it. And I'm kind of surprised at how, how that would affect people in that way.

I mean, to be fair, if you don't like something, don't listen to it. That's my theory. And that's, that's how I live my life.

God, that water is really splashing. If I listen to something and I don't like it, I turn it off. If there's a voice that I don't like, I turn it off.

You know, it's, it's really not that complicated. And you've got a list life. You know, time is valuable.

If you're going to listen to a podcast, I mean, maybe I'll lose people. I lose, uh, I lose listeners by saying this, but be picky. Listen to someone that you enjoy listening to.

Listen to someone that for me, it's about, um, do you feel better after listening to them than you did before? And I think that that counts for whatever it is, whether it's music, whether it's, um, comedy, uh, whether it's poetry with whatever you're listening to or watching on television, or, you know, do you feel better after you've watched a television program? If not, why are you watching it? And I know the answer is no for a lot of people that watch television because they're watching negative things. Really, really, really completely negative things like the soaps. And they're among the most popular programs on television in the Western world.

Well, in England, in America, I don't know about other countries, but I know definitely, uh, I don't know about the Europe or I don't even know which part, which part of Europe is the Western world because parts of Europe is, um, not even the West, is it? It's, I don't know. So I get a little bit confused now as I started to learn a little bit more about the world and don't, don't be all sarcastic and say, Oh, Mr. World traveler. No, I don't mean it in that way.

Although, you know, of course, uh, I had my eyes opened a little bit. That's the truth. Maybe not in a right way, but, uh, I saw, uh, again, I don't want to talk about really negative things, but when people moan about how bad things are, and I'm not talking about, um, from a mental health perspective, because when someone's not well or physically or mentally, it kind of, it almost doesn't matter what's going on outside, you know, cause they still might feel the way they're feeling.

That can change. Of course, I hope, uh, feeling sorry for ourselves is natural. It's the most natural thing in the world.

And I've spent, I cannot judge anybody for feeling sorry for themselves. I'd love to be able to judge people for it, but I can't because I spent too much time doing it myself. Not so much now.

Definitely not in this moment. I'm feeling quite okay, but in the past I have. And so it's like me judging people for drinking lots of Coke or for smoking or for, uh, eating lots of chocolate or eating burgers or, you know, all the different things that I've done lots in my life over the years, I can't judge people for doing what I've done.

You know, can't judge people for swearing. I used to be a proper little swearing chimney when I was younger, smoking and swearing at the same time, I guess that is, isn't it? Uh, I can't judge people for being angry. I was very angry when I was younger.

I'm not really there anymore. I don't, I can obviously human being, I can get angry. We all can, but I'm not walking around a seething pot of, you know, all the time.

I'm not, I'm really not. This is, um, it's not really what I'm about. Although even now I realized that I'm affected.

What the mess? Oh, it's a spider's web. This is really weird. It's recorded for 29 minutes, but on the screen it shows about three seconds.

So I don't know what's going on there. It doesn't seem to be recording at all. Oh, well it seems to, I hope it is.

That's going to be annoying if it isn't, because this is quality stuff. I find, I find, I don't know about you, but I find that I'm, and I'm not pleased about this because I thought I'd moved away from this. I thought I'd moved on and taken a bit more control of my own emotions, but I'm very affected by how other people are really.

Um, to the point where I kind of need to keep away from people because I don't know anyone that's positive. I don't have any positive friends really at the moment. I know, I know fairly positive people, but I just don't have contact with them at the moment.

So most of the people that I know or that I see, you know, on a, you know, during the week, for example, very negative, like extremely negative. And that rubs off on me. And I have a, I have a, an ability to be Mr. Negative.

I spent lots of time going in and out of that persona and I don't want that anymore. I don't want to be like that. I want to be able to see the positivity in things.

I want to be able to be more optimistic. And that's part of the reason why I created the podcasts and the videos and all, you know, this, my empire, it's part of the reason why I created my death star, which is my free hypnosis service is because it's not really a death star, but I'm talking about Star Wars in case you didn't know. I needed something to not just keep me occupied, but to give my life purpose and for me to have something to look forward to.

