The Top Things Doctors Are Missing. Why We Are Sicker Than Ever. Dr Rangan Chatterjee.

33:16So for example, if you start off your day looking at negative news headlines, right? Is there any wonder, like, would it really surprise you that that negativity that comes in then means that you're a little bit short with your partner or your children? You feel a bit down. You're less inclined to make positive changes because you think the state of the world is like in decline. Whereas if you start the day with some time by yourself and you focus on, I'm not saying deny negative emotions at all, but if you focus on things like gratitude. What are the qualities I want to showcase to the world today?

33:53What is the most important thing I have to do today? A much more intentional start to the day. You're reflecting on your life. You're building up that self-awareness. And then you're likely, you're much more likely to be calm with your partner, with your children, with your work colleagues. So I kind of feel a daily practice of solitude without question, I think is the number one practice for your health and your happiness and I think if you can first thing in the morning is the best time for that I mean I think even just hearing that will radically change a lot of people's behaviors in the morning I think the other thing that is good is when you've done it a few times you will notice a difference which will make you want to keep doing it not only will you notice the difference the people around you will notice the difference again linking back to what we said before, be the change you want to see in the world.

34:48One of the reasons I feel so calm, contented, and happy, if I'm honest, these days is because practices like that, you develop such a powerful insight to who you are and who you want to be, that it actually starts to make change quite easy. The reason I wrote Make Change at Last, is because what I realize is that we're living in an era where there's never been more information about what we can do to be well and live well, yet more people are struggling than ever before. I thought there's a problem here. There's more knowledge, there's more books, there's more podcasts, there's more information, yet rates of mental health problems are going up.

35:36Burnout is going up, physical health problems are going up. And I thought, it's a doctor. What are we missing here? And as I mentioned before, and this is, you know, the big idea in chapter one, which I think is one of the most powerful chapters in this book, is this idea that knowledge in and of itself is not enough. You need self-knowledge, you need self-awareness. Many people struggle with sugar cravings right so you often find and i've got so many patients say yeah don't touch i was really good in the day but then it was 9 p.m i was watching telly and i pulled out a tub of bed of jerry's okay so they have the knowledge and there's there's they have the knowledge but they're still unable to make that change despite that knowledge right so the practice i would use and there's what I call the three F's, right?

36:31And I say, this practice will give you freedom, but you've got to just practice it a few times, okay? So the first F is feel. Let's say it's 9 p.m. and you're in front of the TV and you have an urge to get some sugar or some ice cream. Before you get it, take a pause and ask that, what am I actually feeling here? Okay, if you pause, you go, ah, ah, I'm actually feeling a bit stressed actually. Oh, I've had a long day on Zoom calls. I haven't taken a break and this is just a bit of a treat for me. Oh, I had a fight with my partner. Oh, the children's bedtime went on too long and I just need some time for me.

37:12Okay, no problem. Go and have your sugar, have your ice cream. But you've just started to create a gap and in that gap, you start to learn about yourself. Ah, fine, you then go and have it. But the next time you're tempted, that will come back. Like, ah, am I actually hungry? Am I physically hungry? Or am I emotionally hungry? Right? So the second F is, the first F is what am I feeling? The second F is how does food feed that feeling? Ah, right. So I'm feeling stressed. Sugar, or alcohol for that matter, helps me feed the stress. I feel less stressed afterwards. So now you're starting to draw this connection in your mind.

