My OCD gave me existential dread! Finding meaning in difficult times, with poet & actor Lucas Jones

0:00Hello, I'm Fearne Cotton and this is Happy Place, the show for people who want to go deep immediately. Today I'm chatting to Lucas Jones. I kind of feel like over the years humanity has poisoned the word God, so now people don't want to be near it. They'll happily talk about the universe, that's fine, that's a clean word. You can say the universe, you can talk about your star sign, you can do your horoscope, you can do tarot cards, and all these other things that we're all describing the exact same thing. I think it's all pointing towards the same thing and it's this fundamental attempt to acknowledge the beauty, to acknowledge the wonder to share the goodness to fucking try that that's kind of enough to just try this world is chaos and madness and it's beautiful and wonderful and it's terrible and it's terrifying and scary and we're all gonna die but i still believe miracles you mean i am just to let you guys know lucas jones number one fan i'm sure there'll be other people who will fight me for that accolade but i really am i'm such a massive fan of not only his poetry but also how he reads it.

1:00He is just such an incredibly talented human being who channels something really special. And I have spent so many hours watching his poetry online and just weeping. I'm so touched by how he writes about life. So I was really happy that he said yes to not only being on the podcast today, but also coming to the Happy Place Festival in London last month. it was it was one of my favorite moments of the festival I got to watch him sit there and read poetry to a really receptive crowd of people people crying in the crowd people hugging each other it was just such a beautiful moment he's so amazing and if you don't know Lucas and this is your introduction I'm actually jealous I'm jealous that you get to experience him for the first time because he's just incredibly incredibly special he's also going to be at our Tatten Festival later this summer.

1:55We do the Happy Place Festival twice, once in London, once in Cheshire. So I'm honoured that he's going to come up for that as well. You lot adore him as much as I do and that's why I'm so glad that we get to talk to him today. He's an actor, a director, a screenwriter and a poet and his beautiful poetry has captured the hearts of so many people online. If you are one of the people out there who's got a Lucas Jones tattoo let us know because I know there are so many of you out there you can now hold his words in your hand in his new beautiful book I still believe in miracles poems to find meaning in difficult times holy moly we talk about so much in this chat but I feel like we didn't even scratch the surface and we need to do a part two so we talk about connecting more over pain than joy we talk about wanting to really feel things in a big way I'm a feelings junkie I want to feel all of it.

2:45So that's what we talked about a lot. Weighing up the different types of therapy and also OCD and how it manifests something that we've both had experience of over the years and God we went off on all manner of OCD tangents. Also the impact of childhood on future character and also mental health and why he wants to reclaim the word God. Hey guys it's Drew Afualo from the comment section. Listen it's time to stop settling for hair products that just don't work. With all the prestige brands at Sephora, upgrading your routine is easy. If your hair needs repair, they've got the K18 Leave-In Molecular Repair Hair Mask.

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4:24Right, let's do it. This is the show.

4:48Let's do it. You good? I'm really good. I'm really good. Thanks so much for having me here. Lucas Jones, thank you for being here. Oh my God. First of all, I will apologise for basically dropping to my knees when you walked into the Happy Place Festival because I was so excited to meet you. I can't even tell you. It was the most amazing moment of my life seeing you come round the corner mid-Instagram story and drop into the floor. I just fell into the floor too. It was all a blur for me. I remember falling to the floor in sheer excitement and gratitude. It was also such a lovely way to arrive and be welcomed.

5:20I was actually a bit nervous for some reason. I don't know what it was. I was a bit nervous and I saw you and I was like, everything's great. It's all fine. Everything is good. It's washed away. I am a massive fan of yours. So this for me is a treat and it was such a treat to have you at the festival. Not only on the talk stage, but you read poetry for the most receptive crowd of people. I was stood there watching and people were just hanging off your every word it's a beautiful thing thank you very much yeah it was a really special but i think also because you've cultivated a very specific type of person at that event and only nice people only nice people and everyone's on this exact same sort of understand of the world and it's like a real i think if you're going to and you can tell me if this has been your experience but i i felt like there's a certain type of sensitivity and probably like a vulnerability even that comes with the type of person that is going to be at that festival and is going to be into my stuff.

6:10So that combination was like this beautiful, just like everyone was sort of, felt like meeting people for the second time. You're so right. And I have an inkling. It's something to do with whether it's the work you do, what we're doing at Happy Place in this podcast setting, but also what we try and do at the festival is connect with people through, yes, joy, but actually pain. Yes. And I think we assume that we can only connect with people through like laughter and joy and good times. but I connect with people through pain, I think, much more easily. I don't know what that says about me. Like, I'm goosebumps you're saying that.

6:43I have a complete understanding of what you're talking about. Like, I've never had anyone put it that way, but I think that's actually my sort of operating system. That's your language. That's my language. I actually, I sort of can't trust people if we can't get into, like, a sort of trauma-based conversation pretty quickly. Maybe that's an unhealthy thing. Maybe that's a bit unhealthy. Maybe, you know what I mean? But I'm sort of like, if we're sitting for, like, 20 minutes and you haven't come up about your childhood, I'm sort of like, well, I don't know if you're going to go. Yeah, where's this going to go?

7:06I think I need to leave. We're just still talking about your summer holidays? What? And I find that you feel like, sort of, and this sounds so mean, because there's times when small talk's really important, like with the post person and that, but I get physically, I feel physical pain. I have a physical sense of like, I can't do this. Yeah, I have a tension in my chest here where it's like, I'm like nervous. Yeah, yeah. I don't understand the dance of it. I think it's because I'm pretending. It's like, it's inauthentic. You're faking it, same. I'm faking it, I'm completely faking it. If everyone's talking to someone and I'm being like, oh yeah, like yesterday, a lovely conversation with someone in a lift but it went on it was a long it was like a tall building and I was sort of trapped in there for a minute and they were so kind and sweet and gracious but I had nothing to say because of the capacity the situation doesn't allow for any you can't bring up childhood trauma on a lift right you have to put like six at school I don't even have any friends but I was trying like straight away do you think that's a healthy is that a healthy thing I don't know I think it's it's some people's comfort zone and it's certainly mine you know I I want to go deep really quickly with someone yes that's yeah that to me is oh right so they they trust me and I trust them and we're connecting on a level that's my favorite kind of thing and so you know it sometimes the reaction to that can be like oh my god I can't believe you just told me that about yourself I'm an open book I'll tell people whatever but for others it can be like oh my god it's and sometimes I walk away going did I overshare did I say too much that's the constant but I remember I owned like a date one time back in the single days and I like sat down she like vaguely mentioned about like a something with her mum and I was also like a really big like you know an ongoing sort of thing with you and your mum and she was like can we at least get a drink first and I was like oh yeah sorry sorry sorry we literally just sat down and I just but I feel like there's nothing else to say though I kind of feel there's nothing else to say and like maybe it maybe there's maybe it's like us trying to still work through stuff in real time and maybe sometimes I'm, I hope not, like using other people as a sort of like sounding board to leave it.

