Vex King

0:00Hello, I'm Fern Cotton and this is Happy Place. Today another conversation live from the Happy Place Festival in Tatton Park. I'm chatting to Vex King. When something upsets you, just take a pause, step back and look at your emotions because actually for us to notice that we're angry or we're sad must mean that we aren't the emotions that we're witnessing. There has to be a subject and object relationship. So you just take a step back and you realise that actually these are the emotions, they're very real, but I don't have to carry them forward. Vex is a visionary writer. You may well have been one of the million people, million people, who bought a copy of his book, Good Vibes, Good Life, making it the number one Sunday Times bestselling nonfiction book of 2021.

0:52Now he's back to tackle the way we love. His book, Closer to Love, is so thoughtful about things like learning to love authentically, overcoming fears and insecurities and cultivating really meaningful relationships. We covered so much in this conversation, the significance of gratitude, why it's important to sit with our feelings, the difference responding rather than reacting can have to our overall sense of self. Vex is a really deep thinker and I hope this chat prompts you to ask some questions of yourself too, because that definitely happened for me. Hi, this is Knox from the Popcast with Knox and Jamie.

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2:10Let's do it. Here's the show.

2:35Actual Vex King, everyone! The phones are out. The phones are out. Vex, welcome. Thank you for having me, Fern. It's an absolute honour and a pleasure. As the king of vibes and good vibes, would you say the vibe is good here? It's amazing. I was just telling my wife that everyone here is so, peaceful, calm and just lovely so thank you so much. Vibes have been really beautiful and it's been noticeable walking around today, everyone is in good spirits, so that's a really lovely thing. Let's get back to basics because you came on the podcast I'm guessing it was about three years ago now. During lockdown I think.

3:12During lockdown, so this is our first time actually face to face which is really lovely as well I can't bear doing them on Zoom it's really discombobulating, it's so good to be back in the flesh and looking into your actual eyes. So, Payhouse, the publisher, they were like, you've got this massive podcast to do with Fern. Do you have a room that would kind of, you know, insulate all the noise? So, I was like, I've got a meditation room. That might be okay. They would say, just to be on the safe side, put a duvet over your head. I don't know if you remember. Oh, I do. I set up for this podcast, and I had a duvet over my head, and I was sweating buckets because it was so warm.

3:50And then you were like, I think you said it really nicely as well. You're like, Vex, you can... You can get rid of the do-vay. You can take that off, because I don't think we're going to get to the end of the podcast, quite frankly. But we did, and we talked about a hell of a lot. Obviously, we talked about your extremely popular book, which I know many people here will have read and loved, Good Vibes, Good Life. And I want to go over some of the ground we covered, because I'm also wondering if you... It's always interesting, I think, when you've written a book. Like, the first book I wrote, Happy, for a start, I don't know what's in it.

4:20I can't remember. But also I'm sure there are bits of it that I would read and go, do I still think like that? Do I still believe that? It's an interesting thing to go back over your work and see if it still seems true. So let's go back to absolute basics. What is a vibe and how and why do they impact us? I think there's a lot of definitions of vibe. I think vibe to me is just how you feel overall energetically. And that's supported by your thoughts, your words, your emotions and your actions. And the basis of this book and any law of attraction teaching is that the energy you put out is the energy that you receive.

5:03So if you're feeling grateful, you're going to receive more things to feel grateful for. The concept is so simple, but the application is where we struggle as humans because we go through this spectrum of emotion. And I think that's what I wanted to capture in Good Vibes, Good Life. But I realized after I released the book, so I released Good Vibes, Good Life, and I turned to the publisher and my agent and I said, I'm not going to write another self-help book ever again, because it was just so overwhelming. It takes out so much energy. And even just going through the editing process. So for me, with Good Vibes, Good Life, it started at 70 ,000 words.

5:42And the publisher turned to me and said, Vex, I think it's a little bit long. Can we cut it down to 30 ,000 words? Whoa. Yeah. So I had to lose 40 ,000. In the end, I lost about 30 ,000. But how do I convey the same message without diluting it down? and I think the process of editing has to be so meticulous but it's so difficult that by the end of it I was just like I can't do this again but I think in my heart I love serving you know it's something that I've always been called to do and as I started sharing more messages on social media there were more questions that would arise about inner healing love and relationships I go into my DMs and people are asking me if they should break up with their boyfriend or their girlfriend and I'm like, I don't know, because I don't know your boyfriend and girlfriend.