37:55this is self-knowledge this is not knowledge from experts from me from you from anyone else it's like no no you're learning about yourself which is the most powerful form of learning empowering right totally then you're ah right okay then you have it anyway but you're gonna have a bit less because you're starting to realize what's going on and then the third f and you can either do this all in one go or the next time you go through these f's again okay what am i feeling how does food or alcohol feed that feeling and then the final f is find right okay sugar feeds the stress can i now find an alternative behavior to feed the stress so that could be okay you know what yeah i'm not at any me time today maybe i'll go and run a bath for myself right because it will do the same thing maybe i need to spend some time with my partner and instead of him being on his phone and me being on my phone here we actually put the phones away and sit and have a chat maybe i'm lonely i need to phone a friend maybe i need to do one minute of star jumps to burn off the stress doesn't matter what it is we've got to find what it is for us but those three f's you can apply to food alcohol too much time on your smartphone because they help you understand the root cause of your behavior and if you don't understand the root cause you'll never change the behavior you can buy as many health books in january as you want you can buy the latest sugar detox the latest guts health book the latest whatever you want the knowledge will only take you so far why do people every january buy these books and by june or frankly by march they're back to doing what they were doing before it's because they didn't go to the root cause and my whole approach with my patients over two decades has been how do i help you get to the root cause and my whole approach with Make Change at Last is really a framework to say these are the root causes.

39:48Once you know them, it gets so much easier to make permanent change. We're taking a quick break to talk about today's sponsor, Fiverr. Have you experienced the immediate panic when you're asked to create something on the computer, but you have absolutely no idea how to do it? For me, it's social media. But I have realised that I can rely on Fiverr. It's an online marketplace. It's got talented freelancers who specialise in different areas from social media and graphic design to marketing, website building and coding. I don't know what that means. But with Fiverr I can leave it to the experts and focus on the stuff I do best.

40:26So if you want to give Fiverr a try and I think you should, search fiverr.com or click the link in the description and use the code Davina at the checkout for 10 % off your first order that's f-i-v-e-r-r dot com and don't forget the second r and i suppose you know we can't all just take kind of general knowledge and expect it's going to work for us because like you're saying ronan is that everybody is different you know we are we are we all have different childhoods different things that stress us more than other people maybe we this is one of the I think one of the main problems now with the health advice that's been dispensed online.

41:07So I think it's a good thing that there's more information out there. I really do. I think for many years it was the preserve of professors and universities and medical schools. And I don't think that's a good thing. I think it's everyone's default right to have good quality health. I really do but what i noticed um a few years ago you know as you know to be in a i host this weekly podcast and i talk to incredible people each week and i would notice sometimes if one um expert let's say had a different view to let's say a different expert i would sort of get a lot of dms or comments on instagram say dr shashy i love the podcast but i love that expert you had on six weeks ago but i love this current one as well but they're saying different things yes i don't know who to trust people are asking the wrong question the question isn't which expert should i be trusting the right question in my view is why do i no longer trust myself this is the most important thing that i want to share with the world over the next few years genuinely it's a central tenet in in this new book which i'm so happy with and without question is the best thing i've ever written like i really do believe that you know what the right diet for you is get knowledge from experts right listen to what people have to say but then put it through your own filter.

42:43Try it for yourself. The truth is, Damina, some people thrive on a vegan diet. Some people don't. Some people thrive on a low carb diet. Some people don't. Some people thrive on a paleo diet. Some people don't. I have seen tens of thousands of patients over the years and I'm diet agnostic. I think there are some principles, right? For sure, which work? Whole food, unprocessed diet as much as you can, no question. It's easier to manage your appetite. It's easier to manage your hunger signals. You're less likely to crave all these modern, sugary, energy dense, highly processed foods. So yes, if you can, the more whole foods and minimally processed foods you can eat, the better.

43:30But once you've got that, you need to experiment. And if you really tune in, you will know when you're eating a diet that you're thriving on, because you'll feel great. Your energy will be good. You won't have bloating. You won't have constipation. And this is the self-knowledge that is at the heart of anyone making change that ultimately lasts in the long term. It's becoming less dependent on experts outside ourselves and tapping back in to the inner expertise that we all actually have. I don't know if I should say this or not, Davina. You can say whatever you like. It's a safe space. I've been talking in public about health for probably starting in 2013, 2014, when I went beyond my consultation room to talk to the public.

44:22And I'm trying to think about what are the most controversial topics, no matter how much I caveat them, no matter how nuanced I am, which are the topics where people shoot from the hip? Yes. and go mad. Yeah. Right? Menopause. Menopause. Right? Okay. And I want to acknowledge I'm a man saying this, right? And so I understand, you know, I understand that women have been not heard about these symptoms for many years. I totally get that, right? So no part of this is about blame, but menopause, nutrition, fasting. Oh, fasting's mad, isn't it? And I would say cancer. Yeah. But let's stick with the first three.

