Britain's Top Model Reveals How Chronic Pain Shaped Her Journey | Finding Happiness Through Struggle

0:01I am so glad you could join us. I'm your host, Mo Gaudet This podcast is nothing more than a conversation between two good friends sharing inspiring life stories and perhaps some nuggets of wisdom along the way This is your invitation to slow down with us Welcome to Slow Mo

0:34Welcome back. You've seen my guest of today, the supermodel Jean Campbell. And when you saw her, you looked back and you looked at her again because she exudes glamour and beauty and style. but I will tell you openly you have never seen her because in person she has that kindness in her eyes that is so so inspiring sort of the kindness that you see in a superhero because you know she's the face of Burberry and she's represented so many brands as a model but what you never really see in the photo or the video is the beauty of her strength This is truly one of those superheroes that choose to take on life without sharing her pain, but rather sharing her inspiration.

1:24Truly a wonderful person in every possible way. And a story that is really worth for all and every one of us to listen to. The reason we're here today is because Jean published her podcast, I'm Fine, on June 14th. it is a podcast that I definitely recommend for everyone to listen to. You will know more when you listen to our conversation today. Wow. Thank you so much Mo. That's such a generous introduction. I'm so happy to be here. It is truly what's in my heart about you. I mean, this is the first time we meet. I expected you to be a kind person, but I didn't expect this, to be honest when you walked in the door I I can see that you have learned so much more than your age oh wow if I can say that in life yeah well I guess life has been very textured and full for me and to go back to what you were expecting I suppose like my life and career has very much been kind of two-dimensional in terms of what you might know about me.

2:39So it means a lot what you said. Thank you. I want to start by the choice of being a model. You started at? So I started modeling at 16. Okay. Which at the time I thought I was so old and super mature and like knew everything and I'm the oldest of four children so that had sort of been my role I guess when I was growing up but I'd always wanted to be to kind of be able to take care of myself I guess so that was one thing I always was super concerned about like doing well in school and I don't know just very studious and then I actually was scouted at 13 which is very young and I'd never really like fancied myself as I don't know something that anyone would ever look at and definitely not as a model but it started happening a bit more frequently and so after some time I thought like oh great this could be my kind of route to like doing my own thing and um I always had been super kind of fascinated by the mystery and drama and creativity and the art really in fashion and actually one of my closest basically probably the equivalent of like a second mother was an incredible woman called Stella Tennant who really sadly passed away a few years ago.

4:16But we used to hang out all the time when I was little. And so I thought like, well, Stella's done that. So maybe I should try. But I was super fortunate. So because of my age, my parents, my dad was not into the idea. I wouldn't be. No. No, but I was also very headstrong and determined. And I just kind of, I guess I wanted to sort of get into the world and like start my life. But I didn't realize, I kind of ran before I could walk maybe, to be honest. Because the second that you step onto a fashion set, you're stepping into a really adult world. It's a very difficult world. You know, it turns over like$4 trillion a year.

5:06And you don't realize when you're first kind of entering the set that actually that there is a pressure for you to kind of deliver whatever the creative vision is. I say this, but I also am so grateful for having this opportunity and for having the career that I've had because it's taught me so much, more than I could ever imagine what you might learn as a model. but it's also given me the opportunity to create my platform with my podcast and you know with the intention of providing hope and solutions to people and that's very much been based on my own experience which was kind of happening behind the scenes yeah of my career as a model one of the best advice I've ever received from any of my bosses.

6:04I think most people don't know that story, but I was at the heart of the Arab Spring because the Egyptian revolution was very interestingly associated with my marketing manager at Google. So somehow he was positioned to be the one that started the page that got people to go and stand in Tahrir Square. Yeah, which in a very interesting way. Of course, I don't give myself the right to Egyptian politics at all. I've lived outside Egypt for so long, but I respect the idea that people can say what they believe they need to say. And most multinational corporations had to distance themselves from anyone that was part of that political conflict, if you want.

