Elizabeth Day on Perfectionism, Positive Affirmations & Rebuilding Home After Loss

37:53And then you get yet more people who are constantly allowed to fail upwards and end up as prime ministers of the country. And failure is such a rich and thrilling topic. And when I launched How to Fail, I had no idea how much it would teach me and how much it would radically redefine how I thought of failure. But it's important to say that at the time I launched it, which was July 2018, I really did feel like I'd failed in meaningful and difficult ways. I'd had the divorce. I failed to have the baby that I thought I longed for. A relationship that I got into after my divorce had also failed. And I was staring down the barrel of my 40s feeling like I'd got nothing in place I thought I wanted.

38:39And yet I was also writing pieces for a Sunday newspaper and seemed, if you looked at my professional CV, I seemed professionally successful. And so there was a sort of disconnect there too, between what I was projecting and how I actually felt. And I think that feels like failure too. yeah are you happy to talk about the fertility yes definitely um and you say definitely why because you think it's helpful for others yes yeah and it gives what i went through meaning to me yeah it gives it a kind of purpose that's how i'm able to be at peace with it is talking about it sharing it um advocating for people who have also experienced it it's it's been a great healing gift so that's why i'm really happy to talk about it okay um i have a a very small personal experience of this myself in that my wife faye and i went through two rounds of ivf and as a result we have beautiful identical twin girls which was an amazing outcome for us but I know for many others you don't get that outcome and it's I mean it's a very harrowing process to go through anyway um are you able just to sort of you know cast a bit of a light on on some of the things you've been through and how difficult it's been because yeah I can't imagine really Thank you so much for sharing that.

40:09And I'm so happy that you got your twin girls. And I'm also glad that I get to talk with someone who knows. I also did two rounds of IVF and that was enough for me. and uh so so my my fertility journey lasted 12 years on and off and when I first started I was in my first marriage it was 2014 and I was given the very unhelpful diagnosis of unexplained infertility and that's when they said I should do IVF and I did two back to back and it was uh it was really difficult and I at that stage hardly anyone spoke about I don't know what your experience was Matt but I went to a bookshop and tried to find a book that would tell me what to expect through IVF and there was nothing there was just kind of mother and baby books that was it I thought it would be pills that's how naive I was and then the reality of it as you will know is daily injections hormonal surges um invasive procedures it's like having another job and my experience as a woman going through that was I was consistently told that I was fading in some way I was failing to respond to the drugs.

41:24My friend was told that she had an inhospitable womb. You're told that you have an incompetent cervix. Like all of this language is the vocabulary of failure. Like there were embryos at the end that got transferred, but they didn't stick. And then at the end of that same year, I got pregnant naturally. And then I had a, what's called a missed miscarriage, which is where you see a heartbeat. We saw a heartbeat to eight weeks. And I miscarried at 12 weeks. And that was, I now realize, really traumatic. But I didn't realize that at the time. I was so numb to it all. Partly because my marriage was about to end, but also because I'd had this year of being stuffed full of hormones.

42:04I'd sort of technically, by the end of that year, been pregnant three times. And then I got divorced and thought, okay, well, I've still got some time. It's my mid thirties. So I froze my eggs. And then I got into a new relationship with a younger man for two years who wasn't ready for commitment to that level. And so when that relationship ended, I really did feel, okay, now I need to face the fact that this is going to be a different future from what I imagined. and then I met wonderful Justin on Hinge and he already has three children and when we met I thought I was at peace with not having a baby but we got pregnant naturally just after I turned 41 and it seemed like such a miracle and that very sadly ended in miscarriage and then it made us realize how much we did actually want it so we started pursuing fertility treatment which involved various different clinics.

43:07And then I had another miscarriage during lockdown, which was the worst because obviously the medical category of it meant that it wasn't by any means an emergency. And it was another one where we'd seen the heartbeat and then went back and the heartbeat had disappeared. And I was given pills to take here, actually, back here. And that was an extraordinarily painful experience physically and emotionally and then we decided to stop for a bit because we just needed to recover and it was still locked down and so fertility treatment was incredibly difficult to pursue and and we got engaged we got married in that time and then after that we thought okay final fling of the dice let's try egg donation and we did that with a highly recommended clinic in LA.