9:06But aren't we all in pain? Is that not the primary? Yes. And maybe also like just listening to you talk there, are we, and I'm talking about people that like to deal in this sort of conversation, this sort of language, constantly looking to feel something. Like I know I'm a bit of a feeling junkie. Like I want the song, the food, the atmosphere, the person to make me feel something. I'm not good with like, I can do numbing for a bit. I'll watch some fucking shit TV or whatever. But actually I want to feel all of it. I'm the exact same person. Like I, I'll listen to the same bit of the same song 30 times.

9:47I'm not exaggerating. I'll let you drag it back until everyone's like, if it's out loud, my wife will be like, can you, enough of that bit. I mean, enough of that. I've just changed song. It's fine. You can play another song, but I just feel like it's like, I want to absorb, or if I'm reading a book I'll go back to the same line and stuff and be like I just want to so deeply feel every single like I want to burn every neuron and every bit of dopamine out of that in a way that's like I don't think that's a bad thing because it's a very hard because it comes from a place of like what's the word wonder yes and I never lose the wonder that's one thing I'm really grateful about and I imagine you feel the same haven't been at your festival the weekend because this is what's in the air the wonder is still so present and I think if it's one thing I've kept from my childhood very sort of pristinely it's wonder and I'm so grateful about that.

10:32You can never get bored. Never. Like walking down walking through the street and the sun was hitting the building so beautifully. I mean and I know it sounds a little bit trite and a bit cliche but when you actually notice it. It's my fave. Yeah. I am absolutely the same and I have it with your poetry there's I mean I love all your poetry but there's a couple of your poems especially when you're reading them aloud on Instagram and I like sometimes you know you have that feeling of I need to cry about something I'm not exactly sure what it is I can go to anger quite quickly so I know that if I'm feeling like a bit fucked off there's usually sadness and I can't get to it like there's sadness trapped under the anger and I need to unlock it and it could be a song but actually there's a couple of your poems I will put on and I am in bits every time and I will exhaust that like you press the button again watch it again listen to the lyrics again listen to the poem but it gives you that release I think that's what I'm looking for as well is whether it is music or a film or poem or a piece of artwork, something to like release stuff, to get it out.

11:34So I wanted to hear that. And thank you as well for all your kind words in this conversation. But in general, over the last however many months, we've been back and forth a little bit. It's really, really beautiful to know that it has an impact. and I think I'm kind of I can't I don't think I can process reality without filtering it through art whether it's art I'm making or if I'm like watching like if I need to have a cry like you know you need to have a cry when it's sort of like I'm going to be ill soon if I don't like have a serious release like I'll put film scenes on and I've got like that sort of set like a playlist in my head of compilations of a compilation of scenes I'll put back to back to back to be like I know by that final scene I'll be like I'll be in bits yeah yeah I'll sort of ramp it up it's kind of fun I'll sort of curate this experience um but i find it hard to like cry for me do you know i mean like i find it hard to because you gaslight yourself you're like i don't deserve to cry i'm gonna be sad about right now yeah exactly immediately so like your life's so privileged and blessed and but i so i think i have to fill it through someone else's experience and also i guess empathy is a more important emotion than sort of self uh what's the word self-analysis maybe but i i'm not very good at that self-analysis thing i think i think i i noticed i do it in my my writing i'll say her or you or she or something when i really mean me because for some reason that sort of like locks in harder if i say me i get a bit like defensive and i'm fine i'm just so silly because the stuff i talk about all the time it's so much about like it's okay to feel that way and to everyone else i'm very encouraged with that but it's very difficult it's so true i've learned over the years and i actually i say years the last two right still years i'm like learning all the time that gaslighting myself is no use to anybody yeah i'm not um i'm not a great person because i'm denying myself needs or the right to feel emotion or constantly comparing myself to other people yes it's important to go there are people going through far worse or whatever but equally there are things that I've learned in therapy, no, take the time to look at it and dig into it and to honour the fact that you're very, very sad about that.

13:41You're very, very angry about that. But this has changed the course of your life in a terrible way. Like you're allowed to look at that and dive into it without feeling like it's self-indulgent or you're ignoring the empathy you have for other people. So I think I'm trying to bridge that at this point in my life. Like I'm allowed to be, I'm allowed to be upset rather than gaslight myself the whole time. And the anger thing is a big one, actually. And you touched on anger a minute ago. Like that's something that I think it's really hard to know how to place that health in your life. Because anytime it's expressed to other people, that doesn't feel right.

