Welcome to the self help podcast. A weekly
non autistic guide dedicated to your emotional health
and well-being
presented by entrepreneur,
Edward Lamb, and psychotherapist,
Shawn Orford.
For more information,
visit live in the present dotco.uk.
Okay. Hello. Welcome to episode 524 of the
self help podcast with me, Ed Lamb. I'm
a good pal, Sean Orford. How are you
doing, Sean? I am good.
I am good. Working hard.
Yeah. Yes. I believe. Yeah. You got
lots going on. Hey. It's been hard to
pin you down in the last week or
2 for
a It's it's it's been a a bit
crazy, a bit crazy.
And then then next week, we're going off
to,
Denmark for
for the week to Copenhagen.
Lovely. Oh, that'd be cool. I look forward
to hearing all about that. Yeah. It's on
my list of,
but, yeah, there's too many places to visit
and not enough time. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
But that that's where,
going doing a road trip in a camper
van would be good because you could go
all the way around.
Yeah. That'd be cool. Speaking of which, is
is your van all fixed up? I think
last time we spoke, it was,
it's it's well, it is it's going okay,
but there there's a a grays on the
side that will need to be resprayed.
Oh.
Yeah. Some someone back I left parts at
the car park.
When I came back, someone had kissed the
side with their car.
And That's what car parks are for. You're
supposed to park in them. But yeah. It
was for Yeah. There you go. I'm sure
it'll buff out.
Well, it might need a bit of filling
than it's from someone else, don't you? Oh,
dear.
Yeah. Well, it's been a busy all week.
Elections, we've got a well, he's not president
yet, is he? But president-elect
Trump President-elect.
Yes. Won a decisive victory over in the
United States. So, yeah, what'd you make of
that, man? Pretty, interesting news,
God knows what that means for us in
Europe,
and what that's gonna mean for the
Russian
Ukraine thing.
And, you know, we we only have to
wait and see now, don't we? But if
he's going to
be right wing and a bit kind of
fascist, it's gonna be difficult.
Yeah.
I mean, I'm chuckling about it, but, yeah,
it's, Yeah. Yeah. You just gotta laugh from
your bandwidth. Yeah. Crazy times. You have to
laugh to keep from crying. Yeah. People have
spoken.
Yeah.
Decisively as well. It wasn't even well, it
was close in the sense that it was
whatever.
Yeah.
52, 48 was all or something. But the
way that interest in,
electoral system works meant that it was, yeah,
it was over. I woke up the the
morning after,
and, it was pretty much a done deal.
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah.
It were. But we'll find we'll wait and
see till it's a strange system they've got.
So he's been elected, but he doesn't get
to be president for a couple of months.
So, yeah.
Yeah. It's kind of the calm before the
storm,
Yeah.
But that must make it hard for the
person that's having to hand over.
Yeah. Because because they've they've got to then
spend a couple of months knowing that they're
kind of on borrowed time as they were.
I know. And I'm not sure if you're
able to kinda get a load of rush
a load of things through or whether there's
just no mechanism for
government to kinda work in this time. Or
Maybe that's where you just need to pardon
yourself for all the bad things that you've
done. So legally,
you're pardon.
Anyway but it's gonna give us lots of
ammunition at least for, talking about things
for the next 4 years on on this.
It's gonna be weird, isn't it, Antonya?
Yeah.
We will see. We will. But, yeah, we're
we're gonna talk about remembrance today, partly triggered
by the
the the services that we have at this
time of the year in the UK and
across Yeah. A lot of a lot of
the west, really, when,
sort of Yeah.
Wars gone by. I was actually quite fortunate
or honored to I get invited now as
a counsellor to lay a wreath
at
a local church. So
on remembrance Sunday, I got to do,
to do that on behalf of, local counsellors
and the Wirral Green Party, which was,
really nice. You know?
Yeah. I haven't got fully formed opinions on
war and whether we should shouldn't be going
to war or we should be funding the
military, all that kind of stuff. You know?
The Green Party
has got quite forthright views on kind of
well, it's it's it's sort of changing the
views in terms of as we get bigger.
You know, like, not maybe disbanding NATO and
all that kind of stuff and nuclear disarmament,
all these things that sound quite sensible but
are very hard to do in practice, you
know, when you actually
when you've actually got the the power in
your hands. These are very tricky political decisions.
