Jono Lancaster

0:00Before we start, this episode includes conversations you might find difficult to hear. So do check the show notes if you want more details before listening. Hello and welcome to Happy Place with me, Fern Cotton. This is the place where we can learn about the world and ourselves by hearing other people's stories. Today, I'm chatting to Jono Lancaster. One night, I'd not seen my face. Not even working in a gym, surrounded by mirrors, I'd not seen my face in so long. but I accidentally went up and I saw my face and I looked at my face when I was 21 years old and I saw that I had blue eyes and I hadn't seen my blue eyes in so long and I smiled and I was like oh my god I love the colour of my eyes and as I smiled realised when I smile I have one dimple at the side and I was like oh my god that's so cool that was a powerful powerful moment.

0:58I first met and became aware of Jono through the medium of Instagram. It was probably around the time of the pandemic where we were all on our phones a hell of a lot. And I started following Jono's work on Instagram, hearing him speak so fluently and eloquently about his own story and really promoting self-love, which is something that at times I really need to focus on and something I believe we all collectively need to put a lot more effort into. To me, Jono Lancaster is the expert of self-love and we've become great friends over the last couple of years, which has been a real bonus too. Jono was born with a facial difference that means he felt he didn't fit in.

1:48And as you'll hear, he's been on a huge journey to reach a point of self-acceptance. Maybe you were at last year's Happy Place Festival and heard him giving his wonderful, life-affirming talk. I mean, people were whooping from that tent. Well, now he's written a book called Not All Heroes Wear Capes, which is published by Happy Place Books, I'm proud to say. It details his experience growing up, finding it increasingly hard to love his face, despite huge support and care from his adoptive mum in such an image-conscious world. Because of what he's been through and what he's learned along the way, Jono's incredibly passionate about helping the rest of us find our own self-love too.

2:38So I really hope this chat will make you start challenging why you don't like certain parts of yourself and give you the confidence to start changing that narrative. All right, here it is. Here's the show.

3:16Jono, it's so lovely to see you today. I was going to say it's lovely to see you but it's terrifying. I'm not that scary. You're not, you're not, honestly. No, thank you so much for having me. But we're talking about things that, they're not just a story, like these are things that are so deep within myself and it doesn't matter how many times I talk about them, they bring all kinds of emotions out and it's nothing to do with you. I won't take it personally. no definitely don't take it personally uh but it's just so many emotions just come out and um I don't know if you saw me in there but I was pacing up and down I'm excited but nervous no I totally get it and I think it's really an important point because I do one of these every week but I think for most guests there is that feeling or even if I'm doing a talk or talking about any of my books it is you know it's an emotional sort of journey to go through and you can end up feeling quite drained or if you've got nerves it can leave you feeling quite exhausted at the end and I'm deeply grateful that each week someone is willing to share their story and willing to talk because we know of how helpful that can be for people feeling alone or like they're going through something that's insurmountable so I'll start not end by saying a big thank you for you being here today to to go through it because like you say it's it's tiring and it's it's a lot to go through this stuff but we're doing it for important reasons one it's connective but also as well as being now a newer friend of yours which I'm very happy about also at Happy place we're publishing your debut book yeah um you know thank you for that introduction that's that's beautiful and you are such a beautiful person in ever since i've known you you're like i know this person and you need to be introduced to this person because you two are just going to vibe and you're going to connect and you're going to add positivity in your life i'm a matchmaker i I love it.

5:29You are. It's my favourite thing to do in all capacities. Yeah. And I think you have such a beautiful quality of doing that. And then for me personally, you was such a big spark in the debut book that I've written. And yeah, from the bottom of my heart, thank you for giving me that platform. How was it writing that book? Because much like this discussion today, you go into great detail about your past your childhood what you're dealing with today even and also the charity work that you're doing and the messages that you're getting out there was I'm imagining there was a healing element but I'm also imagining it was painful at times to write that book yeah I mean you've written books before and I'm sure whoever's written a book I'm they go through similar things but at first I was like so excited just even just learning how to write a book you know I thought I start at the beginning and then just continue and then eventually work to the end the editors and everybody who's helped me were just like no let's get with your chapters and I was like oh that's a little bit exciting so we put all the chapters down and then they were like okay let's share a few stories within each chapter and then all of a Suddenly we're getting fatter and fatter.

6:49And straight away I went to my favourite stories. Oh, I'll write these down. And they were positive. And they were healing. And then we were like, okay. What about the deeper stuff? And I tried my best to try and get a routine. Like, I'm going to be at my desk at 10 o 'clock. And I'm going to have my coffee. And I'm going to start writing. And then I'm going to finish by four. But I'd sit there and I'd be like, no, nothing's coming. but then I would go through my day go to the gym go yoga do walking listen to some music and then I'd hear a song and then like oh trigger and I'd sit down and write that and then I'd be writing especially with music I'd listen to a song and it'd take me back to that moment to that day and I'd be writing and I'd be crying like oh yeah the journey of writing a book was just I've been so, ah, every emotion.