14:15When it's expressed inwardly, it doesn't really feel right. So it's hard to know how to correctly utilize anger. But it's as, you know, primary an experience as joy and laughter. And I think, you know, we don't berate ourselves when we laugh. and this is a kind of obvious thing to say but the feeling of shame and apology that comes with anger and crying and you know there's very more there's a very i don't know sort of colder emotions i'm like i'm finding it at this stage in my life quite i'm kind of enjoying allowing that a little bit more um what kind of therapy do you do i've tried all of them but i do straight up classic talk therapy once a week no and do you find that like because i think i've always i've never done talk therapy i've done like cbt which i love yeah i love cbt and the thing i'm like nervous about with talk therapy is like sometimes i want to look at it sometimes i don't want to i don't want to like touch the thing you mean and and cbt is so practical and so sort of like hit your car i'm a mechanic that's off fix that image which really works for me in my brain yeah yeah and i'm sometimes like cautious about i feel like i used to like do the thing where like trauma dump super hard really quickly and i actually like these days naturally i'm a bit further away from that i sort of don't i sort of don't lean into the traumatic past as much i used to and i'm some no i feel like i do need a little bit of something in my life at the moment therapy wise i'm a bit cautious about like saying it which is really odd i mean i think i don't know there's something in like what where like where I this is I can only speak for myself I'm never going to tell you what to do yeah yeah I'm not going to tell anyone to do anything but where the pain is in me that's what what I need to look at like I know it and I've only ever benefited from looking intricately at the stuff that scares the bejesus out of me that makes me gives me the heebie-jeebies I don't want look at it it's looking at it that frees me from it but I think you've got a I don't think it's for everyone I've met plenty of people who are like I don't want to look in I don't want to look back I don't want to and that suits them and that's fine for me it doesn't I don't want any stone unturned and I would like to feel like I'm I guess living as fully as possible but also moving through the world in that way in the best way I can for my children for my own you know state of mind for my friends for my family to be like fully present and I don't feel I can do that unless I look at certain things that have haunted me and really troubled me over the years yeah not fun not fun but on a level very incrementally relieving yeah I might be in therapy forever I don't know that's fine maybe we should be I mean I've kind of felt like that's what life used to be in that I feel like they used to be maybe it was through a sort of religious relationship or some other spiritual relationship or just parental that we would be out you know would be in our community a bit more solidly and you would have therapy in a natural organic way so maybe now we've sort of in the strange secular age we've removed all of the the mentors and all of the leaders in our communities and now we have to sort of you know corporatize our process in through a system like therapy which is amazing you know i mean i think it's what therapy does in this culture is unbelievable but i wonder if it used to be a sort of natural thing but um but to touch on what you're saying like the the turn the unturned stone thing like i feel that really deeply but the thing i've always struggled with is ocd and like i have realized i will just find endless stones like my brain and it's fascinating because it's such a creative thing to struggle with OCD it's like so much of it is like clearly this burning desire to create and if you're not creating outwardly you start creating inwardly and how interesting to think of it like that well I just I think I've realized that's exactly this is really odd and really hard to articulate and probably even sort of visualize but I've noticed there's a time when my sleep was like crazy and how would it manifest like what has it expressing itself it would be in so people typically think of OCD in the way of you know like obsessively cleaning their hands or cleaning their room or those sort of cliches for me it was like i would have a thought that was uncomfortable and i would analyze that thought and why i'm having that thought and then i would sort of expand the importance of that thought into this overwhelming unbearable weight so it could be like oh for example it would be like what's a really let me think of like a really honest one like an actual worthwhile one someone else might be feeling that would be worth them hearing that I wish I'd heard like one that I struggled with for a long time was like when I was a teenager someone asked me if I was straight or gay and I was like I'm straight and that simple question of me knowing I'm a straight person but the possibility that what if you're actually a gay person then would like spin and spiral into like well there was that time you watched that film and he was kind of handsome he thought he was handsome and like I would and the the and the still to add into this that I come from a family and my belief so if I was gay I would care anyway it wouldn't even be like you know this is the this is the way the and what what it sort of came down to in therapy was that what i was struggling with this existential dread that i wouldn't be able to live the life i want to live so knowing that i'm a straight person knowing that i've always you know i've raised with women and i'm really excited to marry a woman one day and so on so forth my brain was like but you won't have that if you're gay or if you're so it could be any other thing and that's just a sort of really odd niche example that maybe someone is struggling but ocd is niche it's so neat and it's niche it's individual to each person yes and so that was like the one of the early ones i have i didn't know i didn't know i had ocd till i was like 25 so i was sort of just in this constant state of anxiety of like why am i was like i thought i was just like a warrior i thought i was stressed about things and a bit neurotic and that would like kind of die down then it'd be something else like i don't know some other vague thing about like health anxiety or whatever the more typical things and then when it was really bad i was like i was really alone living alone in lockdown and i was like doing this play and the play stopped so i was literally just in my little studio flat in london seeing no one ever and i was like putting together like a sofa or something and i had this thought of like it's so funny that like you're the only person in this room therefore you're the only person experiencing this how can you prove it's happening and then my steve was like how can i prove anything's ever happening how can i ever prove that anything's ever happening what if i'm in this street like and it just spiraled into this and actually insane sort of like level of terror and the weird thing is you don't lose insight but so you know what you're thinking is ridiculous like you know that what you're worrying about is just absurd arbitrary nonsense and noise but like you still can't help but like try and solve this infinite riddle in your head so that was when i was like i think i need some pretty severe therapy and like and i had the cool with like the the therapy um you know before you get the main bit of assessment i was in that section like it was meant to be like a nine month waiting list and i was like yes i'm just sort of feeling like this and they're like i think we're free next week i think we do next week and they're like sort of fast-tracked me to like yeah and I was like oh I think it's pretty bad but then amazingly after doing like a bunch of cbt I don't have that anymore really I don't have that anymore like I my brain will try to do that and I have the tools now to go oh that's just that fucking thing that's just that fucking dumb annoying thing shush shush shush and like what I've learned the way to break it is to just agree with it okay cool yeah nothing's real fine all right oh I mean like what's what and then what and then what let's say I love that because whatever because if you stay in the resistance of it yeah that's when it won't go away exactly and actually that's what i think the suffering was and probably all life is this like the suffering was this constant but i know no no no no no let's fight against the road that's fine yes yeah well i've caught right mate all right nothing's real fine i have to do that if i have insomnia that i go don't fucking sleep then oh interesting yeah yeah yeah don't fucking sleep then just lie here and be awake all night and then i'll fall asleep Oh, it's amazing.

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23:21I had OCD for a bit and I'm constantly fascinated with how it manifests I still have teeny, teeny bits of it I'll have some of the cliche ones like before I go to bed I have to check every window, every door and the hob's off I have to touch every hob it's all the usual shit and I'm kind of like I can live with that it takes five minutes but if my insomnia is bad and I'm already anxious what will then spark is this loop of I get into bed, I'll have one more wee, I get into bed, I'll have one more wee. Oh, the wee one, yeah. I get back into bed, I'll have one more wee. No wees coming out, but I can't not do it.

23:58I can't not do it. I don't know exactly. And it's better, it's better. But like last week before the Happy Place Festival when I was stressed and I'd been working real long hours on this TV show and I was feeling anxious, like what if I can't turn it on for the festival and I'm just like mute and I was like panicking about my capabilities of being there. I was like, oh, that started and it was getting a little bit worse each night in the lead up to it. Like I'm going five times and going six. But at its worst, I had one time about five years ago where I did it all night. And just didn't sleep at all.