45:04Those are those. And I understand why. Right. People are have got very firm beliefs and opinions. And I guess these things really change people. They really change people. But let's let's we mentioned nutrition. Let's just mention fasting for a minute. OK. Yeah. Right. Fasting. For some people, it's the most powerful healing tool they've ever come across. for others it's toxic yeah fasting is neither good nor bad it depends on the person if you have got an eating disorder right and if you're a parent of a child who's got an eating disorder you have probably seen how fasting can be a problematic behavior so therefore your belief is that fasting is problematic if on the other hand you're significantly overweight or you've got type 2 diabetes and you have a history of consuming excess calories for whatever reason you might find that a form of fasting and there are many different forms could be a very helpful tool for you and again we become black or white fasting is good fasting is bad no it depends on who you are and i outline all these things in the book basically to help people make more nuanced choices and I think that's where really working on your emotional reactivity really helps you don't get caught up in what's going on you you can sit back a bit and go oh I see I see what they're saying there oh that might be relevant for that person that's not relevant for me like that's another lesson for everyone is not everything you can see online is relevant for you yeah like we have this but we have this view I think many of us that when I go on my Instagram feed, everything is going to be curated for me just the way I like it.

46:58Well, no, it's not. The world doesn't work like that. But I think it's good that it's not curated for everything because I think it's also important that we don't only see our view. You know, we've got to see other ways of doing things or are there interesting other ways of looking, other ways that you can treat a menopausal woman. Like this is important for all of us. I see you as an amplifier of other people's knowledge, right? This is, well, for your podcast, and then you collate all the knowledge that you learn through being a doctor in your life and all the people that you've met and all of your thoughts and things and help us with that.

47:34But it's like, I like to try and amplify all different types of people. And I hope that you will watch all of them because it's good, even if you don't necessarily agree with that, listen to it and see what you think. Let's know why you don't agree. Yes. And if you're being emotionally triggered by something, you've been given the most powerful opportunity for personal growth. This is something I've done in my own life, right? If I'm getting emotionally triggered, if a post has really annoyed me or I'm feeling I can't let go of it, it's tempting to think that that's because of the post. No, it actually isn't.

48:09It's because it's shone a light on something inside of me, right? Because, you know, again, this, you know, Chapter five in this book is called Take Less Offense. And it's a very kind and compassionate chapter. But the idea is that nothing is inherently offensive. If it was, we'd all get offended to the same thing. But we don't. So something is happening in the world. Someone's making a statement. It's only offensive if it triggers something inside of us. So the fuse that's being lit exists within us. and once you understand that you will literally change your life because you understand i'm generating all of these internal reactions i don't want to live in a state where i'm overly dependent on the world around me being perfect so many people are right they want the news to be good the weather to be good their partners to treat them well their boss to treat you well hey if you need all those things to feel well you're going to struggle because those things are not within your control and some days they're not going to happen so that's the state of what i call minimal reliance which i talk about in make change it lasts is how do you cultivate that state where you can maintain this kind of neutrality you know genuinely divina and i've said this but I honestly feel I'm in such a fantastic place in life these days right and it's mostly because of this emotional calm but it hasn't been easy I didn't have it 10 years ago I've worked on it and can I share with you one of the most powerful conversations I've had in my life which has really helped supercharge this for me I don't know if you ever heard this on my podcast or not but a few years ago I spoke to a lady called Edith Eger and and when I spoke to her she was 93 years old amazing I can still remember going into my studio for that conversation and I remember two hours later when I came out of my studio I just I thought I'm a different person I'm not the same person anymore that went in and I think about it pretty much every day because what did she tell me Let me try and summarize the key elements of that conversation.