6:46Google said, look, we have no right to say for or against any president or whatever the people want, but we just want our marketing manager back. And through that process he became very very very famous and I remember vividly my boss at the time as this gentleman became famous telling me that fame fades very quickly and that you need to learn to turn fame into impact and equity otherwise you have no fame in a while and no equity behind it and And I find that what you're trying to do with turning your inspiration, if you want, into something that is impacting positively on people's life. This is why I'm very excited about what you're doing.

7:33But we'll come to that in a bit of time. But with all due respect, I say honestly that as I spend time with you now, you're in your late 20s. I just turned 27 the other day. 27. You definitely come across wiser. Oh, great. Yeah. But starting at 16 in this world, I almost think it's criminal. First of all, isn't 16 child labor? Yeah, you could say that. But I mean, I definitely hear you on that. And I think when I look at a 16 year old now, or look at my little sister who's 19 years old, I feel so protective. I think also your age doesn't necessarily correspond to your maturity and your ability to be in certain situations.

8:26And in many ways, I guess I was sort of, I knew how to interact and kind of accommodate for people's wishes. And I could basically understand direction quite well and kind of rally, I guess. but what's interesting I think to go to the age thing is that in many ways because living that life and working in that world it's quite all-encompassing it's busy if you obviously want it to be busy because that means getting work and doing well you know but what's interesting is that maybe for me there's so much that I've loved about it and learned about it and I've met so many incredible characters but what was quite interesting for me is that I was always playing a character and part of being like a good model is adapting to what people want and also not necessarily showing how you feel what's going on and making the job kind of easy I guess and so there was definitely a part of working that provided an escape probably from the physical and later on emotional impact of my pain and structural issues but also it meant that I sort of abandoned possibly the more vulnerable immature part of myself that maybe needed like a bit of TLC oh wow if it does that make sense it makes a lot of sense I don't know if you've ever been told this but the reason why I find you so inspiring is because in my very highly engineered mind a model is supposed to represent the reality of what you're simulating an engineering model is supposed to be sort of a miniature exact replica if you want but miniaturized of a very complex project right and modeling in fashion in many ways does not represent the people we're going to.

10:45It's like we take this very glamorous looking person and, you know, most of the people looking at her are not as glamorous as her or maybe not at the same standards of beauty and so on. But in a very interesting philosophical way, your pain added to your glamour makes you so human. That's so funny that you would ever describe me as glamorous. I don't feel glamorous, which is quite funny. I don't think, I haven't really been described as glamorous, but thank you. I mean, the brands that you represent are like the chic, chic, expensive. No, definitely. I mean, imagery portrayed in fashion portrays an ideal and a kind of aspirational standard.

11:31And I suppose Vogue, for example, when it first came about, was a guide for largely women to kind of know what was fashionable and how to sort of style themselves. But obviously the world we live in now, there's so much information available. And so I suppose within fashion, there are these glamorous images or different representations of whatever the art director or the photographer sees as ultimately something that's going to maybe inspire people or maybe be sort of something that they'd like. But it is also true that it doesn't necessarily represent the full picture. Like when you see the finished image, you don't see the hours and months of work that has gone into it from all of the producers to the styling team to the design team.

12:35And in many ways, like I actually, I'll show up on the day. And, you know, for instance, with shows, you can feel that energy for the 10 minutes that the show lasts. And it's been like three months in the making. I think the pain that I experienced, because it was chronic. so nine out of ten cases of chronic pain actually don't have the structure to represent that pain or to explain the pain but in my case I suppose I have had what you would call complex chronic pain which is a structural issue which causes pain and chronic pain just is a pain that lasts over three months and the complex part is where it begins to affect your mental and emotional world i think that part definitely was something that i ignored not necessarily purposefully but i didn't really know where that where those vulnerabilities had a space they didn't really have a space at work.