24:31Oh, my God. And it was bleak. That ruined your life. That's when it starts to actually. Yeah. You realize this is going to destroy. This is what I found interesting as well, actually. I started realising that this is already worse than whatever I think has actually happened do you know what I mean? How ironic How ironic like this sort of constant turmoil I'm in and this like pain of because my compulsions were never in the world so it was even harder to identify it was just sort of internal riddle solving and like I realised like this I can't live like this is and I don't mean to sound you know I guess just honest I can't imagine being able to survive like another year of how I was feeling for that like three month period where like a bird would land on the weird window and it would for some reason trigger me about like what if that bird's not real or something like I can't imagine being able to and actually I did start doing one compulsive thing actually this was the first time I started taking photos of stuff so I could be like like also it's embarrassing this is also weird OCD is embarrassing and I was embarrassed I was like feeling this sort of like fear that I knew better than them but I started like taking photos of things so later I'd be like just to check that didn't happen just to check I was like actually you know sort of some weird and even though as you're doing it you're like this is so dumb man this is so silly i know so much better than this um but the the like getting up to wee one it's like so wait so you've been so many forever is that like a no no i um i was kind of i don't know i always used to think that i that any mental health issue i had started in my early 30s but from 19 to 29 I was bulimic but I thought that was just like something stupid that I used to do I didn't see it as that was a mental health issue because we didn't have the language for it back then and I thought I was just like a dumb young person who got into this bad habit and I hadn't looked at that so it obviously predates my early 30s but then it was had low patch of mental health that then kind of lifted slightly but then the anxiety kicked in and I haven't ever really totally got a hold of it like it's not where it used to be I'm not I couldn't drive on the motorway because I was having panic attacks and all sorts of stuff yeah um but I still have bits of it like I said like last week I was so anxious like more than I have been for ages so that again I find really helpful going back to talk therapy to go right well why have I gone backwards with this and I wonder how you or what your thoughts are on this so one thing my therapist has said to me about anxiety when I first went to see her about two and a half years ago I said I don't know if I've got like panic disorder or some anxiety condition I don't know what's going on but I'm having panic attacks constantly if I bump into someone in the street that I know I'm like instantly like having a heart attack like I can't deal with any of it I can turn it off sometimes like in some work settings I'm flatline brain cool and I'm fine and then it could be something so simple like I don't know I'm I mean this is ridiculous but I'm going on holiday what a lucky privileged thing but that anxiety of oh my god it's a new place and I don't know it and my kids don't know it and the flight and like all of it I wouldn't there's no way I'd sleep a night before I went on a trip somewhere and she said to me very quickly within that first session I don't think you're anxious at all I think you're really angry oh whoa and I was like I don't know about that anger I don't think I'm I don't think I'm angry and it didn't resonate at all not one bit and then I kept going back kept going back and I don't know at what point but down the line I was like oh I'm fucking livid I'm so angry and I don't know how to like you said a minute ago like what do you do with that what do you think angry did you know what you were angry about or was it just this remnant interesting yeah like quite quite a lot of things that I I, again, gaslit myself, you know, about all sorts of things.

28:30So I could start to then identify and go, I'm angry about that. I'm angry about that. And then look at like, how the fuck do you deal with that? I think, and this is also a therapy thing, a brilliant way to get rid of anger. Obviously, there's all the physical thing. Go for a walk, go for a run, hit something, like box a pillow, like whatever. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Scream is a pillow. But actually writing is such an effective way of getting anger out. You write that angry fucking email or letter and you do not send it, but you get it out of you. And I think whether it is creative writing, a diary, a journal, a poem, it is your way of getting it out of your body and onto a page.

29:11I mean, there's lots of things I want to pick up on that. I guess first, with your own OCD, which is an anxious kind of situation, it's an issue that's born from anxiety. Do you think there's anger attached to that? It might not be for everybody. No, absolutely. I actually think, I remember this really well, like when, oh, there's so many stages I want to talk to you about when this is relevant. But there's a point when I was having panic attacks. I found out I was like diabetic type 1 diabetic like 2018 so I was like 20 I don't know 20 or something and which is like quite late and quite odd and it disrupts your whole life you know because I'm gonna do all this thing I wasn't really that fussed about it but it was just annoying and then I started like and this is when I know how you said you you thought it started in your 30s I realized now looking back at like all of my life I was like oh that was all OCD like that was all of my sort of ways of operating was all OCD thinking and behavior and magic magical thinking and so at that time someone said oh you might have a hypo which is when your bloodshed goes low.

30:11That was the perfect thing for my brain to be like, you might have a hypo at any minute. You might have a hypo. You could be in the middle of an act as well. So you could be on set and you have a hypo. And then what? You're going to lose a job. Any situation. And then I was in mad panic attacks about that all the time. I was in New York and had this crazy panic attack. And I ran into a restaurant. I was like, I need a Coke because I'm a hypo. And they gave me a Coke and I realized my blood sugar was fine. I just had a panic attack. And I was like, am I in New York? And I was like, this is insane.

30:36I'm so ill. I was like ill with a and all that to say that at that time I actually think I was using anger to like stay afloat because anger at least anger is like a sort of active sort of you kind of feel it's got an energy behind it it's got an energy behind it whereas when you're just scared you're so vulnerable and frozen at least when you're angry you're sort of like you can be a bit vicious towards it so I was sort of living on anger for like six to eight months until I started therapy for the first time and yeah I think the anger thing is really fundamental There's a lot of anger in my writing, actually, as well.

31:09I think I have a lot of anger. And I think it kind of informs everything I do, actually. There's a lot to be angry about. Of course there is, yeah. In our personal lives. In the world. In the world. In the most profound ways. So I think I kind of love anger quite a bit. But it's funny. Yeah, I remember being the first time I saw, when I think back to now, when I look back and I realize how much of my makeup and upbringing was OCD based, like the very first thing I remember experiencing was I was like five and I'd like say, Oh, night, mom, love you. And in my head, I'd be like, what if you actually hate her?

31:47And it would start there and it was like that. And like, I think from, I think it gives you this sort of, like I look back at my child and I'm quite, I don't want to wear this. I wouldn't say resentful, but I'm like, I'm saddened to think that that little kid had to go through so much without knowing what I was. You know what I mean? And like, and it's probably the closest I can feel and sorry for myself in a way because like, I do think like, man, someone said to that five-year-old I'll make you just, like your brain's just tripping. If I had the therapy I had when I was 20, whatever, I was five, when I was like five and someone was like, oh, your brain's just going to say it.