And you know what? On an average day, I look forward to getting out of bed so I can see if I've got any messages, so I can see how many downloads I've had overnight. I even look forward to getting out of bed before I get into bed so I can check my messages and see if you know that. So that's quite a positive way to live.

It's not every night. I don't feel that way all the time, but I'd say on an average day. Yeah.

And if I've uploaded, especially if I've uploaded a new recording, I'm interested to see if there's any response or if there's any, you know, if people are listening or how many people listen. And because this is kind of someone did say to me, well, it's not about how many people listen, is it? As long as you help someone said, yeah, I know, but that's how it starts. You know, people say, you know, that's the old cliche, isn't it? If I can just help one person, yeah, that lasts until you've helped one person and you've helped another person and then you help two or three people and they've let you know that you've helped them.

And after a while, even though helping one person should be enough, really, I guess. But the fact is I get such little feedback that percentage wise of how many downloads I get in a month and how many messages I get. So let's say I get on average 300,000 downloads in a month on a very, very average month.

I might get four or five messages out of that people commenting or let me know on my website, you know, because you can go to my website and leave a message and I'll see it as soon as you do it. Well, I'll get an email telling me that there's a message. So you see, there's such a tiny amount.

So I might get 50, maybe 100 messages a year. And I'm not counting them, but it's not a lot, honestly. And I appreciate every message I get, providing it's, you know, positive and nice.

I've had a few had a few weird ones over the years. Although I did have another one, a nice one the other day for Mary. Thanks for that message.

I don't know. There was a time when I was getting quite a few messages. But I don't know if it was a novelty of the Let Me Boy To Sleep podcast.

It might have been just quite new and maybe people had never heard this kind of stuff before. Maybe, you know, it's just a bit. I'm walking into cobwebs.

Maybe it was just a little bit different from what people had heard before. And after a while, maybe it's got it got boring. My boring podcast became boring, which is the whole point of it.

And then people just went away searching for more interesting podcasts. Maybe look for something that has the word interesting in the title. Maybe there's a clue.

There's a clue in the title. Oh, really? Really? So yeah, it's just a time. So I've been at this for 36 minutes and it still hasn't moved on the screen.

So this might not have even recorded. This is quite good for ASMR actually. I don't know if you can hear me walking.

So I could technically do a whisper, a whisper version of this. You hear that? What fun. Got an itchy bum.

So that's my little poem. It rhymed. Oh, what fun.

I've got an itchy bum. It rhymed. What more can you want from a poem? Offer it to be interesting.

OK, fair enough. To have meaning. OK, OK, OK, leave it alone.

So what is that in the field? Looks like something too big to be just lying there. Oh, it's really just a bit of mud. So in some of these fields, they've dug them up.

Well, this one is not one of those that I think. But as occasionally you see this big, big bit of mud that's been churned up. Now, that was boring, wasn't it? Come on.

I can't, can't deny that that was a very boring part of the podcast. Very boring. Yes.

Yes. Oh, oh. So.

Oh. Wonderful ever stick to the subject. The other day I did a podcast and I can't even remember what it was, which podcast it was.

But I made a recording and there was something I wanted to say. And I still didn't say it. Can't remember what it was, though.

I can't remember what podcast it was. I can't remember what day it was. And I don't recall what it was I wanted to say.

Kind of a non story really, wasn't it? Wasn't really worth the effort, but then I didn't put any effort into it. So it all works out. So there's a slight breeze, slight breeze.

But whether or not it's showing up on the microphone or not, I don't know. And I want to go online when I get home to see if there's any kind of microphone filter, cover, pop filter, whatever that I can put on this to cover it up. Because I, I would be quite happy.

To do one of these regularly while I walk around the field, because gets me exercise, gets my brain and, you know, working, probably movement, blood flowing around my circulation and stuff like that. I'm such an expert on anatomy, get my blood circulation. And it gets me out of my home.

And really, there's not much in the sound of background sound. You got the train, occasionally will go past and sometimes they go. There's also the motorway, which whether you can hear or not, I don't know.

But that's quite a long way away from here. You might. The only thing really here on the motorway is if a police or, you know, ambulance, fire engine, or really loud motorbike goes down there, then we can hear that.