6:32Why? And also, I don't know the full context. Plus, there's a lot of responsibility for me to decide if you should break up with your other half. But what I can do is I can convey a message in a book and give people some kind of nuanced conversation so they can make decisions themselves. A lot of you might know my story, but for roughly three years of my childhood, I was homeless. My dad died when I was six months old. I experienced poverty, racism, violence, all kinds of things. And as a child, one day, and I still remember this moment, I promised myself that I would overcome all these challenges and I'd write a book about those things.

7:15And I didn't realize that that moment would come in my 20s, 30s, I think. Yeah, in my late 20s. And that's all I try and do, like, you know, just share things from the heart and hope that they can reduce suffering to some extent, but also help people achieve a balanced life. Well, I mean, you undoubtedly have done that. The book's been incredibly popular for good reason, because you are sharing a big part of yourself and your story, and also, like you said, sort of very gently guiding people. I don't think anyone wants the burden of deciding whether Jane should break up with Steve. Do you know what I mean?

7:53like no one wants that burden or could perhaps guide someone that acutely. But I think what you do is really give us a good framework as to how to live. And certainly with your first book, looking at vibrations, and as you alluded to earlier, the law of attraction, that's, you know, these are all things that we probably hear a lot more in this day and age, these sort of statements like law of attraction and us all pondering, what does that mean? How does it work? And you, I think what you do is you give us the definitive answer. Rather than go around the houses, whatever, it's like this is how law of attraction works.

8:30And I'm interested in something you said a moment ago about what you give out, you get back. So whether it's gratitude or it could be something deemed more negative like anger or resentment, and that's what you're going to get back. I think we can all understand that notion, simple notion. But as you said, it is so hard to apply in everyday life, especially when you get stuck in a negative cycle. When you wake up each day either feeling dread or feeling resentment, it's very hard to get out of that cycle. Even if you know, oh, my God, this probably means I'm going to get that back energetically.

9:06It's really hard to snap out of it. I'm pretty sure we've all been there. How do you do that? How do you start to rectify the negative patterns that we fall into or the habitual patterns that we fall into that aren't doing us any good? I think one thing I noticed after I released Good Vibes, Good Life was that a lot of people would say, I know that if I put positivity out in the world, I'll get something positive back. And right now I don't feel positive and I feel guilty because I don't feel positive. Where there's dismissal or denial of emotions, there's destruction because what you're actually doing is you're harboring those negative emotions within you.

9:48The first thing you have to offer yourself is self-compassion because we're all humans. We go through a range of emotions. We're in a dualistic world where there's light, there's going to be dark, where there's cold, there's going to be warm. You have to honor every single emotion that you feel. Only then can a transformation take place. There's actually a neuroautonomist, I think, that's what you call them, Jill Bolt Taylor. And she actually says that if you observe your emotions for 90 seconds, they will eventually dissipate. A lot of the suffering that's caused is not because of the event. It's because we're resisting the emotions that are present.

10:33So sometimes, you know, even if you just sit back and observe the emotions from a distance and count down for 90 seconds, you'll realize that eventually they will lose their charge. But a lot of us, a lot of the time we're fighting our emotions. And because we're fighting something, they're more likely to surface again and again and again. so for anyone that struggles with any kind of resentment anything that they're going through the best advice I can give you is first make peace with that feeling just welcome it and sometimes it's not even about just observing it you can say it out loud you can write it out I can always guarantee soon as you acknowledge the emotion what you've done is you've taken away the resistance so now suffering will be demised that's so interesting because I think again the general consensus can often be law of attraction means I have to be positive all the time.

11:23Even when I'm not feeling it, I have to be positive. I must be positive so I get positivity back. But actually you're saying the direct opposite. If you're feeling upset, angry, whatever it might be, be with that. Let that exist rather than fighting it to see it naturally dissipate. I think that's the bit that we're all a bit confused with with law of attraction. I just must be positive. I can't feel like this. I must be positive. But actually we've got to sit back and really feel it, not just go, oh, I feel a bit pissed off, like really feel it. I think most of the time, with a lot of what we might class as negative emotions, when we actually dig beneath it, a lot of them, if you really whittle it down, ends up at, I'm scared.