7:46Yeah, you can tell reading it. You know, I text you when I was reading it and it is everything. It's got so much in there. And the feel of the book is a real celebration of the self, of being confident and self-accepting and self-compassionate, which is, yes, messaging we hear a lot, but messaging we need to hear a lot. Because I know even from being on Instagram and communicating with happy place followers and people that enjoy the work that we do, self-loathing or even just a disassociation of self because you can't accept or love yourself is so prevalent. And we were talking just off mic before, you know, you do these talks a lot and you're helping people all over the world with self-love.

8:32and to you because you understand it and you practice it you understand that it's difficult but because it is almost a simplified equation now you understand how self-love works you're slightly perplexed as to why why are people still reacting with such sort of shock and awe and gratitude for this message but they are because it's so needed so many people out there are still deeply self-loathing. I mean, I've had periods of my own life where I've been so flattened by self-loathing. I've barely been able to squeak a noise out of my mouth because I've been sort of too terrified, but also it's felt irksome to hear my own voice.

9:12You know, I've definitely been there and there are so many people that have. So the message of this book is really important, but really we get to know you as a person, which is so, so important. So for people that don't know the wonderful John O. Lancaster, let's get to know you a bit better today as well, as well as people reading the book. I urge you to read the book. So you were born with Treacher Collins. For anyone that doesn't know what Treacher Collins is, can you teach us a little bit about it? Treacher Collins, if I were born with it, there might have been a family history, mum, dad, grandparents, and it's passed on through genetics.

9:50For myself, I am, I was a sporadic mutation, So no family history. Treach Collins only affects the face. So for myself, I don't have any cheekbones. So that's why my eyes appear the way they do. My ears haven't developed properly. So I've got calling me little Bart Simpson ears. They don't get cold in winter. They don't pop on flights. I absolutely love them. um i i'm hard of hearing so i wear a hearing aid whenever mum was telling me off or shouting at me the hearing aid went off and didn't have to listen to her um you know and that's how treat callings has affected me in other cases the jaw my mind's a little bit receded but some individuals the jaws so receded and the airway so close that they need a tracheostomy some need a feeding tube to help with feeding and some require a lifetime of surgeries just to give them some sort of quality of life it's one of those conditions that affects individuals on a scale yeah endless spectrum yes now what was really lovely to read in the book was that when you were a tiny kid you didn't have any clue that there was any difference between you and your friends you're a happy kid you were a confident kid and it seems that that was solely down to your wonderful mum Jean so tell us a bit about Jean.

11:19She she's not even five foot she's just this tiny human but she's just got this massive heart this endless amount of love that I just feel so incredibly blessed and lucky to have had her in my life she met me at two weeks old and ever since she met me she loved me she celebrated me she gave me the best foundation for me to live my best life and not only did she do that for me she fostered other children so many other children with various disabilities so I grew up in a home that had people with wheelchairs people with various learning disabilities emotional needs some of the children had braces some of them had special shoes some of them had harnesses some had different ways of eating and we were all celebrated and I just feel incredibly lucky that I grew up in that environment because as i got older i was like yeah this is this is just me and i loved it and i loved sharing my story that my mum went met me at two weeks old and out of all the babies there my mum chose me you know your mum and dad got stuck with you but my mum chose me and i just i celebrated everything about myself you know when we go into water fights i would absolutely soak the other kids with water bombs and then they would go to soak me and i'm like whoa earring aid you know you can't you can't let me and i just i just i loved my face i loved my life i didn't think it was my norm and yeah very lucky to have that foundation i mean she is just the most amazing woman who has just done so many brilliant things for you and and other children out there but of course they're and this is for all kids this is a scary moment going to high school where everything changes you've been in the safety of you know either a small primary school but certainly wrapped in that bubble of young childhood where you know you were lucky that you had this wonderful mum that celebrated you and gave you that confidence and foundation but high school is the wild west and you're meeting kids from all different areas and you're at that age where everyone's trying to figure out who they are and that seemed in the book to be the point where your confidence started to really nosedive so what was that period like from feeling very safe which is fundamental for you to have confidence and exhibit it to just feeling like your confidence had gone completely that summer holidays before high school I was completely oblivious as what was about to happen I had so many friends at primary school I had friends on the street I would go to sports clubs I was just a happy kid and then went up to high school and all of a sudden there were kids there that hadn't seen me before and there were two weeks where it was just the younger the first few years at high school you know the older kids started two weeks later and it was okay like it was it was nerve-wracking like they were pointing they were like oh have you seen that kid with the face I was a kid with the face you know oh yeah that's Jono and there was that curiosity there and then the older kids started and that's when the jokes would come and I'm like oh I'm not prepared for this I'm not ready for this and I struggled I once had conversations with my mum and I'd ask her about my face and my birth family and and she would talk to me and I believed every word that she said and then as I would transition into a high school and things didn't weren't going my way I stopped believing my mum and I started not sometimes what people said I believed people's reactions and I started questioning the second looks yeah high school was tough and I really really struggled and I still had amazing family amazing friends but all of a sudden these demons started creeping within myself and yeah that natural celebration started to disappear and this is when you started to sort of think a repetitive thought why me why me and And those two words became a bit of a trap for you.