43:58And it was, I cannot tell you, Matt, what a stressful process it was. This is a whole other podcast, the fertility industrial complex, particularly in America. It took us a year to find a donor. It's wonderful, generous woman. That cycle went forward. We were lucky enough that we could pay for it, but that was a stretch. And we got to the stage where after all of these years, it finally felt like everything was aligned. I did everything by the book, did the acupuncture, changed my diet, took all the supplements, and then that didn't work. And that's one of the darkest points of my life. And actually, interestingly, given the topic of this podcast, it coincided with not being at home.

44:44Because I was in LA in such a depressing Airbnb in Venice and it was torrential rain. It was so miserable and there was something so devastating about not being able to be in my safe space, in my home. It made it even worse. But during the process of that darkness and through many conversations with Justin, I decided to focus on the love that I did have in my life, which was Justin, my amazing friends, my family rather than the love that I lacked and I decided to let go of the idea of having biological children and I feel tremendously lucky that I have a community now of other people who have gone through or going through fertility treatment and I don't feel alone in it anymore and that's something that talking about it gives me back.

45:41I think it's amazing that you're so open about it and I think it is genuinely helpful for other people and um yeah it sounds incredibly traumatic um do how do you reflect on it now then I mean you sound relatively sanguine about it that might not be the right word but um do you think that you will ever fully come to terms with it. Yes. I think I have come to terms with it. It doesn't mean that I'm not sad about it. And I think understanding that those two things can coexist, the peace and the sadness has been very helpful for me. And it's meant that I don't try and tamp down the sadness anymore.

46:28I don't try and live in denial of it. And just being aware of when it happens and when it surges and acknowledging it is the healing. So there's this example I can give you, and it will sound quite trivial if you've never been through similar. But last weekend, Justin wanted to go to this Jurassic World experience, a Basti power station down the road from us, which is lots of animatronic dinosaurs. And I think he thought it was going to be better than it actually was, because it literally was just like big dinosaur puppets. And we were the only adults there without children. it was we were surrounded by excited young children and i felt really flat during that and afterwards okay and then i felt annoyed with myself like why am i feeling so flat why am i so moody why am i and then i realized that's what it was that's an experience that i have had so many times before being around people with children partners with children and not feeling part of it and now acknowledging that i'll never have that i don't i try not to put myself in those situations when i don't have to that's not to say that i don't love being around my friends children i really do and actually that's become a lot easier since letting go of this dream but it's just like things like that are oddly triggering yeah i get that but just being aware of it and actually just saying it out loud to you yeah is really helpful and it means that i can release it i want to talk to you about this home but just before we do um one of the other things we talked about on the tour earlier was um this word connection so you have a tattoo on your wrist and that word connection is clearly very important to you and that really is what a podcast conversation kind of is just talk to me about that why why is that in your individual life why is that important I think it's the sense of being seen and understood.

48:29Because I had long periods of my life where I didn't feel seen or understood. And that can be incredibly isolating when you can't communicate the truth of yourself to others, but also to yourself. That it feels so alienating. and alienation I think is where all of the darkness lies and understanding that about myself means that I want to be able to do it for other people I want to make other people feel seen and heard and understood in any moment that I have with them because that's what humanity is that's what it's about. So that's the deep answer. And the way that I do that is through podcasting, but also through writing, and also through sort of daily micro acts of connection, whether it's like looking someone in the eye when they're making you a cup of tea and saying thank you and asking how their day was.