50:31When she was 16 years old, she was growing up in Hungary. They got a knock on the door and she got put in a train to Auschwitz concentration camp. So her mum, her dad, her, and one of her sisters go to Auschwitz. When she gets to Auschwitz concentration camp, within two hours, both of her parents are murdered. she's a 16 year old girl that morning she was thinking about the date she had with her boyfriend that night she was thinking about what dress am I going to wear instead she's at a concentration camp and her parents have just been murdered later that day a few hours after her parents had been murdered the senior prison guard in Auschwitz I think it was um Dr Mengele I think was his name, he asked Edith to dance for him, right?

51:27And the first thing she said to me, which I've never forgotten, was she said, when I was dancing for Dr. Mengele, I wasn't dancing in Auschwitz. In my mind, I was in Budapest Opera House. I had a peaceful dress on, the orchestra was playing, there was a full house. She said to me, the last words my mother said to me were, Edith, never forget nobody can take from you the contents that you put inside your minds. So that was the first incredible thing she said to me. The second thing I remember was she said, after a while, I realized that the prison guards in Auschwitz, they're not free. They're not living their lives.

52:08They're controlled. But in my mind, I'm free. I thought you are living in one of the darkest places on earth. People around you are being murdered every day, yet you have realized the power of your mind. In your head, you're free. And the final words she said, Davina, to me, which I kind of feel are tattooed on my soul, are Dr. Chastity, I have lived in Auschwitz and I can tell you the greatest prison you will ever live inside is the prison you create inside your own minds. Those words have changed my life, Davina, because it's this idea that we all create these mental prisons by the way we view the world.

52:51We spoke about offense before or things annoying us online. We're creating those narratives that, oh, that person shouldn't have said that. That post is offensive. You can learn to not take these things as offensive. You can learn to go, wow that person's got a different opinion to me wow they see the world differently this is what I mean by all the amazing things that you've picked up from people people that you've spoken to and some of them have completely changed your life forever and I this idea of the prison being of our own making in our own minds that's worse than any other prison you could create is so true but what's wonderful about that statement is that we can change that we can't change it and the thing i say to people if they're looking at okay this all sounds great how do i do that okay this is my challenge to people if this is something you want to change if you recognize yourself and some of the things we've just mentioned it can be hard to do it in the moment when you're not used to it so i would say either either every evening if you can or once a week ask yourself honestly when did you get emotionally triggered when did you get really bothered by something whether it was your partner or your boss or social media and then spend five or ten minutes asking yourself why did that bother me oh it bothered me because of this oh it bothered me because of that whatever it might be i promise if you do this every day for 30 days at the end of those 30 days, you will have changed.

54:30You will understand yourself better than you've ever understood yourself before. But instead of hiding that emotional tension and then just numbing it with sugar and booze and three hours on Instagram, you're actually going to learn about yourself. And you're going to go, oh, what happens if I reframe that situation now? And then you get to a point and it's going to take longer than 30 days where you start to do it automatically in the moment. I genuinely now, Davina, can do that sort of stuff automatically in the moment, 95 % of the time. The other 5 % when I don't, and I'll be honest, because, you know, last month has been a very hectic month for me.

55:11So I'm filming a Channel 4 documentary on smartphones and children, which I'm very, very passionate about. So I've been on the road a lot more than I usually am and a few things bothered me last week and I was like oh yeah you're knackered you're sleep deprived so you're a bit overly emotional so some of your older kind of patterns are now coming to the fore and it's interesting because I was like oh I thought I'd healed this I've had that oh I thought I'd done that yeah but it's a good thing instead of having that shame or beating yourself up which again I used to do it's like oh that's interesting had this pressure not been put on my system, I wouldn't know that I still have a bit of words to do here.

55:52So now it's a gift. Now it's like, this is awesome. I didn't know that because it's often those things that we don't know that blow up somewhere. Or when we have a fight with our spouse or our boyfriend or our whoever, it's always or usually these unresolved things that we haven't dealt with. And so you can actually do this and if you you know you know when you're doing that exercise try and apply that principle if i was that other person i'd be doing the same thing as them right it's so helpful and if you're struggling to reframe something and that this is what i use if i'm thinking no no no i can't reframe this yeah then i go hey wrong and you know what edith eager could reframe stuff in auschwitz I'm pretty sure you can reframe this in your life so I take it as inspiration yes I go okay come on what mental prison you've been locked in here this could be one of the most important things people do yes because the freedom you feel in your mind once you do this stuff and this time I finished the introduction of the book is I say you can get to a point of making effortless change.

