Ruby Wax: “I was addicted to rage!” How to respond instead of reacting

0:00Fearne Cotton: Hello and welcome to Happy Place. I'm Fearne Cotton and today I'm taking you back to the Happy Place Festival in sunny, sunny, hot, hot London with the one and only Ruby Wax. A lot of them, like with Trump, he terrified me because he's sort of an animal. He hated me before he even met me. And then he said he wanted to be the next president of the United States, so I started laughing. but there were things I should have done that I didn't do because I practice meditation which by the way isn't about sitting on a gluten-free cushion it is it is exercising part of your brain that gives you the ability to lower that red mist and when you're in such fight and flight part of your memory goes down you lose your saliva your heartbeat goes up and you can't think straight so that's what happened when he scared me he reminded me of my dad oh so excited to have Ruby back on right let me take you back quite a few years if you want to spool back into our archive of our podcast feed Ruby came on I don't know how many years ago I want to say five could be four I don't know but I went and recorded actually she's been on twice before I did it once in the studio and once at her house the first time was at her house right so I turn up to Ruby's house in London and I'm always punctual.

1:19Fearne Cotton: I'm just type A punctual person. I cannot be late. I hate it. I knock on Ruby's door and her husband opens, Ed, and Ed goes, oh, hello, what are you doing here? And I said, oh, well, I'm here to record my podcast, Happy Place with Ruby. She's a guest. And he went, well, she's not here. Uh, okay. He went, do you want to come in? I was like, I guess so. So I went and sat downstairs and Ruby's husband made me a cup of tea and I sat in the kitchen like awkwardly like how long is she going to be where is she anyway she had got carried away writing a new book in a local cafe and a sort of forgotten slash time had run away with her um so she turned up like sprinting into the house uh apologetically and we just had a wild chat and then again the second time around the studio just they're just always honest brilliant chats super thoughtful obviously hilarious but Ruby knows her her subject matters so well and that's why I could quite literally interview her every week and would still get something new out of her now in this chat there are some celebrity gossip stories which are just amazing like Ruby's back catalogue of interviews that she's done are astonishing did you watch her tv show Ruby Wax Meets back in the 90s it massively inspired me in lots lots of ways and she was a real pioneer for that sort of interviewing which was just genius um her and her producer are currently watching back old clips and telling really brilliant stories from behind the scenes of the show in her new tour absolutely famous which she's still in the middle of it's like a global tour and that's basically what happened on the happy place podcast stage too she's also a mindfulness expert so we talked about how to quieten your mind which i think you'll find useful because i bloody well did Are you tired of living in pain, going to the doctor, and left feeling completely dismissed and alone?

3:10Fearne Cotton: Ever wondered whether anyone else lives the way that you live? They do, and I do. I'm Lindsay Soprano, and this is Giving Pain Purpose. Every week, I sit down with people who've walked through chronic pain and trauma and come out on the other side and talk about how they do it. You don't have to do this alone. Find Giving Pain Purpose wherever you get your podcast.

3:38Fearne Cotton: Right, let's do it. Here's the show.

4:01Fearne Cotton: Ruby Wax OBE. Thank you. Thank you very much. When I go to America and I say I have an OBE, they think it's cystitis. They think that I have and they go, I'm sorry, you can get rid of it with penicillin. Oh, what an affliction to have. I'm so happy you're here. Thank you. This sort of came about. I bumped into you last summer. This is a name drop. I was having lunch with Tan France and Ruby was on the next table and I said, oh, Tam went, please introduce me to Ruby. So we came over and you went, why haven't you invited me to your Happy Place Festival? That would be the direct question. And here we are.

4:38Fearne Cotton: And here we are. And I am thrilled to have you here. Absolutely thrilled. Because I know how absolutely busy you are as well. Look at all those faces. They're all the loveliest people. They're live people. They're the best people. You've been incredibly busy this summer already, not only with a tour, but also I saw, was it even like yesterday, the day before you were running one of your retreats? Oh, I run retreats. I know people think, how do you do comedy? And then you do meditation. Well, I don't call it meditation, but brain gym. Yes. Training your little mind so that you're not so busy. And then I do my show, which is going around the country.

5:15And then it's going to New Zealand and Australia. Because it's not me. I put in Donald Trump and Tom Cruise and a few other people. So if you don't know who the fuck I am, you'll know who they are. So that's how I get people to see the show.

5:30Fearne Cotton: I'm coming to that. I love, you know, you've spent the last 20 years studying mindfulness, not only for your own benefit and to help yourself out, but also to then make mindfulness accessible. That's what I love that you've done that. I think for me, mindfulness always felt slightly out of reach. I don't know what this intangible thing is. And you're deeply passionate about getting that out and spreading the word and letting everybody have access to it. Well, I think it got too commercial. You know, there was something now for origami called mindfulness. I mean, they're going a little too far with it.