49:38I think that genuinely has the power to change the world. Because ultimately what you're doing there, it's like every single moment is an act of empathy. And that's so important to lean into. But the podcasting aspect has been revelatory for me. And I never thought it was something that I would do, partly because podcasts didn't exist when I was growing up. But I think what's so precious about it, the way that I podcast and you podcast, is that one-on-one interaction, which for an introvert like that's how I love social communication to be is that I can hopefully get deep with someone and understand a little bit about who they are in those moments yeah um that's why it's just such an amazing form really yeah so if I think about my own experience One of the reasons that I enjoy connecting with an individual in this way, like we're doing now, is I think because there was a trauma in my family before I was born that had ripples, certainly through the next generation.

50:54And I think meant that actually, as a family, we didn't communicate with each other very much. and I had a brother and quite a macho father and it wasn't really that kind of environment which it was also you know the late 70s early 80s and that's the way slightly the way things were and I don't regret that at all it is you know it was what it was but I think it's it's made me have a thirst for conversations that that go beneath the surface level yeah and so I tried to I suppose I try to have friendships that exist on that level and I try to do that professionally as well so that's kind of my justification for sitting here doing this kind of thing but but from your standpoint why is it important to you to probe beneath that surface layer in that way that's so beautifully put Matt and I'm so sorry for the family trauma and the long tendrils of that i think my answer is quite similar in a way in that the experience of northern ireland of understanding that the stories we don't tell we're too scared to tell the voices that we don't hear from that we don't raise um they shape who we are as much if not more than the things that we do say.

52:19So I'm very intrigued by absences. And also, if someone doesn't speak their truth, then other people are going to speak it for them. And so there's something about authenticity that's very important and addressing the things that we'd rather live in denial of. Because if we continue to live in denial, we're not being shaped by ourselves. We're being shaped by other forces. And so I think that's what it is. It's about realness. Yeah. And understanding. Does that answer your question? It does. Yeah. It does. Let's move on to this home, I think, because I was going to run out of time, but there's so many things to talk to you about.

53:08I kind of sit here all day. Do so. I think, I suppose, one thing to come out of this, I think being here today is that you are someone that really clearly likes things to have a place. And you talked about the way you set the house and set things on the shelves. So I guess the first question is around that. How does your home help you make sense of the world somehow? How does it give you that sense of control? Because I think that it is about control, isn't it, a little bit? Is it about control? I mean, I always try and remind myself that control is an illusion. I think for me, it's about serenity.

53:52It's about feeling at peace when I walk through the door and feeling a sense of shelter. And for me, that is helped by the idea that things are going to be in the place that I left them, but also the way that I've placed them in order to be pleasing to the I and my sense of self. That's where it comes from. And I suppose there is an element of control to that as well. For sure. Definitely. But it's so, so much outside our front doors is chaotic and unpredictable and noisy. and I really need a space where I feel that I can take off that cloak of the outside world and just be at peace in an environment.

54:46And I can feel that in lots of different places. It doesn't always have to be my home. My home is my favorite place. But, you know, I have spent a lot of time traveling and being in Airbnbs and generally I get a sense of somewhere quite quickly. I'm quite good my mother will say that it's one of my skills I can always identify a nice place like an Airbnb or a hotel or a place that I think someone should move into online like I get especially with the modern house or Inigo that they could get a sense from photos I'm quite good at that sort of stuff um and I can make I think I think I'm good at making spaces where it feels nice to inhabit yeah and so the reason this particular space helps me make sense of the world is because i can free up my mind and my headspace to imagine and to create and to tell stories because my mind isn't being occupied by god i need to move that pile of newspapers i should throw that out and also what about this and it's so noisy and loud like that's what that's how it helps me.

55:52If you are enjoying this conversation with Elizabeth and want to go deeper, you can watch our house tour on Patreon. On a snowy day in London, she gave me a full tour of life behind the scenes at her amazing Victorian house, including the study where she writes and her remarkably serene bedroom. Head over to patreon.com slash homingwithmat to take a look. I see. So it's reducing the to-do list in some ways so you can concentrate on the task at hand. I think so. I've never actually thought about it this deeply before, but I think so. A bit like, you know, Mark Zuckerberg or Steve Jobs always had their uniform.