16:08You got kind of stuck in those words. How would that make you feel? I have quite an addictive personality. And I became obsessed with why me? Why did I have to look like this? Why did I have to be born with Treacher Collins? Why did my birth parents? Why, while I was obsessed with that, why me? Nothing else mattered. nothing else went in somebody would be like even I'm learning about P was my favorite subject I'd be learning football drills it wasn't going in because I'm still why me I had friends that would I would have positive experiences in life just hanging out with my friends but again I was still obsessed with this why me nothing else mattered nothing else was going in because I was like why did I have to look like this why and I I would look at my face and just ask myself and why me I would look up and why me and I just never found the answer I kind of made up a lot of answers because I wasn't getting any real answer and that led to some coping mechanisms that weren't beneficial to you.

17:25So at this time, lying became a bit of a coping mechanism for you. Being like the clown and people laughing and you entertaining other people became a coping mechanism. It's fascinating how the brain works. It's looking for solutions all the time. It's looking for coping mechanisms. But often they're just not the right ones. I can certainly see in my own life how I've used certain coping mechanisms to get through things. For instance, bulimia was a big coping mechanism for me. It wasn't a beneficial one, but it was a coping mechanism for a good 10 years until you realise, wait, this isn't working anymore.

18:01So talk to me a bit about that. How did you establish these new traits? What was the reaction you were getting from being outlandish and how did that make you feel? In life, when it comes to coping mechanisms, it's those spur-of-the-moment quick fixes and you get a response and you're like oh oh i like that that's not what i'm used to and i remember one of the first ones in high school we started drinking so we started having the house parties and never been to a house party before and i just heard about them all my friends were going and i just heard about them and one of my mates who were like don't know are you coming to this house party and I was like oh I've not been invited and they were like sure a few hundred boys of course you're invited and I'm like well I've not been invited and they're like Jono you don't need to be asked you just come in and I was like okay so I became obsessed with this this party what happens and so I started doing a little bit of research through my friends we drink I'm like well what do you wear on the way to the house party we needed to buy some alcohol and I hadn't really had much experience with alcohol other than drinking with my mum at home it was like generations apart no experience with alcohol and I go into a shop like oh we always get us alcohol don't worry about it I was like okay so I walk up to lady and she was like what do you want and I was like not got a clue and all the spirits are behind her so I literally scan the spirit that's in my price range and i chose a bottle of whiskey it's a rough first one guys and she turned around and she put it on table and she was like how many is this for and i was like oh it's for a few of us and she's like oh good because this is strong stuff and i was like oh yeah it's for a few of us and she put it in a bag i was like and my whiskey and I looked around him my friends he's like got some cheap cans of lager and what I should have done we're paying we go to this party and at first my first ever party it was okay you know there were people on a playstation there were people just hanging out the lads with the lads the girls at the girls and I was like oh this is okay and then the music got louder and people started drinking and I just sat there clutching this whiskey feeling so out of place not knowing what to do where i fit in um definitely i wasn't very good at talking to or chatting up girls or anything like that my friend came up and had a little bit of a check in with me oh you're not drinking why aren't you open what's going on and i just sat there and he was like oh well come on give me a shot so he took the whiskey off me and poured it into bottle cap and he did a shot it's like oh that's strong stuff and i ended up doing it and it burnt oh it was just it was awful um and and then you know a few other people would have a shot of this whiskey and i would just sit there and i'm just sat there holding my bottle just like what what do i do where do i go and i just you know i had little crushes on you know a certain girl and i was scared to talk and they were talking to boys and then all of a sudden the coupling started and i I was like nobody and again this why me why did I have to look like this all of a sudden nobody finds me attractive and when I was going through high school that nobody finds me attractive just took over my life and so in that spur of the moment I was like look hey guys open my whiskey stood up and just down this bottle of whiskey and don't remember anything else of that night and the following monday at school went to school and we all met up before school started and everybody was like oh john what were you what were going through your mind and i was like why i was like oh you just held this bottle of whiskey and you just passed out we had to walk you around garden just to make sure you weren't dead and i was and they were just like oh right and you's like you fell downstairs and you passed out in front of door and i was like and everybody was just talking about oh my god that's so cool are you coming to the next one and i was like oh i like that that attention oh it was it became addictive and then it was how do i get more of that and then all of a sudden i went from thinking of why me to why me what else can i do how else can I cope what and yeah I did some bad stuff in high school so at what point did you realize that wasn't actually working and actually the attention the furore around that and people's interest in you and these sort of legendary party tales when did you realize that wasn't actually gonna do the job and make you like yourself or make you feel better um I you know I always had friends who were like i i would save money up and i would buy things for people i got myself a really crap tattoo when i was 15 16 i've got a few of them i've got more than a few of them we can compare those in a bit god um i mean the guy ate a cheeseburger while he tattooed me oh that's nice how hygienic and and lovely for you to smell that while you're having a tattoo done my mum's gotta eat