13:48But then also, it's not as though like, you know, I'm so hard done by I never told anyone because I never knew that it was actually acceptable to, I mean, it sounds kind of silly now, but to have these uncomfortable feelings that aren't sort of typically seen as like positive and grateful and inspiring or you know appreciative and so I didn't know that I could both be doing well and also be in pain in other ways it's sort of like if I accept defeat then it's going to take over and and that was really oh yeah I want to dive deep into this yeah can I ask you for those who may not know this your first Burberry shoot was you were 16 so my first Burberry shoot yeah I was 16 and you went in on crutches yes right yeah and they were really accommodating and adorable and kind to me I was lying down in every picture and I would be placed on the set and then the crutches would come out and I kind of thought like wow I've made it that doesn't show in the photos right no where did it start when did you start getting your pain up to that point what kind of pain okay because I don't think people realize no I don't even think you realize how heroic this journey is oh thank you well it's been lots of people who've helped me on the way and we can talk about that so what happened is around the age of 14 I was super sporty actually to contextualize this I didn't find academia particularly easy unlike you but I was very good at the humanities and super creative when it came to art and I was great at sports.

15:55I've always had a lot of energy and my mind can sort of be in so many different places at once. And so I would run every day because I wanted to do well in school. So I was like, if I run every day, then I'll be focused in my lessons and I can revise, etc. And it actually was great. But then what happened is, so around 14, 15, actually 14 I started experiencing this sort of niggling pain in my right hip but I wasn't particularly attuned with my body it was very much a vehicle um at that time and so I kind of ignored it I guess or I saw it in the same light as like a stubbed toe or something and then just time went on and eventually my mum said to me like you know what's going on you're limping and so when she said that my immediate reaction was like there's nothing to see here and then I started having I went to the physio and then I went and had sort of scans etc and actually it took kind of a while to diagnose anyway eventually I was diagnosed with hip dysplasia which is a genetic condition where you have shallow hip sockets basically so it wears down the bone on your hip socket and yeah so I went to this surgeon and I was quite shocked by the information and he said the only way that you can really sort this out is to have reconstructive surgery and you're too young to have a hip replacement because at the time I'd need to have it replaced every eight years and I was 15 when I got the diagnosis and he said we'll need to wait for your growth plates to fuse and then we can break your pelvis in three places and put it back so that it's structurally sound so I then had that operation and I was kind of not expecting um I wasn't expecting it to be maybe as intense as it was because I was so I finished my GCSEs which I did well in because of my dedication to studying and then I spent a month in a wheelchair and on bed rest or I'd have to try and walk on the crutches to retrain myself to walk and a lot of that was done in a swimming pool doing hydrotherapy because it's easier to move because there's no gravity and anyway so that whole process took four months for me to be walking without crutches and then overall it was a year and a half until the bone was fully fused because Because when they broke my pelvis, they kind of readjusted it so there was a gap where my bone had to bridge.

19:09And that grew back in three months, which is amazing. But it takes a year and a half to be fully sound. And then by that stage, my left hip had started having the same feeling. and then I had the process, the same process over again. And I think it was the second one where I really felt it kind of took over my experience. My life experience was quite taken over by what was going on physically, but also the powerlessness that I felt in my own body. Suddenly I couldn't put my socks on and I couldn't control my emotions. I was furious if someone woke me up at night and the pain medication had worn off I then wouldn't be able to sleep or you know I was so frustrated with my family for how I felt but I didn't have the language to express that it was like I was free falling kind of and sorry I'm like really going into it but please do oh thank you but i suppose i think the part in a way that was probably the most challenging is that as a child you sort of you've talked about it quite a bit your natural state is happiness and things happen and those things shape your character and you know your parents shape your character school whatever the things that you're into the things you're good at and not good at and I think I had sort of just about started getting comfortable with who I thought I was and also that that little adolescent was also just like clinging on and kind of scared of not making things happen for myself.

21:15And then when these two, well, it was four operations altogether, but two really big ones. When that happened, it's sort of like my world fell apart. But then I had this career that was happening and it was really taking off. And I think in a way it was, I was so sort of not in control of my fear of the future around my body and my sort of emotional stability as a result. because I then finished these four big operations where I had my pelvis broken in six places and put back together. And then I was still experiencing the pain. And I had more scans. And I was told, okay, you need to have eight more operations.