56:31Yeah, yeah. I don't do that with clothes. Yeah. But that actually, I wish I could. I wish I could be someone. Yeah. I bet your wife's an amazing dresser. She is an amazing dresser. But, you know, but she has her own brand and she makes clothes. And, you know, actually it's great for me. that I get to wear the clothes that she designs and makes. So actually, when you have that uniform, it's reducing the cognitive load, isn't it? That's what it's about. Exactly. I haven't done that with clothes yet, but I aspire to. Yeah. So you've used the word safety a few times in this conversation. How does safety play into the role that the home plays, do you think?

57:11Gosh, it's huge. You know, I've lived in environments where it's felt incredibly tense and like you have to tread on eggshells because you can't disrupt the balance for fear of someone's anger or retribution like I've lived in those spaces and it's awful and really sort of shatters your sense of yourself because if you can't be yourself in your own home um where can you be like where do you find your escape and your refuge and that can be a dangerous spiral for a lot of people so um it's it's really really paramount for me and it's a safety that comes from the relationships that exist within the home um who we invite in like i'm actually very very selective about whether anything is ever filmed um at home or where like i i yeah i know you're very lucky no you're i mean that's very kind of you to invite it's in there i'm deeply honored and i love the work that you do but um i don't tend to do that because i actually like it to be private i've discovered that even though i'm a an inveterate oversharer that there are some things i like to be private about like gosh what is this maturity yeah yeah yeah i love it yeah so is are there are there parts of are there environments in the outside world that you feel unsafe in?

58:39I mean, I think any woman probably would say yes. And maybe it's not just a gender thing. I mean, I guess I mean, and I absolutely understand that statement. And I think I mean, you know, maybe more on a psychological level, maybe like, let's think about the nervous system. Yes. I don't like crowds. And again, the introversion, I don't get music festivals. I hate, I can't, I just, I find that scary. I hate it. I hate being in a crowd where there's no control in it. That feels quite sort of dangerous. Yeah. No exit. Yeah. I don't get Glastonbury. I don't get what I mean. Yeah. I just don't get it.

59:24And then I'm trying to think of like, I mean, miserable broken parts of cities. I don't think anyone likes that. but I love cities I love cities actually and I you know I've spent a lot of happy times in LA and I know that place is not for everyone but it is for me I feel a sort of spiritual kinship with LA and part of what I liked about it is that I went there post-divorce for the first time probably and it was a time when I often felt quite alone and I was like where is my life going am I going to be single forever etc but because it was LA there was always something to do or something to see or you could very easily go and be around people um and that's partly why i like writing in cafes i think for for that reason so i so i like cities i like being able to have your own space in a city that you can venture out of and be around people uh having said that i love cities i've always struggled with new york um i find the energy chaotic and dark i do i i feel like it's a panic attack in a city and i've never understood it but the last couple of times i've been there I've been there for work with a purpose and it's been better so maybe that's the thing it's just that everyone else seems so busy and focused and so you need to go there with an intention so I love that comment a panic attack in a city yeah I think to put some color on that I mean if you think about it it's a network of it's a grid isn't it yeah and actually evolution suggests that we're attracted to landscapes that have a bit more visual intrigue than that you know you can't quite see around the hill or yes you know there's a river winding through a valley yes that's such a good point so it is actually it's kind of the definition of a breakdown isn't it it's and luckily they have central park which is which is like a huge lung yes where everyone in new york can go and just sort of recuperate somehow yes and all of those vast buildings that almost blot out the sun yeah i do love it i mean it's amazing energy wise i I absolutely love New York, I must say.

1:01:30But I wanted to pivot to this idea that within our homes, we all have sort of regular routines and rhythms and rituals that we go through that somehow help us navigate our day. What do yours look like? Oh, I'm a huge routine person. So I love sleep. so I'll sleep as late as I feasibly can given the demands of the work day which is generally about 7 30 and then I wish I could say that I'm someone who meditates every morning but I don't I um I tend to exercise um ideally when I wake up so that it's out of the way and also because I've understood like how important it is for me as someone who spends so much time in her head it's so crucial to be in my body for those moments.