Well, I can hear it, whether or not the microphone picks up is another thing. Might not be picking up my voice, might just be picking up the sound of the water bottle in my pouch, squashing, squishing around. Possibly, it would be good to have some kind of, um, way to hold this to not have to have this microphone.

Well, to not have the phone, the phone in my hand, but I'm just a little bit concerned that it will turn itself off. And I don't want that. I don't want to walk around for an hour, making a recording and then realize that it hasn't recorded anything.

That'll just be, I was going to say that'd be mildly annoying, but that's not the right word. Now just tripped up on there. Why, why are you there? Ow.

I thought I was being tough then by kicking it, but it just bounced back and hit me in the shin. It was a bit of tree. Ow.

Ow. Mother. Ah, so yeah, everything's, uh, I feel a bit better now having walked around here for a bit.

Just sometimes it's good just to, it's movement is so important. I've been watching these lectures on, um, pain, pain relief from these experts on chronic pain. A lot of them are talking about back pain and stuff like that.

And movement is so important. And here's something that I will talk about in my, um, let me bore your pain away podcast. Did you know there's something, this is from the experts.

It's not my, my, um, personal opinion. This is from the experts. Okay.

When they do a scan of someone's spine, for example, if you do scans of people, if they've got a sore back, bad back or whatever, they do a scan and they say, okay, that must be, because see that it's, uh, that's, that must be what it is. Cause your back is eroded or your back is out of shape or blah, blah. Well, a few years ago, experts in the field of spines and neurology and all that stuff, they decided to do a study and they studied as far as I'm aware, thousands and thousands of people's backs doing MRIs or whatever they call them, x-rays of the backs, but not just people with bad backs, but people with fine backs, no pain at all, nothing, no problems.

And they just x-rayed or whatever they had to do loads and loads of different backs. And what they realized is there's no difference between Jen. Okay.

Not all the time, obviously someone has had a back injury. That's a separate, different thing altogether, but this is people with chronic pain where there's not necessarily an obvious reason that someone's had a broken back. Uh, then, I mean, my, my dad's, he broke his neck in a car crash when he was in his twenties.

He still has problems with his neck and he probably will have always have, but he, you know what I mean? He's, he's lucky he survived. And if you, if you have something as serious that as that there's potentially going to be follow-up problems in life, but for people that have got chronic pain and there isn't any obvious reasons, then, you know, then they go to have x-rays and stuff. And, uh, the one thing is the expert says, uh, Lorimer, his name is, and he says, the most important thing to remember is chronic pain is real regardless of its cause.

Okay. Even if it is the brain causing it, it's real. The person is feeling it.

So, and the reason he says that is because he wants specialists to stop telling people that it's all in your head because that doesn't help or to tell people, I know that you feel that the pain is real, which is another way of saying it's not, it's in your head. Now, chronic pain can be caused by the brain. It's as simple as that, but telling people that is disrespectful in it.

If you do it in that way, not, not the way I just said it, but you know, technically all physical sensations are caused by the brain. Anyone with the basic anatomy knows that anyway. So the, which is weird because the brain has no nerve receptors inside the brain itself.

You can't, the brain has no pain yet. The brain causes the pain. That's like, what? I don't even make sense.

Anyway, I did these, uh, examination. They did these researches. Yeah.

Not once. They, once they did it once they read, we did it because I wanted to check nearly every person that they X-rayed people's backs. Nearly every single person, especially people, you know, uh, of an older age, forties, fifties have damaged backs, have backs that are out of alignment, have backs with bits cracked off, whatever.

Everybody has it. It's just called, it's wear and tear. Everybody has it, but not everybody feels any pain.

So you can't get to be a middle-aged person without, um, your back being worn. It's not injured. It's just worn.

So they couldn't tell the difference most of the time between people that had chronic pain and people that didn't have any pain by looking at the x-rays. So I looked at the x-rays without knowing who was who they couldn't tell somewhat obvious, you know, but they weren't looking at people that had injuries. A few probably slipped through, um, maybe an injury from when they were in their twenties and they didn't mention it.

And then like, you know, someone had a car, a motorbike accident when they were 22 and now in their fifties, and they forgot to mention that they'd had that happen. And now they're getting back pain. Now they might not hurt their back during that accident that they knew of.