23:38um when did it stop like i said i always had friends who were like recognizing so like jono you don't need to do that you're one of the boys you don't need to do that but then i found myself even in my 20s when i used to go out i would be like oh guys i'll get the drinks didn't matter how much money or little money that i had i mean guys i'll get all the shots I'll get this round in and it became part of the I never felt like I even though people were telling me you don't need to do this I felt like I needed to do something to earn my invite to earn my belonging and I was like I was paying my ticket to to be there and that stayed with me up until my 20s and I think it still creeps into my life and it's something that I still have to work on I know my value I know my worth I know my energy and I add a lot to my friend's life to whoever has the opportunity to interact with me I know they are very very lucky but every now and again it creeps in what's their motivation for being in my company what do I what else do I need to bring well and I have to talk to myself constantly but the language that I use to talk to myself now what's changed that's important and it might not seem like a big deal but it's a huge deal to talk to yourself kindly rather than with a horrible acerbic voice or questioning who you are and why you are who you are how did you make that shift because we've touched a little bit on your coping mechanisms here and the feelings of loneliness and the times where you didn't like yourself but this got very severe I mean you were having suicidal thoughts you didn't want to be around because you didn't know how to cope at points and but you've you've turned all of that around so when you were in that low low place I know there were things that got you out of that and I think this is really important to talk about considering we know how high suicide rates are especially for men still and that many people feel like there isn't a way out what was your way out of that mindset when it came to suicidal thoughts i from a teenager i always thought about death and i always thought that i didn't belong in this world and when i was struggling and i was trying to find answers um i i'm i talk about it in the book country roads take me home to a place where I belong and I believed that I didn't belong in our world and and I never acted upon it but I wanted to get ill I wanted to be in an accident when I talk about it now I mean there's people that go through these tragedies and I actually feel really really guilty that at one point in my life I wished that I would that would happen to me but I just couldn't find any happiness and it's funny because life did change thankfully and I would love to say that I did this this and this but I completely winged it and it was purely by accident but no i i spent years not being able to look at my face that was one of the coping strategies just don't see it just don't you know ignorance is bliss just don't acknowledge your face and it was my face like how do you not acknowledge your face but i was like just don't look at it because i as a kid like as a teenager i would sit in the mirror and I would just sit like that for so long hoping that some sort of muscle memory would kick in like I could just make this better I wouldn't be going through xyz so I stopped looking through I stopped looking in the mirror and then by the time I was 21 I was working in the gym and I went through this moment where at 21 life was okay but I was still winging it.

28:10I became obsessed with food, obsessed with my body. I felt like I needed apps 24-7 and again I was still struggling with attraction and I thought no girl's going to want to date me and if some girl does manage to have the confidence of dating me they're gonna eventually have a conversation oh i'm dating jonno and then the girls are going to be like why are you dating him and then this girl's going to be like oh his face ain't all that but his body's nice and you know what he'll do absolutely anything for me so again i'm like these people pleasing i didn't have any boundaries obsessed with my body i have some beds i used to run in the sauna to dehydrate myself by the time I were in my 20s I developed all these quick fixes coping mechanisms that kind of helped in that moment but for the long term they were absolutely crushing me and they were ruining me found myself working in a gym that had sunbeds that had saunas so that was just feeding my my coping unhealthy coping mechanisms and one night I'd not seen my face not even working in a gym surrounded by mirrors i've not seen my face in so long and whenever you go to the gym especially if you're working in a gym you'll notice there's weights left everywhere you know people can use the weights but they can't put them back you lazy sod but it's impossible so anyway 21 year old jonathan had to put the weights back and the weights were always in front of these giant mirrors from the floor to the ceiling and putting the dumbbells away and i look at my trainers i love my trainers and i was like oh i like my trainers looked at my little sparrow legs and i was like i've got a nice set of pins saw my butt and i was like oh i've got a cute butt i just trained chest and i'm wearing like an extra small t-shirt so i was like oh and i'm on a roll at trainers legs bum chest and normally i stop at my shoulders but I accidentally went up and I saw my face by accident and I looked at my face when I was 21 years old and I saw that I had blue eyes and I hadn't seen my blue eyes in so long and I smiled and I was like oh my god I love the color of my eyes and as I smiled realized when I smile I have one dimple at the side and I was like oh my god that's so cool and I just grinning like a Chester cat staring at myself in this mirror in this gym just like wow and it was an energy shift I wouldn't say I'd made it but oh my god that was a powerful powerful moment in my life so from then on things did start to progress I've gone way off tangent and we're talking about the suicidal thoughts the 15 years that followed that moment of seeing my face i have filled my life up with adventure with love with self-love and i will i'll happily look at my face all day long and i will smile and i've been kind to myself i don't go to the gym as much as i obsessively i'll train if i want to I'll do yoga, I'll do Pilates.

