# Bronnie Ware - What Are Your Future Regrets?

An episode of [The Imperfects](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1476501557), 12 Jan 2025, 1 h 02 min.

Audio: https://enrichment.soundstack.com/4vjqq8/episode.flightcast.com/mdtnpzcj9h5gm8x7px0vby3z.mp3

There will come a time for all of us (unless we REALLY make some improvements with bio-hacking) where we are faced with our own mortality. Who is at your hypothetical bedside? Are you happy with how you’ve lived? Do you have any regrets? In this Summer School edition of the Academy of Imperfection, we are joined by Bronnie Ware. Bronnie found herself in palliative care, caring for, and listening to, the dying. And boy, are we glad she did. Bronnie collated, and published, the Top 5 Regrets of the Dying (listed below for your convenience), and this episode is devoted to talking through what each of these might mean for Hugh, Ryan and Josh. • I wish I’d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me • I wish I hadn’t worked so hard • I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings • I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends • I wish that I had let myself be happier Perfectly timed for the New Year, we hope you get as much out of this episode as we did. Bronnie, thank you so much for sharing your wisdom with us. To watch this full episode on YouTube, follow this link: https://www.theimperfects.com.au/episode/bronnie-ware-wha…r-future-regrets/ 📖 Things to read: • The Top Five Regrets of the Dying - Bronnie Ware - https://bit.ly/4ghIKkf • Bronnie’s original blog post - Regrets of the Dying - https://bit.ly/4f2nmPd • From Strength to Strength - Arthur C. Brooks - https://bit.ly/3BlahT1 • Strong Female Character - Fern Brady - https://bit.ly/3Vl5Uya • Laughing Heart - Charles Bukowski - https://bit.ly/4g2DbGL 🎧 Things to listen to: • Paul Kelly - I Wasted Time - https://bit.ly/4eZeWbc • Fern Brady - Autistic in a Non-Autistic World - https://bit.ly/48nT3Ax

## Transcript

[0:01] Having witnessed the level of pain it can cause to have regrets on your deathbed when it's too late to make changes, it's enough of a kick up the backside to think, hang on, I need to find some courage and make sure I don't go down this road as well.
[0:16] Hello, I'm British and welcome to the Academy of Imperfect.
[0:21] Whoa, what's that?
[0:24] You know what that means?
[0:25] It means that school's in for summer and while it's hot outside, it's still cool in here.
[0:34] School's in for summer!
[0:38] Wow!
[0:41] How's that?
[0:45] Okay, so you've seen her name in the show title.
[0:47] We're very lucky to have Bronnie Ware with us today in our very first Academy of Imperfection Summer School edition.
[0:55] We probably started recording a touch too late, didn't we?
[0:59] Yes.
[0:59] Because Bronnie was just dishing out a bit of a compliment to us.
[1:03] But no, it's okay, you missed it.
[1:05] No need to repeat it.
[1:05] No need to repeat it.
[1:06] But thank you very much, Bronnie.
[1:09] This might be a slightly uncomfortable way for Bronnie for us to start this episode, but we've just met her in person.
[1:15] We've been chatting for the last 10 minutes.
[1:17] Can I ask you both, how would you describe Bronnie in a word?
[1:20] Oh, angelic, if that's not too dramatic at all.
[1:24] Josh, I'd say.
[1:25] Warm.
[1:26] Warm.
[1:26] Warm.
[1:26] Thank you.
[1:27] Thank you.
[1:28] My daughter would not agree with you, Ryan.
[1:33] Well, I need to speak to your daughter.
[1:37] Well, yeah, you can instantly say why you did the work that you did for so long.
[1:41] It's calming and warm and, yeah, angelic are all things you'd probably want from someone in palliative care.
[1:48] Thank you.
[1:49] Yeah, you know, I think when you go into that field, it just brings out the best of you anyway.
[1:55] You're either going to stay looking after dying people or if you don't fit, you're going to leave.
[2:00] So yeah, maybe those qualities were part of why I did fit for so long.
[2:05] I mean, I feel like we're jumping right into it here, but we're here now, so that's good.
[2:10] Can I tell people who Bronnie is?
[2:13] Or do you want to just, yeah, may as well squeeze that in?
[2:17] I'm so keen to get into it because it's just a fascinating conversation, but I do would like people to know who we're talking to, just in case they don't know Bronnie's work.
[2:23] So Bronnie is the best-selling author of the book, The Top Five Regrets of the Dying, and it's been, I think it's now in 32 languages or something like that around the world, which is just...
[2:35] I mean, that is a measure of a book going well with 32 different languages.
[2:39] It's an incredible book.
[2:41] And it's, I mean, we can almost get into it now, Ryan, but just from your work in palliative care, you gathered, I suppose, some incredible insight into people.
[2:49] And most specifically, and the thing that I find just so fascinating is the most common regrets of people who are on their deathbed, which we're going to talk about today.
[3:00] We're going to discuss those at length today because they're so interesting.
[3:06] Well, I remember, I think it was a while ago I first came across your work and I just thought, what an incredible perspective you must have on the world from the people you have worked with.
[3:16] Yeah, it certainly changed my life.
[3:17] Yeah, and it wasn't like I went into it asking about regrets or even expecting it.
[3:23] I just had a lot of time to sit while people were sleeping.
[3:27] And so I was keeping a journal of my own turmoil at the time and also learning from people.
[3:34] And that's how it sort of came about.
[3:36] I just started recognising similar themes.
[3:39] and thinking, oh, okay, hang on a sec, I've heard this before.
[3:42] It may have come from a slightly different angle or the scenario was different, but the baseline of what they were saying, the regrets of what they were sharing were really similar.
[3:52] And I just felt so blessed because you can't witness...
[3:58] that heartache and anguish without it influencing you.
[4:02] And so having witnessed the level of pain it can cause to have regrets on your deathbed when it's too late to make changes, it's enough of a kick up the backside to think, hang on, I need to find some courage and make sure I don't go down this road as well.
[4:18] I'm really excited about this conversation because I was sort of talking to the guys this morning about this, but it sort of seems like death is this thing that 99, I'm just picking a number there, but 99% of us are terrified of.
[4:34] And it's like one of the few certain things in life.
[4:37] yet we all ignore it and pretend it's not going to happen.
[4:42] And it's something that I've...
[4:43] It sounds kind of morbid, but since having children, and I hope we can get to a point in this discussion, this discussion, I think it'll unfold in a way that isn't morbid because since having children, I've felt like...
[4:55] this weird desire to try and become okay with it and be content with it as early as I can in life because it feels like that will make for the happiest life moving forward.
[5:05] So I'm really excited today to go through this because I think it's such a valuable topic that I've ignored for too long.
[5:12] Well, you're not alone.
[5:13] You're right.
[5:14] It's probably 99% of people.
[5:16] And it's a cultural thing as well.
[5:18] I think that we just deny it and it's a guarantee it's going to happen.
[5:23] Whereas once you can consider it and really contemplate it as a reality, which it is for all of us,
[5:30] then you can sort of use it as a tool for living, like use death as a tool for living in the sense of recognising that time is sacred and that you don't have forever to do the things you want to do and especially, like you say, when you're a parent, it makes you want to show up.