So, you know, you can say, well, that's a, that's a physical problem. And of course, many, many, many people have, um, injured backs, but a lot of people don't. And a lot of people from these x-rays, there almost is no difference between the average person's back as someone that has chronic pain from the x-rays.

The difference is the physical experience. So that opened up a whole new way of looking at chronic pain. Now I realize this isn't a chronic pain podcast, but this is what I've been doing.

I've been, I've been listening to lectures and watching lectures and, uh, I read books and stuff on, uh, cause it's all about neuroscience now. It's about the brain. It's about not just with chronic pain, but with everything things are changing and to be able to, to realize I mean, it's phenomenal, isn't it? Really? When you think about it, I can walk back the other way.

So I don't have to go near the dogs. It's people with dogs over there. I know where I am now.

Um, the, the most important thing is to not make people that have chronic pain feel that there's nothing wrong with them because that's not fair. That's why Laura and some other people, they say, you know, chronic pain is real regardless of the cause. So if it's, whether it's a physical cause or a brain cause, it's still real.

They're still experiencing it. The difference is if it's not a physical cause, then there are ways of, well, at the, there are techniques, there are ways that have been tested and created that can help people to reduce that physical discomfort. And what's strange about it is all these years, like for long, long, long, long time, hypnosis, here we go.

You're going to talk about hypnosis. Hypnosis has been a little silent savior for some people for helping with chronic pain to help reduce it. Regardless or any kind of pain, to be fair, some hospitals, maybe not in the UK, but some hospitals have hypnotists or hypnotherapists there to help people with acute pain in an emergency situation.

So I wouldn't have the first idea really of what to do in that kind of situation. I'll be honest, but it's been known, well known. And you know, lots of people became hypnotists because of what they've seen other people do.

For example, Dave Ellman, his dad was, you know, end of life, seriously ill in huge amounts of pain. And a friend of his dad, who was a stage hypnotist came round and when he left, his dad had no pain. His dad was fine.

He wasn't fine. He was ill, but he, you know, he, he was comfortable. He was relaxed and he was laughing.

I made the last bit up. He might not have been laughing, but you know, he was much more calmer, much more attentive and he was no longer in discomfort. And Dave Ellman remembered that.

You know, you're not going to forget something like that, are you? And Dave Ellman became, when he got older, became, he became one of the most important people in the 20th century, hypnosis. There's a few, Milton Erickson, Dave Ellman, there's a few that have come along and had a huge influence. Dave Ellman was one of those.

And when he got older, one of the main things he did was teach hypnosis to doctors and medical professionals, dentists, doctors, surgeons, anesthetists, pediatricians, people like that. So he toured America doing that for many years, which is why he's, he's up there with one of the greatest hypnotists of the Western world. I've got to say Western world, because I don't know.

I don't have enough information about other countries other than like Europe, England. But there's a lot of famous hypnotists. Well, they're not famous in a way that you'd probably have heard of them.

But famous of those are in the, in the know those in the business like myself. Now I know about them because I've studied the subject for 25 years. So yeah, I'm going to know some of the names of people.

It's not because I'm clever. It's just I remember I've got their books on my shelf. And I've listened to them, listen to audios, lectures and watch them on video and read their words and stuff.

You know, you know how it is. I used to be obsessed with this stuff. Not so much now.

Although I'm feeling a bit more feeling a bit more. I don't think the word obsessive is the right word, but becoming more interested again in the chronic pain. Maybe it's because I started doing that new podcast.

Let me boil your pain away. I had a little bit of positive feedback from that. And you know, I started off this whole journey.

As far as like online stuff that I do in 2006. Well, actually, it was 2004. But I did have a website with some recordings on there.

But forget that. 2006 is the real start really. And the only thing I wanted to do was pain relief.

Didn't want to do anything else. Just pain relief. And then after, well, it wasn't that long, really.

A few weeks, maybe a month or two. I started thinking. I'd like to volunteer.

I'd like to volunteer. And I wanted to do pain relief as a volunteer. I went to the hospice.

They told me to go away. Okay, fair enough. So that didn't happen.

Bless them, which is weird because I could have really been useful. So hopefully, I have along the way. But it's one of those weird things because I remember after that, I thought to myself, you know what? There's one thing me sitting there being interviewed to do to work for free, basically, which is fine.