31:43I've worked on my relationship with food. I'll have the biggest piece of cake, but sometimes I'll have some salad. It's the difference. Sometimes it's all my beer, my ale and kale. I think sometimes I'm full of ale, sometimes I'm full of kale. I've been doing all this, and, you know, today I'm like, yeah, I love myself. but before covid to what five years ago i was on this everything i touched turned to gold i was traveling all over the world speaking about self-love and i was raising money for for various charities that i support people were listening to me and i was happy and then a period of my life um a relationship ended a friend passed away my mum ended up in hospital and then I ended up being in in a car accident and I started developing these panic attacks and this anxiety and I was just consumed with pain and emotion and my heart would race and I knew everything about talking to people I knew everything about being kind to myself about rest about checking in but all of a sudden I was just consumed with this anxiety and it stayed with me I went to the doctor I ended up calling a paramedics one night I couldn't shift thought I was having a heart attack and the paramedic sat me down on my sofa and it got me to breathe and it kind of went away the following night it happened again so i sat myself down on the sofa and i did my breathing technique and it calmed down it happened again so i ended up in a &e and i just couldn't shift this anxiety and i thought something was wrong with me so i went to a &e and he checked everything over and i was in my little cubicle waiting i was facing around and he came over and he was like we've got your results back we've had them for about 20 minutes or so and i've just been watching you it was like is everything okay and i'm just like i'm just worried about my results but what is there anything wrong with me and he's like no everything's fine but from your body language for my observations what's going on in your life and i was like oh nothing i'm just worried about these these results and he's like i want you to speak to your GP I want you to do something about whatever it is going on in your life I want you to do something about that I'm like yeah yeah yeah so I left I thanked him got in my car on my way home bought some a bottle of wine some alcohol I had some comfort food it completely kind of ignored the advice of getting help drank my alcohol watched a movie that was quite triggering eventually fell asleep and i remember waking up because during this time i would just cry like just with emotion and i wanted the pain and the emotion to stop and eventually fell asleep and when I woke up, every time I woke up, all that pain, all that emotion would just come straight away, just come flooding back to me.