32:18Just like, you can actually ignore it. Promise you ignore it and just agree with it and it'll go away. It's like, it's just, you know, you're just creative. You're just like, oh, the years of relief that would have, you know come with or maybe not maybe maybe all of that was just kind of a gift that i get to now we get to this conversation there's certainly no going back do you know i mean there's certainly no going back so we have to kind of find a way whether it is to make peace or to just live uncomfortably beside certain things that still don't feel great i don't think there's any perfect life where anyone feels like i have made peace with everything and everything feels comfortable and also I don't know would you lose a bit of what you can do like could you write a poem just feeling yeah I'm feeling pretty normal today actually like what the fuck are you going to write about everything's fine well you say this in one of your poems yeah like a film where everything's fine and then nothing happens and wow it's alright what a fucking shit story what a shit story and also what do you have to offer anyone you have nothing to to share and and i i think all the time now all of the negative my life's really nice now and i'm like i'm mentally very well and i'm like supported and things i'm here having love conversation with you and it's like i mean like things are good things are really good and i'm present enough and well enough to enjoy it and notice that it's good as it's good which is i think from where i was like however many years ago at that time i was describing i did not seem like it was on the cards you know yeah i was gonna play at that time as well like being and kind of like you said this weird thing happened where I could be like actually severely mentally and well but I'd do the play and I'd be fine and in the play I'd be like really on and really like with it or like if I was on camera oh fine fine fine and the second I'm not it's like what do you think that is?

34:04I think it's something to do with like knowing there's a level of focus to there's one task and you just do the one task because I used to be able to go on Radio 1 and be like no one would know I'd be fine and then afterwards I'd be an absolute mess and I couldn't do like the the normal life things at all so I think there's a level of you click into and I have this one task and I'm going to complete it and then then when your brain's got any level of space to play around with that's where I used to have a thing where I'd imagine the worst case situation happening in my life and I used to believe it was a premonition and i had to have a therapist say to me it's not you're not psychic yes it's not a premonition this is just a it's a lie it's nonsense it's rubbish and i was like really because i i i truly believe it's a premonition she's like it's not a premonition i had to have someone tell me yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah that was exactly that was one of the best thing actually as well um one of my therapists this is exactly what happened she goes i was talking about similar sort of think i was i'm just really worrying about and she goes okay so you think that what you think is really important really powerful make that wall fall down yeah and and i was like oh no and she's like no seriously don't look at the wall make the wall fall down and i was like sat for like a tough minutes like on the zoom like staring at the wall she was like it's still standing i was like yeah it's still standing and it did highlight something really fascinating there's actually a little and i mean this with love to anyone who's struggling with this and i mean it's about myself it was really helpful for me to realize there's actually quite a bit of narcissism in ocd because this sort of thing i would i used to think like um it's a common one if i didn't like pray for someone i love they might die and also you're you're in charge of the universe so if you don't pray you mean someone else is gonna die oh wow wow like it's this completely self-centered idea it's also i think it's self-centered but it's also like you say in the most empathetic possible way because it's fucking horrible yeah but there's also this sense of um inflated responsibility like that I used to believe that I was responsible for everybody in my world's happiness and that like the butterfly effect any one thing that I'd done I'm the reason that they're miserable their life's fucked up whatever it was such an inflated sense and again it took one therapist to say to me stop being responsible for things you're not responsible for they're not yours like deal with your emotions your reactions to things you're not responsible for like the whole world yeah yeah yeah like ridiculous thinking yeah has there been a time when you were as responsible because i i think about i felt the same way and i think about like when i was a kid and there were sort of times when like my mom wasn't very well like mentally or you know and she's amazing now i'm fine which is fantastic but like and i was a bit too self-aware and a bit young to be sort of able to actually actually i can sort of cheer up yeah i mean and like god bless her it's a sort of amazing gift as well I think but um you sort of look back and you think like god that's a that's a lot of taking on a lot of responsibility for like a six seven year old to sort of be like I can make I can cheer the whole house up I could watch me and like actually kind of do it kind of be like funny and play and like sort of shift the mood and that me and the people now are like maybe I have the magic maybe I mean yeah um and I think maybe no shit you've ended up doing the job that you do because you're like I can I can cheer people up yeah I can make people feel something It's kind of dangerous, but you must get that.

37:27People must come to you nonstop and be like, thank you so much. You saved my life. Yeah. But I think even before I got into like doing happy play stuff with just presenting, you do realize that you've got the power to like play a nice song and make people feel. I didn't see it as a power. I saw it as a responsibility. Yeah. Again. Yeah. Like I have to make sure that people are happy listening to this, enjoying this, whatever. And I guess, yeah, you know, I started work young, so I had actual responsibility young. But I think also, and I hope I'm not saying the thing that my mum would not want me to because she came on the podcast.

37:57We've talked about her own mental health, which has always been like up and down. And her mum had really poor mental health and she was in a day psych ward a lot in my mum's childhood. And that's impacted my mum. And I think if you know there's that fluctuating mental health going on for somebody, even when you're not aware of it, you're not as a kid. It's just your normal, you know, whatever the situation is. You know, you do have maybe a heightened, a hyper-focus sort of awareness of someone else's mood or where they're at or what's going on or the stress that they're under. It must impact you, I'm sure.

38:35Oh, for sure. I mean, my mum has PNDD, but back when we were growing up, that wasn't a thing. That was not a word. That was not a terminology. Not a terminology. So she would go to the doctor and they'd be like, I just think, you know, you need to change the scenery. go for a few more walks and that kind of classic sort of like just complete gaslighting yeah yeah yeah and it's fascinating because now she's like a little bit older she's like and post that being an issue just the most steady constant like positive person in the world she always was positive and I was amazing and she did an incredible job raising us through having like untreated PMDD just sort of grin and bear and you know but like with that comes anyone who knows anything about that like a tremendous amount of sort of tumultuous chaos actually and times we just can't be on it can't be so I think in that kind of environment definitely makes you there's like a background anxiety all the time because you never know when the tide's gonna turn a little bit and the the worry it wasn't something like I would be in trouble or I'd be it's sort of like what that person comes so low they can't bear anymore that was sort of the fear so I think growing up with that like it's not it's not a lot it's not um a wonder to me why i'm sort of grown up to be quite sort of like like a neurotic but where did the um expression of that come from because obviously we've all got the opportunity to have an outlet for whatever we're feeling and it could be as simple as telling somebody it could be a painting it could be going for a run it could be pure age and like you lose your shit but you have found this way of of managing to process what you're feeling and expressing it into poetry when did that happen that's a good question yeah i think i think when i remember the first thing i ever wrote i was in the bath and i was like five and i remember like rhyming something about a cat and being like i'm quite good at that like i had this like sort of natural like pull towards using words kind of like as a bit of a game sort of thing and i think something about words just always made sense to me i think like some people's brains are wired to be really good at maths and be able to paint and I'm terrible at those things but something about fitting words together to perfectly articulate and sort of undescribable thing has always come quite I don't want to say easily but that has always been fun to me so like it's never a chore to do some writing it's never like when people buy writers but I've never experienced that because it's just like it's only ever like just a joy I mean and it can't sort of stop me doing it which is convenient now it's so great thank you I mean it's really yeah it's really it's really lovely but I I just think it's the I also think it's the the because language isn't perfect like it's really hard to articulate an idea and almost I think we almost never do and like we're sitting trying to find the words consciously and presently to get to the thing but we can never like you're never quite like I know I'm going to leave and be like there's like probably 10 things I could have said that would have been way more crystal clear than I managed to get to if you know what I mean so like it is a fun endless game to try and but a poem does it when a good one really nails it a good one yeah yeah and sometimes you know sometimes you like it would sound really grandiose if i believed it came from me i don't i don't believe it comes from you at all there are times when you like finish the thing you're that is exactly the thing i'm trying to say and it's such a nice but you must feel it like when you paint and like when you're yeah i do but i think there's something about you know i spent a lot of my career interviewing musicians and there's something about the very very top echelon musicians where they have that they're channeling something and i remember chris martin saying oh i like to stay up at night because I can catch all the songs when everyone else is asleep oh so good and I was like because you do because you do you're again you're and a good song I'm not talking a good song an exceptional song an exceptional poem a fix you fix you like it's like how you put together the right fucking words yeah that are universally I mean there's always people like oh fucking hate Coldplay, whatever.