6:05So when I got kicked out of television, thank you, because I did a terrible thing. I turned 50, and that's against the law. Yeah. You're out. You are out. You're out. Yeah. And I thought, I look fabulous, but they know the date. So they said, you're finished. Ah, they know the date. And then I was replaced by somebody. I thought it was Louis Theroux, but it wasn't. Right. It wasn't, and I forgave him. You did? Yeah, because we did a podcast, and I said, I'm sorry, I thought you took food out of my unborn children, but it wasn't you at all.

6:40Fearne Cotton: No, I heard that. I loved that interview. Yeah. It was brilliant. So now I'm using all my old videos, my films, but the stuff you never saw. So that's why we have Madonna, who's impossible, but better than the Graham Norton one. I mean, that was a disaster. She really is up her own ass. I mean, she's got to come out and play. And so we're showing clips that we never showed before and, you know, stealing it from the BBC. I love that. Yeah. You also did a TV show where you looked back at old interviews, which I absolutely adored, partly because it's a joy to revisit. You know, you were the first person going out there and doing those, like, really wild, ad hoc, chaotic interviews that were just, we felt like we were there with you, like Jim Carrey tearing up a hotel room and going on Donald Trump's plane, et cetera.

7:30Fearne Cotton: But when we saw you on the TV show, there was a level of discomfort of you watching these videos back. You didn't love it, right? Well, I, a lot of them like with Trump because he scared me so much. He terrified me because he's sort of an animal. Like he hated me before he even met me. And then he said he wanted to be the next president of the United States. So I started laughing, thinking, oh, he's a great comic. And then he said, I want her off the plane. And he landed the plane from, by the way, he had, he asked my makeup artist to do his hair. It's before the roadkill. And he had like one nostril and she had to wind it around his head.

8:06So he had a gold bidet and he had a gold toilet for the golden genitalia. And then we met Melania and that was remarkable. I was standing really close to her and I could hear the ocean. Is that terrible? is that terrible to say but there were things i should have done that i didn't do okay right what should you have done what should you have done because because i i practice meditation which by the way isn't about sitting on a gluten-free cushion no it is it is um an exercise just the way you get a sit-up you know if you do a sit-up you're going to get a six-pack meditate i don't call it mind gym.

8:47You know, it is exercising part of your brain that gives you the ability to lower that red mist. And when you're in such fight and flight, the hippocampus, you know, the hippocampus, part of your memory goes down, you lose your saliva, your heartbeat goes up, and you can't think straight. So that's what happened when he scared me. He reminded me of my dad, so approving of me. And so I asked stupid questions, because if somebody thinks you're an idiot, you become an idiot and so I asked you know Moran and then he said I want her off the plane whereas I if I had cooled my engines I would have just played it a different way I mean I I watched that as a viewer

9:25Fearne Cotton: and didn't think any of that at all but that's you know what you're internally feeling in that moment is horrible I've been there but you feel toxic you know what I mean with the flop sweat running down you and okay maybe it's funny for tv but it feels dirty for you yeah when I fell in love with somebody like with Carrie Fisher it was a love affair then you're you think I understand why I do this job yeah was to meet that and then become best friends for 35 years you know I used it to flirt yeah I love but when it turns on you like with Bill Cosby or these terrifying men I thought if I could just have that if I had been trained in meditation I would have been able to well I would have been able to take them on you know in a nice way like you know not be angry but just play their game, play their game, return that tennis ball.

10:11Fearne Cotton: Because what's interesting at that point in your life, before you've looked into mindfulness and you're having that fight or flight, and I've certainly done this too, is that you then turn on yourself because of that bad man. Like that's just such a horrible feeling. You weren't doing anything wrong. You were in the presence of not great men. Yeah, but that's so female. That's what just, that's what pisses me off and said I let him have the power and I you know I'd never let that happen again I would have been much smarter and because I am smart but he didn't see that side of me I'd become like a kind of you know playing the kind of ditzy brunette and that nobody should allow you to do that with a shit eating grin I should have told him to fuck off yeah

11:03Fearne Cotton: Yet, on the other side of things, and I'm sure this felt as enjoyable as it looked, you and Jim Carrey, there was fireworks, like a spark. You got each other and he went with it. He went with it because I handled it well. You know, the thing about my interviews is I always had about a week with them. I would start off with five minutes and then I'd start to, you know, do a little foreplay. and as long as I could make them laugh that's how long the interview went on so I moved into the Playboy Mansion with Hugh Hefner and he let me live with the bunnies then Goldie Hawn and I lived together and Carrie Fisher we stayed for many years and so the interviews went on really long and they would tell their PR people to get lost because they weren't so powerful then and you know if you made them laugh and in the beginning you're terrified but if you what I never did was I never said oh I love your film or I'm your biggest fan because famous people don't like that part of them thinks they don't deserve it do you know what I mean and so I insult them a little bit and they like that they like that because they think oh she's got the human side of me and then they take off their mask and they play human so that's what we did we always we never went on about their career we I tried to get into the you know what they really were about I think drop the mask and that was my that was my kind of dissertation yeah I was never interested in the film I was interested in the psychology well then it's not work for them either they just get to be themselves they get to play and they get to see you know and I I did a lot of talking too as long as I show them my cards they'll show me their cards and we go out at night and they tell me stuff about them because people love to talk about themselves but I never used it the next day Oh, so you know even more than we think you know.