12:04Like if you're angry, if you're resentful, whatever it might be, it ends up, I'm scared. I'm a bit scared that, I don't know, I don't know what's going to happen, or someone's going to take something from me, or whatever it might be, I think it's so interesting to really dig deep and see what's really going on here. Why am I, you know, getting bad road rage or shouting at my partner or whatever it is? What is that? We don't give ourselves permission to explore what's going on. And that's why I think introspection is so key. Like, for example, anger. Anger is just a secondary emotion. Usually behind that anger, there's some kind of pain.

12:39There's a way maybe that you felt disrespected by your partner or someone's crossed a boundary you've made a decision even that's gone against your values and that creates friction and you get angry because actually what you're feeling is pain and where does the pain stem from so we have to dig deeper so why why do I feel this pain why do I feel this sadness and it could be because you can't control what's in front of you or what's happening and when we can't control our lives we feel lost and then pain and sadness emerges with law of attraction. I mean, it's really good just to sort of break this stuff down so we really get it.

13:14The other thing I think that we perhaps misinterpret is that if we are in a good cycle of honoring our emotions, whatever they are, choosing to put something good out there, knowing that it may possibly come back, I think we assume that that might lead to then the perfect life. Nothing will ever go wrong again. I'll never have to deal with pain, suffering, problems arising, stress. That's not true. And I think that's, again, where we get ourselves in a bit of a pickle, where we think, but I'm doing it. I'm putting out all the good vibes. Why is stuff still going wrong? This is not a way to mitigate problematic areas of life.

13:52It's perhaps a way that we can navigate it with more ease, would you say? What I've seen with especially the law of attraction is that people mainly want to manifest material desires. And I think there's anything wrong. I think there's, you know, the universe is abundant in all areas. But I think where the issue arises is that we're tying happiness to that material thing. And when we get that material thing, we find maybe happiness in that moment until it escapes us again. Because we want the next thing. We want change. We only find happiness in the moment where gratitude and acceptance exists.

14:34as soon as we lose that we desire change and the change creates friction within ourselves and therefore we're in this perpetual cycle where we're never happy we get the life that we thought we desired but I also our desires change over time what you wanted when you were 16 might be different to what you want at 30 or 52 or if you live longer than that you know the things that we want are always subject to change and I've seen so many people trying to manifest something and I was actually speaking to my wife and I said to her just before today's show that it's so strange that because we went to burger we so we were dropped uh stopped up at the service station and we went to burger king you went to burger king yeah I went to burger king because I need hashtag shocked I wanted to find something vegan and tasty so I'm like um I'll have the vegan nuggets but um love nothing wrong with that I remember back in the day McDonald's was like a massive treat for us or going to Pizza Hut and I remember used to get the cups with the little kind of like toys at the top of the the plastic cups um and we were so grateful for those things and now like we might be hungry just before a show that we're on the way to and we'll be like let's stop off at Burger King or McDonald's or whatever it is and we kind of take it for granted We're just like, oh, we can just do this.

15:58Yeah, it's okay. But I remember as a child, like McDonald's was a massive thing. When we experienced severe poverty, for my mom just to put food on the table, that was a big thing. I don't have that challenge now, but I have other challenges. And actually, a lot of the challenges exist at the level of thought. Because if you don't think the problem is a problem, then is it actually a problem? I'm not saying that there's not very objective problems in the world. You know, if someone says something mean to you or you're hindered by a disability, for example, or an illness, that is a problem. And pain is always inevitable.

16:35And I know a lot of people don't like this saying that pain is inevitable, but suffering is a choice. But I'd like to change it a little bit and saying pain is inevitable, but suffering is almost a response. It's how you carry that pain and what you do with that pain. A lot of us will hoard that pain or reflect on that pain and create an image of ourselves based on that pain. So we might say, I'm not good enough. I'm worthless. I'm not worthy of good things. If you believe in a religion, you might say, God's made me this way for a certain reason and God doesn't love me. And it's those stories that we tell ourselves.