42:32But most people will hear Fix You and it's like a dagger to the heart. You feel it. You feel it. The words translate to a visceral feeling that evokes memories and visuals and all sorts. And that is, it's mad. I mean, my friend, I don't know if you met my friend Donna Lancaster at the festival, but she was doing a talk of Jordan Stevens. She's an amazing mentor to me and Jordan and other people. She's a fantastic person. and a little while back I sent her a couple of your poems on Instagram and she said, oh my god this is a prayer and I was like yes, it's a prayer and that doesn't have to be a religious thing, but it's a prayer she's absolutely right yeah, it is absolutely a prayer and I guess that's what the Coldplay thing is if you get the prayer right if you get the prayer right and everyone understands the prayer like that's the thing that and I do there's something real about that early hours in the morning I do the same thing I stay up to like do you yeah I said actually it's a bit of a problem like I'll stay up to a 7 sometimes like I don't want to I really don't want to and now I'm married I can't because she'll leave me but like she really she can't literally like before what when I lived alone and this doesn't make me hell to be fair staying up to a 7 and like getting up like 11 is not a good way to live but but like I'll happily stay up to 3, 4 every day and right and like it's because it's just you're it probably is simply just that there's nothing else to distract you.

44:03But it feels like there is something sort of mystical when you're tapped into a different space. You're in the twilight hours. Like the sun's gone. There's something real about that. The sun's no longer here. What do we have left after the sun leaves? And what do we talk about when the sun leaves? It's a prayer. That's really beautiful. Thank you. How cool. Thank you for saying that. How cool. Hey, guys. It's Drew Afualo from the comment section. Listen, it's time to stop settling for hair products that just don't work. With all the prestige brands at Sephora, upgrading your routine is easy. If your hair needs repair, they've got the K18 Leave-In Molecular Repair Hair Mask.

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45:17And plain water isn't always the most efficient way to restore the balance. That's where Liquid IV comes in. Its science-backed formula is clinically proven to hydrate faster than water alone. Whether you're exercising, playing outside, or simply surviving a summer heat wave, it's an easy way to stay hydrated. Shop now at liquidiv.com. Liquid IV, hydration that goes wherever life takes you. At the end of the day, and this sounds very wanky, any excellent art is about trying to grab hold of that intangible ephemeral other thing that we don't know how to articulate it maybe some people just think we oh well there are plenty of people that think we're just blobs walking around on a planet randomly bumping into random people whatever i can't i can't get depressed it makes me feel bleak thinking that it what it's just we're sat in two chairs and there's nothing to it like for me it has to be about meaning and there's something other that we don't know how to articulate or describe and music art and poetry are some of the ways where we can get close to what that is i completely agree i also just think the sort of we're nothing this doesn't mean nothing we're just random but i think it's a really stupid theory i think i think it's really arrogant i think it's really cynical but i also think it's not a good theory i think it doesn't hold it's not a whole much water it's like i think people have been put off the idea of spirituality because a lot of religions have abused it yes over the years so when people hear the word god me included actually i remember going to church and like then talking about god when i was a little kid and like then talking about gay people being sinners and and like like tugging my mom being like that bit's not right i think because i was raised to believe the obvious truth that's not the case and my mom going yeah that is not true you know i mean and like being like that's not true then someone's just taken the sort of vague exactly and i think you know like the argument for their being a god or their being whatever you want to call that thing that we're describing that we're talking about the prayer whatever the prayer is to whatever it's in honor of which i think is just existence itself goodness itself if you will like whatever that thing is is no more supernatural than describing the form formulation of the universe in the most scientific term that's that's what we're talking about i mean people talk about like how the heart beats or how blood flows or how thoughts occur we're talking about magic we're talking about like you know and this is really if you've ever seen that illustration of there's like a child stand on a pile of books and they can see through a small crack in the wall and in the distance they can see the sunrise it's really fascinating so that's the first child there's three children there's a next child or the middle teenager they stand on a slightly higher stack of books and the wall has no crack in it there so they're just looking at a blank wall and the final person is down on so many books they can see over the whole wall and they can see the whole sunrise and it's kind of the implication being like in childhood there's something you can kind of vaguely feel remember have a sense memory of in your like middle life you sort of lose that and things are very cynical and cold black and white concrete reality is just as boring fucking chaos and doesn't matter and then as you sort of go further into that exploration or adventure of meaning you go oh it's kind of about the first time and now i see it more vividly yeah it's like i kind of i kind of come where it's from if anyone can find that i'd be really grateful to do that again because I lost it a long time ago.

48:28But I kind of feel like that. And it's like, I feel like science is sort of starting to, you know, the religion and spirituality was originally a sort of scientific exploration. It's become a very sort of, I don't want to say cynical, because I guess a lot of people still feel a lot of magic at that. But the sort of explaining away of any mysticism of it and spirituality of it, I find kind of silly almost, because now we get to a stage where we look at like quantum mechanics and it sort of becomes magic again. It's just magic. It's just pure, like unexplainable, you know. Yeah. So I don't think it's like this.