22:17And those operations will take a year and a half each. and we will have to break the tops of your legs and readjust them and then cut off the ball that goes into the socket and readjust that. At which point I just thought, there's no way. So I sort of fell into this hopeless place and I didn't know anyone who had had a similar experience or, you know, all of my friends when I was like 18 were being 18 and I think I really wanted to fit in and yeah I wanted to kind of be stepping out into the world and I did step out into the world but I sort of I think I left part of my heart behind in order to do that but then I suppose the purpose of telling you all of this is that actually the thing that was the most mentally painful about it was my resistance to the change that was happening for me being told that you know you are gonna have this pain it is progressive you must have these surgeries or you can't run again you can't have impact blah blah blah my resistance to that change was very painful and I didn't have the know-how to sort of step into action and I definitely didn't have the language to talk about it but the thing that actually has turned that sort of shadow that once kind of cast a shadow over my my life and the way that I felt about everything is the very thing that's made my life and my world brighter than I ever could have imagined come on really what does that mean well I think in kind of actually going into I'm just going to call it the darkness and by that I refer to all of that pain and actually facing it and saluting it and accepting it I have become familiar and therefore comfortable and as opposed to rejecting it become curious about it and through being curious about it I have had to learn to trust people to talk about how I feel the good the bad and the ugly and be open to actually solutions being shown to me and you're always going to be told so many different things but I think for me knowing that actually I don't have all the answers and nor should I have all the answers I'm 20 or however old at the time of course I don't have all the answers I've never been through this before and no one around me has either so but in being sort of desperate it was in my desperation that I then reached a point of sort of openness but almost from like a sort of pessimistic place of like fine bring it And then actually from there, I started trying out different things.

25:49And because there's something paralyzing, there's something very paralyzing about being without hope. And isolation is really paralyzing. And so that's what I mean by it's brought more light into my life than anything that I could have imagined. said like a true wise sage oh thank you but i don't know about that all right we'll come back to this at the end so you chose not to take the other operations yes which means the pain didn't go away the pain didn't go away but the pain changed in which ways so i suppose it changed in how I used my body to accommodate it, to accommodate these structural issues.

26:46And that's through making my body as strong as it can be. And as healthy as it can be within reason, you know, I didn't want to be like, sort of crazy about that. But basically, allowing my strength and body condition to support my skeleton has been a huge part but also my perception and that sounds sort of I don't mean that in a way of you know it wasn't real it was absolutely real and it is still real but what happens when you have consistent pain is it causes a great deal of anxiety which is just fear and finding ways to interrupt that fear and that sadness has been the thing that's also so it's a combination of the way that I act with my body and that sort of ritual of conditioning and then my management of my head because you're Because, well, also your pain receptors are in your brain and your neuroplasticity.

28:04I know that you're the scientist, but I've learned some things. And your neuroplasticity becomes kind of programmed towards the pain. Correct. Because it's like hundreds of thousands of years ago, that would have kept you in the cave when you couldn't run away, you know? You have no idea how much you sound like my wisest friends. Oh, wow. So allow me to explain. First of all, pain, consistent pain, like you rightly said, could reprogram your life, your entire life around the pain. Because basically you're using certain neurons to feel the pain and you're using them over and over and over. And you can just simply stop using any other neuron.

28:46But that's not the point. The point is that the way you described being able to accept it, this is the very height of life, basically. because I don't think anyone is without pain. No one. No one is without pain. And I think, of course, it varies not to undermine or belittle anyone's pain, but depending on where you are in your life and how you are with your own path to enlightenment, if you want, every pain to the person feeling it is the biggest pain. So interesting. You know, people always ask me about losing Ali, right? I'm so sorry. Ah, he's in a very good place. Thank you for saying sorry.

29:31Wish him happiness. At the time, I remember vividly that I was a very rich man who was getting millions pouring in every year. And I can tell you openly, if I had lost everything, every dollar I ever earned, I wouldn't even have stopped to blink. I wouldn't have stopped to blink. It wouldn't have made any difference to me whatsoever. when in reality some people lose 20 pounds and they just dwell on it for the rest of their life okay pain tolerance is very different for each of us the pain that could definitely count as my biggest pain was losing ali right and so interestingly the whole exercise of walking to enlightenment truly is about accepting the pain the dukkha as they call it in buddhism the suffering that life brings okay that life is suffering the buddha would teach at points in time in islam it basically sort of translates into life is constant struggle or constant perseverance if you want struggle is the opposite side of perseverance against the struggle okay and somehow most of us regardless of how tiny their our pains could be compared to the real chronic pain for example but it's not like real there is no comparison yeah there's no comparison you can't compare one's pain to another's but the truth is that it's the same skill of the passage to wisdom is to say i will take the suffering that my life is sending me and you say it so eloquently because believe it or not it's all in the mind yeah it's so interesting how you talk about this in your wonderful 27 year old body this is so much wisdom truly and honestly you just have to understand that being able to get to that point nothing else in life can break you and it's a point that most people prefer to avoid the pain and so they avoid that point of facing and accepting their pain.