57:04You really can. Like you can get to the point where change doesn't feel hard. Oh, because most people are like, yeah, change is a struggle. Oh, I don't want to do this yet. God, I know I should do this. Hey, great. You know what? You'll manage that for a while, but you'll usually revert back. But once your change becomes more aligned with the person who you actually are and the person you've cultivated, you can cultivate within yourself the person who you wish to be. If you don't want to be this reactive person who's snapping at people, who's always getting annoyed with the world, you know what?

57:40Decide today, you know, the podcast, begin again, right? You can begin again anytime you want. Anytime you want to go, you know what? I'm not happy with the state of my life. I'm not happy with where I'm at today, with how much I'm working, with the state of my relationships, with the state of my health. Okay. Be honest with yourself if that's the case you can begin again right now right you really can and if that's you and you want a simple bit of advice right i would say and i'm really passionate about this idea at the moment i would say make one small promise to yourself right and keep it yeah it's the most powerful thing you can do yeah when we meet new people for the first time right we're asking ourselves two questions.

58:30Can I trust you? Can I rely on you? Right? That's a basic, you know, we're social beings, humans, and we're always trying to size up the people around us. But we're also asking ourselves those two questions every single day. Can I trust myself? Can I rely on myself? Now, here's the problem, Davina. When we say we're going to do something and we don't do it, It is one of the most toxic things in the world because we show ourselves, I can't trust me and I can't rely on me. And so break it right down. What's one five-minute action you can commit to each day? Five minutes of meditation, five minutes of yoga, five minutes of star jumps, five minutes of journaling.

59:14I don't care what it is, whatever appeals to you. Remember, no one thing works for everyone. What are you drawn to do? And commit. say, okay, for five minutes a day, I'm going to do this for the next seven days. I promise you, you do that one thing for seven days, you will feel differently about yourself. Your self-esteem, your self-image will be different because you will have shown yourself that no matter how busy my life is, no matter what else I've got to do at work or with my kids or whatever, I still found five minutes a day for me. And that's how you build momentum. That's how change really happens in the long term.

59:58It very rarely happens with a complete lifestyle overhaul overnight. It can do. But in my experience, the only people who can do that are when they've had a really significant life experience or a stressor like a bereavement or a divorce or they've lost their job. Yeah, people can change overnight. But if you don't have that driving you, I genuinely have seen time and time again that if you start small and build up, that's when things really start to change. I've got to say that's really made me feel quite emotional because I think that sometimes people will look at other people and they'll think, I could never be like that.

1:00:40And it's almost because they've lost their faith in themselves. I don't trust myself. You know what I mean? And it is something that simple as five minutes, but I think people think it's out of their reach. I'll never be like that. And what I love about you when you said 95%, because I always say I'm a work in progress. I'm always trying to learn something, small tweaks here and there, never perfect, accepting of my, they call it defects of character in NA, but like accepting of those bits, but always trying to be better. But it's never, like you said never too late for change I quickly want to talk to you about something that's been I've been thinking about why we've been talking I feel like I feel like you're quite a spiritual person can you talk to me about that side of your life it's probably something that I didn't realize a decade ago I'm not even sure I would have thought about that and the truth is is that for me when dad died in 2013 my life changed significantly you know losing a parent you know when a parent dies that is of course a huge moment in anyone's life what happened for me Davina is that it was the first time where I started to ask myself these big existential questions you're like, who am I?

1:02:04Whose life am I really leading? Is this my life? Is this someone else's life? Where do my dreams come from? Are they my dreams? Are they someone else's dreams? And once you open the door to that self-inquiry, I kind of feel it really does make you spiritual because you realize that there's so much more out there. I feel that I am very spiritual. And the truth is 10 years ago, I would have thought, I can't say that. What will people think of me, I'm a doctor. No, I am spiritual. Many people are spiritual. I think it's really important that we connect with something greater than who we are. We are becoming, the US is regarded as one of the most individualistic societies on the planet.