12:52But I never played that. You know, I'm not a journalist.

12:55Fearne Cotton: No, no, no. You're not going to out them on a TV show. Of course not. Do you wish that that... But OJ Simpson did tell me where the knife is. Right, good. Okay. We've got that on record. Yeah. It feels like a bit late for that one. I know. Do you wish that that version of you had discovered mindfulness? You know, when you're young, I don't know if mindfulness is appropriate because when you're in your 20s, you need to be in full turbo. But then if you keep the turbo on when you're 50, it's sort of like it's itchy. You have to be appropriate. I don't mean like suddenly you're mature. You're funny, but you're deep.

13:33You got to get deep. Otherwise, you're not interesting. You know, if you stay kind of bouncy and you're, you know, you're 50 and have those wrinkles, it doesn't look pretty. So you have to start, you know, going down. And so I would have, as time went on, when I was 20, I could be goofy. But by 50, I could have played it differently. And I think I would have had a longer career. I think Louis Theroux is smart because he plays, he's not the big character.

14:00Fearne Cotton: I don't think that's harder for women. I think like men can be slightly, I don't know, aloof or distant. But if we were to do that, we'd be seen as cold, a bitch or I don't know. Yeah, I wouldn't play a deadpan like him. but I would have been much more not so zany all the time. So when I did OJ, that was a really, or Imelda Marcos, those were really good interviews because I was still playing with them, you know, because you're playing with despots, and that's, Infamy is a whole different ballpark. Like, do they know they're lying or are they getting all right? And so it became so interesting and intriguing.

14:34I mean, Imelda, I said, where'd you steal the$5 billion? And she said, oh, she's just an ordinary housewife. yeah and she was dusting the walls that's what you do when you're not hoovering the ceiling and a painting fell off a painting fell off the wall and she saw all this gold glitter so she said the five billion which they stole from the country was because her house was made out of wall to wall gold bullion so i think is she insane yeah or does she is she a brilliant liar yeah i was always interested fascinating and oj was he a liar but i looked like marcia clark who was the prosecutor. So he wanted me to find him guilty.

15:12So he kept taking me to where Nicole was murdered and said, that's where she was murdered. And I said, well, you should know. And he kept wanting me to, you know, he was goading me because he has, you know, and I studied psychology. So it was interesting. He had a disease, a pathology called dysfunctional identity disorder, which means half his brain knows he murdered her and half his brain doesn't. so he gets somebody like me to you know he wants to confess but they didn't make him confess so at the end he tried to stab me with a banana and I think yeah I think that's kind of a confession

15:46Fearne Cotton: yeah it's a pretty blatant confession I mean you're not going to get hurt by a banana you were fine you were safe um at what point did you kind of where you put the banana at what point did you start thinking age-wise or period of your life maybe there's something wrong with my mental health or maybe I'm I need to look into this versus I'm the problem I'm getting life wrong that's how it used to feel to me I might be putting words in your mouth but did you have a moment where you thought oh this is my mental health and it's not good well there's a mental health, but there's mental illness. And I realized I hadn't, I didn't know I had mental illness.

16:27But, you know, for those of you who know, it's not sadness. And it's not because you've had a bad hair day, you're, you're diseased. You have a disease like you have cancer. And you you're not even alive. You know, it's a walking death, depression. So that when I got that, I didn't know I had it. I just thought, you know, I had all these blood tests. And then they said, when I had my third child you've got yourself depression and I was so relieved because you think it's like if the devil had Tourette's that's what it would sound like those voices are so vicious and so at least there's medication but that doesn't always work either but at least it's something but the interviews would make me ill but they don't give you depression you know when they don't work your Bill Cosby tried to strangle me and I kept a stupid grin on my face whereas I should have walked off.

17:16Fearne Cotton: So what that then becomes a trigger for you to spiral into? No, I don't. It doesn't give depression. Depression comes even when you win an Academy Award. It has its own. It's the devil comes and then you have to sit there and wait for it to leave. It isn't to do with anything, any external, nothing external. Things can be going really well. And then you the that bitch comes in and takes your mind hostage. I mean, you've said previously that you're never gonna sit there and be bold enough to say, oh, I'll never experience that again. It's when, not if. Well, I studied meditation. I went to the university because I thought I'm not doing the fluffy stuff.