31:39Wow I mean I am so inspired by you and you have had such a profound impact to me but also so many people that I know so I'm really honoured to be having this conversation with you but I guess the thing that really makes me think of is what I've found and I wonder how it is for you with I mean having the worst thing that could really happen I think not accepting the pain and not feeling the pain as a result then means that you don't get to feel anything and you don't get to feel and be present for all of the good things that are also there oh come on come on come on little yoda tell me a bit about that because you did go through a phase of that of like numbing basically yeah so i i mean the thing is what's interesting is that your own ability to be present is something that is constantly pushed and pulled by life you know things happen good or bad your physical state your work you know all kinds of your relationships all of those things can affect it but I suppose in my case without realizing and it wasn't a decision but I I just disconnected and became dissociated from my own experience because which is almost like a reaction that happens in your subconscious.

33:25A protective mechanism. Yeah, but I didn't have the wherewithal to kind of counteract that. But in sort of avoiding the pain and also isolating myself, so not being able to ever share my reality with anyone. And I thought, you know, if I share my reality with one person, it felt like I would be sharing it with everyone. So you kept that to yourself? Yeah, I just didn't ever really talk about anything. But actually, in being able to trust just one person and being supported, you're then honoring your experience. And in honoring your experience, you are letting go of it. and in letting go of it you're then able to lighten the load that you're carrying on your metaphorical shoulders and therefore you're actually present for whatever else is going on in life so the good and the bad yeah and there isn't good without bad you know like what you were saying with the buddhist there you go yeah that is the truth this is what most people have to absolutely internalize that there is never a way for you to experience sweet and sour without the sour yeah right and life itself is that arpeggio of flavors if you want right some of it is painful and some of it is joyful and if you shut out the painful ones you don't feel the joyful ones yeah But the interesting bit is this.

35:07The interesting bit is there is a lot around the painful ones that we can actually enjoy. I use the example normally of working out. When you work out, your muscles are sore and painful. But somehow you like that feeling. Somehow you teach yourself, this is good for me. And I know chronic pain is at a very different scale. I've had quite a bit of it in my life myself, right? So many people have. Yeah, you said 34%. 33 % of our global population. My God. Which is crazy. Shocking, right? Yeah. Which means a podcast called I'm Fine that talks to people who have chronic pain is quite a big potential podcast.

35:53Great idea, right? But let's just focus on this for a second. the fact that we try to say no i'm not going to feel it which is impossible when you're in pain you know makes you not feel anything else here's the beauty of what you said by accepting it and integrating it in my experience i open up you said to all of the other experiences of my life this is so beautiful because you know i'm sure someone listening to us right now is going through a breakup okay the worst yeah and you think so yeah i mean there's no you know it can be concentrated yes concentrated heartbreak is pretty bad concentrated heartbreak is pretty bad unless you look at it as part of the experience yeah unless you start to look at it and go like okay you know what i am experiencing the pain that comes with love yeah and that without the love i wouldn't feel the pain and accordingly without the pain i wouldn't feel more love and it's all one little stretched story i mean i wish heartbreak to no one okay yeah but the truth is when it comes it's just one more of life's pains and if you just focus on it or ignore it either of them you don't see the rest of the palette of all of the other flavors well it could also be it's sort of like ignoring the pain whatever it is heartbreak or grief or physical pain ignoring it is it's like hitting pause on your life yes but it's also a missed opportunity because even though there are some things that are just not, you couldn't explain them as being a good thing to happen or a positive experience, but whatever it is that you do to get through it just turns into this whole other part of you.