[5:49] It brings out the best and worst of us, doesn't it, being a parent?
[5:53] So it makes you want to show up and really be the best you can be for your kids.
[5:59] And so when you do realise that your time is sacred, you don't waste as much time.
[6:06] Yeah, it's the wasting time I've always been.
[6:09] The idea of, yeah, that gets more and worse and worse the older I get, the idea of wasted time.
[6:13] When you think about how much I've wasted thus far, yeah, the pressure's on.
[6:17] Yeah, like Paul Kelly said in that song, I've wasted time, now time is wasting me.
[6:23] that is a good lyric yeah it's a great lyric I'm just so interested to know what it's like when you are working with someone in that capacity when you are someone comes into palliative care and you're I guess responsible for them and you're working with them what does it feel like from both sides so for you what does it feel like but then what do you think it feels like for them to be introduced to this person who is going to be nursing them through the last part of their life
[6:53] Well, I think for them it's probably a relief that they've got someone who's warm and kind and gentle.
[7:01] The people I looked after were in a position where they could go home to die.
[7:07] So I did do some shifts in hospices and that sort of thing.
[7:11] But most of my clients were people who were hiring a carer at home.
[7:16] So they had their diagnosis, they'd had all the treatment they could and then they were going home basically to die.
[7:24] In my early years, I was there for eight years looking after dying people.
[7:28] But in my early years, I just went in as a living carer and I'd never even seen a dying person or a dead body.
[7:34] I guess I was working for an agency, so I always had someone I could ring up for help.
[7:41] And also I was only the carer.
[7:42] So there was the palliative care doctor would come in once a week or something like that.
[7:47] The community nurse would come in and they would make all the big decisions.
[7:52] So my role really was just to be a listener, to make them comfortable, to shower them if they could get into the shower or to wash them in bed, feed them if they were still eating.
[8:03] Sometimes it got down to half a grape or something like that.
[8:08] So the responsibility wasn't all mine.
[8:11] And I think for me, I just treated everybody as I would my grandmother, because I had a really close relationship with my gran.
[8:20] And so I just showed up with as much love and affection and listening as possible.
[8:26] And though I will say that the very first time I found out that my client was dying, when I was...
[8:34] I'd gone in as a living carer to avoid rent and mortgage and to help my songwriting career back then, fellow songwriter.
[8:44] And I just didn't want any overheads.
[8:46] And that's why I went into it.
[8:47] I also didn't want to wear high heels and stockings in the banking industry anymore, which is where I'd come from.
[8:54] And so I didn't actually go into it consciously into palliative care.
[8:59] I went in as a carer because I wanted a job with heart where I could just be myself.
[9:04] And so when my first patient was then diagnosed with terminal illness, it was a real shock to me.
[9:11] And that was scary then.
[9:14] She lived on Parsley Bay in Sydney and
[9:17] And I just went down to the harbour and just said a prayer and said, you know, give me the strength to do this.
[9:24] Because I always trust that if we're put in a situation, we've got things to give to it and it's got things to give to us or we have things to learn from it.
[9:34] Yeah.
[9:35] So I didn't ever feel like I was in the wrong place.
[9:39] But that first occasion was pretty scary because I thought, how on earth am I going to deal with this?
[9:45] But I think if you've got some sort of faith or feel guided by something bigger than yourself, then you can get out of the way a little bit and be guided, yeah.
[9:57] Beautiful.
[9:58] Okay, so we'll work our way through the list one by one.
[10:03] The first here on the five regrets of the dying.
[10:06] I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expect of me.
[10:15] Dick.
[10:16] Yep.
[10:20] Is there a particular story you remember that refers to this regret?
[10:23] Yes.
[10:23] There was a beautiful little lady who I looked after called Grace, and she had stayed in a marriage.
[10:31] Her adult children said of their father that he was an ogre and a bit of a tyrant.
[10:39] And she had stayed in that marriage with him for decades because what would the neighbours think and all that sort of thing, just the society's expectations.
[10:49] And her needs weren't huge.
[10:51] She just wanted to travel Australia and do a few things for herself that he didn't want to.
[10:57] And so she didn't get to do anything like that.
[11:01] And then the husband was put into a nursing home and...
[11:05] Grace, within that first week, went out to the travel agents, picked up all these bus tour brochures.
[11:12] She just wanted to go around Australia on a bus tour.
[11:14] That was her biggest dream.
[11:17] And so she went straight off thinking, OK, I'm finally free.
[11:20] I can do this.
[11:21] But within three weeks, she was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer.
[11:26] And she'd never been a smoker.
[11:28] He had smoked in the house all their married life.
[11:31] And she only left the house a couple more times to go to the doctors, and then the doctors were coming in to her.
[11:37] And so she had a huge regret, and I was trying to get going as a singer-songwriter then, and I was really nervous.
[11:46] not confident.
[11:48] And she squeezed my arm one day and said to me, you promise me now, Bronnie, you promise this dying woman that you will always live a life true to yourself, not the life other people have expected of you.
[12:00] And she was crying and I ended up crying and I just said, yeah, Grace, I promise you.
[12:06] And I was promising her initially, but I realised I was promising myself as well, partly because I came to love her, but also because I did not want to go through what she was going through.
[12:20] And that was the very first time that any regret had been shared with me.
[12:25] And it was just so powerful that when they started being shared with me over the years to come,
[12:32] I already had a radar for them because that had had such a huge effect on me even then.
[12:37] And yeah, so she didn't get to travel at all and she died before her husband did.
[12:45] What a gift from her though.
[12:46] Yeah, I know.
[12:48] I know.
[12:48] And then I was at my album launch and her adult children came along.
[12:51] Oh, really?
[12:52] Oh, that's brilliant.
[12:53] Yeah, yeah.
[12:54] They're a really beautiful family.
[12:56] Oh, that's wonderful.
[12:57] Yeah.
[12:58] To me, that regret says a lot about expectation.
[13:02] And even hearing your story from before, Bronnie, um...
[13:08] it's like you were in the banking industry and then you realized you wanted to work in a job that was like leading with heart and in care.
[13:17] I feel like there's a lot of people who...
[13:22] you know, who naturally have so much empathy for people.
[13:28] And they're these very special people and they often don't know where to put it.
[13:33] And so they'll often like take a job or work in a job which is just hellish for them and they won't enjoy their work.
[13:40] But they're doing the job because it's sort of what they think they should do, you know, they think.
[13:45] And it'll sound good, you know, on Christmas Day when someone says, what do you do?
[13:49] And they say like, oh, I'm...
[13:50] Just got a job at the bank.
[13:53] And everyone's like, oh, that's good.
[13:55] And they're like, yeah, it is good, isn't it?
[13:56] Sounds good when I said it.
[13:58] But then when they get there, it doesn't match what they truly feel is right for them.
[14:03] And it's amazing that you found like a job, a career that is right for clearly who you are.
[14:09] But I think that takes quite a long time, if at all.
[14:13] I guess a lot of people, that's probably why it's a regret for so many people who are dying is that you don't, you never find that thing.