17:12And as a result, we suffer because of that narrative that's within our minds. but then I'll go to a place like India for example and I'll see people playing on the streets with very little and I'll look to them and think how can they have so much happiness and you know have so little materially whereas back home you know I'm so grateful for all the things that I have but I'm complaining about not enough vegan options on the menu yeah but these kids here they don't have much at all and they're happy they're present in this moment and you know they're doing something that I'm obviously missing out on yeah it's a really brilliant bit of self-awareness that we can all have is am I feeling grateful for the absolute basics in life and it doesn't even have to be material things it could be for your best mate or because the sky was a lovely shade of blue or whatever and that I guess is more habitual than a thing it's not something that is part of our personality.

18:12It's something that we can cultivate through habit. Yeah, I think a lot of us might exercise, we might do yoga, or there might be another habit or practice that we partake in every single day. And I think another practice that we can do is just try to find gratitude. And I say try, because I understand that it's extremely hard to find gratitude when you're burdened by very heavy, dark emotions. When I was homeless, if someone told me to find gratitude in that moment, I feel like, gratitude for what? Like, you know, nothing's going right in my life. But what I do find is that if you can find some kind of gratitude, and if you can say, okay, this is bad, but at least it isn't X, Y, or Z, then the heavy emotions that we carry will become a little bit lighter.

19:06And when the emotions that we carry become a little bit lighter, we can take on challenges without being burdened by those dark and heavy emotions.

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19:51I guess also it's imperative to have some sort of pause because I think listening to taught there, and a moment ago you sort of touched on this, there's this vital moment that can happen at any point throughout the day when we're feeling disgruntled, distressed, annoyed, triggered by something, where we can either pause and choose to respond or we simply react. And the reaction is like off the bat, so quick, there's been no pause or moment to think about the choice that you have. I think the difference between responding and reacting feels massive. And I can see in the day the times when I'm doing one or the other.

20:33I know the moments where I'm reacting and I'm like, oh, what am I? This is just a bad habit that I've been in for ages. Or when I respond to something with a little bit more time and thought, which probably happens less, let's be honest. But I know that that is a better option. And it's just having like a split second of going, wait, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to react. I'm going to respond. Yeah, it's extremely hard, especially if there's something that you're experiencing that's highly triggering. I think it's very hard to get caught up in your emotions. Creating that space helps you respond.

21:10And when you react, you operate based on your past conditioning. And I think when you respond, you move into the trajectory of who you want to become. And the more you do that, the more you pave a new neural pathway or new samskaras or a new tendency. And you start acting in terms of that person that you believe you want to become or that you deserve to be. but that space between kind of stimulus and response is extremely important and it's extremely hard to cultivate but I think what you can do just on a in a very practical sense is when something upsets you or you feel sad just take a pause step back and look at your emotions because actually for us to notice that we're angry or we're sad must mean that we aren't the emotions that we're witnessing.

22:05There has to be a subject and object relationship. So you just take a step back and you realise that actually, these are the emotions, they're very real, I feel this way, but I don't have to carry them forward. Yeah, I'm so interested in this concept of like, who am I? Because we all think that we know who we are based on what you're saying, our emotional reaction to things, how we move through the world, which mainly is based on upbringing, experience that we've had over the years. But a lot of it is a distraction from who we really are. And I'm not sure if there's anyone out there. Maybe there's a few brilliant thought leaders out there who will have got to that point of the essence of who they are.

22:47And it is a big uncovering. But I think a lot of this is a distraction from who am I? I'm at the age and the stage in life where I'm curious about who am I? I actually don't even know half the time. So I think it's a really interesting moment to get curious about yourself in that pause before you react, before you respond. Wait, who am I without the conditioning and without the years and years of whatever I've been going through? I think it takes, and I'm not saying this from a place of like I nail it because I really don't, but it takes the sting out of it, getting curious about who you are rather than turning on yourself, moving into self-loathing, etc.