That was my choice. That's what I wanted to do. But to not have the opportunity to even show what I can do.

Because at that point, I was doing chronic pain with people. I was doing chronic pain relief and I was helping people every week. For free.

It was my free pain relief service. Free pain relief.co.uk was my website at the time. It's long gone.

Well, it's something else now. Did you know that some people use my name in their search on their website? Seriously, they use my name as tag words. How weird is that? Strange.

Anyway, I decided to maybe, oh, see, my phone is now brought the keyboard up. So I don't know why. I hope it's still working.

Damn you. I decided to, because I wanted to volunteer. But it was nowhere that I could do chronic pain.

I was living in a medium sized town, but it's not a lot going on. So I contacted a bunch of places to see if I could volunteer as a hypnotist to do. I can't even remember if it was to do live sessions of people or groups or whatever.

I can't remember. But I went along to this alcohol and drug rehab, no alcohol, alcohol charity. And they'd have people come in and have counseling and stuff like that.

They also did stuff for people that were gamblers and stuff like that as well, but mainly alcohol. So a place is called Norcass. So I went along to that.

I think it's gone now. But what I decided is instead of sitting in a room with someone trying to convince them to let me help people for nothing, which has seen the weird thing that I had to try and convince them. I just said, look, get some of your stuff and I'll show you.

I mean, on this particular occasion, there was two people interviewing me and I said, look, just we can do it. We'll do it now. Instead of just talking about it and me telling you what I do, why don't I just do it with you? We'll do a relaxation session lasting 10 minutes or however long you want.

And I'll show you what I do. And I think what they did is they went and got a couple of other members of staff in as well. And they all sat there and they got relaxed and they were very happy.

And there was possibly the best interview I've ever had in a way. And they said, oh, okay. So I was showing them what I do as opposed to talking about it, about it just seemed more, seemed more useful in a way.

I'm smelling the smell, but it sounds, I'm in a field, but it smells like my bum. I don't know. That's weird.

Blimey, my bum smells like a field. That's not good. So, yeah, that's how I went from there.

And I ended up doing these course, I did a Monday night course using different techniques, NLP, hypnosis, you know, so I did that. And then I ended up doing a few times a week doing relaxation sessions. And then, and I think it was January, January, maybe 2007, I was headhunted, would you believe, by someone that was using both services.

They were using Norcass and Icini, which was a drug rehab place at the time, a drug rehab charity. So this, this client was using both services and he told them about me. He said, oh, this bloke, he's relaxes us in groups and all that stuff, whatever.

And they, they asked, they came and found me and asked me to go in. And I went in and I did exactly the same thing for them. Just sat them down.

I said, look, we'll just, I'll show you what I do. So we ain't got to have a conversation about it. And they were happy.

And with that place, there was more people. And also the staff would come in. So pretty much every time I did once a week to start with.

And then I did to think two or three times a week when I went part time with my, with my job. And, but the staff would come in, not all of them, the ones that were available. So it was quite cool because it's almost, I don't think they were doing it to keep an eye on me.

They just, just really enjoyed the relaxation. So yeah, I don't know why I'm telling you this. Why am I telling you this? Oh yeah.

I'm showing off. No. Can you imagine if it hadn't all gone pear-shaped where I was living? I could have still been there.

I might have, well, everything might be different, but then you, who knows? Who knows? Well, it would have been different, but it's weird because basically I got any end. Cause this is, I think it was May. Was it June? My job said you have to go full time again or leave, which I don't think they're allowed to do legally, but that's what they did.

And I chose to leave because I didn't want to, I didn't want to give up what I was doing. I was enjoying helping people. Uh, and I was also working on a website and you know, doing all that stuff.

Uh, plus I had the free pain relief service that was going on and I had the podcasts that were growing as well and the videos on YouTube. So it was quite busy. Uh, you know, so I'd work all the time or every evening and I, you know, then I go to work for six hours or whatever, or five hours at a come back and get to work.

At the time when the job said, you know, full time or leave, I was already considering getting, uh, applying or might've even applied. I don't know. Probably hadn't applied yet, but I was thinking of it, applying to do a course, a degree course in counselling, which kind of cemented my decision to do that.