[14:21] Well, a lot of that hesitation and feeling like you can't do it or a lot of the permission you've got to give yourself is, again, based on that regret of living the life expected of you rather than the life you actually want to be living.
[14:34] Yeah.
[14:35] And we don't all live to retirement.
[14:38] I have friends who have died in their 40s and 30s and 50s.
[14:42] And, you know, one of my friends, he was a singer-songwriter and he got in touch with me one day and said, you know, I've just been diagnosed with cancer and I've always wanted to write songs with you.
[14:54] When I get through this, I really want to write a song with you.
[14:57] And I said, yeah, that sounds beautiful.
[14:59] I'd never co-written with anyone else.
[15:01] And he'd been diagnosed three weeks earlier.
[15:04] Three weeks later, he was dead.
[15:07] And I think he was 40, 44, two teenage boys.
[15:10] Yeah.
[15:11] Beautiful guy.
[15:12] But I think that we often don't make the changes until it's painful enough, until the pain is bigger than the pull forward and, you know, to get away from the pain rather than pull yourself forward to what you like.
[15:26] So true.
[15:27] Yeah.
[15:27] But also there's a Buddhist quote that your life's work is your life's work.
[15:32] And so it can take most of your life to work out what your life's work is.
[15:38] Your life's work is your life's work.
[15:40] Can you – I'm going to pretend I understand what you mean, but can you just in case I don't, can you?
[15:46] Yeah, so we can think, okay, I'm – my job was in banking or whatever and I might – I've now worked in palliative care.
[15:55] I now am an author.
[15:57] Yeah.
[15:57] But our life's work is to realise our potential.
[16:02] And so our potential is our life's work.
[16:05] It doesn't necessarily have a career label.
[16:08] I don't mean to complicate this now.
[16:10] This is great.
[16:11] Yeah.
[16:13] But, yeah, it's from a Buddhist perspective is that...
[16:17] It can take all of your life to realise your potential and what you're really here to serve with and how you're here to serve.
[16:24] So I think that we have to be a little bit kind and compassionate to ourselves if we haven't got it all worked out.
[16:30] And I remember a friend saying to me once, oh, you're so lucky you know what you want to do when I was in that field.
[16:38] And I just felt like thumping her because it had taken so much work within myself to...
[16:44] to even know what I wanted.
[16:46] And even then I didn't because all I knew was I didn't want those other things.
[16:50] I didn't want to be selling insurance to someone who just wanted to come in and bank their paycheck.
[16:55] And I didn't want to be in high heels and uniforms and I wanted to work with heart.
[17:00] But I couldn't define what that actually looked like.
[17:03] And all I knew was I needed a job that allowed me to be myself.
[17:08] And so that was a part of my life's work, to have the courage to step away from that good job at Christmas, though I can't say any of my Christmases have ever been that grand, where people are saying, oh, good on you.
[17:23] It's like, oh, I'll just sit in the corner here and read a magazine.
[17:28] But, you know, Christmas is tough for a lot of people.
[17:31] So, you know, I think that it's...
[17:35] Your life's work is actually just realising what you don't want and getting that amount of courage to leave a good career behind was part of my life's work.
[17:46] Yeah.
[17:47] The word that really stands out to me there is courage.
[17:50] I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, sort of suggesting that the people who are on their deathbed had an idea of what they wish their life had looked like but they were never brave enough to take steps to actually chase that.
[18:02] I think, I mean, everyone listening will be thinking, I guess, about examples from their life.
[18:06] Mine will sound very trivial but the one I've realised in the last few years is
[18:10] living a life true to myself as I don't really drink alcohol anymore.
[18:14] But I always did because it was just at every social function, every dinner, everything.
[18:18] And I never really liked it that much, but it was just something that I did because it was like everyone was doing it and it was sort of, it's just part of living in Australia, I guess.
[18:28] Well, I'm sure every country says it's synonymous with their country, but I sort of in the last couple of years have just sort of stopped.
[18:33] But I've realized every time
[18:35] I say to someone, no, I'm not drinking, there's a small amount of courage attached to that because I feel like you're saying to them, no, I'm not going to have a good night with you guys tonight or no, I don't really value this as a special night tonight.
[18:45] And so the word courage there, it sounds like such a silly thing and it's not the grand scale of probably what people were saying on the deathbed.
[18:53] But to me, that's something that- I don't know.
[18:54] I reckon not drinking is pretty big.
[18:57] Yeah, and it's a sense of belonging as well, belonging and acceptance.
[19:00] So it's quite primal in a way.
[19:02] But I think all of it comes down, any of us who are living how other people expect us to, and we all start off that way because we don't know any different from the moulding of our childhood.
[19:13] that any of us who are doing that, we risk losing a sense of belonging when we step out onto a different path.
[19:22] And the good part of that is that you then attract people that fit that new version of yourself.
[19:28] But in those initial stages, it's really scary and awful because everything you know can be shaken up completely by saying, I'm not going to live that way anymore.
[19:41] Yeah, wow.
[19:43] I really liked hearing what you said before because I don't know what I want out of my career.
[19:48] Like I've really enjoyed doing this.
[19:49] It's the most fulfilling job I've ever had, but I never really aimed for it or asked for it or had it as a goal or, and I still don't feel like this is the one, like I'm just in loving for a way out.
[20:02] Yeah, it's a good time to mention.
[20:04] It's an interesting time to bring this up.
[20:06] I mean, obviously between us, I'm not into this at all.
[20:09] It's just sort of like a stepping stone for me.
[20:11] No, I don't think any of you have a good time here at all.
[20:15] It's shocking.
[20:17] But I've certainly known the feeling of not enjoying the job I had at the time.
[20:21] And there's a sort of societal norm of like, if you just got to work out what you want to do, and then you'll never work a day in your life, that kind of idea.
[20:30] And I think that's really hard for people who don't know what they want to do.
[20:34] And I guess I just want to acknowledge that I don't really know what I want to do, but I'm sort of working it out as I go, and having just trying to follow what feels really good.
[20:42] And at the moment, this feels perfect.
[20:44] I think that's all you need to do because then you're here.
[20:47] Yeah.
[20:47] You know, I know you'll still be wondering at some time, you know, on some occasions where it's all leading, but the less you have to focus on working all that out means the more you can give here.
[21:00] And I tend to find that...
[21:02] If we can be as present as possible, we get out of our own way and then that almost allows life to help us and sends the right people or the ideas or the signposts our way.
[21:15] And it's really easy to think we need to know all of the answers now.
[21:20] And probably social media has got a bit of answering to do on that account as well because everyone's got a perfect life on social media.
[21:28] And all these people have done this and made this amount of money in this short time.
[21:33] the reality is that the majority of us are just doing the best we can as who we are on the day.
[21:38] And I think that's enough.
[21:39] I think that's enough because any of us can be dead tomorrow.
[21:45] And when you do use death as a tool for living, it's not like you don't make plans and have dreams and everything else, but you try and recognise the sacredness of every day and every experience.
[21:57] And so if you're happy doing this now, that's enough for now.
[22:01] That's enough.
[22:02] Yeah, yeah.
[22:03] Okay, so number two on the list of the five regrets of dying.