23:27Yeah. And I think a lot of the time we form identities based on who we're told we are. Yeah. Someone says, oh, you're shy. Because I would say that I'm kind of like an ambivert or more towards an introvert. But, you know, I have best of kind of both worlds. And sometimes people say, oh, you're quite you're quite shy. And then sometimes you're like, oh, you're so loud. You don't stop talking. And I'm like, well, I respond to the energy of the room. So if it's quite quiet, I'll be louder. if it's quite loud then I'll be a little bit quieter but if I take one response for example you're shy and I start identifying with that then I'm going to go out into the world acting on the belief that I am shy but am I actually shy or is it that someone said I was shy and I've adopted that as a reflection of who I am I think when it comes to identity it's quite a deep topic so I won't try and overwhelm people but I think we have our identity the personality the ego and that changes throughout the years who we think we are changes from you know the age of seven as we get older I was this when I was younger now I'm this and you know you start using labels to identify yourself that's transient in nature I think sometimes when you do a bit of self-discovery you'll perhaps find this witness within yourself that you will realize is more absolute more kind of grounded in truth it doesn't change based on the circumstances so when people say who are you people that are kind of spiritually led will be like oh i'm pure consciousness and be like well what does that mean i don't understand that in practical terms and some people say well i'm this you know I'm authentic, I'm a vegan or whatever the labels are but actually both can be true because one's based in duality and one's based on oneness non-duality and the more you can tune in with this non-dual space of bliss and pure consciousness which is beyond thoughts, beyond emotions, I think the more you can live as your true self.

25:42I think this relates really beautifully to your latest book, Closer to Love, which I really enjoyed reading. Because a lot of the time in relationships, whether they're platonic, romantic, whatever they are, we do find ourselves fitting into roles. And we get used to that role. I'm the organized one. I'm the one that, you know, does this. I'm the one that perhaps isn't so strong in this area. And we fall into these roles and we feel they're fixed. And that, again, hinders us in working out who we are and can also be really detrimental to forming new relationships if we've broken up with someone or we've met a new person, a new friend even, we think we have to establish that same role with the new person.

26:21I think it can be such a block unless we're aware of, I always play this part. I've certainly done it. I can look back at relationships and go, oh my God, I'm repeating history by being the same person, showing up, meeting a new friend or whoever it is, a new partner in the past. And having that awareness seems really key. Yeah, I think we have to do a lot of, and this is kind of the premise of the new book, Closer to Love, is that to get closer to another person, you have to be close to yourself. So who are you beyond what you've been taught that you are? If you go through a harmful, toxic, bad relationship, you might build an image of yourself.

27:05And based on that image and based on the wounding that that relationship creates, you might recycle the same relationships because you're acting from the same place. Nothing has changed within yourself. So externally, you're manifesting the same types of relationships. relationships it's just a different cover but the same same book and that's why you have to really do some soul searching you have to identify with your beliefs and where they come from because a lot of the time you'll find that you believe something but you don't even know where that belief has come from maybe an authority figure or caregiver gave you that belief or told you that this is true and you've just taken it as absolute.

27:49But is it actually true? Is it actually helpful? Is it harmful? You have to decide that for yourself. You have to look at your preferences, your dislikes, your likes. What do you bring to the table? What are your expectations? Are any of these expectations unhealthy? Until you do that work, you'll keep attracting the same people. And if there's a lot of heavy wounds inside of you, you'll continue to attract people from a place of wounding rather than healing. I think we also get, we end up doing the opposite. Well, we end up looking at the law of attraction, forgetting how powerful words are. Especially, I think, when it comes to romantic relationships where we say out loud to mates, oh, I'm just really unlucky in love.

28:36Or I always get screwed over in the end. and we start, we say it and then we start to believe it. And that is a huge block. You actually list blocks in the book for finding love. One of them is a feeling of unworthiness. One of them is a lack of belief in it. One is a belief it will always end. And the other is general insecurities. These are all things I'm sure pretty much everyone in the room can relate with. At some point in life, we have been blocked by one of those things. how do you start to unblock yourself in any of those areas? How do you start to create those new thought patterns and belief systems?

29:14All of those things, the insecurities, the unworthiness, they all stem from some type of limiting beliefs. And the limiting beliefs, if you believe in reincarnation, which a lot of people don't, that's completely fine. But if you do believe in reincarnation, you might say that those beliefs are inherited from one cycle to the other. but those beliefs come from the past. Even our present, we view it from the lens of the past. Everything that we believe about now is based on what we've experienced in the past. So you have to revisit the past to some extent. And some people might do that through journaling.