35:17And all of a sudden, I mean, it's the middle of night and I've woken up and I'm pacing around the house and I just wanted it to end and I didn't know how to end it. And during this time, on the news, somebody had taken their life and I became again obsessed with how how did they find that thing that was that was they were going to use to end their life how did they get to that point and I found myself in the kitchen looking at my knives and I was so scared to touch him and thankfully it passed and I sat myself down on the sofa and I did my breathing and it passed and and that was when I thought I was in a good place and the that was the closest that I'd come to acting or doing something and it terrified me I'm incredibly lucky that I got through that moment and the following day i am i sent a big message to my friends um these thoughts can create even when you're on your highs these things can kick in and sometimes when things are going rough like oh i'm going to see my therapist i'm going to be kinder to myself and we're actively working on ourselves but when things are going good we kind of forget all that and then all of a sudden you get a kick in the gut and it's like oh um so yeah whatever state if you're happy or if you're sad if your life's amazing or if you've got to do that check in with yourself you've got to be caring to yourself and that's where that self-love comes in it's such a important point because often we hear these stories or these stories are presented to us like this person was depressed or this person was suicidal and then there was a incremental gradual consistent ascent to feeling better but you're so right you can be high-flying doing loads of stuff that feels really good like you say everything that you touch turn to gold and you're not putting the self-care in you're not doing the great self-talk because everything's going well and then when circumstances change and you don't have the coping mechanisms that's a huge thing to go through so I think it's so important to hear stories and like you say they're not just stories this is your life but to hear recounted tales of how you can be low build your confidence feel good and still go through something extremely heavy mentally and not only go through it but come through the other side with new resilience and with new healing to be done and that's a point that you make throughout the book that at every turn when you face a challenge there's more healing to be done and just when you think oh yeah I think I'm doing all right there's another layer towards the end of the book you talk about more recently a relationship ending and you're going oh wow there's even more stuff for me to uncover here and I think that's a mindset shift because you've got to be willing to see those challenges and those road bumps and they can be pretty big road bumps as a chance to learn and to peel back more layers and that's seems like you're you're always quite welcoming not that you want them in your life necessarily but you're accepting of those moments because you know there's a chance to peel back more layers yeah the one of my superpowers is sitting on those feelings and feeling and processing it and then while I'm going through those I'm like I'm being kind to myself when I'm facing whatever it is okay it's time to be kind to myself really extra kind to myself giving myself love be it might be a nice warm cup of coffee it might have been a nice bubble bath it might have been playing football and running around and kicking somebody in the leg whatever it is but i'm being extra kind to myself but the suicidal thoughts i got through that and and it passed and then all of a sudden i'm cruising along in life again and i'm like oh done more work and and that's great i'm always doing that work and life was good i got into a relationship and then it ended and all of a sudden i didn't go as bad as the suicidal thought but oh i was crushed and then all of a sudden i was like there's a pattern here with rejection and I was like I've still got some work to do around rejection and abandonment and I spoke to our good friend Jambo lovely Jambo yes and he got me working with my inner child this is so interesting so let me pick up on this because Jambo is a is a brilliant meditation teacher body worker yoga teacher that he's done stuff for the happy place festival and the happy place app and luckily you guys have now forged a friendship which makes my heart burst with joy but this inner child stuff is so interesting because you were telling me again personally about this stuff and about the techniques that that you use to get in touch with your inner child and i think this is something that everyone listening and i'm going to try this too could do so so tell me about this period of your life and how you connected with your inner child so this relationship was going really really well and completely just ended and I when I found that person pulling away I found myself loving that person even more and I think that was me trying to keep hold of something because I was like why am I am this nice person who does all this goodness within myself i'm a nut and i know my value and i know that i would be a great partner to somebody else why am i being rejected again and i was i was struggling and i spoke to jambo about it because all of a sudden i'm getting this low level anxiety it just it wasn't a panic attack but it was just every day low level anxiety it was like i was waiting to be whole it was just there constantly way so i sat down with jambo and he was like i want you to start working on your inner child and i want you to visualize him i want you to spend time with him and you can use a photo and spend time with them love him talk to him i was like okay i'm gonna start doing that so then i did it my way so i got one of my old teddies an old zippy teddy with a big blue eye i found him in a charity shop in brighton just on the floor he's quite big and i was like well he's all on his own time i need to take him home um so i took him home and he's he's been with me ever since and i put one of my old rugby jerseys on on him one that i used to wear when i used to cheer for my local rugby team and this became little jay and little jay went everywhere with me and the first time i did it i was doing a photo shoot up in newcastle it's a two-hour drive so i sat him in the passenger seat they had my coffee and my snacks and off we went and i put my music on and i went straight into it i was like why do we always keep on getting rejected where this amazing soul why listening to my music i'm crying honestly i was i was unprepared for it and i had this light bulb moment i was like you know what we have attracted so much goodness so many amazing people in our life so many amazing experiences yes rejection sucks but we also attract and by the time i got to this photo show like proper crying face and i was like oh my god what just happened to me but leil jay he's at the train station in train station car park at the moment oh is he yeah so this is a lovely practice that you can just keep up forever when i was writing the book he sat with me i did an event and i took him along to an event with me and i've interpreted it my way and Lil J is in the car.

44:05I find him useful in the car and then sometimes he gets out and sits with me. Even other people have made him a drink and brought him a donut. You should have brought him here. I would have quite liked to have him sat in. He's coming to Happy Place Festival. Oh, good. So everybody's going to meet him at Happy Place Festival. It's such a lovely, because it's tangible. It's a visual representation of you as a child. We've all got pain from the past. It might not even be childhood, but it can be a younger version of ourselves. I know that I gave myself maybe in my early twenties a very hard time for trying to reject that part of myself.