[22:06] Oh yeah, that's right.
[22:07] We're talking about all that.
[22:09] We have a format here.
[22:11] Let's not break it and have conversation for crying out loud.
[22:15] Number two, I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
[22:19] That didn't surprise me when I saw that on the list.
[22:21] I feel like that would be something that hits people pretty hard who have been so career-driven for so long at the cost of potentially relationships.
[22:29] I'm guessing that was what was implied.
[22:31] So the first time I heard it was when one of my clients, his wife wanted him to retire and he didn't want to.
[22:40] He had a lot of status in his role and he liked the win and of doing the deals and that sort of thing.
[22:48] And he eventually said, okay, I will retire and go travelling with you, but delayed it and delayed it and by the time he...
[22:57] He did retire.
[22:58] She was diagnosed with cancer in the midst of that and she had died by the time he was due to retire.
[23:06] And so he had made work his whole identity and that was the conversation that just unfolded because of that.
[23:14] We were just sitting...
[23:16] outside and I mean it was over quite a few conversations but the very first time was when we're just sitting outside watching the sunset and we had blankets over us it was quite a chilly night and he just kept sighing and I said what's going on and he just said I wish I didn't work so hard.
[23:33] And I said, yeah, but you've ended up creating a nice life.
[23:38] And he said, well, what life?
[23:40] I'm here now.
[23:41] My adult kids and grandkids visit me for a day a week.
[23:45] My wife's gone.
[23:46] I didn't honour any of her dreams.
[23:48] I was just too caught up in my work.
[23:50] And...
[23:51] So what I learned when those conversations came up and they did come up through other angles and scenarios was that sort of the summary of it is that there's nothing wrong with loving your work and applying yourself to it.
[24:06] But we need to also realize that there's other aspects of life that need attention as well.
[24:13] And so it's about not making work your whole life.
[24:16] And so then if you do work hard, it's not that you've worked too hard.
[24:21] You've worked hard, but you've also lived well.
[24:23] Yeah.
[24:24] Yeah.
[24:24] It's almost like for someone, and there's a book called From Strength to Strength by Arthur C. Brooks, which I've talked about relentlessly on this podcast, but that book's essentially about finding happiness in the second half of your life.
[24:38] And it's really directed at people who he calls strivers, people who really obsess over success and work.
[24:45] And I definitely can relate to that quite a lot.
[24:49] And I've thought about it a hell of a lot.
[24:52] And one of the things I think the reason that so many of us do prioritize work over relationships is...
[25:01] even when we discover that relationships are the things that will ultimately make us happier, is that, I mean, this is going to sound really brutal.
[25:09] Like, so for work, so when you're working really hard, there are very clear things that you're working towards.
[25:16] They're rewards that you're hoping to get, whether it be money or things or promotions or status or whatever it is.
[25:22] Whereas relationships, no matter how much we love someone and love spending time with them, there's often no material reward for having a good relationship.
[25:33] So I think it's when people are weighing up one or the other, it's like, do I...
[25:40] go on the weekend away or do I work through the weekend?
[25:45] There's a deadline attached to the work and with the relationship and the going away with your partner, it's like, well, I know that will be nice.
[25:53] That's a nicer thing to do and that's the right thing to do.
[25:56] But...
[25:58] What do I really get from that?
[26:00] And I think, and you don't, and clearly, according to your list, it's like, we don't realize that until it's way too late, often.
[26:07] Until you can kind of like look back and go like, oh, that I should have been prioritizing the relationship because now I can feel why, what I've missed out on.
[26:17] But when you're in the thick of it, I feel like that's a big part of it.
[26:20] It's the, it's the, what am I getting from it?
[26:22] Yeah, it's impossible just because it's got a clearer objective.
[26:26] Yeah.
[26:27] And so it's more obvious why you're doing something.
[26:31] But then if the relationship falls apart, you may not make that professional objective anyway.
[26:37] Yeah.
[26:38] Yeah, the relationship can support everything else on so many levels.
[26:42] But yeah, I'd say that's why.
[26:44] And I'm sure you're not alone there, Ryan.
[26:48] I'm just like, I'm terrified of the possibility where it's like, when I'm on my deathbed, I'll be like sitting there with my loved ones, like this is important, like relationships are important.
[27:00] And then I'll get like an email from someone saying, can you do a self-tape audition today?
[27:04] And I'll be like, ooh, that would be good.
[27:06] I'm going to put my hat in the ring for that.
[27:08] Never too late.
[27:13] Do you think in this, obviously it's going to be different for everyone, but in that specific case, it's interesting how he was quite alone as far as his wife was no longer around and his kids weren't visiting as much as I'm sure he would have liked.
[27:28] But that's probably the reality of what it's like.
[27:32] When he says that he felt like he worked too much,
[27:36] Do you think it's that he didn't have, because he was always going to be alone at that point, do you think it's that he didn't have the memories of the connections throughout life or the connection at the time of end of life?
[27:48] Yeah, I think that's a really good observation.
[27:50] I think it's that he didn't have the memories all the way through because he'd missed his children growing up.
[27:55] He'd always been at work.
[27:57] He hadn't been a sports dad.
[27:59] That was something that he mentioned.
[28:00] He wished he hadn't have handed all the parenting over to his wife.
[28:05] Mm-hmm.
[28:06] And I mean, this was a different generation as well.
[28:08] Dads are a lot more hands-on now than they were back then.
[28:12] And so part of it was cultural or, you know, just for that era.
[28:17] But yeah, I think it's very much around not having the memories.
[28:21] Yeah.
[28:22] Number three, I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
[28:28] How does that come out when someone's in their deathbed?
[28:30] How do they communicate that to you?
[28:32] Are they just saying that explicitly?
[28:34] No, it's a summary.
[28:35] I mean, all of them are, well, other than I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
[28:39] Actually, no, and the first one as well.
[28:41] They were very, very close to the exact wording.
[28:47] This one came from different angles.
[28:49] And so, for example, there was a dad wishing he could tell his son how proud he was of him or how much he loved him.
[28:58] But they just didn't have the emotional, the communication channel wasn't open enough.
[29:05] And so he was terrified to actually tell his son that he was proud of him and to tell him he loved him.
[29:13] So there was that sort of angle where families were wishing they could tell, or families or friends were wishing they could tell someone they loved them.
[29:23] But there were also cases where people were saying, I wish I'd expressed my feelings in terms of, I wish I'd spoken up against people who, like families who bullied them or...
[29:35] Things like that, like spoke up in their own defence and so love for themselves.
[29:39] And so that's probably the only regret that came from quite contradicting angles.
[29:46] A lot of the others, all the others were just similar situations that I'd start thinking, oh, gosh, okay, here's that theme again.
[29:55] But this one about expressing their feelings came from almost opposing teams, yeah.
[30:01] Did you find, like, when speaking to them about this, particularly when people would talk about their regret for not telling, you know, telling family members that they love them or that they were proud of them, did they explain why that was so hurtful to them?
[30:18] Why they regretted it so much, like what they felt like they were missing or what the result was of not doing it?
[30:24] No, I mean, I witnessed their pain in doing so.
[30:27] And I offered to be, you know, a mediator between it to break the ice a little bit.