1:02:23So that will either be, so we had a Peloton, or I'll go for a PT session, or go to the gym, or yoga. So those are my things. Is that every day? Most days, yeah. Not all three of them. Yeah, sure, sure, sure. Yeah. And then, having said that I'm big into routine, actually there's no such thing as a regular day. But if it's a Monday, then I go into the podcast studio, which is in Hoban. And I'll do sort of back to back recordings. And then on other days, generally, I'll have meetings or I'll try and carve out some quiet space to write. And I like to go and write, having said that I love my home and it's a safe space, I actually like to go and write other places in cafes or in transit often on trains, things like that.

1:03:13And then in the evenings, mornings I have a rule that I don't go out on Mondays or Wednesdays and that's a post-pandemic rule because whilst the pandemic was very challenging and deeply tragic for many people one of the things that I did realize was that I liked being at home and I didn't have enough of that quality time okay and so Mondays and Wednesdays I don't go out and then the other nights I'll probably have a friend catch up or dinner out um or a work event and then it all starts again so yeah actually I don't have a routine at all we've established yeah sorry I read I suppose I read in bath at night and before I go to bed yeah and I've started writing a diary I've been writing a diary for a year oh have you why is that then um actually talking of New York uh the one of the last trips I was there uh Justin was with me we went to MoMA and I love a museum gift shop.

1:04:08And there was just this very appealing, tactile, little rectangular book. And it had one line a day written on the cover. And that's the premise, is that you don't have to write a whole thing, just one line a day, the most memorable thing that's happened to you that day. And it's a sort of five-year diary, so you can compare each year. And I thought I'd start doing it. The idea of writing a full-on diary has felt quite overwhelming because I write so much in my in daily life but one line a day I kind of liked it and I found that the rhythm and the routine of that is quite meditative because you contemplate the day that you've just had and what you're grateful for and that's a really nice way to end your day yeah and are you still doing the therapy or not yes that's okay major thing yeah yes I have I go to therapy every other week okay um well actually it's over zoom so I don't go anywhere but um she's wonderful she's a Brazilian woman in her 70s and she's helped me so much and I see it as an investment in my mental health but also as necessary because a lot of what you and I do we're talking to people about things that are pretty profound and sometimes they can be revealing and sad and traumatic and and I want to be able to be deeply present for those conversations and to go and deal with my own stuff somewhere else um and in a way I see it as a kind of modern day confessional it's like you're just you're sorting through the feelings that you have and the thoughts and I find it tremendously helpful would you describe yourself as sensitive yes yeah very very okay yeah because I spoke to Nigel Slater on the podcast about this phenomenon of the highly sensitive person.

1:06:03Have you come across that? Yes. It's a psychologist called Elaine Aron. And the basic idea of it is that about 15 % to 20 % of the population just have slightly heightened nervous systems, and they go through life experiencing things just turned up a little bit more than maybe some other people do. and from an evolutionary standpoint it makes a lot of sense because if you think about a proportion of a population looking out for danger or i don't know you know looking out for food sources and so on you need those sensitive people so how does how does that sensitivity show up for you and and and i suppose what happens when it becomes overly dominant like what does kind of what does elizabeth going bad look like yeah okay i love that phrase first of all i adore nigel slater yeah don't we all i mean i know that i that everyone thinks this but i just feel like i have a unique and special relationship with he's just amazing and i love that he's been on this show of yours and because his house is so phenomenal and it's like the ultimate aspiration he's just such a kind cat-like man that's what I love about him so I think okay I think I'm very sensitive to um moods opinions changes in atmosphere um feelings other people's moods I'm hyper sensitive to and that's been difficult in the past and so there's an element where I've conditioned myself out of it.

1:07:35Like it's not, I can, I can choose not to be. I actually sat next to Elizabeth Gilbert once at dinner and she said something similar. She said, because so many people, a bit like Nigel Slater, feel that they have a unique relationship with Elizabeth Gilbert and she's so transformative and such a wonderful human in so many ways. And when they come up to her at book signings or events, a lot of them will want to dump all of their stuff on her. And so she's developed this kind of mental cloak where she's present, but she puts a sort of energetic cloak around her. She's like, I don't need to take that on.