I got on the course, had the interview, got on the course, uh, the degree course and got financed and everything was perfect. Really perfect. You know, when things all sort of align themselves, they align themselves up and everything aligned itself up for me.

And I just thought, this is good karma, I guess. Uh, helping people, opening myself to, uh, devoting the rest of my life to doing this, to helping people at that time in person, as well as online. I wasn't intended to just be an online person.

I wanted to be, I wanted to help people, you know, uh, as well as online as, you know, worldwide, but also face to face. Cause that's a different kind of satisfaction. Uh, if you see someone that trying to fit an example, yeah.

Um, see someone that's in absolute with the chronic pain relief service, the free service, see someone that's in absolute agony and then they're not anymore. And to see, you can actually see them looking for the pain and they can't find it. Um, it's, I felt, um, I don't know, for me that it's like winning the lottery.

It was special, something, uh, really amazing. And also doing a relaxation session, seeing people who were complete, um, nervous wreck almost after a few weeks starting to be more relaxed and be calm and being able to open up. And it wasn't just me.

It was the counseling and everything else that they went through as well. But I was part of that. I was, I'm sure I contributed a bit to that.

So, you know, I, I, the Norcast manager, and I got on with everyone, the people I was with volunteered with the managers of both places. And I remember I went to Norcast manager and said, I'm interested in becoming a counselor. What do I need to, what do I need to do? I've got no idea.

And she basically went to the filing cabinet and handed me a piece of paper. I opened it up and it says, go away in big letters on it. And I didn't, she, she handed me a thing, said, well, here's some courses or low battery, 20% left.

She said, here's some courses. And I said, Oh, thanks. And, um, she said, why do you want to be a counselor? And I said, well, I've been volunteering here for a year and a half or whatever.

And I really liked, I just really liked the people that are here. The counselors are so lovely and I'd like to be like them. I want to be like that.

I want to be nice. I just want to be able to not just be, help people, but just to be a nice person. You know, I aspire to be like them, not just them, but the other, both charities, the counselors were lovely, really, really lovely.

And, and they'd also been had problems that come from, you know, a difficult, uh, past as I have a little bit. So I thought, yeah, okay, I can do that. At least I'll give it a go.

And so I did, I applied for the one I wanted and everything went fine. As I said, I even got a job, a part-time job in a supermarket that was going to subsidize me, give me some money. It was a Christmas job, but I could have kept it, you know, probably after that as well.

It was around the corner from I lived literally 15 minutes, 20 minute walk from where I lived, uh, just down the end of the road. It's quite a long road actually, but it's not far. Everything was all aligning, but I did live in a different town to where I was going to college, but then I was only going in there three days a week because it was a full-time course, but you know, it's not every day.

It's a university course. Well, then I fell out with someone that was living with me or living in the same house. He fell out on me.

I'm not even sure how it happened, but everything went to poo as it were, and I ended up having to move out. Couldn't find anywhere to live in the town that I could afford. I should have asked for help.

If I'd asked for help, I'd have got it. I just didn't ask. That's the weird thing about it.

If I'd have said to my friend in London or even perhaps my dad, you know, it's like, can you help me out? I need to get the deposit for a place and know that with the new job I had, that would have covered the excess money I needed for the rent. I'd have been fine. I just didn't, I wasn't thinking straight.

And so I ended up, no, I had a girlfriend as well. I had a new girlfriend who I met at the alcohol charity. So we'd only just been dating for about a month.

I said to her, I'm going to have to get out of here. She didn't say move in with me. Not that I wanted her to, but even if it was just for a week or two, you know, but she didn't offer that.

So I kind of figured, well, she, I know it's a bit soon, isn't it? After a month, but she didn't seem to really be that interested in my situation because I wanted to feel sorry for myself and she wouldn't feel sorry for me. Oh, poor me. Anyway, it was quite a difficult situation.

She said to me, well, why don't you contact the college? They might have student accommodation, like private student accommodation, people that only rent out to students. I said, I know what private student accommodation is. She said, I'm trying to help.

I said, okay, sorry. And so I took her advice. I found two or three different places off a list when I contacted the college, phone one of them, went up and it was just 55 pound a week, which is really cheap.

