Begin Again Moments: Family Relationships

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1:14Then, every morning it combines these factors into an easy-to-understand score from 1 to 100. So you'll know how to take the quality of your sleep from OK to Very High. Know your Sleep Score with Apple Watch. iPhone 11 or later required. I did this show and it touched on mine and my dad's relationship. This is true. I met him to, what is it now? I met him to, almost like a journalist, really. I met him to ask him some questions that would maybe help my story in the show. what you know just just just his just his story his story with the drug and it was there that i discovered that he didn't take hadn't taken it in a couple of years but that's mad that you didn't know that no we weren't really communicating at that at that point so this brought you back together yes yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah it did yeah i mean we're still quite distant me my dad but we talking text me after the qpr game but it's yeah we're just not that kind of family we're not you know we never had and i think this goes with something we never had a table at home you know

2:33Davina McCall:the thing of one of the things that i get what you know can i just say something that is so that tells me so much. Right, right. Like a table is a basic family need. Right. What are you going to sit round? Absolutely. To play Uno. Exactly. Right. And do you know what? One of my first girlfriends, I remember having dinner around their house and we had to sit around the table and it was this mortifying thing. What, I've got to look at you? Yeah, we've got to sit around the table with your parents. We're going to sit around. Why the pair? I don't want to sit with your pair. It was so scary because I wasn't used to this.

3:21And the reason they did it, and she used to hate it. She was wonderful. She used to hate it. And I remember I used to say to her, this is so important. Because her dad would ask everyone, she had a brother, and ask everyone how their day had been. And at first, I found it mortifying. I hated the concept. and then I grew to love it and obviously that's what we do at home obviously we have the table the kids now me and Grace with the kids we have it around the table that's it's so important

3:55Davina McCall:the table to family I think there's a book in that you know the table yeah when I talk about teenagers yeah um I always uh my girlfriend told me to never say no to a teenager and I was like I don't get that like what yeah that's impossible how can you not say no to a teenager she said they're teenagers they're coming into adulthood yeah they need a negotiation and you take them to the negotiating table that's fantastic and you sit down and you go okay tell me what you want okay the reason why i'm having a problem that is because of this or i've got to get up really early in the morning i don't want to come and pick you up at three o 'clock in the morning yeah can we negotiate on the time you know what i mean yeah that's fantastic they negotiate a bit i negotiate a bit they feel heard i feel heard no argument yes no leaving the room and going i hate you yeah yeah yeah um i've got that to come but i'm using that that's why you've got a table now as well absolutely for later negotiating exactly yeah so like how do you create a safe environment for you in relationships when you're growing up like that's really hard well I think you know that no boundaries is something that I've kind of had to I mean that you know and we'll get to that I'm sure but not you know not not drinking was so important into you know in in in creating boundaries and kind of pathways of existing.

5:32Davina McCall:Tomorrow morning is knocking.

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6:45Alain de Botton:Childhood is a very difficult period. And I think we all need to understand that children are born into the world utterly dependent on those around them, the few people around them who are randomly chosen and who will be suffering from various distortions of their own minds. I mean, it's very rare that you are born into a sane family. Most of us are born into, you know, it's a lopsided sort of proposition. So we have to understand that this is the way we're born. How long are we going to let that lopsided entry into the world determine our lives? ideally a minimal amount of time what you need to do is to realize the nature of the lopsidedness accept the lopsidedness and start to correct it as early as possible how do we how do we

7:28Davina McCall:find out what our lopsidedness is is it that we sit and ask ourselves questions or

7:35Alain de Botton:i mean you know it depends in which area love and work the two great areas of life this is freud said you know happiness means getting love and work right and most of us get love and work dramatically wrong with things that are probably related to early childhood. We pick up. What happens in childhood is that we don't only learn language and social skills. We learn a whole emotional vocabulary about who we are, how we function, what's expected of us, what it takes to be good, what it means to be a boy, a girl, gender, roles, etc. All of this is encoded in us unconsciously. And we need to understand the language we've learned in order to become self-aware and question, because bits of it are going to be balmy, really, really strange, really distorted.

8:21Alain de Botton:There will be an excessive focus on some areas and not on others. And ultimately, the goal of adulthood is to become your own arbiter of your own value and of your own mission and of your own joys, etc. It used to belong in other people. A child looks up at its parent and goes, who am I? What am I worth? and the answer comes back from the parent's face. And that answer is loaded with prejudice and bizarre stuff, right? And after a certain age, you think, that happened to me in the past. I can't let that continue. At some point, I've got to become. And by the way, we do this in love. I mean, in love, you know, most of us spend a good portion of our lives thinking, I'm not complete until I meet somebody else who's able to mirror for me a good picture of who I am.

9:09Alain de Botton:I won't tolerate myself. until someone else can say, you're okay. And until then, I'm not okay.

9:14Davina McCall:Can I quickly ask you something about that? So, because I think what you're saying is, I want to find somebody where I like myself. Okay, so you're showing me a version of, I become a nice person when I'm with you.

9:29Alain de Botton:I give you power of attorney over my worth. I give you the power to decide whether I'm a good person or a bad person. Think about loneliness.