But anyway, you know, I'm obviously more than
happy to go
and pay my respects to the folks, you
know, family and friends and people who I
didn't even know that
sacrificed their lives for so that me and
you could sit here and record this jolly
little podcast thing. Yeah. Yeah.
And that that's one of the things, isn't
it? It's like,
the,
that idea that we only have the kind
of world that we live in because other
people have been prepared
to fight for it, I suppose.
Yeah.
And it it's easy to,
to put things off. But, I mean, if
if the the rest of the world haven't
stood up to Hitler,
what would the world be like now?
Yeah.
Yeah. Who knows? Yeah.
I mean, this this this Trump's been compared
to him. Not entirely fairly, probably. I don't
think he's got that much smarts, but maybe
some of the people in the background working
with him do. But Mhmm. Yeah. I have
been watching documentaries recently about the rise of
fascism in Germany in the 19 you know,
late twenties
through the thirties. Quite,
it's very scary. Yeah. How it how it
all how it all played out and some
quite little
close calls where really key decisions were made
by, you know, 1 or 2 people that
had a massive impact. And if they'd gone
another way
Yeah. The story would have been very different.
But you don't know how things would have
ended up. They might be No. We might
be in a in a worse position now.
You just don't know how the sands of
time play out, do you? No.
No.
And it it's easy to,
to project and presume, but you're right. You
don't know. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. What's remembrance?
What do you mean that at this time
of year, Sean? Because you Well, it it
it's always been a point in time anyway,
I think, because of, when when I was
a a kid, we always went to church,
so it was, like, always a big deal.
And and when I was in the Cubs
and Scouts, we we used to do parades
and all that kind of stuff.
But,
the the big one for me was a
few years ago, my father-in-law, Mike, died, and,
it was on 11th.
And,
and I know he died at 2:33
because when he died, when he took his
last breath, it really was his last breath,
I looked at my watch and it was
2:33 in the afternoon.
But it was and so each year when
that comes around,
I have my own remembrance. He always used
to like to drink
a a Faustus.
So,
I I like to raise a glass to
to Mike at 2:33
if I can on that day.
And,
and and and have that sense of him
being there. It's quite
well. It was quite strange. He used to
smoke rolled cigarettes,
and he sat on the back seat of
our car.
And he didn't smoke in the car, but
there was a smell of cigarettes about it,
in this particular smell of rolled cigarettes. And
after he died, we'd be driving along, and
we both looked at each other because it
was as though someone had blown smoke between
us
from the back seat. It was really weird.
And,
I was talking to other men's in the
family the other day. And they've had that
experience too if you can smell the smoke.
And it's like, oh my god. Was there
a smell of smoke? And it's almost as
though
it's it's like a visitation.
Like, he's come to say, hello. It's cold
it's cold sun. And here, you know, it's
weird. Yeah. Well, I know I guess and
I guess, it was, you know, really poignant
service on Sunday at church that I went
to. And,
it's interesting how humans,
you know, we we create these
rituals and these little times in our lives.
You know, we we we don't have to
do it this time of year. You can
do it at any time for
loved ones or friends and family you've lost.
But we it's like we do we we
we create these little rituals, don't we, to
kind of force ourselves to kind of remember
people, to look at photographs, to tell stories.
Yeah.
And,
yeah, it's amazing, you know. The the the
point where they a a load of names
and addresses were read out of people that
died in World War 1 and 2, I
think, that lived locally.
And, you know, these are streets that I'm
still
walking and riding and driving through and knocking
on doors sometimes. And Yeah. So it's quite
poignant, really. Mhmm. Yeah. We're she's taught me
how we create these little
Yeah. Like, this type of rituals.
But but it it feels like in some
ways, it there is an importance in remembering
those that have gone. Oh, yeah. You know?
And whether that means
that it is a Remembrance Day, like like
the Remembrance Sunday,
or whether it is that we have,
you know, celebrations and we mark
the policy of of people that have been,
close and meaningful than our lives, not just
relatives. They could be, you know, people that
that we need to remember for who they
are and what they did.
