What Happens When You Lose Your Sense of Self?: Begin Again Moments

0:00Steve Peters:When you want your spring break to feel like... And your kid's pool day to feel like... And your hotel bed to feel like... Ooh, and room service to feel like... Because at Hilton, hospitality feels like... Your cabana's ready. Would you like fresh towels? It matters where you stay. Book now at Hilton.com. Hilton. For this day. Kayak gets my flight, hotel, and rental car right, so I can tune out travel advice that's just plain wrong.

0:37Tom Davis:Bro, Skycoin, way better than points.

0:40Steve Peters:Never fly during a Scorpio full moon. Just tell the manager you'll sue. Instant room upgrade. Stop taking bad travel advice. Start comparing hundreds of sites with Kayak and get your trip right. Kayak, got that right. I could never do stand-up.

1:01Davina McCall:Yeah, it's...

1:02Steve Peters:I really, I just couldn't do it.

1:04Davina McCall:But I stopped for six years, and it was like, when we talk about... Like, now, it's a really interesting thing when I look, and this open conversation, especially in the male space, about mental health and where we sit and how we look into... You know, you talk about the dyslexia or something that... that like if I'm honest with you, and this hasn't been, I never like got done with those as a kid because once I'd left school and I worked as a lay, but I was like, I'm never going to need to write again. It's just like, you know, and I did weirdly, I'd write poetry, I'd write like skits or I'd write things.

1:37Davina McCall:But even now, like, you know, if I'm on stage, a lot of my acts comes from in the moment. And that's where I like stripped, I was stripped of that for like six years where like the anxiety and the mental anguish of, at first I was fearless, right? So when I first started stand-up, I was like, this should be another thing I might fail at. And I worked hard at it. I grafted. I was very much like, this is something that I love doing. And all of a sudden, from having what felt like a very limited life, felt like all of a sudden I was doing something actually quite creative. And this feels more like...

2:16Davina McCall:This is you. A lot of people were still being like, oh, yeah, what are you going to do? you know you're not gonna make a living out of it and and i never needed that i was like yeah but you know what for like 10 minutes on stage i'm i'm able to do something that i enjoy was for me and then and then you get a little bit of success and you start and and then i had like external people around me and what was what now feels like in like there was a like an ilk then of like this is what a comedian almost looked like and i wasn't that thing and i was like getting sort of and And I was kind of like, you know, Lee Francis, who's one of our really close friends.

2:53Davina McCall:He's like, Lee had seen me and stuff through James DeFond, who was like a childhood friend. And Lee had seen me and stuff, and Lee saw something. James, obviously, you know, I wouldn't be here about James DeFond. And it's probably the only few people I get very choked up when I talk about. But I wouldn't have a career. And he saw that way before I ever did. I get more emotional talking about James than anything else, actually. Isn't that lovely? No, but as a male friendship goes, it's the best. But he always had that belief, and it was unwavered. And we've been through a hell of a lot together as friends and as colleagues, but that side of him was like, you know, he came to every gig for like years.

3:34Steve Peters:I mean, oh my God.

3:35Davina McCall:It was amazing. Amazing. It was incredible to have someone like that. Support. Yeah, like that's what you need from a friend. But I think then other external voices came in, and you're sort of like, oh, this, you know.

3:45Steve Peters:So tell me what the voice sounded like to you.

3:47Davina McCall:Like every gig was like, I'll prep, I'll prep, I'll prep. So when I first started, I didn't know what to stand up. Like my only, I wasn't like.

3:55Steve Peters:You didn't have a formula.

3:57Davina McCall:No, and I hadn't trained to, so, and I hadn't also, I wasn't like someone who, you know, Eddie Murphy, Raw, or Bernie Mac, like I loved a lot of Def Jam and that sort of stuff. But I wasn't going to like, it wasn't, the comedy felt at times quite middle class. It was weirdly seeing Mickey Flanagan. I went to see him at the Backyard Club

4:16Steve Peters:he is so funny

4:18Davina McCall:he's so brilliant and Mickey was the guy that I saw doing stand up and I thought oh actually wow this is like not like because it sounds disrespectful to say but I sort of thought fuck he's talking about stuff that I talk about down the pub and we laugh about on the building site he felt so yes I know exactly what you mean so once we got into so once I started you know I'd write stuff and I'd learn stuff and whatever but I'd enjoy it then all of a sudden it became more serious than that and it but yeah and people were like and you need to write your material and you know i don't know how like but when you're then trying out for to do spots on television they want to read your act and i've never written it down because you know right because you're free yeah and also being dyslexic like you know so i then started like the piling pressure on every gig like you're talking about there every gig was like and it didn't matter if it was like in front of seven people in a pub or a tryout for something and

5:14Steve Peters:what did that pressure feel like can you explain like physical not being able to eat that day like literally and just like heart rate yeah heart rate up anxiety but also just constantly

5:26Davina McCall:like i can't remember there's a term for it but thinking i'm gonna die i'm gonna this is gonna be the worst gig ever like i'm gonna absolutely for this is a moment that i'm gonna get found

5:35Steve Peters:out this is the moment that when that's a bit imposter syndrome yeah yeah but this is the moment

5:40Davina McCall:i'm a complete fake yeah and everybody's gonna realize today yeah and there'll be someone at the gig who just goes like you know what yeah he was all right for a little bit but yeah he's had his moment you know so and i just piled on pressure and then that came at a time i suppose actually this predates kathrin a sense actually because i started that's where i was like drinking like a