17:55You know, don't throw me an angel card. I wanted to know the neuroscience. So I went to Oxford and studied the neuroscience. So I can see in a scanner what happens when you practice it. It doesn't happen when you do witchcraft. Sorry. But I mean, you know, We're all different fingerprints, so different things will work. But I did see when people do mind gym or attention training, that alarm bell, the fight and flight, does go down in another area of the brain that's in charge of attention. It starts to get buffed, just like a muscle does in your stomach. But you have to do a certain exercise. Everybody wants a magic pill.

18:35It's like you didn't learn piano because you wanted it. You have to do the exercises. So this is every day? Maybe for two minutes a day already. Like if you do three sit-ups, it'll take you a while. But it's the equivalent of building up, you know, I could mention the areas. But they're in charge of attention. And everybody wants attention because genius advertisers know how to take our focus away. And then we'll buy anything just to be happy, which we'll never get. But this is how to get your focus back. and if you can give somebody your focus and your attention they will adore you because that's all people want is to be paid attention to yeah and to be seen they want to be heard or to see what it's like through your eyes instead of here's my point of view and I'm going to win what's that

19:21Fearne Cotton: about that's war that's the culture that we live in so what would that two minutes look like if you're doing that every day what what are you what are you doing to get your brain in that focus space well and my meditation is just you're tricking your mind a little sorry a little neuroscience to make you i have to because that's oh please do the neuroscience well when you're you know when you're in fight and flight you got that amygdala is your alarm system and it's charged and it's up and in this culture we're always alarmed you know what i mean if it's not the news which is making you shit in your pants it's um it's you know it's social media yeah i had you know or a technology which I adore.

20:01I mean, someday I hope while I'm sleeping a drone is going to come in and shave my legs. Someone needs to invent that. I know. Or a virtual Brazilian. But, you know, when the amygdala is up, if you send your focus into your body, and people who do martial arts know this, or Tai Chi or Pilates or yoga, it's all the same thing. If you send your focus into your body, you're activating another part of the brain called the insula and that's when you feel in the body. But you can't have the amygdala on and the insula on at the same time. So the minute you're focused in your body, either following your breath or listening to sound or smelling or tasting or just feeling your feet on the ground, immediately the amygdala is deactivated.

20:48So it's like being in a car. You can't be in two gears at once. When you're in your body, you're present. If you're speaking, you're not present because words come 280 milliseconds after you feel something. So bringing focus into your body lowers the cortisol, but you have to practice it because your thoughts are so rampant and everybody goes, I'll never stop thinking. You're not supposed to stop thinking. But if that cortisol goes down, it's more like a little radio in the other room. It'll never shut up, but it's not so vicious.

21:20Fearne Cotton: So if people here today think, God, I mean, that's me. My brain, I go to bed sometimes and I can hear all the voices that I've heard in real life that day. And I forget all the basics. So it is enough to go, my feet are on the floor. I can smell fried chicken. The air feels warm. Like that's the practice. But if you just do it, let's say during an emergency, when somebody's giving you hell, it's not going to work. It's like you're not going to jump out of a plane and pull the ripcord. You've got to practice it. So when I'm on stage and I forget my lines, you know, my mouth dries up. And then the audience turn on you because they can smell your fear.

21:58Just because I, you know, it's like at the watering hole, they know one of their kind is sick, so they want to kill her.

22:04Fearne Cotton: Right, yeah. And you can feel their rage. And so just because I practice, if I can send my focus to my feet on the ground, I can feel the cortisol starting to, the amygdala comes down. and they start cooling off, you know, because I see the whites of their eyes. If somebody can laugh, it means they're way, they're back to homostatic state. They're calm, and that's the greatest state a human being can, if you can laugh, the cortisol is gone. So that's why you can kind of play, if we work like neural Wi-Fi, if I got really upset, you'd lock antlers with me. So with Trump or whatever, if I could cool my engines, I could cool his engines.

22:44If you're with your kids or with your co-workers or whatever, if you can get the red mist down, you affect the person and they affect the community and the community affects the planet. And I always say, fix yourself and then go save the world.

22:57Fearne Cotton: Yes. Because otherwise you're carrying your neurotic grenade around and it's going to detonate. Yeah. So we really manipulate each other in a great way and in a horrible way. We do. But I think our culture has got a virus and it permeates on us. But, you know, you can say, I'm responsible for me. There could be shit hitting the fan. But if I can keep my focus on my breathing, but not all day. You don't go to the gym all day. But if I can get that calmness, then you can throw anything at me. Yeah. And if you throw your anger, it'll go right back because I'm not engaging. And, you know, it's sight, sound, taste, touch, smell, and interception.

23:39so I always something I do if somebody's shouting at me or getting angry but it's sight you know it's a sense so I will look at their it could be anything but their left eyebrow with real curiosity and like look at the shape and look at it looks like you're looking at them and listening but you're not you know you just notice it and and that'll get you calm that's good I like that's just that's a good practical tip just staring at it and be so curious and they You think, oh, my God, she's so interested in what I'm talking about. She's looking into my soul. She's fascinated. Yeah. But you're not getting caught.