Yeah. Well, yeah. I mean, like, well, you've
you've written in your blog post about how
death is inevitable. And
Yeah. Death
can be can, you know, in terms of
our reaction to it, it can be very
I've got I've got had an an elderly
relative pass away
quite recently,
and I've got a funeral to go to
in a few weeks.
But
because they were so old, you know, well,
well, well into the nineties,
the feeling is very much, you know, one
of sort of celebration and
how they'd had such a good innings, you
know. Oh, they had a good run. Whereas
if someone passes away much earlier in life
as you've experienced and you write about, then
it's
a it's a different kind of grief and
a different kind of remembrance, isn't it? Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. And there is some some sense
about,
it's kind of fair when people are old
and they die, but it's not fair when
they're young and they die.
Yeah.
And it's, it is a certainly a very
strange experience
because then there is that thing, like I
say, about if someone dies, are they dead?
Mhmm. You know what I mean? Does do
do they live on after the body's stopped?
And we know of us will truly know
something about that if we got there.
If yeah. No.
And remembrance can take different forms. Like, my
old bless her, my grandma,
who passed away a few years ago now,
she's, like, a very vibrant person. And Yeah.
It is it is almost as if she's
still with us, actually, because
we have some stuff
bits and pieces in our house that she
had in her house. You know, we've got
a mural,
my son's bedroom. We've got a little coffee
table which has got some other bits and
bobs of hers. So it's like she's still
with us, weirdly. And Yeah. I was watching
a video back at the weekend of when
we first got Cooper, our little dog here.
Mhmm. And when we introduced him to my
sister and her kids,
I filmed it. And my grandma was was
there. She came up the driveway, the pathway
to the house.
So she's in this little video. So we
were watching that and,
it's it's strange. Yeah. It's like it's like
she's still around really. It's it's weird. Yeah.
But I and I guess
with modern technology and the amount of photos
and videos we take and the amount of
stuff we share on social media,
Yeah. It is easier maybe to kind of
keep hold of people and keep all the
memories and that that feeling, wouldn't you say?
I think so. Yes.
But the thing that we have to be
careful of, when you had photographs as as
solid
practical
objects, they're still around. You know, when something
is digital, it can be deleted. Oh my
god. It's gone. Yep. You know?
Well, it's a good tip to get some
printouts done every now and again, which I'm
not that great at. My father-in-law is brilliant.
I kinda take the Mickey out of him
because as soon as we've been on a
holiday or had a nice day out,
he's back home and he's printing a photo
for the wall.
But Fair Play, like, it it's it's you
know, if the Internet goes down or, you
know,
photos can just get lost in the stream
of thousands of other pictures of Yeah. Yeah.
God knows what. You know?
You you you've either got to do backups
on discs or sticks
or, or you gotta print them. Yeah. Yeah.
I know. I do like to try and
as a Christmas present and we're we're approaching
Christmas, I do like to try and buy
a
create one of those photo books that you
can do quite easily now online,
either of just what we've been up to
through the year or maybe a specific holiday
or, you know, the summer, that kind of
thing. So Yeah. That's another good way of
Yeah. Hold holding on to memories.
Yeah.
Yeah. Simple.
Yeah.
Yeah. But I was just thinking about remembrance
Sunday in particular in well, 11th November in
the UK and Armistice Day and all that.
Do you think it's a little bit bittersweet
that we kinda celebrate not not not celebrate,
that we take the time
that we that that kind of war and
destruction has forced us into to this. I'm
just I'm just trying to get to get
some thoughts out about how such an unbelievably,
like, tragic set of events
has forced us to kind
of take the time to remember our loved
ones. You know, like, we should be better
naturally at kind of, making that time without
having to, like, see millions of people killed
and injured.
Oh, yeah. I mean, I I think that
we live in a strange world where pain
and violence and suffering is an everyday event,
which seems crazy. Why should we do that?
But we do it.
I think that the thing is,
and and this is one of the problems
in all kinds of conflict, is that if
you're the aggressor
and you you get
you get beaten,
then,
you know,
what have you got to kind of moan
about?
If you're the,
the person who has been attacked and you
defend yourselves and and you
you give the
the originators
a good sorting out, then, you know, do
you have something to celebrate? I don't know.