38:05Exactly. That then transforms into this light. Yeah. which is then like a power it's not the easy times that we go through that make us it's not at all no it's the challenging times no and and i always want to feel great but here's the trick everyone always wants to feel great but you only feel great when you know how to internalize and integrate and deal with what is inevitable in terms of life sending you some pain. Yeah. If you just say I want to be great by wishing that life only sends me joy, you're going to be very disappointed. Yeah. Tell me about heartbreak because you seemed to immediately comment on this.

38:49Well, heartbreak's around me at the moment, actually. Okay. But I think heartbreak is, I mean, obviously, the immediate thing is to think of breakups. but heartbreak comes in different forms and I suppose it can be that of a relationship ending like a romantic relationship ending which has happened to me and everyone I know but I suppose when I think of heartbreak I actually think of grief it is because yeah and it's obviously a sliding scale it can be a breakup and you know there's someone walking that you someone can break up with you yeah is that like that does that happen to you as well definitely oh you don't dump all of them no oh my god okay but that's but an observation but i think what's funny about heartbreak and i don't mean this in a minimizing way but it can be your best friend of course who has disappeared and is now absent from your life but they're somewhere and you just are not familiar with each other anymore or in my case grief which I've experienced and is definitely the most complex thing emotional journey is sort of also heartbreak is a part of that yes and no my personal experience is that the grief that results from loss of a loved one for example is very analogous to chronic pain because it is actually the finality of it where you suddenly go like holy shit i'm never gonna hug ali again the pain of that thought is just unbearable.

40:46It's that finality of, look, you're stuck in that pain and it's not going to go away. This is why it's very analogous in my mind to chronic pain. And believe it or not, going through loss, and I've had so many recently, this analogy really helps me because I've dealt with chronic pain for a long time in my life, actually now being a lot better because it had a lot to do with my choices in life, if you want. Wow. What kind of chronic pain? I had the headache for 27 years straight. Wow. That is unbelievable. Straight. And in a very interesting way, it was interestingly because of my food choices and my lifestyle, right?

41:30But to the point that I, you know, at a point in time, and you probably know that as much as I do, you go like, look, it's always going to be in the background, right? and eventually I even stopped taking painkillers for it which somehow is stupid if you really think about it but I was like I can't live on painkillers my whole life so I'm not gonna do that anymore so I went and did an intolerance test and found out the foods that I was intolerant to removed them from my diet and I woke up one morning and I have no headache and I'm like whoa no way like what is this feeling like you really it's it's shocking so what i developed during those years 15 years ago now is a very interesting ability to integrate the pain not reject it to make it easier i don't know if you've experienced that yeah that's totally my experience because in a way you stopping the painkillers and really feeling it and then having to do your allergy test yeah then led you to your solution but also i don't know if that's true for you but for me when i felt a certain pain by zooming in on it almost as a form of meditation it felt less so when it's always in the background okay it's more intense if you want than if you just bring it to the foreground yeah yeah we were talking about loss right the finality of loss is that i'm gonna have to live with this for a long time i think that really applies to chronic pain but but heartbreak as a result of a romantic loss a romantic breakup if you want is not within that same category heartbreak was basically for most of us it's like the end of life it's not it's just the end of a season yeah totally no i think i suppose heartbreak as a word for me probably represents more than romantic relationships totally so but yeah i agree yeah anyway whoever ever broke up with you he's an idiot okay thank you i hope he's listening yeah or she and yeah i hope uh i hope he suffers no anyway so there is there is that fatherly protection here uh anyway i want to ask you about the podcast yes so you move from someone who is not able to talk about your pain to anyone to someone who wants to talk about your experience of pain to everyone that takes courage what happened there you know what I've actually not thought about it oh did I scare you now no you didn't scare me because I that reality has sort of sunk in in the last week but I suppose it sort of felt just like an instinctive wish and I suppose that wish comes from a place of relief.