24:16Your heart's not. You know, you can feel yourself breathing. And the breathing thing isn't to make you a better breather. It's just it's just takes your focus into your body. Anything, you know, feet on the ground. Worry beads here. The minute you're in, the minute you're doing yoga, unless you're worried about like, you know, a lot of people are competing.

24:36Fearne Cotton: Yeah. Trying to give myself a gynecological examination from both ends or tying your feet in a bow above your head. If there's a 17-year-old next to me, I'm going to really compete. But, you know, it's the same thing. It's getting into your body and taekwondo and martial arts. And athletes, like if they're going to play tennis now, they picture the muscles in their body. And then when they really get on the thing, they can whack it. But in your body, you won't think, oh, my God, am I getting a divorce? where'd I park my car you're in you're in and that's your salvation it gives you a moment of pause rather than we're so used to like responding like firing off the email sending the text saying the thing that makes you feel like shit you then regret it the cycle continues it gives you that moment to think do I even want to respond to this do I have to respond to it well if you're in your body you have a pause that's exactly right you can go is this you know just before I hit I'm going to kill you on my computer is that so I always erase the last line I said because that's when I dig it in that's when you put that knife in I dig it in yeah you know what I mean and it tastes delicious but then yeah you know I used to take my I'm addicted I was addicted to rage that was my you know drug of choice and so I used to find traffic wardens so I could give him hell yeah because I didn't want but now because I you know I've learned when I see a traffic warden so that I don't get ill because I get the backwash.

26:04This is what you do. It's just for the women. If I get stopped speeding or I get a ticket, you just stand up and go like this. I'm sorry, I've just had a BLT. Because any three letters scares them. They don't want to see what's coming out of you. Or I just had a BVT. They don't want to know. And they go, keep driving, keep driving. I used to give them full anger.

26:25Fearne Cotton: That is so great. Any three letters. I've never heard that. Again, another practical tip. Are you tired of living in pain, going to the doctor, and left feeling completely dismissed and alone? Ever wondered whether anyone else lives the way that you live? They do, and I do. I'm Lindsay Soprano, and this is Giving Pain Purpose. Every week, I sit down with people who've walked through chronic pain and trauma and come out on the other side and talk about how they do it. You don't have to do this alone. Find Giving Pain Purpose wherever you get your podcast.

27:05Fearne Cotton: I love that you've tried all manner of things to, I guess, also not only inform yourself, but then you can go to your retreats or Fuzzled, what you do online, you've done your cafes and put the word out there. One of the more extreme things that you've written about is going to a silent retreat. And I've loved listening to you talk about this experience and how your senses started peaking how you felt coming out of it what did you get from it well I did a 30-day silent retreat which is like the iron man of the brain oh yeah because the first week you're going to hear those thoughts real loud and clear they're going to it's just incoming it's just incoming but what happens is eventually they get exhausted you know you get so tired from this abuse constantly coming in that it's like you were arm wrestling and finally one of the arms goes down and once that your cortisol is coming down you can see red for the first time and you watch I watched these because it was outside spiders making spider webs and some were perfect and other ones had dyslexia and I go come on fellas pull it together and I fell in love with a digestive I just tasted it and went oh my god it's too good and I ran into the kitchen and said how did you make this egg i broke my silence and they said with an egg they're delicious and that's i think why it appeals to younger people too because it's psilocybin will do i've never done psilocybin except in small doses but i didn't do the big one but um it's very similar where i i suppose they get it very quickly whereas the meditation does take a while, but then what you're getting is you're getting everything is novel.

28:49And when you're novel, you make more neurons. You know, that's why older people, you know, start to lose it because they repeat themselves. But if everything gets novel, like with a baby, you know, that surprise grows their neurons. And so everything is more poignant. It's hard to stay that way. You have to practice, unfortunately, but even two minutes a day while you're waiting for the bus or you're sitting in the tube. I mean, I don't sit there like this. When you've got to go sit on the toilet and feel the toilet lid and then go back in. Just as soon as you're in your body, cortisol comes down, amygdala deactivates.

29:24Fearne Cotton: Even just being off your phone, I quite like testing myself now. If I'm, I know I'm waiting outside a cafe for someone or I'm on the train, whatever, rather than every, we're so used to everybody gets their phone out. It's almost weird to see someone who is just sat there like what's wrong with them like what's or just stood outside on the street used to be cigarettes and now it's everyone's looking at their phone well because we're scared we won't be loved you know what I mean who's thinking of me who's thinking of me because we got no community yeah I mean I think that's loneliness is to say I'm going to show a picture of my lunch is anybody going to you know like how many people are going to like me yeah you know sending out an Instagram yeah a little tweet from the sinking Titanic but just having no just having no distraction again like having a moment of mind gym of mindfulness of going oh yeah that tree's green or that person's cardigan feel your phone feel the way to your phone you know but it's really hard people will go I want the magic pill but on the other hand when I got to this country 40 years ago people weren't even brushing their teeth and now everybody's in the gym everybody's in the gym so where'd that discipline come from and you know the gym will get you a hotter day but you know if you exercise your brain you're going to live longer and better.