[30:33] And they were just like, oh, no, it's just too late.
[30:36] It was just terrifying for them.
[30:38] And I think some people just don't go that deep.
[30:41] Some families just don't.
[30:43] They just don't go that deep.
[30:45] Or maybe one or two do in the family and the others are different thinkers entirely.
[30:49] Yeah.
[30:50] Some people's love is very practical, whereas some people's love is very emotional.
[30:53] So if it's an emotional love that wants to be shared to a person whose love is very practical, it might be sort of, oh, there's no need for any of that stuff now, you know.
[31:05] But in those last weeks and couple of months, when you know you're dying and you don't have the energy to get up and about, so you're not distracted by the busyness of everyday life,
[31:17] All the nonsense falls away.
[31:19] So a lot of people were having conversations with me that were of a depth that they hadn't actually had with family.
[31:28] And I'm not saying that that makes me extra special or anything like that.
[31:32] I think it was just the setting and the safety of the setting where they could share things in a non-judgmental way.
[31:39] And it is often easier to speak with a stranger than it is to people really close to you, especially sharing your most vulnerable stuff.
[31:47] Particularly if it's with someone who's non-judgmental and is just willing to listen.
[31:51] Yes.
[31:52] Yeah, it's a safe place.
[31:54] So I think that's why there was such clear reflection.
[31:59] Yeah.
[32:00] It's interesting.
[32:00] It makes...
[32:01] The thing I just thought of then, because, you know, my family, you know, I have a very good, loving family, but certainly not a type of family that would express feelings a lot.
[32:11] It's just not the way it goes.
[32:13] And that's...
[32:14] that was always okay.
[32:16] But it really, like the conversation that comes to mind is when I spoke to Hugh, when I spoke to you about like, I'd never spoken about how I was feeling about my life
[32:29] Except to, I mean, maybe, definitely to my partners, like my intimate partners, but Hugh being someone I'd only just met, I felt like, and also because Hugh was a good listener and was not, didn't, you know, it felt safe.
[32:43] I was, I mean, I look back on it now, it's like, it's wild the amount I revealed.
[32:47] To this random guy.
[32:49] Well, he wasn't a random guy.
[32:50] I mean, I'd met him like once.
[32:52] It was pretty random.
[32:53] Pretty, pretty, pretty random.
[32:55] But there was like definitely a feeling of like, oh, I can talk to you about everything.
[33:01] Like that I'm thinking and worried about that I wouldn't feel comfortable talking to like my best friends about.
[33:11] And I really relate to that.
[33:13] And I think a lot of people clearly would.
[33:17] It's a funny thing that isn't it, where it's like the people that we feel closest to, it's like it's often there's too much water under the bridge.
[33:25] There's too many experiences.
[33:28] There's too many expectations.
[33:30] And I guess in that moment with Hugh, I was able to create the role.
[33:36] I was able to create the character that I was with you.
[33:38] Yeah.
[33:39] as opposed to like with people that you've known your whole life, often you haven't chosen the type of relationship you have.
[33:45] You haven't chosen the dynamic.
[33:46] It's just developed organically over time.
[33:49] And all of a sudden it's like, well, I can't say that to him because that is not the relationship we have.
[33:55] So then all of a sudden I'm with you and I'm like, maybe I'm going to be the vulnerable guy with this guy.
[34:00] Try that on for size.
[34:01] Try that on, yeah.
[34:02] Well, he meets you where you are, doesn't he?
[34:05] Yeah.
[34:05] Yeah.
[34:06] Good point.
[34:07] Because you met the people earlier in your life where you were then and sometimes it's hard to change that.
[34:15] You're always stuck in the person you were then.
[34:19] Yeah.
[34:19] Oh, it feels wild.
[34:21] If you've only like had like a certain relationship with someone and you, you know, like if I, if, you know, the guys that I go to the footy with every week, lovely guys, love them to bits.
[34:32] But, um, if one day I said, Hey, um, can I, can I have a chat to you afterwards about just how I feel about my own career and self-worth and stuff?
[34:40] They'd be like, no.
[34:41] Yeah, no.
[34:42] It would be a strange... See ya!
[34:46] I mean, I'm sure they would be there for me, but it would be a very strange dynamic.
[34:50] Like, they would listen and be great, but it would go completely against every other conversation we've ever had because it's not about, like, the latest injuries on the footy team.
[35:02] Yeah.
[35:02] You know?
[35:03] Then there's the courageous bit of, like, trying to change a long-standing dynamic.
[35:07] That's hard.
[35:08] It is...
[35:09] Yeah, you can't really say to someone, can you just forget every single thing you've ever known about me and just take me as I am right now?
[35:14] I'm going to share some really vulnerable stuff but forget everything you ever knew about me.
[35:20] Yeah.
[35:20] Sure.
[35:21] Yeah.
[35:21] Since writing the book and this spreading so wide, have you had experiences meeting people who've read it who have changed something in their life as a result?
[35:33] Yes.
[35:33] Are there any, like particularly with that one with expressing feelings,
[35:38] A lot of family relationships have been healed.
[35:41] A lot of people have been healed by leaving family relationships.
[35:45] People have come out to their parents.
[35:47] People have changed direction completely, like career directions.
[35:52] People have relocated.
[35:54] It just, yeah, I still get emails all the time from people.
[35:57] Incredible.
[35:58] Yeah.
[35:59] There's an analogy that's come into my head that we could cut out if this doesn't work, but it kind of feels a bit like,
[36:08] You know, in the traditional sort of US presidential election thing, you've got two terms and they often say that like in the second term, if a president has gotten two terms, they often will get a lot more done and be a lot more because they can't get re-elected at the end of it.
[36:22] It kind of feels like on some of these conversations you're having are the people who are like, well, there isn't, I can't get re-elected.
[36:29] There's nothing after this, so I might as well go for it.
[36:33] And I feel like it's...
[36:35] Yeah.
[36:36] It's hard though to do this stuff earlier in life when you can get reelected.
[36:40] And when you think you've got a lot of time.
[36:42] Yeah.
[36:42] Yeah.
[36:43] Yeah.
[36:43] When you think you've got a lot of time because you don't know.
[36:45] Yeah.
[36:45] It reminds me of when we spoke to comedian Fern Brady.
[36:49] Yeah.
[36:50] Scottish comedian and she's autistic and she was sort of explaining about her whole experience, but she wrote a book about, you know, her life essentially.
[36:59] and there was one night that she talks about where the doctor called her and said, there's a lump.
[37:05] We've seen a lump in your head, brain somewhere, and we'd like you to come in tomorrow and talk about it.
[37:12] And she assumed it was cancer.
[37:13] She assumed it was a tumour.
[37:16] and so she believed that like okay well I'm gonna die and so in that moment she was like okay I'm gonna write a book and I'm gonna like I'm not gonna hold back I'm gonna write the exact honest true experience of my autism and everything that has gone with it because she felt like well I won't be around when it comes out
[37:38] The next morning she found out that it wasn't a tumour and she's okay, but she got the experience of feeling like she was going to die.
[37:49] And the result of that was like this freedom, like liberation from the fears.