6:00Steve Peters:lot i was like in a situation just want to explain to everybody katherine's your wife yeah so yes so

6:05Davina McCall:you were drinking a lot so i drink before a gig i drink after a gig i'd numb the pain of how bad it was your anesthetic yeah it was like you know going out and also then did that affect your performance always always and also as you're well aware it affected the the two or three days after of just feeling yeah of course like you have depressed down more anxious then so you that happened on a Thursday and Saturday you're out again again and all you can really remember is you sort of like have this awful feeling of like oh shit like that that one went so badly or maybe it had gone a little bit better but you had been drunk and you go oh actually maybe if I just get drunk again that'll you know yes and it got to a point where Catherine was like you you have no enjoyment from it like we've been together for a while and I had no enjoyment from that side of stuff.

6:57Steve Peters:How long did it feel like that period went on for? How long was it like car crash?

7:03Davina McCall:For that, I think it was like, I think I went probably for about a year or two. It culminated in a lot of stuff where, you know, I don't want to get too much into this, but the management I was with at the time was almost like this isn't stand-up stuff. I felt like there's no one really believing in that.

7:22Steve Peters:No one had your back.

7:23Davina McCall:No, and also I just felt, I was looking around at people that who are friends and I adore but I was like wow these people are so much better than me at this thing and it was like I sort of was just like you know I just felt that I somewhere along the line I'd lost who I was on stage it's a really important thing it's like the thing like when I watch you on not just confidence but whenever I watch you on television you're just unapologetically yourself right and that's the hardest thing to be I think people completely like I think it's the thing that why we all connect with Davina McCall it's like it's the moment from if you're sitting at home and you're watching you on television you number one have that thing that you can't buy is that you all automatically feel like you feel like that person in the pub and that's the biggest comment that comes in and everyone chats and laughs with and there's a joke if that feels and it's a thing for me that I don't think you can ever buy I don't think you can buy the the people at home going I like that person and I want they're willing you to do well but also for you not to for you always just to go like this is who I am that's a hard like and I was like going on stage and going who am I like and I never had that I was always like right I'm a guy from a building site I can play the underdog I was self-deprecating that's self-deprecation has been my thing since I was

8:44Steve Peters:I can remember as well a bit like I'd always just be like I know I'm not the kind of raging beauty and I know I'm not the...

8:53Davina McCall:Yeah, that's why people love you.

8:53Steve Peters:Yeah, but that's why people love you. It's that same energy. Yeah. But I think it's interesting that you were doing that, but it wasn't giving you the feeling. But that's because I think you didn't have... You weren't surrounded by people who were believing in you.

9:13Davina McCall:No, and I still...

9:14Steve Peters:It was like being back at school.

9:15Davina McCall:Yeah, and I still had James there, but then Catherine was like, you know, Catherine's thing was like this is making you so unhappy you're not going out and at the time I'd then been lucky enough to do a bit of acting and a bit of writing and I was like this is something that, if I'm honest with you I was like this feels something I'm not better at but I just find my body tightened up as soon as I sort of went to go on stage and then I try to remember exactly what I should say and that was never you know, when I look back at the stuff that I've made over the years, none of that is like the stuff that has been good.

9:51Davina McCall:It was just, and I think I got so tightly wound. It was like, well, I'll probably lose my relationship if I carry on doing this. She's not going to stay around too, because it was driving me like, you know, to a point of, yeah.

10:04Steve Peters:I mean, not mad, I don't mean mad, mad, but it was like,

10:07Davina McCall:Yeah, but there's a lot of madness to it.

10:10Steve Peters:This episode is brought to you by Indeed. Stop waiting around for the perfect candidate. Instead, use Indeed Sponsored Jobs to find the right people with the right skills fast. It's a simple way to make sure your listing is the first candidate C. According to Indeed data, Sponsored Jobs have four times more applicants than non-sponsored jobs. So go build your dream team today with Indeed. Get a$75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com slash podcast. Terms and conditions apply.

10:38Tom Davis:So your human is in the yellow frontlet. In fact, the chimps also there, but it complicated things. So I'll put the chimp because it's limbic system in the middle of the brain, which is where the limbic system is. But there's like a big strand going out into the yellow bit and the chimp actually lives there. Right. So just for the people who are saying this isn't accurate. What I was trying to say is these the chimp and human are the two thinking systems, which we can see. So I stress you in some way. And it's very like the chimp system lights up. And now you're very emotionally based and making decisions that are not rational.

11:11Tom Davis:They may be paranoid. You lose perspective. You can't see beyond the moment you're in. You might want immediate gratification instead of delayed gratification. So you become impulsive. You react fast to things. You don't respond. It's just a reaction with words or actions. So it's not thought through. That's it's a survival mechanism. Yes. And then I realized that a lot of people live in that all the time. and what I did is started working to say we're going to put a pause and move the blood supply into this yellow frontal bit to the human which is the top of your head and what happened then when I moved it the person gained perspective they gained reality and they started thinking rationally and logically if I do this what am I going to feel like in half an hour and now they could do it now they can press the pause button and relax so I was thinking how can I train people to move themselves rather than me move them.

12:08Tom Davis:But we can see this on a functional MRI scanner. We can see it literally lighting up.