1:08:04And she shrines herself. And so I suppose I can do a bit of that if I need to. And I'm also an optimist, which is something I'm very grateful for. So as well as feeling sensitive, I also tend to believe that people are good and things will work out. So I don't fall into a spiral of doom and anxiety, which is, thank God, because that's a really difficult thing to live with and to live alongside. So how it shows up when Elizabeth goes bad is that I, my overstimulation is when I've been around too many people and I've had to converse too much and to give of energy, but also to receive energy and whatever people are telling me.

1:08:56and it's a complicated one because some moments that I feel like that it's because I've done stuff that I really love doing and I really believe in so I will go on tour with how to fail or with a book that I've written and it's a beautiful experience every single time because of the audience that shows up and does me the honor of showing up and booking a babysitter or taking time off work and traveling and paying for that ticket and being there and then sharing their experiences in the audience Q &A or in the signing queue afterwards. It's so precious to me. And I'm also aware that after that, I will need quiet time for a few days.

1:09:35Like I need to book that into my diary. And Justin understands that about me as well now. Because otherwise, the way it shows up in me is I get really weepy, overwhelmed, and I feel really, really down. so I don't get angry or anything like that um it's it's I sort of internalize it and I I can sometimes not remember why I'm feeling so overwhelmed and then I will remember or someone will tell me so how does it work between you and Justin in terms of your personalities and your sensitivities like tell me about that dovetail it's actually great so we both independently did Myers-Briggs tests and I am an INFJ and his letters are the opposite of every single one of those letters.

1:10:22So I'm an introvert, he's an extrovert. He gets his energy from being around people, managing people. He's a CEO. He's terrific at it. And I don't. I get my energy from being on my own and in peace and quiet. But actually we're very complimentary because we bring those sides out of each other. So sometimes Justin will also need peace and quiet. And because he has me around lolling in bed for hours on a Saturday morning, I think I've helped him lean into that more. And ditto, he's helped me venture out more. And so actually, we dovetail very well. That's great, isn't it? Yeah. What a stroke of luck.

1:11:07What a stroke of luck. Yeah. Do you think it's luck or were you open and receptive to that at that time? I think it's both. I definitely think that we met at the right time because we were ready for each other and we'd done a lot of work on ourselves individually and we'd gone through a bit. And so we are, I think I can speak for him on this, incredibly grateful every single day that we have the relationship that we do. and it means that we never take it for granted. And I think that's one of the perils of long-term relationships is that you can just sort of fall into grooves where you stop remembering for whatever reason that it's special or maybe it's not special and that's why you stop remembering it.

1:11:50But there's that element. Like we had to have gone through what we'd gone through to be where we were when we met. And I was definitely much more open-minded and receptive to meeting a different kind of person. And Justin was a different kind of person from anyone I'd been with before because he was so consistent and clear in showing up to the extent that I found it a bit weird to begin with. I just wasn't used to it. I was like, why is he doing this? Why is he phoning me? Weird. I just want texts saying, let's run away to Rio. And then I expect not to hear from you for six months. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1:12:31But there was something that I was like, no, this is, there was something instinctively where I was like, this is really good for me. And the chemistry was great. And we had great conversations. And he asks questions and listens. And that's such a rare and noble quality. So, but I had to be ready for that. That's really lovely. When I interviewed Sky McAlpine not long ago, she said that the experience of meeting her, the man that became her husband at university, she described it as a feeling of being at home which I found really touching but do you identify with that I find that incredibly moving because actually that's something I said to myself for years I want to find someone who feels like I'm finally home and where I imagined a sense of peace sleeping next to them at night.