And because I needed to find somewhere I did just moved in. And, um, basically, so the job went, well, I couldn't even, I had to, I moved in just before I was supposed to start the job. So that was gone.

Um, my girlfriend, she got the up with me. So what do you mean you've moved? I said, it was your idea. She said, yeah, I didn't expect you to do it.

I said, well, yeah, I've moved. I did. I'd literally moved.

I still had to collect a lot of my stuff, but I was getting a lift from my dad. He was giving me a hand with the stuff, but, um, so I lost that. And then, uh, so lots of job, she kind of dumped me.

And then the two voluntary places I had to give them up because I couldn't get there. It was just a hassle. So, cause I was doing that in the evening or late afternoon.

So it's quite easy to do before cause I lived there, but so I gave that up. So the only thing I had left, I also lost some friends cause I was living with the people, people I did live with. I kind of really didn't see much of them again.

Uh, I liked being part of the Buddhist community cause I was living in a Buddhist community and there was only like five of us living there, but the whole thing just exploded because of that thing. And three, four people moved out in the end and, uh, they sold the house and bought a new Buddhist center. So worked out well for them, I guess.

But I mean, this is, you know, this is like 15 years ago, man. Blimey, nearly 15 years, literally like in another month. No.

Wow. Around this time, 15 years ago, 2007, I started college in September and by around the beginning of November or maybe the end of October, that was it. I moved.

So blimey. And that weird. Wow.

15 years. And I know it's, it's probably not, it's not always a good thing to look back and regret and stuff, but I do, I regret things. I'm a human.

Uh, can I learn from it? Yeah, of course I can. I won't. Will I? No, but I could, but I've been determined not to.

I'm not learning. What are you talking about? I refuse to learn. No, I don't know.

I mean, then you can say, well, if I'd have stayed in that town, would I have finished my degree? Would I have made the, uh, the quite a good friendship I had with a person that was on the course of me and without her, I wouldn't have got through the course. Would I have kept that for three years? And chances are, no, I don't know. But I struggled to do that even when I was in the town.

Would I have got all the practice I needed? Um, but one of the things I had all set up, well, in my mind anyway, is I was going to, my, cause when you're doing counseling course, you have to practice on people to get your hours, your counseling hours. And so it means going to a charity or something like that. Uh, I didn't do that.

I ended up doing it at the, at the actual college, uh, did it for their counselor service, but originally I was going to split my hours between the two charities. And then when I got, uh, qualified, I was going to work for them. And that was going to be my career in my mind.

That was going to be my career. I'd work for them. And then I would continue with a podcast, with a YouTube channel, keep that growing and, um, yeah, just live that life and be happy.

Well, I don't know. You just, you know, that's, that was my mind in my mind. That was my, it wasn't a strict plan, but it was definitely a plan that I'd maneuvered in my head.

I kind of got it worked out, but not everything works out, does it? The way we expect, I guess. So here I am walking around the field at 52, aimlessly wandering around, not wanting to go home. I don't know what to do.

So, yeah, I might not even be able to use this recording, but I guess talking, it's always good to talk. Someone did say once, you know, your recording is just therapy session for you. You know, maybe sometimes, maybe sometimes I don't mean it to be, you know, you can accuse me of anything and I'll, I'll put my hands up maybe, maybe, but I don't know.

It's not my intention, you know, but I'm a human being with all the trappings or wonderfulness of being a human being. So all I can be is me. So all I can be.

So on that note, I'm going to go because I've got about 2% left of the battery on the phone. And once that goes, I will lose the recording. If I don't stop the recording before that.

So take care of yourselves. Remember to be kind to each other. Be gentle with yourself.

Be gentle with others as well. I think it's easier to be gentle with others. It's easy to be kind to other people if you're kind to yourself.

I think it works both ways. I think if you're gentle with other people, it can be easier to be gentle with yourself as well. Because you kind of get practice just being gentle.

It's not being false, just being, we can all be gentle. You pick up a baby, you're gentle. Doesn't matter how strong you are, how rough you are, what kind of bad day you've had.

You pick up a baby, you're gentle. You know, so we can all be gentle. So I'm going to go take care and I'll speak to you soon.

Bye.