30:41Fearne Cotton: That's what we want and you're so right I think everything is geared up today to get the quick fix like someone tell me five tips I can do and then I'm going to be okay I'm going to be fixed and it's not it's all day every day forever we've got to come back to the basics the absolute basics. Well you've got to train yourself because you know unless you live in the country and you know you live with thatch and chickens you know whatever but I think even they get rained on by this culture. Because, you know, everybody wants your attention. That's how you make money. That's how you get people hysterical about the news.

31:15That's how Trump wins. Because he gets us so fearful, we go to him to stop the fear, forgetting that he's the one that caused it. You know, if your heart's accelerated and your amygdala is activated, you ain't thinking straight. You know, that's why kids' little brains burn out when they're taking exams. Because they're so heightened. They can't remember anything because the memory goes first. So I've been to schools where they teach kids. If they're getting hysterical, they send them into a corner and they do exercises until they feel red light, green light, yellow light, green light. When they feel green again and they have all these tools, they take the exams and boy, do they score.

31:54You have to drive yourself like you do a race car. I always say it's like our brains are like having a Ferrari on top of our heads, but nobody gave us the keys. Yeah. I mean, we've evolved this far and yet nobody knows how to be happy. No fucking figure that one out.

32:09Fearne Cotton: It's not. It's not only normal that we're distracted. We are actually addicted to it. We're addicted to whoever is the dopamine hit of a phone or just constantly imbibing something on TV, radio noise. Like we we we're so addicted to it. I think there probably is a bit of a cold turkey moment where you have to get used to having moments without that stuff. Just a moment, just a moment, and then your body gets used to the pause, like you said. It says, I'm going to pull out. You know, it was so interesting, that tennis player yesterday. She shut her ears just for a minute to stop everything. You know, it's learning to drive.

32:46You know, you can go into turbo or you can go into neutral. But if you go into neutral, if you learn how to do that, the next person doesn't know how to stop and they'll burn out. And you can keep driving. I mean, you really are. It's our hormones that make us crazy. So why not use the hormones to cool us down? You know, if you ooze that oxytocin, which is the bonding chemical, the cortisol automatically, again, can't turn on. So, you know, kindness and that kind of stuff, you know, it feels like a cat's purring in your heart. If you can get that, you cannot turn on that machine. So it really is, it's interesting.

33:21It does feel like I'm not going to catch this. I'm like a conductor of an orchestra. I need that thought. This one can pass through. That one's, you know, not all day, but just sometimes play with it. Play with it because you're in charge of the brain. The brain's not in charge of you.

33:36Fearne Cotton: Well, again, we forget that constantly. And then, like you said earlier, we blame external forces, other people, whatever it might be. You make me feel this way. Well, you don't. And the way you think in your head is how you talk to other people. So if somebody's giving you hell, just think of the hell going on in their minds and enjoy it. Yes. That is quite instant karma, that one. I mean, you did exceptionally well going into the jungle. I saw you a little bit before that, and then I loved watching it on TV. And you were 100 % yourself. And even you had said, I think, before you went in, like, my therapist is probably thinking this is a bad idea.

34:12Fearne Cotton: But I don't think you sort of had an okay time. You seemed to thrive in that environment. Did that surprise you? Well, Dave promised, A, you were paid. Ha ha, let's cut to the chase. And they said I'd like everybody. So once I have people in front of me where I think this is rich, you know, then you, again, the greatest thing you can do is hook on how do they see the world, even if they're 23. You know, I thought. You and Ginge. Me and Ginge. I mean, it's so opposite, but like he was reading me and I was reading him and that's a love affair. You know, when you're cha-cha together, like that. And so also I don't feel a lot of fear.

34:51I just don't have it. Has that always been the case? I think I'm on medication, so I don't feel a lot of fear. Love. So, but also, you know, I can lower that. So they give me a snake and I go, the guy had to run out and go, be a little nicer to the snakes because they don't scare me. And I said, everything's gone down my throat, so give me a pig testicle. I don't care. Oh, yeah, you were just chowing it all down. Yeah, like a kangaroo anus, no biggie. Yeah, you just did it. I mean, I was astounded. Yeah.

35:20Fearne Cotton: It was unreal. But I guess, like you said, a lot of that experience is the people you're with and the fact that you're willing to go in there at this point in your life, having studied this stuff and you know what works, to properly connect with people. And that's the joy of it. That's the pleasure. Yeah. And even if somebody's a jerk, it's fascinating. But there was no jerks. Everybody was so cool. Such good people. And Tom and I, you know, who knew he was gay? I thought I had him. I thought I had him. Tom is, you and Tom. We had a child together in our fantasy, because you don't know there's 70 cameras, so you go into full fantasy, and we had a child called Mortimer.