1:02:50In the UK, we're not that far behind. And it's no coincidence that these individualistic societies are showing high levels of sickness, right? We can be individually successful. Can you just explain to anybody that's not aware what an individualistic society is? It's more about me. It's about what can I do? How can I achieve my dreams? How can I make more money? What's good for me? And there's nothing necessarily inherently wrong with that up to a point. but you can't get to where you're doing well and everyone around you is struggling because there isn't harmony in the world when that happens it's no coincidence that you know you know the Scandinavian countries where society is a lot more equal where there's not this big difference between the highest earner and the lowest earner they are happy there's many other factors as well but I kind of feel that you know we know for example that um doing things for others makes us healthier and happier.

1:03:54There's studies done where they show that if you get given a sum of money and you compare it, you compare when you spend it on yourself and you spend it on other people, when you spend it on other people, you're healthier, you're happier, you feel better about yourself and your place in the world. So I'm not saying that people should forget their dreams and just do what's right for the collective. But I think the balance has gone to the point where many of us are just thinking about ourselves and our bank balance and our dreams and our careers and not thinking about the world around us. So when I hear the word spiritual, I take that as meaning a connection to something much bigger than just me, right?

1:04:37That could be nature. You know, we know that spending time in nature makes you less stressed. We know that experiencing awe, you know, this feeling when there's something, you know it's just awe-inspiring yeah we know that can produce depression it can make us happier and i feel that um these things are really important too much about healing even within my profession it's been about physical health go back to what we were saying about my back pain before okay the medical model the model i looked at my back pain through when i was 20 was okay hey, let's get a scan. What's the physical problem here that's causing that?

1:05:17But when the pain went finally at my dad's funeral, I was like, you know, I knew that emotions were stored in the body, but I knew it with my cognitive brain. I never really, you know, embodied that, never really experienced that. And once you have, and then I start applying those learnings with patients, the only way to heal is when you combine physical mental and emotional and i really believe that whether it's type 2 diabetes menopausal symptoms chronic pain autoimmune illness the medical model is far too much just about physicality but we are multi-dimensional people the physical dimension is important but so is the mental and emotional one as well and I don't think we need to think of these things as scary I think if you ask most people in the privacy of their own homes is there more to you than just you know your existence and how you feel physically I think people would say I mean what what do you think that are you spiritual oh I I mean I love listening to your journey because I have had a very similar one um possibly not as early as you, but when my sister died, I was lucky enough to be with her.

1:06:42And it sort of changed everything about dying for me.

1:06:49I don't know. It made me feel a lot less frightened of dying. I was with my father when he died. And when I went to the, when you have to go and register the death, They say that very, very few people are with the people that they love when they die. Sometimes people wait to die, I think, until their loved ones have gone so they can not upset them, I think, you know, subconsciously. I mean, you don't know what goes on, but I was with them and it made me not fear death, but it made me really think about my life, what I want it to be, the meaning to go larger. I was brought up a Christian, quite strict Christian, and so I love this idea of collective.

1:07:33I'm not necessarily a practicing Christian anymore, but I loved church. I loved being with other people. I loved quiet time in prayer. I still pray. I don't really know what I'm praying to, but I believe my prayers are heard and that's enough for me sometimes. But I also try to see nature as part of me that we're all one you're you're part of me you're part of me like everybody I don't know I'm like I'm on a massive spiritual journey at the moment it's yeah um first of all I'm sorry to hear about your sister and your dad um and I was also with my dad when he died with my mum as well we were you know mum's holding his left hand I was holding dad's right hands um and and I'm you know again I I don't know what's made me less scared of death, but I'm not anymore.