29:52So some people might make a list of all their limiting beliefs and they might rewrite those beliefs physically. Once you've rewritten that belief, you have to recondition it. Otherwise, you'll continue to follow the same path. So say, for example, I'm just going to try and depict it visually. Say this is mind, and you've always believed this path. I feel like this is a really bad depiction. But say there's this path that you're always following. That creates a tendency. You could say it's like a neural pathway. That's what you've always known based on the unconscious belief you've always had. When something happens in your life, you're more likely to follow that groove around because it's so densely ingrained in the layer of mind.

30:45To change that, you have to create a new belief in a new trajectory that serves you. And you have to repeat it multiple times. Now, a lot of people in the personal development space or a lot of people that teach healing will tell you that there's only one way to heal. It could be journaling, meditation, whatever it is. It's the modality that that person teaches. But I think you have to find your own way. Therapy is so useful. And I think it's become normalized, which is great, because I think, A, therapy is a privilege. I think if you're able to go to therapy, it's a privilege. If you're able to find a therapist that you truly trust and can work with, that's also a privilege.

31:30But there's a lot of people that therapy isn't for. Maybe they don't feel comfortable being vulnerable with a therapist. Maybe they just can't afford therapy. And, you know, I reflect on myself when I say that statement is when I was younger, I didn't have resources. Sometimes I'll share statements on Twitter or on Instagram. and they're like, oh, well, that's not nuanced enough and you're harming people with these messages. Well, actually, there's messages that I'm putting out there are actually instilling hope in certain people. And the reason I know that is not because of the way people communicate to me, it's because I've been on that receiving end.

32:08And I've also had a lot of vulnerabilities when I was younger. When I was younger, and, you know, hate is a strong word, but at one point I did hate my life. I wanted a way out. And I would go and see healers, all kinds of people that would promise change in my life. But really, what they wanted is to fill their pockets and you feel used and abused. So I say this and I don't label myself a teacher, a guru or anything like that. I'm just a normal guy that shares messages. But do what works for you. Explore. And the only way you'll know what works for you is if you do some soul searching. Yeah. I think it's really important to talk about this because, like you said, we do have a problem globally with people getting access to mental health care, therapists, etc.

32:58And I think, like you said, they can be extremely useful and they can really help you work out what you want, who you are, where you want to head to, etc. I think when we pin everything on someone else fixing us, someone else changing our lives, and I've done that over the years. I've thought, this is going to be the one thing that makes me feel okay all the time. That doesn't exist. And I believe it's a Ram Dass quote, but it's something about the real work you have to do is the work within your heart. And the only person who could do that is you. And none of us really want to hear that because we want someone else to bloody do it.

33:37You do it. Just fix me. Tell me what I want someone. Because I think we have so much messaging as well. I want someone to tell me, no, this is the route. just do this. And I'll go, okay, I'll do everything you say and everything will be okay. But actually, we've got to be intuitive. Like you're saying, we've got to find what works for us, whether it is journaling, meditating, therapy, whatever. And we've got to keep at it. Like this is, again, no one wants to hear this, but it's all day, every day, forever. There is no quick fix. There is no magic cure to any of this stuff. We've got to be on it.

34:07Because going back to relationships, if you are trying to forge a new path, if you've decided, right, I'm not going to be the person that's unlucky in love. I'm going to forge a new path. I'm going to talk about things differently. I'm going to show up a bit differently and not bring the baggage of the past in. That's all very well and good going down that path. But as soon as we get knocked, because that is a vulnerable place to be, as soon as we get rejected by someone, Someone says something to us that makes us feel unworthy again. We can so easily fall off track and end up going back on the old path that really didn't work.

34:43So how do we, because I think this is really important, how do we keep walking down the right path when we've been knocked? When we feel like, oh, I've been a fool to try this new path. This new path is not for someone like me. How do we get over that? I think there's two elements. is first there's this acceptance that has to take place, is that no matter where you are in life, you're always going to be knocked back to some extent. You could be feeling great, you can wake up, and as soon as you step outside, like someone cuts you up in traffic, or you get into work and someone's gossiping about you, there's so many challenges that we face throughout life.