35:56Mortimer, of course you did! But Mortimer had an accident, and so we had to make another baby. It was just endless.

36:02Fearne Cotton: I can imagine Mortimer. Has he got some sort of Victorian outfit on or something? He's got sensible shoes. He was a rag. Oh. Yeah, but it was okay, because we loved him anyway. It wasn't a good birth. There were such tender moments where you were in the little, did you call it a pool? The little Lagoon-y thing? Yeah, that's where we'd have our sex. And you would be... Yeah. You would be canoodling and rocking and he'd be reading poetry. Yeah, it was very Jane Austen. I know. And then I'd shave that woman, Lisa, because she had so much facial hair. I love Lisa. Love Lisa. And her mammaries, you know, I would fall asleep on them.

36:39Oh, dreamy. Because you lose your inhibitions. You know, you can't see the camera. Eventually you're just going to the toilet anywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't care.

36:47Fearne Cotton: What an experience. Carroach, marcroach. I love how you do it. Tom's actually going to be at our Happy Place Festival in Manchester, which I can't wait. I saw him not long ago and I said, oh, my God, thank you so much for saying yes to coming to Happy Place. And he said, darling, you put wings on my heels. His way with language. Yeah. It's extraordinary. Yeah. Have you kept in touch with people? Yeah, I see him. I see Lisa. I haven't been to Manchester yet, but when I go, I'll see Jin. You've got to see Jin. Yeah. It's so brilliant. How important is it for you at this point in your life and career to throw yourself into situations like that, that there are the unknown, where there is risk?

37:27Fearne Cotton: You know, you're exposed to lots of people on TV in those situations. Well, it's weird because television and I have an allergy. You know, it just doesn't work anymore. And people say, why don't you do it now? Because I'd only have five minutes. You know, with Jim Carrey, I said, please don't make me do five minutes because he was doing the junket. I said, just give us longer, longer. longer and then I encouraged him to pull the tablecloth that's the best and it didn't work at all no there was just crap all over the place but as long again as long as I entertained him they say keep it going now you couldn't the PR would come in and say that's it five minutes and nobody because of Instagram shows who they really are you know in those days like Pamela Anderson was a girl's girl and she didn't care what she said like she told us she had a grand piano and a swing over the grand piano and she used to get naked and then she'd swing onto Tommy's penis she didn't care how is that even possible I know how do you do that well you know I had a scene with her where she told me how she likes to have sex and he lies on the bottom and she lies with her legs straight out I said where is your uterus in the back of your head yeah but you know people played then with Instagram you're scared of getting cancelled nobody was cancelled no I know But I wonder, right, how much, because I've heard you say this before, and I've felt the same until quite recently.

38:53Fearne Cotton: I felt very rejected from the TV world at one point. And I was, I started to repeat it a lot and say, oh, I don't know. I just, people think I'm too weird or I don't know. I've just been sacked from a million things. And it started to become a self-fulfilling prophecy that then I just wasn't doing TV. And part of it was because there weren't any jobs. And part of it was because I was talking myself out of that situation. And I've only just in the last few months started to do the right shows. The things that I feel really safe in is the word. Because a lot of it I did not feel safe in. I just thought this is too exposing or I'm going to really hate being there and feel like crap mentally the whole time.

39:35Fearne Cotton: And this show that I've just done, I had a brilliant time and I felt really supported. And I felt like they wanted me there, which was the difference. because I've been on, sure, you felt this. Tons of sets or in teams where I thought, they don't want me here. They really don't want me here. But I know that some of it was me saying it. Yeah. How much do you think you're doing that? Because I want to see you on the telly. I'd watch you on telly every damn day. No, I'd do anything else. Like, you know, I used to be really snobby about reality shows, you know, and I certainly would never do I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.

40:09That was the most fun I've ever had. Yeah. Or they stuck me on some island, you know, with just GoPros and no help. To me, that keeps you, you know, the brain really active is because you go, I've never had anything like this. Unfortunately, there's reality shows where they make you like victimize somebody. So I wouldn't have that opportunity. But in real life, throw me somewhere. You just drop me from a plane and let me, you know, let me run and explore. And that's my idea of a good time.

40:38Fearne Cotton: I love that. And is that because, I don't know, you like having a big challenge? You need something? No, I'm an adrenaline junkie. You know, nobody gets addicted to kale. They just get addicted to adrenaline. I love the adrenaline. I mean, I'm still a junkie to it. I love it. Do you get that hit when you go on stage still? Because you're touring at the moment, as you said. Yeah. Does that wear out? Or are you still getting the hit? You get the hit because you're playing with a thousand people. And in the second half, I let them talk. And that's the hit. That's when you start playing. And I love people telling me what's going on in their heads.