1:08:27But I was. I'm sure death has contributed. But I think when you really sit and understand that our lives are short and that we will die, that's not something to be afraid of. When you acknowledge that, I think it gives you the license to really start living and embracing life. And I think a lot of our stress comes from this fact that we don't think it's going to apply to us. And interestingly enough, you know, you mentioned you've been brought up as a Christian. It's interesting that there's really good research showing that people who follow religious practices are healthier and happier. Not necessarily people who are religious.

1:09:09Because what do all religions pretty much have at their heart? They've got some really good practices. Like you get together once a week. You know, you're kind to other people. You treat people with respect. These are good lessons for life. So I think being spiritual is within all of us. And I think it's become more important as religion now has become less and less fashionable and less and less common. I think that also is contributing to this individualist society that we have in the West now. I'm not saying you should all go for religion. It's not for everyone. But do you think there'll be more interest perhaps in the kind of more philosophy-based group like Buddhism?

1:09:58You know, so, I mean, Quakerism is a really interesting idea where you sit in silence and when you feel the need to talk, you can stand up and express yourself. I think what we're realising is a lot of these religions or philosophies, they all had some really amazing wisdom baked in. And as we become more secular and individualistic, I think we're realising that, oh, well, maybe I don't want to be religious, but there are some practices there that I can take and use. I don't think we've got these frameworks in society at the moment to actually practice those. And I think that will be the next evolution of us.

1:10:42It's like, okay, for some people, you know, I wouldn't identify someone who's religious, but I would identify someone who's spiritual. Yes. And it's also interesting how we're brought up in different cultures. So in Indian culture, Davina, at a funeral, so we have cremations, but the day before, or sorry, but just beforehand, you go and see the body. Okay, so you actually, you know, the coffins open and you, you know, you see the body, the dead body. Actually, in India, the cremations are, they're done in public, you know, you put on a funeral pyre and you actually see the body burning. Whereas, of course, here, we wouldn't do that.

1:11:23I sort of feel that it's kind of more hidden away. And again, each to their own. But I think one of the problems, one of the costs of having it hidden away is that we don't think death is real. It doesn't really apply. Whereas if you, you know, it's interesting now as we say this. My back pain went when I saw my dad's, yeah, he was in the coffin. but it was like I had this realization that oh my god dad's body is going to be burnt yes I know it's obvious but it wasn't obvious to me I was like oh literally my dad's the person who taught me how to play table tennis snooker who I used to follow around mowing the lawn when I was three and you know so daddy I want to do stripes like you know when I had that realization that oh that's going to be ash in just a few minutes that's when I really got that oh dad's gone that's when my back eased off so we're all spiritual beings whether we choose to accept that or not we are and once we connect to something much bigger and greater than ourselves I actually think we start to experience all kinds of positive changes.

1:12:31I think there's quite an interesting concept with lots of religions and that is the concept of sacrifice and I know you talk about happiness we're all kind of sold this thing of you know we've got to be happy all the time and it's just not it's not possible but really the happiness feels so great when you've had a tough time and then something lovely happens you go oh god this feels amazing that's the hardest thing for me is part of that right I would say as a parent one of the hardest things for me to get my head around is this idea that the most powerful realizations and learnings I've had in my life have come from adversity yeah they really have and I wouldn't trade any of those adverse events because without them I wouldn't have learned what I have learned but as a parent you want to protect your kids from adversity and so in my head I'm like wow and look the reality is like the world is going to give my kids adversity whether I want it to happen or not but as a parent you want to protect your kids from adversity but adversity really is the most powerful tool for change and I I've now come to reflect you know what you know dad died over 11 years ago now and I still can't get my head around it's been that long it still just feels like a couple of years ago and I've really now come to the view that dad's death was a gift like I really feel my dad's death was a gift to me because if dad was still alive I wouldn't have learned all the things I've learned from his death and that viewpoint won't be for everyone Davina but you know what a viewpoint is it's a viewpoint it's a choice i'm choosing to believe that that helps me that helps me come to terms with dad's death that helps me um that helps me be comfortable with it and our viewpoints again if we think about the prison in our minds that we've been talking about you can lock yourself up in your mind with a particular fixed viewpoint but you can also shift your viewpoints if you want you can change them anytime you can begin again yeah right I've now chosen, instead of seeing dad's death as a bad thing, would I love my dad to be around today?