44:42And I've equally tried to heal that and really like that version of myself and see where she's gotten me to and what I've learned from her. I think we underestimate how much pain comes from the past and those younger versions and how much we reject those younger versions of ourselves. It's, it's so, so important. I want to go back to this broader theme of self-love because to me you are the expert at this and it's why I love working with you and it's why I'm so happy you've written this book and I know that the amount of people that you've helped globally not only in the facial equality area but just generally helping people to find self-acceptance I know there'll be people listening to this podcast right now who'll be thinking I don't know how how do I like myself people that are in self-loathing people that don't like very specific things about them it might not be a physical thing it could be some regret something they did in the past a decision that they've made how do you begin to cultivate that peace and that acceptance with yourself people like do look for like the big answer like what is the answer to self-love and i i mean the starting point is like i changed the word like to love let's find these loves but it's making sure we're hydrated and not a big thing for me was relaxing my shoulders taking a deep breath looking up this is the one for me it sounds so basic i hold my breath all the time yeah because i'm scared and when i go breathe it's all right like it's okay you're so right that is tuning into being kind to yourself yeah yeah um i have physio on a monthly basis and it'll work on different parts of my body and it always goes onto my neck and my shoulders and he was like what's been going and i have not i carry my tension yeah yeah and i hold my breath and i'm i'm tense yeah so that self-love is letting yourself relax what a beautiful thought and i loved it on instagram recently it was 2021 you set yourself a challenge to find something that you love about yourself every day you did this for how many days in the end um i got 170 out of the full year and this is again something you're encouraging everyone to do on instagram and it's a really good way of getting this message out there in a practical way because at the end of the day like you say there's no big one answer but it does take discipline and it does take practice to get in the mindset of liking yourself of loving yourself of accepting yourself so I think that's a really lovely thing for anyone to try if you write it down in the journal if you put a note in your phone maybe you want to share it on Instagram as well but getting into the habit of every day noticing something you like about yourself did you find that period quite boosting getting into that daily habit that daily so it started on a Valentine's Day years and years ago I was sat down writing all the things I loved and admired about somebody and I was like oh my god I can't wait to give it to this person you know like imagining the look of on the face and I was like so giddy and so excited and and I'm just like hold on why don't I do this for myself so all of a sudden in that moment I wrote a list of things I loved about myself and I was like oh you know you're just like a little moment I was like oh I like that great feeling and then so all of a sudden it became i used to hate valentine's i used to hate valentine's especially through those teenage years when you were at school they all had the big cards walking around and i was like it just never happened for me so i always struggled with valentine's and this was just like a big energy shift and like i'm going to use it for me that self-love it's going to be a self-love holiday so valentine's it that was my tradition and then i was like oh why don't i do this every single day for the year so i set the challenge up and it was hard straight when i started it it was daily i found so many things started on the physical things this silly things um and then all of a sudden i started going with inside and i revisited all areas of my life i did revisit little jay and his dodgy bowl cut and the love of Celine Dion and meatloaf and oh my god um I went through but there were times when I was just like I didn't have the energy or I didn't have it's like I don't know we say oh you need to exercise you need to eat well but by doing it every day you need rest days and I found that I needed rest days by doing this and oh my god that year I shared it on instagram and i still get the memories some of the things i was revisiting and the memories that i went through it was like i was changing my outlook on negative experiences and trying to take positives from them and like i've been through so much and i've actually come out on the other side and this is when we talk about the not all heroes wear capes we which is the great title of your brilliant book i should add the the t i i wanted to call it something else but the team came up with this it's a great name and i absolutely love it and and my friends were like oh you're calling yourself a hero and i was like no this is totally not but yes i am in a button not in the way that they're thinking i was like i am my own biggest hero yeah and i on social media I asked everybody who the heroes were in their lives.

50:34And people like my mum, my dad, my kids, my friend, a doctor. So many amazing heroes and incredible people. And then I asked them the following day, what are some of the things that you've overcome in your life? And people shared like so many stuff with me. I feel incredibly, when people share that personal information with me, that's that's i'm incredibly honored that people trust me and these so many like have overcome so much and then on the third day i was like you shared your heroes and you shared all this stuff that you've overcome and not a single one of you said that you're your biggest hero and i want you to start looking at yourself as being the biggest hero in your life because yes somebody might have giving you that love and they might have given that guidance but you've got to take those steps you've got to put yourself out there you've got to be open to whatever it is and that self-love journey I was definitely recognizing some of the things that I'd overcome yeah it's beautiful it's an amazingly powerful mental shift to think like that something else that I really wanted to talk to you about today is I know something you've been talking about a lot recently for very good reason and it's a very important subject that I think gets hugely missed.