44:43I actually feel relief in the fact that actually this is not bigger than me. This is part of my life, but it's actually brought so many wonderful things into my life. It's introduced me to my body in a way I never could have imagined. It's introduced me to just such an intense appreciation for just this sort of sounds kind of silly but an intense appreciation for just existing against all odds and you know the feeling of walking down the street and it not just like kind of taking over everything or being able to be with my sister and chat to her and actually be there just feels it feels like through the process I got my life back in a way that I actually didn't have it before the pain because it's required so much sort of presence work and presence that it's meant that and I used to think that was really self-centered like oh my god you're so self-centered to actually think about yourself but in actually going on that journey and working with it it's meant that I can actually show up in life and I suppose I'm so lucky in so many ways and it's sort of like I feel so appreciative of actually where it's brought me that I really want other people to have that and I think probably part of it also speaks to a younger version of me that was really lonely and didn't feel like there was a future that could include this yeah and so I think it's just like I don't know I'm sort of like why did I do it I think that's really it and and the truth is is yes it's about helping people but But it's also been hugely fulfilling and rewarding and inspiring for me to talk to the people that I've spoken to.

47:05That's very true. This is the best part of podcasting. Yeah. Yeah. When you choose I'm fine, I don't know. Like you can see it either way. It's like, hey, how are you, Jean? I'm fine. Right. Or is it I'm actually fine? It's well, I guess you could probably go either way with that. But maybe it's up for interpretation. But for me, it's just the immediate response to anyone ever asking you how you are when you just aren't fine. Yeah. It's just I'm fine. It's just like an easy let's close the door on that part of the conversation. And I've done that. I still sometimes do that. We all do. Yeah, it's difficult to be vulnerable in the moment when you're feeling vulnerable.

47:59But yeah, I just think I hear it a lot. And now that I've got this podcast called I'm Fine, I'm super aware when I hear someone say I'm fine. yeah that's kind of where the name comes from really it's just I think hearing about other people and hearing their reality and their experience and their sort of wins and losses and how they kind of have come to be comfortable with it or what works for them and what didn't work for them is just there's something very healing about it do you also address psychological pain yeah yes yeah because i sort of think this is just my personal feeling is that i don't really feel like in my case i can separate the two so so beautifully said but yeah because with your physical body and its condition its condition is going to change how you feel about your life maybe or about your body or about your opportunity or capabilities and your mental well-being has a similar effect like I've been in places where my mental well-being has stopped me from doing anything you know so yeah I think it's important to look at the two and they're sort of like a good union yeah one definitely drives the other I'd probably say if you're in pain definitely it will affect your mental well-being unless you work on it for sure I think some of the most chronic pains in history are actually just mental just do you think obsessions am i allowed to ask you any questions it's my podcast but yeah well i was just gonna say because i think the idea of working on it it can be really daunting but something that i want to say and also i just wonder what you think about it is i think working on it doesn't need to be linear not at all it can be like a conversation or it can be well actually this morning i am going to get up and i'm going to spend 20 minutes listening to music that i really love before i do anything else and those little steps in the right direction that's what it's all about yeah look believe it or not it doesn't actually matter how deep anyone's pain is like let's stick with the breakup example it doesn't really matter what is causing the pain.

50:55The only question one should ask is, do I want to stay there for the rest of my life and probably dwindle down further? Or do I want to take one step, one step out of the swamp? And I think that's the whole idea. And most of the time we forget that if I'm struggling with a heartbreak or a heartache or a breakup or whatever, and I'm not able to take myself out of it, a walk in a nice park with a little bit of wonderful music may not fix the heartbreak issue, but it will fix my overall mental well-being, right? It is basically a net-net game. At the end of the day, how many joys did I experience in my day, right?

51:40And this is why I think when someone is faced with chronic pain, at least I remember my years going through that constant headache after a while you start to enjoy everything you just bring everything in and say look this is there it's the net negative at the beginning of the day and let's add positives let's add wonderful conversations and success and connections and human connections and love and you know whatever you can add because at the end of the day no one is without pain no and i think the biggest pain is to not enjoy the joys of your life yes definitely and I think also when that sort of rise of intolerance comes up something that's really helped me is just to try and look into like what is the meaning of this so to use the breakup example I don't speak for all people of course but why am I so devastated that I'm single you know I'm not single but are you or are you not because no no I'm not saying this will determine the number of messages you're going to yeah no I I am not single but so say to use that example of the breakup why is it so intolerably upsetting for me that I'm that I've been dumped or whatever and I suppose there's obviously the rejection and the heartbreak which you'll get over but there's also that sudden scary feeling of like will I ever find love yeah like I'm gonna be permanently alone and it's sort of these things big or small that happen tap into your but it's all about reframing I think so there is one way of looking at a breakup as I am not good enough.