35:29What I found, especially in the personal development world, And I think I'm guilty of this myself to some extent. I've read maybe thousands of personal development books. And I think it's good to seek out new information and knowledge. But there's another idea where you keep seeking out epiphanies and new secrets. you're like that's not working now because I've experienced a challenge so I need to go to the new book and that new book is going to have all the answers and then you read that new book you feel slightly motivated or inspired for a month or so and then suddenly you're back to normal because so and so has happened in your everyday life when those knockbacks happen they're actually a good indicator of the work that's taken place there's this famous quote and it said to check if you've actually healed, go live with your family for like a week or something over Christmas, and then you'll know if you've actually done the deep healing and the work.

36:30But those moments really highlight how deeply we've met ourselves. I think if anyone's struggling on that path, there has to be that acceptance that takes place. And there has to be this responsibility. And the responsibility is that only I can create change within myself. And to see if something actually truly works for me, I have to stick at it. A lot of people will follow like meal plans or exercise kind of regimes. And they'll follow the first two weeks. And we're like, I'm not seeing any results. It's not working. but the regime's for like two months so you have to see it through only when you see it through do you realize if you're aligned to that particular thing so you have to exercise some kind of patience as well yeah and discipline is a big part of all this you know the sort of chat around self-development wellness and it doesn't necessarily get included in this conversation enough because even when we look at relationships which for me I guess over the years I've always seen love or even lust initially as something very chaotic without any rules or root.

37:45It's just like wild chaos. And I've sort of loved that, but it hasn't necessarily always ended well, or it's certainly not gone as smoothly as it could have. But you can actually apply discipline to all of this, because in the book, again, you list reasons as to why you might be blocked giving love as well as receiving it, because we can't just sort of look at the reasons why we're not receiving it. You've got to give it out as well and have that equilibrium. So again, it's fear of vulnerability, it's uncertainty, what it means to love, a belief that everyone leaves, a fear of rejection, and a discomfort in intimacy.

38:22So again, this is something you need to practice. The discipline comes into play here with practice giving love and feeling vulnerable. And you've mentioned vulnerability quite a few times already today because it's key in the conversation of relationships and love. You can't really go through that process without feeling vulnerable. No one wants to feel vulnerable. Everyone wants to feel robust, strong, untouchable. But actually, love is a perfect example where we are completely vulnerable. How do we move through the discomfort of that and not give up too early? That's a good question.

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39:33I think vulnerability to start with is extremely hard because what we're doing is we're allowing ourselves to be seen and trusting the other person not to hurt us and I think that in itself requires extreme courage when we talk about closeness closeness stems from something called reciprocal self-disclosure. So reciprocal self-disclosure is basically when you can be present with someone and you can share your thoughts and feelings in a safe space without being judged. But even to get to that point, you have to be confident enough to be able to share something that comes from a place of vulnerability.

40:26And that is one of the biggest challenges. For anyone that struggles with vulnerability, I think there's a few things that you have to remember. But the number one thing is that vulnerability does have its boundaries. So it's not about oversharing. When we talk about trust, and if we can trust the other person, the only way you know you can trust someone is by sharing something through vulnerability and seeing what they do with it. So always start with something small and see how they handle it. If they weaponize that particular thing, then you know that you can't be vulnerable with that person, and maybe they're misaligned with you.

41:08But if they hold you, they hold space, you almost feel like this warm embrace when you share that particular thing, and they choose not to hurt you when they could have, then you know you can be vulnerable. But again, vulnerability is a practice. But it doesn't have to be you sharing something really, you know, vast and intense. You can take small steps, you can share something quite small, it could be something that you don't tell many people, but still comes from a place of vulnerability. And then if you feel like you can trust that person, share something bigger and see how they respond? I think you have to be, there's a willingness or there's this natural vulnerability when you meet someone new, especially again romantically, because you'd hope you could show up as yourself.