[37:55] Yeah, because she thought she wasn't going to be there to be judged.
[38:00] Yeah.
[38:01] The thing I think about the courage to express my feelings is that Penny, my wife, and I, we do relationship counselling every two weeks.
[38:09] Well, I show us every month now, once a month.
[38:11] You participate.
[38:11] You're not taking the sessions.
[38:13] Oh, yeah.
[38:16] We are very, very much the patient.
[38:17] Yeah, that's great.
[38:19] With this lovely man.
[38:22] And what we realize he does with every single conversation, every topic and every disagreement and everything that's happened with us is he always just wants to know how we're both feeling and he wants us to say to each other how we're feeling.
[38:35] And so, so often we'll go, no, no, no, but then this happened.
[38:37] And it's almost like we're trying to win the argument still.
[38:40] And he says, yeah, I heard that, but I want to know how you, how did that make you feel?
[38:45] When Hugh did that, how did it make you feel?
[38:47] And it's, we cannot go into the next thing until we've both said to each other.
[38:50] And he always says, he'll say to Penny, how did you feel when Hugh got home late and you're with the kids by yourself for dinner when he said he'd be home?
[38:58] And she'll say, I felt, this is hypothetical, although it's not really.
[39:02] It doesn't sound very hypothetical.
[39:03] Semi-hypothetical.
[39:06] She'll say, I just felt really let down.
[39:08] I felt like what I was doing wasn't important and I felt like he'd prioritised himself over me with what I was trying to do with the kids and
[39:13] Hypothetically.
[39:14] Yeah, hypothetically.
[39:15] And then he'll say, okay, well, can you say that to Hugh?
[39:19] And then she'll say, well, I just said I said it.
[39:20] And he said, no, I need you to turn to Hugh and say how it made you feel.
[39:24] And then we'd look at each other.
[39:25] Don't make me do it.
[39:26] It's lame.
[39:27] We always get the giggles, don't we?
[39:29] But it's such an important part of his therapeutic process is getting us to say exactly how we feel.
[39:36] And when you hear how the other person feels, it takes all the point winning, all the I'm right, you're wrong away from it.
[39:44] And it's just you're dealing with how that person feels.
[39:46] And you can't really argue with that.
[39:48] And you don't want to argue with that.
[39:49] You don't want to.
[39:50] to get one up on that.
[39:51] You just, it changes that dynamics completely.
[39:54] We've been doing, we've been with this guy for over a year now and we still, I still catch myself during the session going, oh yeah, he's trying to make us say how we feel.
[40:03] And, but it takes courage.
[40:04] It's really hard.
[40:06] Even with the closest person in your life, yeah.
[40:08] We've been here for nearly 10 years.
[40:10] It's really hard to turn to the person you've loved most in your life and say, I felt this.
[40:13] It's so hard.
[40:14] So the word courage, again, really works there.
[40:17] Yeah, courage can become a superpower, but it's also a muscle, you know, and the more you use it, the more courageous you become.
[40:25] So it's a practice.
[40:27] Yeah.
[40:28] Okay, so the next one, number four.
[40:31] I love this one.
[40:34] I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
[40:38] I think about in my teenage years, two of my best friends at school, guys called Paddo and Cullo, they were their nicknames obviously.
[40:47] And why do you find that funny?
[40:51] I just can imagine that maybe there would be certain people be like, we're going to call him Paddo, Christian name.
[40:58] That's the first name, Paddo.
[41:01] So, Pato and Collie, and we would, we loved sports so much, and that was our connection with sport, specifically cricket and football.
[41:09] And we would play after school, we'd race back to one of the guys' houses, and we'd play what we called street cricket outside his house for hours until it was dark, and we'd catch the tram home.
[41:19] And on the weekends, that's all we do.
[41:21] And then we went to uni, the three of us.
[41:22] I don't remember going to uni.
[41:23] I remember the three of us playing street cricket from Monday to Friday.
[41:26] It was like a test match Monday to Friday.
[41:28] And they are amongst the happiest memories of my life.
[41:32] And I've noticed myself, I don't see one of them pretty much at all anymore.
[41:36] The other one, we're in touch a fair bit, but we don't get to see each other much.
[41:39] We've both got three kids, and that's why.
[41:41] Yeah.
[41:42] for young kids, but I have felt this huge urge recently to play street cricket with them again.
[41:47] I think about it a lot.
[41:48] I drove past the, no, in fact, one of the guys, he actually drove down the street where he played, took a photo of it and sent it to the two of us and said, we need to play again.
[41:58] I said, yeah, absolutely.
[41:58] You know, when's everyone free?
[42:00] And in the first round of negotiations, we couldn't find a time to make it work.
[42:03] So the conversation just dropped away.
[42:05] I drove down the street about a month ago, took a video of me pretending to play cricket in the street.
[42:10] So it was a few awkward texts of people driving past, watching a 43-year-old man pretend to play cricket by himself.
[42:18] And then I sent it off and said, we need to make this happen.
[42:20] And again, we tried to find a time, couldn't, and it's just dropped away.
[42:24] I've been thinking about that so much and how much I want to make that work because
[42:28] For some reason, if I was on my death bed all of a sudden, those two would be very front and centre in my mind of people as in, I wish in my adult years I'd just spent more time with those two.
[42:38] And I think about it so much.
[42:41] Yeah, I mean, in that case, you're all wanting it.
[42:44] And that is part of the regret, is just not making the time and not making it a priority.
[42:52] And so I think it just is a case of making the time and making it a priority.
[42:58] And so a lot of the people who I looked after, they had genuinely lost touch and couldn't find.
[43:04] They were going back through the white pages and trying to find people and tracking down relatives and that sort of thing.
[43:11] And I helped some of them and there was success sometimes, but there wasn't always success.
[43:17] Some people had already died or they just couldn't be found.
[43:21] But in this day and age that we're all living in now, it is really easy to find someone.
[43:27] You can generally find someone.
[43:31] But the difference between that message, that text message... Oh, I'm catching up.
[43:36] Yeah, or even like a real-life phone call is better than a text message.
[43:41] Yeah.
[43:42] I found we're in this world now where we are so aware of what our friends are doing a lot of the time without even speaking to them.
[43:49] You can kind of get a – there's like a perception or it's like a – almost like a trick that you are staying in touch with someone because you can see their life so intimately to the extent where you'll catch up with someone.
[44:02] You haven't seen them for years.
[44:04] but you'll know so much.
[44:06] So they'll go like, so we got married.
[44:09] Yeah, I saw that.
[44:13] Yeah.
[44:13] And we went, we just took the kids to Queensland.
[44:17] Yeah, no, I saw that you went, yeah, that looks great.
[44:20] Yep, great.
[44:21] So, okay, anything else I can tell you?
[44:23] It's just like this, we all kind of know, and maybe there's a trick in that where we kind of feel like that we are in touch with people when we actually aren't getting the rewards from the relationship.
[44:35] Yeah.
[44:36] And when you're dying, I mean, you want...
[44:39] people to bring some joy into your world.
[44:42] And that was why this regret came up a lot because families are already grieving for their loved one and friends would come in and be like a breath of fresh air because they'd reminisce about fun memories that had nothing to do with the adult children who were there or whatever.