41:14I love it. Like if anybody stops me on the street, I'm yours. You know, some people go, oh, and what I love is they're talking about their mental health. They're not saying, oh, that was funny in 1993, what you said. They're saying, here's what's going on. Here's my brother. He's doing this. My father did this. I have this. And I think, we're talking now. You know, we're being human. You know, my thing, Frazzle, it's a charity I've got where I run it every two weeks. You come online and you talk about, you know, what's human about you, what the weather conditions are like inside. And there's no bullshit.

41:50And there's just that oxytocin. There's just compassion flowing off the screen because nobody has a mask. You know what I mean? And you see all these heads going, yeah, me too. That's me too. And all you want is people to go, yeah, that's me too. You don't want to be alone. No. And we have facilitators all day long. So if you don't get me, you can go on. It's like a little like, it's not AA, but, you know, it's a place where people feel safe.

42:16Fearne Cotton: Yeah, it's so beautiful that you've built that. So come on, it's free. Yeah, it's an amazing, amazing thing.

42:25Fearne Cotton: I love it. And, you know, what a privilege that, well, not a privilege, because you've worked to get to this point where people feel so safe, they can come up to you and say what's really going on, rather than making some weird small talk about nothing, that they want to say the thing that they might not have said to their mate or their partner. But that's the thing is that people don't want to be a burden to their mate or partner. That's how we live. You know, whereas it was your family took care of you. Now that's the last person they want to tell. So tell me, I'm happy to hear it. You know, and that's to me a compliment that you had the trust to tell me that.

43:01Fearne Cotton: And knowing that you're not going to judge, because I think that is the problem, whether it's someone you're very close to, related to, that you think they're going to judge me or they're going to reject me. And actually, when it is someone that you don't know in real life, that risk isn't there as much because it doesn't matter. And you've created something that feels very safe where people can go, yeah, I don't feel all right. And that's OK. It's beautiful. Well, you know, that's my thing. That's your jam. That's my jam. I love it. um ruby wax where is your happy place is it a real place is it a mental state it's it's a when i do a retreat i know this sounds really weird because my mother always said she said moronic things but for you you know most of them were insane but for beauty you have to suffer so even though the beginning is like this is like getting ready to do any sport but everything thing you ever learned was like hell in the beginning.

44:00That state you go into when it's, it's the, the thoughts are there, but they're just, it's more like a CD playing in the background or, you know, Spotify. Oh, I know that I'm an idiot. Everybody thinks I'm a loser. Nobody's really listening to this. I just go, come on boys. Yeah. Come on in. They're more here than they are here. Like some people will, will think you're a loser, but it's like, I'm not responsible for you. So when you get in that state of you're just listening to sound, even for a second, and it's peace, that's my happy place.

44:34Fearne Cotton: Yeah, I think we all want that, don't we? That's exactly what we want, is that feeling. I think you can have whatever you want outside, but unless there's peace inside, you ain't going to experience it. But that's exactly it. I mean, you and I have both met so many people who have got on paper everything that society tells us to strive for, whether it's success, money, fame, to be popular, accolades, awards, and they're deeply mentally not happy. So we know it doesn't touch the sides and it's an inside job. You will get a hit, you know, like when somebody gives you something, it's like a burst bubble.

45:13It's, you know, it's like champagne just went off in your heart. But then you reach for it again. And it's like a cigarette. You're going to go, where am I going to find it next? Because we slip into addiction. We're creatures of addiction. So, you know, again, it's a human condition. We're flawed. We're just flawed. Yeah. And we have to give ourselves, you know, a little compassion. Yeah. Because this ain't perfect. I don't know who started this rumor. Oh, no. I always say, take a look at the person next to you, flawed. Underneath that shiny exterior, they're fucked up just like you are.

45:44Fearne Cotton: Yeah, we're all massive fuck-ups. It's great.

45:53Fearne Cotton: Too right. And sometimes the shiniest people are the most fucked up. That makes me feel so good. Yeah. I love that. Ruby Wax, I absolutely adore everybody in your body. I think you are just the most incredible person. I love every opportunity I get to interview you. And I'm so grateful that you came to the festival today, as are this lovely lot. Thank you. Please give it up for Ruby Rocks.

46:23Fearne Cotton: It's just always a riot with you, Ruby. I love you so much. Just one incredible woman who just keeps pivoting in her career in such an intuitive way. and is full of wisdom and stories and she's just great company. I love hanging out with Ruby. You can get tickets for Ruby's tour, absolutely famous now. A massive thanks again to Ruby and to you lot. You're bloody brilliant.

47:13Fearne Cotton: Are you tired of living in pain, going to the doctor, and left feeling completely dismissed and alone? Ever wondered whether anyone else lives the way that you live? They do, and I do. I'm Lindsay Soprano, and this is Giving Pain Purpose. Every week, I sit down with people who've walked through chronic pain and trauma and come out on the other side and talk about how they do it. You don't have to do this alone. Find Giving Pain Purpose wherever you get your podcasts.