53:37I will never find love. I'll spend the rest of my life alone. Or you can also reframe it and say, oh my God, party time. I can go out and have fun. Yeah, I can go out and have fun. And that asshole was not for me anyway. Yeah. Okay. If you really see it that way, honestly, when people come to me with a breakup, the first thing I say every time, and some of them hate me is I say, congratulations. Yeah. That's amazing. because if it wasn't working it wasn't meant to be it wasn't meant to be yeah but i think there is a bit of a victim mentality in trying to tell ourselves that this is the end of our life oh totally right when in reality it's just the beginning of a new season everything is the beginning of a new season yeah it's change let me be very very open i'm old okay but i lived 600 lives yeah i truly and honestly lived so many lives it's just unbelievable you know the amount of pain, the amount of joy, the amount of love, the amount of connections, the amount of people I know, the amount of jobs I've done, right?

54:37The amount of topics I've studied. You know what a hedonist is? Okay. I don't find pleasure in things and fancy stuff and what hedonists would normally be described as, but I'm just thirsty. I'm hungry on life in so many interesting ways. Okay. And And believe it or not, there's so much joy in every one of those experiences. Okay. Before I found my wonderful Hannah, my wife, I had probably the worst of all of my breakups because I didn't feel safe in that relationship at all, which is, you know, listening to my deep voice and my beard and my bald head and my age, you go like, how can a man not feel safe enough?

55:17But I really didn't. Okay. But safety comes in different forms. Yes. Yes, and safety is really the result of trust. And do not trust a partner in a relationship is a very, very, very difficult place to be. But I'll tell you very openly, even that I celebrate. It's like I've had the joy of experiencing this. Every experience. It's like I've had the joy of experiencing having Ali in my life. But I've also had the joy of experiencing knowing that he moved on to his next journey. okay and there is joy in everything this is very difficult very difficult to understand but there is joy in everything there is everything that when you turn your focus to it so so one of my top meditation exercises please don't think of me as sadistic but i take a drop of water i put it on the tip of my nose yeah and i wait 40 minutes and the itching in your nose it's just unbearable why do you do that is that controlled pain no because you just zoom your entire thought wow when you have that tiny itch this is actually a very well-known heard of that it's a well-known for monks is to try that an itch really gets you to focus i bet a tiny bit of pain okay really gets you to focus just as much as a tiny bit of joy yeah you know making love to the point where you completely leave that world the world that we live in okay it's because you can somehow focus your whole being on one thing yeah okay and that thing is something other than thought yes and so when you really think about the biggest privilege i've ever been given was not the money or the success or the best-selling books it's just the infinite number of experiences infinite it like i know tens of thousands of wonderful people like you who i will hug tomorrow when i see you again yeah right and the blessing of that now here's the question how many of us block ourselves from that i mean so many yeah and and the only way for life not to penetrate every fabric of you is for you to block it and sometimes you don't even know that you're doing that 100 but in the in not allowing yourself presence which i think is the greatest state of mind greatest state state of being to not allow yourself presence and therefore kind of building that wall around yourself i mean i've built in the past built walls around me metaphorical walls but out of fear yeah it's like i don't want you to see me right now yeah Because I can't possibly show you me right now.

58:17And if you knew me, then you wouldn't love me. But I think when you do that, you isolate yourself. And actually, through dropping your guard, not to everyone, but allowing trust and unblocking yourself, essentially, you have presence. You do. You have life. some of your favorite guests favorite quotes favorite moments you've recorded how many so far half a year 26 episodes half a year well done oh it's so difficult to choose favorites yeah i know i know okay so i'll give you a couple so i spoke to an incredible doctor called james flowers who had his own incredible personal story but the way that he sheds light into the pain experience and his level of expertise and the information he offers is amazing so I really loved that one and he's so enthusiastic about what he does I spoke to someone called Tony Kasoko who's a physio and his number one issue that he deals with is men's health.