[45:00] But in that case, Ryan, if even though we can, and you're spot on, like we can absolutely say, yeah, yeah, I saw that, saw that, oh yeah, yeah.
[45:09] But if you saw them in real life and caught up in real life or actually gave a couple of hours for a real life conversation on the phone, then there are going to be conversations shared that would not be shared through a shorter interaction.
[45:23] And that's what holds, that's the glue that holds the friendships together.
[45:28] all of us get busy and all of us, you know, our lives do evolve and some friends do drop off.
[45:34] But I think that the friends that mean the most to us, it's just really lovely to treat them with the value that they're worth to us and for them to know that they're valued.
[45:49] And then if our lives fall apart, they are there and we are there for them, yeah.
[45:55] Yeah.
[45:56] Every time I catch up with someone and I'm spending time with them and we're laughing and we're, you know, rekindling that little spark that is the reason that we're friends.
[46:07] There's nothing better.
[46:08] There's really nothing better.
[46:10] It's amazing.
[46:11] I do tend to think that there's no substitute for time spent around people like each other.
[46:16] I feel like you...
[46:20] As an example, like if you're in a workplace and you spend all this time around people and you have your people that you're friends with at work and you really enjoy their company and the shorthand develops and you're like, this person's great.
[46:32] And you move jobs and you don't see them as much and that friendship kind of drops away and then suddenly the people at the new place you work are like, these are the greatest people.
[46:40] And to me it feels like just there's no substitute for that time spent around each other with no purpose or goal whatsoever.
[46:51] About the friendship, if that makes sense.
[46:53] Yeah, winning a gold logie would be pretty good though.
[46:56] Yeah, that's true.
[46:57] I haven't done it, but I can imagine that would go pretty close.
[47:00] That is probably the – apart from winning a gold logie.
[47:03] Yeah.
[47:03] No, I think that's really well said.
[47:05] No substitute for it.
[47:08] I think it's very underrated.
[47:09] Yeah.
[47:10] Yeah.
[47:10] Yeah, just that accumulation of time around people.
[47:14] Yeah.
[47:14] Yeah, well said.
[47:15] Yeah.
[47:16] I can only imagine that people who have chosen to listen to this episode may be in a situation where someone close to them is dying or in palliative care.
[47:28] Is there any wisdom, I guess, you can share for them, the carer, I guess, in the situation or the person who is close to the one dying, that you would share with them that might make their experience worse?
[47:46] I can't say better, I can't think of the right word.
[47:48] Easier.
[47:48] Yeah.
[47:49] Smoother.
[47:50] Probably two things.
[47:52] One is that I feel the biggest gift we can give to anyone who's dying is to be a listener.
[48:00] Because...
[48:02] A lot of people don't know how to speak until they're truly heard.
[48:07] And it's very easy to start a conversation, then the other person joins in and you each get a certain bit of time, allocated time for the conversation.
[48:16] But if the person is met with loving silence, they'll keep talking.
[48:22] And then when they feel safe, they'll keep talking again.
[48:25] And so I do think that the art of listening is very underestimated, especially in this scenario.
[48:34] So I think that's an act of love, if you can try and be a listener so that they feel safe to speak.
[48:43] The other thing is that a dying person wants to live for as long as they can.
[48:49] And so even though their body may be feeling horrific and they're exhausted, it's really hard for adult parents with adult children because they're still parents and they're still wanting to look after their children even while they're dying.
[49:09] Yeah.
[49:10] And so sometimes it helps just that's why the value of friends is really good, because sometimes a friend can just walk in and just speak about something funny that happened outside or even a family member speak about something funny, bring the outside world into the bedroom or into the hospital room and.
[49:30] Because that dying person's life has just got smaller and smaller, but they're still alive.
[49:37] Like in their mind, they are still alive and they want to know.
[49:41] They may not want, like I said earlier, the gossip and all the trivial stuff falls away, but positive stuff...
[49:49] can be really healthy for people who are dying.
[49:52] It keeps them included in the conversation instead of feeling like, you know, I'm already an extra or a burden or I'm really not in this conversation.
[50:03] And so I just think that if you can be a listener and if you can remember that they're still wanting to, even if they can only do it mentally, they're still wanting to live for as long as they can, keep bringing life into them.
[50:17] Love it.
[50:17] Beautiful.
[50:19] Thanks.
[50:19] Regret number five.
[50:22] Last but not least, I wish I had let myself be happier.
[50:26] Implying that there's a choice there.
[50:28] We all have a choice.
[50:28] Yeah, there is a choice there and it doesn't mean denying the hard times and the suffering because that's a part of the human experience.
[50:36] It's part of
[50:37] our growth and our journey here.
[50:42] But there is a choice in how much you wallow in the hard stuff.
[50:47] And I've been through a period of suicidal depression and a long time ago I feel like it was a whole different lifetime now.
[50:57] But it was after looking after dying people when I burnt out and that regret stayed with me a lot because I think...
[51:05] Okay, they kept saying about this, you know, about this choosing to be happier.
[51:11] And I just realised that, like, it's okay to fall into the victim mode for a short time.
[51:18] I think it's actually healthy to have compassion for our pain, for ourselves who have gone through that pain, for those versions of ourselves.
[51:27] Yeah.
[51:28] But how long we stay in that is where the choice and the power lies.
[51:33] And so when I was going through that time, I'd wake up and I was already sobbing when I'd wake up in the morning.
[51:41] And so it wasn't like I was just waking up and feeling, oh, poor me, poor me.
[51:46] It was just like voom.
[51:47] And it was like I'd suppressed all this fear.
[51:51] family sort of drama, everyone's got family drama to heal.
[51:55] I mean, that's why we are birthed into those families to learn our biggest lessons, you know, and to heal the ancestral patterns that come down.
[52:05] But in my case, I felt like I had put a lid on all of this stuff that I should have expressed for my whole childhood or my whole teenagehood, adulthood, young adulthood.
[52:18] and the depression actually took the lid off and I couldn't stop at all wanting to come out and heal.
[52:25] And so I'd be sitting there, I was living on this farm on the mid-north coast, and I had a really lovely veranda with a creek going past, and I'd just be sitting there sort of thinking, oh gosh, I'm so sick of feeling like this or whatever.
[52:40] And then I'd see – there was a willy wagtail bird that was hanging around a lot.
[52:46] It's my favourite bird.
[52:47] Oh, they're great.
[52:48] They're the best, yeah.
[52:49] Actually?
[52:50] Yeah, I love them.
[52:51] Okay.
[52:51] Yeah, well, she ended up – it was a mama bird and she ended up having three babies.
[52:55] And so I was there – What did she name them?
[52:59] I don't know.
[53:00] But I got to hear their first song, their first song ever.
[53:05] And so I would see her.
[53:06] She would just come down and just –
[53:09] Twitter away on the fence and off she'd go again and then I realised she had a nest in the carport and I'd go in and look and get on the ladder and look up there.
[53:18] And for every time I did that, I was pulled out.
[53:23] I was choosing happiness.
[53:24] I was pulled out of feeling sorry for myself.