1:13:24And yes, that's absolutely what I found with Justin because I've understood, and it wasn't immediate at all. I didn't get that sense immediately. But I've understood that he accepts me fully as I am. He actually, he knows me so incredibly well. and deeper at points than I knew myself, he would say things to me that were sort of quiet revelations in how I understood myself. And so to have someone like that who accepts you, flaws and all, and actually sometimes specifically for the flaws. And I remember in the early days of our relationship, I was crying about something comparatively insignificant.

1:14:10And I apologized to I was like, I'm sorry, it's ridiculous. I don't, you know, I don't want you to feel like I'm just emoting all the time. He said, no, I really value the fact that you are in touch with your emotions. I need that and I value it and I respect it. And that was amazing. So it's things like that, that at home ultimately is a place of acceptance where you feel welcome to walk across the threshold exactly as you are and you can drop the performance and the pretense and the living on your wits and be at peace and I think that's why home and what you do is so profoundly important because it's not about a physical space it's also about the countries that we are and whether we welcome people who need our shelter or not.

1:15:03It's about psychological safety. When you tell the truth about yourself and you know who you are, it's about all of those things. When we were looking around the house earlier, you described your, you know, I always call like a meet cute, you know, like they have in the movies. The moment when you meet another person, but there's also the moment when you meet your home and you described walking in through this and gone? What was the feeling that you got when you walked in? What was that? It was a surge of peace. I was about to say familiarity, but it wasn't quite that. It was that peace and welcome and calm that I was in a beautiful place.

1:15:51And I don't just mean aesthetic beauty i mean the beauty of the safety of it and i did well up i mean such a cliche but i did i just walked in and i knew and people do say that about houses don't they um and it felt so right i didn't even question it i mean it was beyond our budget and everything so i was like no we have to do it and uh i was thinking earlier because you were talking to me about asking people about their three favorite buildings and I was wondering what I would say in response and obviously I would choose our home this building but the other building that had that impact on me where I walked in and I cried because of the beauty was the Pantheon in Rome it's so stunning and obviously my home is nothing like the Pantheon but I think it's also about the care that has been taken to build a space that takes your breath away in some way is is kind of extraordinary yeah the respect that people have paid to the materials and the thought that's gone into every generation yeah that's very meaningful too yeah the pantheon is an absolutely mind-blowing building isn't it yeah it i mean i i'm with you oh the way that the way it casts the light from the oculus onto the ground yeah it's very profound But I mean, you know, this is hard to say given your story, but I also think there's something about the womb in it.

1:17:19Yes. You know. Yeah, the circularity. You know, human beings, when left to their own devices, you know, remote African tribes and so on, they will build homes that look kind of like wombs. They don't have a conventional door like we do. They have more of a sort of slit. they're always shaped like the pantheon. Wow. And I just think we have this, our inherent nesting instinct, I think, is to try and replicate that feeling of being in the womb, you know. That makes total sense. Yeah. So, you know, I agree, absolutely phenomenal building. Why aren't we all living in circular, smooth, round buildings?

1:18:06Well, there you go. That's a big question. It's for another podcast. You can't get so many in down the street, is the answer? No, that's what it is. It's packaging, isn't it? Yeah. If I ask you to define that word home, how do you define it? A place of welcome, acceptance, safety and peace. Yeah. Thank you so much. Thank you. This has been so wonderful. Oh, brilliant. And has really made me think and feel. And to do it in the home that I'm talking about has been really, really special. So thank you. I really appreciate that. And thank you for providing my most aspirational Instagram content through the Modern House and Inigo.

1:18:56Love it. Look at it every single day. Some lovely cottages on Inigo right now. Is that right? That's good to hear. Nice advertising. Nicely done. Pleasure. Thanks, Elizabeth. Thanks. Thank you so much.

1:19:12Thank you to Elizabeth and thanks to all of you for listening. We've got some absolutely knockout guests coming up soon, so if you don't already follow the show, please tap follow and you won't miss a thing. A reminder that you can watch the video versions of our podcasts on YouTube and see house tours with our guests over on Patreon. Search for Homing with Matt. This episode was produced by Podshop with music by Simeon Walker. thanks again everyone and talk to you very soon bye for now