I don't know. I mean, it's like when
you look at the Middle East and you
look alike, there's one set of events
and then it's followed by another set of
events. And it's like,
if the first one didn't happen, the second
one wouldn't happen. The third one is like
it's it's they're echoes of each other down
the line, aren't they? Yeah. You know? And
it's like, if we didn't do it in
the first place, well, like, when do you
stop?
When do you actually stop
the conflict?
You know? So I I can go to
Germany now,
and it's fine. But a few years ago,
not that long ago, really, in living memory,
you know, it was like, well, no. You
can't go there. Yeah.
I guess maybe part of the poignancy of
looking back on, like, the the other because,
you know, you see on the the TV,
the kind of the processions at,
Whitehall in London and well, and and local
services where there's kind of a diminishing number
of older folks that, you know,
with the badges on there,
all the medals displayed proudly. So Mhmm. That
that generation is kind of
yeah. It's it's disappearing, isn't it? So that's
gonna be
quite strange, really, I guess, when those older
folks that Yeah. I don't know. Are are
there anyone left from the First World War
while there's still people around?
Yeah. Good point. I guess
there might be a very small handful, yeah,
of work from the First World War, I
guess. Yeah. But there there'll be a 100
plus, I would think. Well, over a 100.
Yeah. Yeah.
I mean, that's assuming they were born right
at the end of it as well. So
Yeah.
Gosh. But, yeah, there's there's a bit of
poignancy there, isn't it, that we kind of
lose in that
generation. I haven't seen any this year, but
it's always quite interesting to hear those folks
that really fought
or to, in particular, like, talk about it
and tryna
quite often, they'll kind of
be quite,
like, articulate about how awful it was and
how we shouldn't do we should go, like,
nowhere fucking anywhere near that kind of
thing again if we can possibly avoid it.
Mhmm. Because it was it was that horrendous.
You know?
Yeah. Yeah. I bet you can understand, can't
you? I mean, that whole
and you see it
in what's going on in, in Gaza now
when when an area's been bombed
and and the people are so distressed and
bodies are buried
and, you know, I mean, it's horrendous.
Yeah. It's shocking. So, And and the but
the predominant thing for me in my, if
we all look after each other, we'll all
be alright attitude
It's like, why do we end up in
these situations? What on earth is the point?
You know, in the end, it doesn't serve
anybody.
Yeah.
You know? All you all you do is
create more and more pain
and and tell people, ah, you know, they've
had enough, and then they don't do it
anymore.
Yeah. Trying to think there's a Marx Brothers
movie called Duck Soup, classic one from the,
well, thirties, I think. It was one of
their maybe early forties, but,
where Greg Sherr is, like, this head of
state. And, he I think he declares war
on his
this fella he doesn't like too much because
he gets called an upstart or something like
that,
and he slaps him with a glove.
So, yeah.
In fact, yeah, my history is pretty shocking,
to be honest, but I think World War
1 was a bit of a dodgy one
in terms of how that started. Like,
really kind of strange set of circumstances that
led to a pretty, well, horrific conflict.
But I I think a lot of conflicts
are,
it's like the conflicts are self imposed.
Mhmm. You know?
I don't support any of the stuff on
either side in,
in the Middle East crisis that's going on.
But when the the guys went into Israel
and they killed and kidnapped people,
what did they expect was going to happen?
It's like you can act surprised
because the Israelis
responded,
and whether or not you agree there is
Israelis being there is neither here nor there
to me. If you do something,
why are you surprised when there's a response?
Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I couldn't understand that.
I mean, yeah, my my little perspective from
local politics is that,
it's almost as if
our political systems are kind of set up
for conflict. There's there's so little chance for
resolution and
mediation. Even in local politics when we're just
talking about really mundane stuff like bins and,
the dreaded cycle lanes, that kind of thing,
it's the
the ways that we're allowed to communicate
with with our fellow opposition councilors
in full council is just, it's quite frustrating
because you're not you know, you're given 3
minutes to talk and you're not allowed to
respond, or you can't just stand up and
say something, or you you can't If you've
already said one thing, you can't generally talk
again. So there's no chance for
a conversation,
and it does they get quite heated, and
they get you know, everyone gets their backs
up quite quickly, including me sometimes. I'm trying
to avoid it myself. But,
you know, and that's just a local council.