48:59I think it's a shame that there's a sort of implication that you're not that intelligent if you think there's more to this. I think that's really silly. And actually, I think that's very middle child in that diagram way of thinking. Yeah, I agree. How can we think that we know how this works? This is all too huge for us to get our heads around. It's all too huge. It's mad. I mean, I was fascinated when first stumbling across your poetry that you use the word God freely. You know, some of your biggest poems have got millions of hits. You know, millions of people are sharing these poems. They are reaching people at the right time and they're cracking their hearts open in the best possible way.

49:40And some people will go, well, why are we using the word God? Like, what does that mean to you? There's, you know, like you say, when you met God at the supermarket, this beautiful poem about, well, people just need to go and watch it because it's this amazing, I get such an amazing feeling from listening to you You speak those words about how short and quick this life is and how we're not present and we take it for granted and we're not looking at what's real. But you do use the word God. So what does that mean to you? Well, I kind of want to reclaim the word God because I think when you say God to some people, they see this sort of it's immediately blocked by this sort of church asking you to donate money or this, you know, irresponsibly behaving, biased, prejudiced belief system that's been like manipulated.

50:23the kind of like our experience of you know someone saying something about your sexuality being important as if god would care about that you know i mean like i think there's been this human this i kind of feel like over the years humanity's poisoned the word god so now people don't want to be near it they'll happily talk about the universe that's fine that word that's like a clean word that's like the new sort of like you can say the universe you can talk about your star sign you can do your horoscope you can you know you can like do tarot cards and you can all these other things that we're all describing the exact same thing and i think people who really love god whatever that is and love life and love reality i think they they understand that they understand that their religion is just a housing thing you know it's definitely wrong that's why this is what this is what i think comes down to if if you can't look at your belief system and know that of course it's nothing like the reality can't be anything like what i believe it to be and yet i will love anyway yeah i will choose to go to church because that's the close i can get i'll you know pray five times a day if that's your thing because that's close i can get whatever your religion might be or your belief system I think it's all pointing towards the same thing and it's this fundamental attempt to acknowledge the beauty to acknowledge the wonder to share the goodness to fucking try just to try actually that's kind of enough, to just try and that's kind of what the book's called, I Still Believe in Miracles if anything it's the missing word is like but I still believe in miracles because it's like, this world is chaos and madness and it's beautiful and wonderful and it's terrible and it's terrifying and scary and we're all going to die.

51:50But I still believe in miracles. You know what I mean? Like I still... It's hope. It's hope. Yeah, exactly. I think God is just hope. If we didn't have hope, it would be, we would not get out of bed in the morning. Yeah. We wouldn't. And that's why I personally always want to believe in something more or to even pray in a non-religious specific manner. Yeah, yeah. Because praying to me, whether it's like a quick thing before I go to bed in my head or even when you know someone's going through something or globally there's something going on, that you decide to focus on the hope, that there is hope and there could still be good outcomes or something positive from a shitty situation.

52:36That's what it feels like to me. It's not like asking for things. Please can I have, like it's hope. It's literally hope. That became my prayer. and I don't even know what like I'm you know I went to Christian church a bit as a kid so I'm sure my imagery is still sort of based in that because I probably can't separate the sort of idea of a Christian God in some way but like I'm not a Christian I'm not I wouldn't say I'm of any specific religion but I absolutely believe as a God and I just feel like we all do and we all find like there's mental gymnastics to try and not be ashamed of that but without that like what you know like my prayer now these days I think when I was a bit younger I was sort of like please get me this lead role want to film or please don't wear some fucking cringing that and then that and now it's sort of like please allow me to pay attention and be present and use me where i'm useful like what and if that means i don't get the thing i think i want okay yeah and look where that's taking you look yeah and actually it kind of ties in with those two things because that was one of the big ones i have and as i explained like as a kid there's a very famous one of like you know praying so someone doesn't die whatever and my mom was really ill like a couple years back which is absolutely fine now but like it was really touch and go really scary touch and go and like i wanted to pray i felt that feeling of like if i don't pray she might die and i'm in control and like my final sort of like this is the sort of final slaying of my ocd i think i was like i'm gonna intentionally pray for the opposite in my head as in like i'm gonna i'm gonna intentionally be like oh i hope she fucking dies fine fuck it to like break the fucking curse of and i was so afraid and it was like my therapist was so proud like my like cbt in full force because and this is and because some people hear that and they'll be oh my god and there's this experiment one time where they had a bunch of doctors and really intelligent learned people and they had to just to express the power of sort of magical thinking and they had them write down the worst thing they could think of on a piece of paper and then they were asked to write the name of someone they love in the sentence as if it's happening to them and people ripped it up immediately but they wouldn't even write it down but when they're when they're asked to write the name or something like the superstition came up these are people who don't really believe in superstition ripped up the fucking thing it's that powerful that feeling of like just in case i don't you know yeah and my sort of belief and what i think i've learned applying cbt with my sort of faith in a way is that like whatever it is god knows you don't have to like you have to fucking use this sort of rudimentary human language to be like just so you know i was clear when i said that like he needs a little email sent with instructions disclaimer being like yeah yeah like in a way it means we cut sort of comfort to think like you know we're all sort of being like praying and god's like i fucking gave you that in the first place i know i mean like you know whatever that force is and you know i guess the imagery i used there was very sort of traditional but it's yeah i i just think like the way you live and the way you're oriented and the way you your intention always speaks louder than your sort of fear or it's coming from either like love or fear isn't it sometimes all of those prayers or even i think i've got a big problem with like modern day manifesting yeah right how we talk about that and that you have to write a manifestation list or you know all very harmless stuff you want to do a vision board great i i've always had such a block with it because I think what do I know I don't know what I need I thought I did I used to think oh if I like you've just said I'm the biggest tv presenter out there then I'm gonna feel valued and people will like me and I'll feel good about myself and then I'll be happy I did all that it got me fucking nowhere I was very lucky did some brilliant things had some amazing experiences did I feel any more self-worth because of it absolutely not had less yeah so what do I know what do I know what I need and then some of the worst shit I've been through and stuff that I don't talk about in a public domain because I'm going for therapy and just not there yet with any of it yeah is the stuff that has allowed me to do this there's no way I'd be doing any of this if I hadn't been through certain things of course and also has yeah like allowed me to connect with people more thoroughly and given me resilience and opened my like expanded my brain and it's not like oh I'm so glad I went through certain things but that's what I needed clearly to like learn the stuff that I've gone through and and it is it can still be it can be painful and shit and awful and you don't want to look back at stuff yet also exactly what you needed to go through to be who you are so who am i to sit there with a manifestation list like this is what i'd like please right right right because i don't know i don't fucking know what i need yeah it's fascinating i've got a friend who would say in this context he says about me but i'm sure in the same context of you like you've been used to sort of infiltrate those places where you know people need the return to like this conversation you mean and and you've been around i guess like the top sharpest end of the industry for however many years and create like maybe all that was to give you access for this part 100 so that so that you have these conversations and these conversations and reach the people who like those people and it's the crazy sort of you know adjustment bureau plan of the world yeah exactly it's yeah i um and also i think with manifesting like you don't leave any room for there to be flexibility to to go off on the tangent and yeah experience something over here that you didn't know you needed yeah yeah like the prayer things the manifesting idea of asking for things is interesting because it kind of makes things about what we said earlier about like the anger underneath that you don't have anxiety of anger it's sort of like what's underneath the prayer i mean you think about it if like when i was asking to be oh i want this lead role when you're asking to be it's like it's fit and it's also like me what i'm actually asking for is like can i be loved oh right appreciate you know what i mean like it's like that's what you're asking The actual prayer is I'm sort of getting confused and lost in the glitzy sort of like, oh, I'll get loads of fucking nice words said at me from strangers if I'm in this film or something.