[53:27] It's not denying the sad stuff.
[53:30] That's got to come up and out, otherwise it's just going to be healed.
[53:36] It's just realizing the capacity we have to steer our thoughts into a better direction.
[53:42] I think that's such a helpful distinction there, because I think when I hear choose happiness, and it's obviously not this black and white, and it's obviously not this simple.
[53:52] No.
[53:52] But particularly when you're in the depth of something, it feels impossible that you will not feel like this, and you'll feel instantly, you can somehow choose happiness.
[54:03] But I think what you're saying there is that,
[54:06] you're more choosing little moments of happiness.
[54:09] It's not the expectation that you're going to not feel sad anymore or the depression will go away.
[54:17] It's just like let yourself be happy even for a moment.
[54:21] Yeah, I didn't get my skipping rope out and go skipping over a field of daisies, you know, straight away after that.
[54:27] Yeah.
[54:28] It still took time to heal through that time, but it is just taking back a little bit of control and saying, okay, I'm going to focus on something nice or be grateful for something, find something to be grateful for.
[54:41] And it may only be a few moments in a day
[54:46] through one of the hardest chapters of your life.
[54:48] But in those moments, you can actually choose a better thought, a better feeling.
[54:55] But in the case of the dying people, some of them, there was one in particular who had basically spent her life
[55:04] almost living some sort of penance based on her parents' interpretation of the choices she'd made.
[55:12] And so she'd been physically abused by her husband and ended up divorcing him.
[55:16] And that was a real scandal to the family.
[55:19] There was no compassion or sympathy for her.
[55:21] It was that this woman has, there's a divorce in the family.
[55:25] And so she just ended up going up the corporate ladder and...
[55:29] and living a very intensely masculine life.
[55:34] And I'm not saying these days that a woman going up the corporate ladder is an intensely masculine person.
[55:41] There's more opportunity for women to do it as women.
[55:44] But this woman, I think she was like the first CEO of, you know, she was very much in a man's world, one woman very much in a man's world.
[55:56] And she just spent her life trying to prove herself to herself based on her family's judgment of her because she had the guts to leave this relationship after being physically abused, like hospitalised, physically abused.
[56:11] And so on her deathbed, like in her last weeks, that was what she was reflecting on.
[56:17] Like why hadn't she let herself be happier?
[56:21] Why hadn't she let herself have some...
[56:24] silly fun in her life and she just never had because she was just carrying this, doing this penance for the, you know, decades afterwards because she didn't realise that she could have let herself be happier.
[56:39] We sort of said it before, but I feel like it's so important that it warrants re-saying, if it wasn't clear enough, that having gone through some darker times myself, nowhere near what you were talking about before, I always found the phrasing of like the choosing happiness to be almost offensive in that moment.
[57:01] But the way it was talked about before of just allowing yourself a tiny moment in a day to enjoy some kind of happiness, even if it's a couple of seconds from those birds, I think is so powerful as a beginning, as like a tiny little glimpse of light.
[57:18] Yeah, you're spot on.
[57:20] And life is really about the moments.
[57:23] We can sort of, we can work towards these big things in life, but they're probably only five or six in a lifetime.
[57:31] And so most people are just going for these big goals and they're missing all these moments in the meantime.
[57:38] But the big goals are so rare compared to how many beautiful little moments there can be along the way.
[57:44] That is so brilliant.
[57:46] I love that so much.
[57:47] That's so true.
[57:49] When you really zoom, yeah, when you zoom back and you look at like the big life achievements that we strive for, yeah, there's very few, if any, like sometimes they don't work out.
[58:00] But yeah, you often miss so much in trying to get these big things and it's spot on.
[58:06] Amazing.
[58:07] Just bear with me here.
[58:08] I'm just going to read them out in one little group and it's going to lead to a question here.
[58:12] So, I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expect of me.
[58:19] I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
[58:21] I wish I had the courage to express my feelings.
[58:23] I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.
[58:26] I wish I had let myself be happier.
[58:28] Yeah.
[58:29] You very generously shared the story of your dark times just before.
[58:34] When you listen to that list there that you have come up with, um, which ones really speak to you as far as what, you know, when you're in your dark times, are there anything you look back on and think they, you wish you'd known that before?
[58:49] Yeah, the third one, I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings.
[58:54] Because I found silence was my safety net.
[58:58] And so rather than be seen or heard, it was a lot easier to not be noticed.
[59:05] But it's only been through having the courage to express my feelings and to be heard.
[59:10] a little bit like you and Penny in saying how it left me feeling, how things left me feeling, that I have been set free of that and those relationships have either healed or fallen away.
[59:22] And so, yeah, that was a huge thing for me to be listening to that and witnessing that pain when I was going through it myself at the time.
[59:34] Wow.
[59:35] Brilliant.
[59:35] Beautiful.
[59:36] Thank you so much, Bonnie.
[59:37] I just look at that list there and I just think I'm pretty sure, well, I think we'll definitely write them down in the show notes so people can just, I would encourage people just to have a look at this list and go away and just have some time by yourself somewhere somewhere.
[59:55] Probably best to do in nature, I don't know, but just find yourself somewhere and just look at them and just think about your life, all the things you'd like to learn from this list and to learn more about living and the way you could live a fulfilling life.
[1:00:08] There's something I want to bring up.
[1:00:09] Are you about to close there?
[1:00:11] I don't have to, no.
[1:00:12] I was, but yes.
[1:00:14] There's a poem that I have had in my head for most of this.
[1:00:18] I hope this matches as well as it has felt like it.
[1:00:21] The experience of hearing this poem the first time and subsequently.
[1:00:25] I've never gotten through hearing it without tearing up, and I've never read it, so this could be interesting.
[1:00:30] But to me it really sums up a lot of what you're talking about.
[1:00:34] It's called The Laughing Heart.
[1:00:37] Your life is your life.
[1:00:39] Don't let it get clubbed into dank submission.
[1:00:42] Be on the watch.
[1:00:43] There are ways out.
[1:00:45] There is light somewhere.
[1:00:46] It may not be much light, but it beats the darkness.
[1:00:49] Be on the watch.
[1:00:51] The gods will offer you chances.
[1:00:52] Know them.
[1:00:53] Take them.
[1:00:54] You can't beat death, but you can beat death in life.
[1:00:58] Sometimes.
[1:00:59] And the more often you learn to do it, the more light there will be.
[1:01:04] Your life is your life.
[1:01:06] Know it while you have it.
[1:01:08] You are marvellous.
[1:01:09] The gods wait to delight in you.
[1:01:12] That's beautiful and it's absolutely appropriate.
[1:01:15] Yeah, beautiful.
[1:01:16] Thank you.
[1:01:17] Thank you.
[1:01:17] amazing well I don't know how to yeah beat that just thanks for coming it's been my absolute pleasure thank you absolutely in awe of the work that you have done and I can only imagine the experience of being in that position having someone like you by your side it must be I mean it's hard to put into words how special that must be well I felt blessed too my life was blessed by those times
[1:01:47] Excellent.
[1:01:48] Thank you so much, Bonnie.
[1:01:49] Thanks for joining us.
[1:01:50] Thank you.

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