52:00You do a lot of brilliant charity work and Facial Equality International is pushing all of this gorgeous messaging also about self-love and acceptance but also looking at the awful side of things when it comes to discrimination and looking at the subtle ways, or they're not even that subtle but the things that have been normalised that we don't recognise that are frankly wrong. and one of the subjects that you've been really hot on is Hollywood and TV making and filmmaking. So tell me a bit about this campaign and what you would like to see changed. When I was a child, when I was obsessing of the why me, why did I have to look like this, people are lucky enough to play football be an actor be a singer be good at maths be popular at school why did I have to look like this I looked everywhere for hope everywhere for some positive image something that would give me the light at the end of the tunnel and I couldn't find anything you know I looked at the sports teams and there was always all these footballers they're always looked up to and admired and I was like there's nobody there with a difference you know I couldn't see that so then I turned to music and film and there was nobody there with a visible difference that was seen as a positive thing they all the only people that I found that had visible differences were the villains like James Bond for example so many villains had visible difference scars burns and and he would just it's just a common thing but this is still happening today like this was obviously prevalent when we were kids but there's not much change nothing's changed even the latest James Bond and I've still used a villain with visible differences and it's always the bad guy always a bad guy and i love the joker i think he's a brilliant character and i think you know it's okay at times for the bad guy to have a visible difference but we also need a better balance we need positive role models on the big screen with visible difference or even just like playing a cop or playing the hero playing the lover playing just the it just needs to be a better balance and a better representation like i saw edward's around in my teenage years and i connected with edward so much he was in this house on his own um and he was invited into this family given the second chance of having a family and i was like oh my god and i just i love it i love edward and the people fell in love with him in his in his community and in his village and and then my first crush was winona because she falls in it she falls in love with edward and i was like oh my god this is just beautiful i was like crying i like proper crying when i'm watching this film i was like oh my god this is amazing i finally found somebody that's a positive role model on the big screen and then he ends up back on his own in his house and it absolutely crushed me oh like why did he have to end up on his own again like why couldn't i know they're like oh every time it snows i always think he's there and i was like but he just crushed me that he ended up being on his own again and And we have, I guess, the closest example that I have of a positive visible difference is Deadpool.

55:47And I cried at Deadpool. Do you want me to tell you why I cried at Deadpool? Always. It's crude. You can say crude stuff. There's no rules here. Okay. We've had all sorts happen on air. Oh, my God, Jono. So, Deadpool, brilliant, funny, badass, cool guy. And then he's burned. And he has his burns. and then there's a part where in the film he's walking behind the lost touch with his girlfriend and he's walking behind her he's got his hood up and he wants to talk to her but she hasn't seen his face and he's scared and he's like i can't and then all of a sudden he starts hearing the voices or they're talking they're laughing about me and he eventually runs away and doesn't speak to her eventually becomes Deadpool and he's got the mask on.

56:35Right at the end of the film they are face to face and he opens up his mask and she sees his mouth and she's looking at him and then he pulls his mask off and he's like, so what do you see? What do you think? And she looks at him and she's like okay, shocked at first but it's still a face I'd love to sit on and it's so crude but i'm like sobbing my eyes out i'm like oh my god that's the most beautiful thing that anybody's ever said and and it was just like we need more of that yeah of somebody in the public eye saying yep i find you sexy attractive you're a hero you're a lover you're a positive um so yeah hollywood the big screen they need to do better they need to do better 100 they need to do better and the campaigns that you've been running and pushing.

57:33And I mean, I urge everyone to go and check out Face Equality International. We'll put all of these links in the copy and we'll talk about it on Instagram as well because there's some brilliant work being done there and it's so, so, so important. And I just want to thank you because not only is it, it's always amazing to hear you speak, you know, seeing you speak at the Happy Place Festival, people are coming out whooping, people are coming out crying, you know, you really connect with people when you're telling your stories And I think people listening to this will walk away and really question why they don't like bits about themselves and challenge those thoughts, because they're all challengeable.

58:10Every single one of those nasty thoughts that we all have about ourselves, they're all challengeable. And the book is testament to that. Your own beautiful storytelling about your life is testament to that. So thank you for encouraging all of us to find self-acceptance and self-love. And thank you so much for being on the podcast, Jono. thank you again for for everything and you know one of the things that i absolutely love and it happened at happy place it's happened today human connection yeah and we've lost that in our life we're so obsessed with social media dating working socializing with friends it's all done online or we hide away in our homes but I found that when I connect with another human being magic happens amazing things happen and that happened at happy place and I was walking around happy place just giving random people hugs oh you've got so many hugs and it's just like it's outrageous I'm sure you've got more no no I don't think I did I really don't think I did you definitely got more we'll start a tally this year yeah yeah but you know honestly thank you so much and just I can't wait for your book to be out there for everyone to read it.

59:23Oh, me too. Oh, Jono, I bloody love you, Jono. I cannot express how grateful I am to you for sharing so much of yourself. Because as I said, this self-love stuff might feel like second nature to Jono now. But every time he shares what he's learned, he's just helping so many people. so Jono please don't stop talking and telling us your story it is so impactful Jono's book Not All Heroes Wear Capes that I'm so proud we're publishing on Happy Place Books is out on the 20th of July if you haven't already do listen to the Happy Place episode with lovely Jambo by the way Jambo who Jono has now become great friends with I'm very happy to say we recorded that episode with all of you lovely lot of the Happy Place Festival last year and it was just the most joyful hour.

1:00:23I'll be back here next week, but in the meantime, come and tell us what you love about yourself. Shout about it from the rooftops. It can be something small but significant. Tell us on Instagram. We're at happyplaceofficial. So I want to say a massive thanks again to Brilliant Jono, to the producer Anushka Tate, and to you. You're the best. Now go love yourselves. Thank you.