So, obviously, a a national global scale,
is obviously fairly fairly similar and that the
mechanisms for discussion
are are not healthy. So maybe I need
to get right in there and try and
sort it all out. Yeah.
But if,
people were allowed to have those full conversations
other than 3 minutes and go, would things
get resolved?
I don't know. I mean, there's a lot,
obviously, of pre discussions and after. You know?
So there's there's people in council
that I'll speak to very amicably before
the meeting starts, or I'll maybe I'll send
them text messages or emails and we'll
but then as soon as the kind of
the the theater begins and the the hammer
comes down or whatever, then, you know, you've
gotta change tack a little bit and talk
a different way. And Yeah.
You gotta make your points and you gotta
embarrass people sometimes, that kind of thing. So,
it's,
yeah. Politics is a big part of it,
innit?
Of of war and conflict.
But yeah.
Mhmm. We're we're gonna get get 4 years
of
Donald Trump now to see how, yeah, to
see how he handles it this time around.
And,
but, yeah, I do I do remember that
first 4 year term he had, and it
was just it was exhausting. Maybe that was
part
of the part of the ploy, but there
was just so much news and scandal coming
out every day that it just it just
really wound ground me down a little bit.
So let's see how it goes this time.
Yeah.
So how do you think that he has,
shown himself
since his,
victory? Do you think as as he do
you think he's been kind of strutting his
stuff and like, aren't I lovely?
A little bit. Yeah. I think he I
mean, in his initial speech, he did talk
about healing the nation,
which I found quite interesting.
It does seem different this time whether whether
it's just because he knows
he knows the system a bit more. He
knows what to expect when he gets in
in office.
Mhmm. And he maybe I think he'll probably
run a bit of a slicker operation and
maybe not quite as not quite as,
yeah, dramatic.
But
time will tell. You know?
He's I mean, he's he's won fair play.
Yeah.
Now we live with the consequences, don't we?
Yeah. It's gonna be quite interesting. But like
I say, well,
lots of ammunition to talk about stuff on
this show for a while. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. But but it it is. We're
talking about life, aren't we? And it's real
action. It's happening right in front of us
right now. I know. You know? And,
I I think that the whole issue about
what happens in Ukraine,
will be quite relevant to what he's doing
because he's he's full of, I could stop
this in one day and all this kind
of stuff. You know? But
to whose advantage or disadvantage
could it be stopped?
Exactly. Well, we'll see.
Yeah. Alright.
Have you got a resource for the week,
Sean?
No.
My I think that that what I would
suggest to people
in terms of a resource
is the idea
of looking at
what is your remembrance.
You know, I you know, what's actually going
on in in your world?
And it's like I I have the remembrance
of the the loss of my son,
who went on my birthday, which was good.
So I get this double bang each year.
And,
we've all got them. You know, at some
point, you lose your parents. You might lose
siblings,
you know, uncles, aunties, all kinds of people
that were perhaps very poignant in your life.
Dogs?
Yeah. Dog indeed. Dogs. Yeah. Pets. Yeah. Lip
and egg. Yeah. And and to me, like,
a pet like that isn't
an animal. It's a person. It's part of
the family. Well,
yeah, I said it jokingly. But, yeah, I
know. I was in the bakery,
the weekend, and the lady was just in
front of me and, the people behind the
till, obviously, she was a regular. And they
said, oh, where's your dog? Whatever. Marjorie, whatever
her name was. And she burst into tears
because the the dog had passed away that
week. Oh.
Yeah. So Oh, it's not good. Yeah. But
I felt it. I felt the pain. But,
Yeah. Yeah. I know loss loss can take
many forms, can't they? And,
so good remembrance, I guess. Yeah.
And and I think the the important thing
for us, especially as Brits,
is that we don't just sit on it
and hide it.
Yeah. You know, that we actually are are
open enough to share it and let it
go
Yeah. Rather than than being terribly British and
holding on. Yeah. I agree. I think that's
important. Yeah. Alright. Cool. Cheers, Sean. Well, Okay.
You take care. Keep smiling.
So I'm away next week in,
Denmark. I'll bring you back to Sykorok.
Right.
And
see you in the week after. Yeah? Have
a great time. Alright. Yep. Take care.
See you now. Bye. Bye.