1:14:54Of course I would. You know, dad was an Indian immigrant to the UK in 1962. All the things in my career that he would have been most proud of, he never got to see. You know, me having my own BBC show. For an Indian immigrant to the UK, for his son to have, his own primetime TV show is about as good as it gets, right? He never got to see that. you know dad died two years before that you know five and hopefully six best-selling books dad never got to see right but the truth is if my dad was still alive I wouldn't have written any of these books I honestly believe that I wouldn't have had the insight I would have been too busy looking after him to have the time to do it and so I choose to look at every adverse event in my life now as a gift.

1:15:40It's an opportunity to learn. But that's a mindset that I've cultivated. And I needed solitude to cultivate the mindset. You cannot cultivate that mindset if you're in reaction mode. If you get up each day and you're answering emails or you're looking at your phone and then you're consuming content and you never have any space to think, you will never cultivate those insights right yes well i want to go back to this book which is definitely going to be your sixth i just want to say sunday times bestseller um make change that lasts that's that's the thing in here most of the things in here you know that it's free they're all free everything in everything in it's free davina and just on that if i could just say one more point which is i'm really passionate about is another part of my journey over the last years has been really focused on process over outcome journey over destination right oh yeah and it's it's been a lot I grew up thinking that my worth as a human being was based on how I performed and how well I did there's a long backstory there but that's what I I took on that belief and that belief made me very competitive as i've gone and uh made peace with my upbringing and those belief patterns i've changed them so i'm no longer competitive because being competitive was never who i was it was who i became and once i understand how i became it i've taken steps to unbecome it right and it's all outlined in the book but now i've got to the point and i had this with my last book on happiness but I really feel it with this book.

1:17:26I've already won by writing this book because the book is the book that was itching to get out of me. These ideas had to come out of me. Whether anyone buys the book or not, it actually doesn't matter. I've already won. I've already won. Like maybe winning someone I've already, the process of writing it for the last two and a half years, yes, it's been hard. Yes, it's been difficult. But that is the best thing I'm capable of at this moment in my life. Now, I know from people who've read it already, like Dr. Gable Matsey and Dr. Chris Van Soliken, who are, you know, yes, it's nice to hear from them that Runger, this is incredible.

1:18:08It's the best book you've written. It's going to help so many people. Of course, it's nice to hear that. but the reality is if no one buys that book can I get to the point in my life where I still feel that it was a worthwhile endeavor yeah I think I can this has been just the most amazing talk like I have absolutely loved every single waking second of it and I and I think those two three thousand people are the luckiest people in the world it's going to be amazing oh I'm so excited thank you for inviting me onto your book And thank you for hosting such a wonderful space with a, you know, the beautiful backdrop and having me on the show.

1:18:50I really enjoy it. Keep up the great work yourself. Thank you. Thank you very much. Oh, my God. I mean, where do I even begin? But what I loved is, I mean, there were so many takeaways, but for me, the big ones were knowledge isn't the thing. It's self-knowledge. Ask yourself, why am I reacting to this post like this? Why am I reaching for the sugar now? What is it? The three F's that he was talking about in terms of addictive kind of patterns that we get into, ask yourself those things. and why am I doing it, especially around something like sugar, which I've had a massive problem with for years.

1:19:39Although I am in a sugar-free moment at the moment, but I haven't looked at why I reach for it. And I think I would probably go back to it if I didn't deal with that. So that really helped. Another massive one was peace and solitude and those kind of micro-stresses. That was fascinating, wasn't it? in the morning, waking up, alarm, micro stress, snooze, alarm going again, micro stress. I was like, oh my God, by the time I'm eating breakfast, I've had 15 micro stresses. I am already like, oh, it's so true. I mean, I could go on and on for hours. I could just go through the entire podcast and list off 40 things that have changed my life.

1:20:23So I'm not going to do that. But he was great, wasn't he?

1:20:35Thank you.