9:36Davina McCall:But shouldn't we know if we're a good person or a bad person?

9:39Alain de Botton:Of course. But of course, that's not the history. So let's be passionate towards the history. Because we've come from a place where we take our school grades to our parents and go, what am I worth? Am I a good person? And maybe there are good evolutionary reasons why that's the case. But the point is, how long do we want to let that continue? At some point, we have to seize the reins and go, now I'm an adult. And part of adulthood means not surrendering my power to decide my worth always to random external authorities. I mean, again, in relationships, people get into terrible trouble because they stick around people who beam back a terribly negative image of them.

10:14Alain de Botton:And they go, I've got to spend another decade persuading this person that I'm a worthwhile human being. And you think, no, you don't. If you are not getting back an image that you like and that broadly agrees with your sensible reasons for your own assessment and sense of worth, get out. Don't be around such a situation. We do so much of giving up to others something that should be self-generated and we get into terrible trouble because of that.

10:40Davina McCall:Something that I'm really interested in, which kind of plays into what you're talking about. I mean, we've kind of touched on a bit that life is suffering. You know, this idea that we've all got to try and be happy all the time. It's inachievable. It's untenable. And it's not realistic. And I do worry about people trying to achieve something that they're never going to be able to achieve because life is difficult. And getting through those difficult times, a bit like going through a crisis or doing something you're frightened of, means that when you get through it, you're like, yes, I got through it.

11:17But also I feel like, do you know what?

11:21Davina McCall:I've completely lost my chance. No, no, no. Give me two minutes because I'm actually going to come back to it. We were just talking. What were we just talking about?

11:28Alain de Botton:Well, it's about whether you allow somebody else to determine what your worth is. We're about sort of childhood and the way that children will sort of look to their parents or those around them to decide whether they're a good person or a bad person.

11:41Davina McCall:Yes. So I think basically what I was saying was that as we get to the point where we start believing ourselves, there is like a time in your life where you have to cleanse your life of people that are toxic. I've remembered it. Oh, my God. Thank you so much. That was like doing the best poo ever. I love you. This has never happened to me before. But can I just say something? Yeah. Thank you for being patient and letting me find it. No, it makes me feel emotional. I'm so grateful to you. Anyway, I feel fucking great. So what I hear about quite often is people that can't take responsibility for themselves.

12:26Davina McCall:And I'm really interested because I've had some experience of addiction and treatment centers. I didn't personally go into treatment center. I went to a fellowship. But it is said in a treatment center that an addict that is stuck in victim mode is almost impossible to treat because they can't recover because they don't believe that they can help themselves. They've lost power. What creates, are we born victims or do we become victims? And if someone is in victim mode, they often don't want to get out because it's easier. but how can we do can we help a victim can do we have to just leave them be what what do we do

13:14Alain de Botton:i mean look i'm quite i'm inclined to be quite generous towards that word victim you know people go oh you that person feels you know victimized etc and and i want to start by going let's not put them let's not label them let's not label let's what you know let's not treat them as bad people etc i think all of us i mean what do we mean by victimhood let's say i go outside and It's the third time I've left the house. Every time I leave the house, it looks sunny. But then every time I've spent five minutes walking down the road, it starts to rain. I get completely drenched and I've forgotten my umbrella.

13:46Alain de Botton:By the third time this happens, I start to feel the world's getting at me. I feel like I'm being victimized by the weather. Or I go into a restaurant and I say, can I have a nice table? They go, yeah, over there. You realize the table's wobbly and there's a strange smell and they've given you the worst table. and you think I'm being victimized in the pizza restaurant or whatever it is. So it's quite possible to feel that you're being got at by the world. Often it has to do with a deep sense that you're unworthy and that you're not a good person. The more you feel I'm not good, I'm unworthy, there's something wrong with me, the more you'll constantly be reading insult everywhere.

14:21Alain de Botton:Everyone's laughing at people, people are getting at me, etc. So again, huge compassion. This comes from not really having been seen, loved, honoured, etc. And then you make it worse for yourself because you're permanently seeing yourself as a good, fitting, plausible candidate for victimization. And then you feel victimized by things that go wrong. The tube train left the station in order to hurt me. My date didn't show up because they loathe me. You know, everything is connected up with something wrong with you. And of course, what we really realize is that the world's much more random. The weather wasn't interested in you.

14:58Alain de Botton:The tube is not trying to humiliate you. the date that was late, they had some problem with their own family, whatever it is. There's often a lot more going on than the victimized person feels. And so that's why, by the way, it's really useful to get out on a starry night and look at the stars, because suddenly you're aware of the vastness in which we all live. And you think, you know what? It's not all about me. And that's a beautiful thought, because normally we think it's not all about me and that's a bad thing. It should be more about me. And then sometimes you look at something vast, like the ocean, like the stars.

15:28Alain de Botton:And you think, thank goodness that I'm not the center of this show. This show's been going on a lot longer. It's a lot bigger. I am a grain of sand. Thank God. And so that's a sort of anti-victimization strategy to realize that, you know, it started long before you. It'll go on long after you. It's not about you. And thank God it's not about you.