41:57But I think actually, when have we, who's ever been on a first date and been totally themselves? I haven't. Like you do all the cliche stuff that we all know, like, oh yeah, I love that band too. And I'd love to watch that crap film that I really don't want to watch from the 80s that you've just put on or whatever. We tolerate all this stuff because we're so scared to show up as ourselves. Obviously, like, I'm 10 years into marriage, so I'm like, I'm not watching that. I don't like that band. I am truly myself. And you get to that place of comfort. But like you say, that takes, there's some testing that needs to be done.

42:30There's this little experimental period where you show up as yourself a bit and then a little bit more when you feel safe enough to do so. And it doesn't have to be like you say, all or nothing straight away. You can do it comfortably and with boundaries. I think boundaries is, again, we've talked about this a hell of a lot in many guises on the podcast and here at the festival this weekend, but boundaries when it comes to relationships are one of the most important things, would you say, if not the most important thing to setting a healthy, a layer healthy path to create a good relationship? Yeah, so I think boundaries, self-care, self-discovery, introspection, all of that falls into the umbrella of self-love.

43:13So self-love is the foundation of all my work. But I think self-love, when you talk about self-love, people have all kinds of ideas about what self-love means. And I try to define it in Good Vibes, Good Life in a very practical sense. But I think self-love is doing what's necessary. I'm going to use the word necessary instead of desired, because a lot of people think self-love is doing what's desired to feel whole, but actually it's doing what's necessary because when you love yourself, you may do things that feel uncomfortable. Those things might be going to therapy. It might be confronting your demons.

43:53But by doing those particular things, you find this sense of wholeness within yourself. And when you find that sense of wholeness, when you go on a first date, suddenly you're not trying to be accepted by the other person. Now, don't get me wrong. Being accepted and being validated by another person is very important to us because human beings are social beings. We need to bond with other people. But at the same time, how many people have gone on a first date and tried to impress the other person because they want to be accepted by that other person. So therefore you don't show up as yourself.

44:32But if you come from a place of wholeness, suddenly you're not looking at the other person to have this missing piece that only you can return to within yourself. Oh yeah, I like that. That's such a wonderful way of thinking of it because I think we are, again, probably culturally taught that you've got to find like your missing piece that we say like my other half, like there is this sense of that's going to complete me. But if you show up complete, you're all good. And I have to also say that self-love ebbs and flows. So people are like, I love myself, but you don't love yourself every single day.

45:07And that's not, there's nothing wrong with that statement. There's just some days that it's hard to love yourself because of what you're experiencing out there or even in there within your mind. So self-love is literally doing what's necessary to get you to that place of wholeness. And that is a journey. It's not a destination. There will be no point that you reach in your life where you're like, I now am fully healed. I now love myself. I am now happy. You can sustain it for more moments if you do the work within yourself, but there's not this destination's absolute point. It's an ongoing journey.

45:45Yeah, that's such an important one. I think when we talk about happiness, whatever it might be, healing, that it's just a wiggly line forever. Ups and downs, ebbs and flows, good and bad, and it's all absolutely fine. We shouldn't feel bad for the days when we don't love ourselves or terrible if we're not acting in a positive way, trying to do law of attraction. It's so important. Do you know what, Vex? This has been so fascinating. I've been hanging off every word that you've said. I think it makes so much sense. You're helping us really break down some words and theories that get thrown about a lot that I think get misconstrued.

46:20And I'm really grateful for that. And I'm really grateful that you showed up to the festival today and that you've shared your wisdom with everyone. It's been an absolute joy. Please, Tatton Park, give it up for Vex King.

46:36Oh, Vex, that was just absolutely brilliant. The best to catch up with you again. And also in person this time. I loved it. Without a weird duvet involved. What a treat. Vex's latest book, Closer to Love, is out now and I tell you what, everyone at Tatton Park absolutely loved it Vex did a book signing and the queue was ridiculously long oh, and if you're the type of person who'd queue forever to meet your favourite author do come and join our book club we're on Instagram, at Happy Place Book Club we just talk about books and nerd off it's absolutely gorgeous more goodness from the Happy Place Festival next week so make sure you're back here for that by following the podcast wherever you're listening to this right now.

47:19And the biggest thanks again to Vex, to the producer Anushka Tate at Rethink Audio and to you for listening. You are wonderful.

48:02We'll see you next time.

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