58:48Rather than like you want to be really loved and you want to be really seen. You want to be seen. And that's not being seen. That's not this. I mean, I'm fascinated by what you're experiencing because you've had you've like you've been so seen for so long in terms of a public way. Like I don't know how you've Sort of managed to maintain You're so human and real Right right right I mean I've definitely been like very human But I think my god I have not Coped with a lot of it Absolutely haven't and it's why I'm very careful Like what I in a very I'm not being arrogant by Sense but I'm picky about what I Do in terms of in this Industry because it's gross Yeah right right right It's gross there's no way around that one it's horrible and there's some great people i've met loads of them and i've just done a tv show for the first time in like 10 years and everyone was so exceptionally magical like the best people and it's restored my faith but a lot of it is awful and the result is you end up what everyone's like yeah you're amazing and you turn into a absolute see you next tuesday yeah yeah none of that's good none of that's it's it's not it's yeah fuck it's i'm like sort of just starting to get into a space where like things are happening in a way that's the opportunities are sort of starting to you know present themselves and i'm terrified of that and i think it's i'm kind of glad that this like i'm like 30 now and i started acting i was like 19 and i just like working acting and in the last few years like poetry started going really well and things started popping off and i'm actually so grateful my wife she's a musician as well like that i'm so grateful that like i didn't nothing went to plan when i was like 20 i'd be dead can you imagine i would be dead 100 like with my way of seeing the world if any of the things that happen now happen i was like 20 pre-therapy you know all those things i would be dead yeah for sure like yeah it's too much way too much way too much and now you can go oh i don't believe in any of that bit of it it's nonsense yeah and then this feels good over here this is great and i also guess like autonomy have an autonomy over your thing i guess like you've built your thing that you have and that you own in the way that you get to you know fucking you say what goes in a way that's pretty really healthy for you I mean yeah I'm so inspired to that because like that's all I've and that's by the way nothing to do with um power position whatever it's it's everything to do with feeling having enough self-worth to know that I don't have to do shitty things because other people think they look good.

1:01:23So it's nothing to do with like, I've got autonomy now. Look what I can do. It's everything to do with I believe I deserve to do things that feel good, not really shit. Just because other people go, oh, that's success over there. Yeah. That's success. So yes, I will grin and bear it and I hate it, but other people will think it's successful. I'd rather sit in my little studio and have nice chats. Thanks very much. Best thing in the world. This is the thing that's mad. Exactly. It's the best. Look at the pink curtain behind you. Are you joking? Exactly. Look at the pink curtain. It is the best.

1:01:54And I'm so chuffed for you that you've gone off on this beautiful tangent of doing something that, as an outsider, seems like a gift. Like, not only, it's not just the words that you choose to put together, but the way you deliver it. And I watched it live. You know, I love watching your videos on Instagram, but watching you at the festival even, it's all, like, you're very present when you're reading it and you're in it. Thank you. And you've got just such a skill at translating those words, not just writing them. And, you know, I can't wait to see where that goes for you. This is exciting. This is so exciting.

1:02:28So kind of. Very, very cool. And I want to end by saying we've got a couple of other questions detached from our convo that I'll get to. But before that, thank you for doing what you do, because I've had a really weird year. there's been bits that have been quite bumpy and there have been times when I've listened to the right poem of yours at the right time and it's just been just exactly what I needed so thank you, thank you for what you did Thank you, you're joking, thank you for everything you do and everything you've ever done I remember watching fucking phone and Reggie in America and being like this is the best shit in the world to run home school I never got to see the final episode either because I think they're out of sequence to this day I still long for that we need to get it we keep talking about doing a series two over 20 years later oh my imagine it'd actually be really it'd also be quite profound how much only in America now are you joking I know we've got to do it oh my god we're thinking about it it's only taken us 20 over 20 years if there's a petition I can get in on we're going to do it we'll make it happen we'll make it happen I love that man I love it thank you for it so to close things off the first thing is we're making a happy place playlist with songs that make you feel great what would you put on it ooh my idea of feeling great might be a little bit more like sombre and melancholic yeah same I want to cry okay great a song called Untitled No.

1:03:474 by Sigur Rós oh Sigur Rós oh dreamy that's like a seven minute song oh and just play it on loop for the whole day and you'll be a different person it's the best song we'll just be a wreck listening to it yeah yeah yeah and where is your happy place ooh I'll be with my wife just at home with my wife simple and straightforward forward all day love that it's a beautiful answer well thank you so much for being not only here today on the podcast but at the festival the weekend it was a total dream to have you there so thank you lucas jones thank you so much for having me and it's such an honor and pleasure thank you big love oh so frustrating that um we only really chat for this podcast on like an hour average because i could have done like a kind of joe rogan length four hour pod with lucas i don't I don't know if you guys would have wanted that, but I would have, because I could just chat to him for weeks.

1:04:40So much to say, so much to discuss, and I love that he's a big, big, deep thinker. As I said, Lucas is going to be at our Tatton Festival in September, so do head to happyplaceofficial.co.uk to get your Happy Place Festival tickets if you haven't already. Massive thanks again to Lucas. You're a legend, as are you lot. I love you.

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