Gratitude Lists and Finding Daily Glimmers

Hello everyone. It's John here, just letting you know that I have written a book It's called Thirst, twelve drinks that Change My life. and it's out now. In many episodes of How Do you Cope You'll have heard me talk about my relationship with alcohol, and in writing Thirst, I wanted to explore what alcohol means. Why did it mean more to me than other people Why did it mean some things felt better? and why did it mean so many things went wrong I also talk about lots of other things you'll have heard me and my guests discuss on how do you cope? Meditation, physical pain, gratitude, trauma, and therapy There's even a chapter about my bum and its relationship with Buddhism. So if that piques your interest Thirst is out now, and the audiob book, read by me, is available wherever you get audiobooks from Welcome everyone to the Gratitude List and I'm delighted to say that I'm still joined by Ranne and I was I was conscious when you were talking earlier in our u discussion that you won't You were very clear on how fortunate you've been in lots of ways before you lost George and Paul and I don't know whether that's by design or that's justust who you are, but that sort of building up of posositives in some sense Has that been helpful to you in in the grieving process to always try to find An interpretation of a scenario or a way things could be worse, even when you are going through the worst Absolutely. I think I don't know if it's intental or not, I always think there is somebody worse off than you you know, I lost so much, but I've still got so much, you know, I've still got other children and I've still got You know, I'm fortunate to have a nice house and amazing family, have a lot of family friends So yeah, you have to be positive. you've got to If I'd have lost all pos anything positive, I wouldn't I just don't think I'd be here today. So you've got to look for the positives. However hard is to find them. And when You're meeting with families very early on in their grieving process, like you were saying your charity's goal is or within twenty four Are they coming to you with with questions, are they sort of What are they asking what sort of thingsings are you passing on to them? So I meet a lot of our families early on. I don't go in the house into their homes very early on and I think I do that on purpose because I think It's really hard sometimes to go in and help, especially when you're not qualified in that sense and you don't want to use your own experiences. just try and I try Be even though I know what I should say, it's really easy when you're in the situation to say the wrong thing. You know, everyone says the wrong thing. But for me, it's about trying to just keep hope. I just remember very before the funerals sitting thinking, It's going to be okay. Whatever okay is going to be, I don't know. And it is okay. It's very different, okay to what I imagined, but you can't give up on hope. But when you're in those early hours and days There's not much anyone can say to you that will give you that hope either And in terms of saying the wrong thing, something I wanted to ask in the discussion on the main episode is especially with suicide People even are very tense about that word And I've heard people being sort of told off for using that word Um Do people sometimes not say anything in order to not say the wrong thing And what's your experience to some of the right and wrong things to say? I could write a book on people saying the wrong thing and the right thing, I think You know, we use elephants at Tish because of the elephant in the room, as much as elephants never forget You know, saying something is better than saying nothing Be careful what you do say. ninety nine percent of people do not say the wrong thing to hurt you. They just don't know what to say I remember going back to work for the first time and someone saying, wow you've lost loads of weight. How have you managed to do that you know, and I, you know, the dog thing is I lost my dog. it's really hard, isn't it? These type of things, it's They don't mean any harm. It's just They're very nervous and the more they think about it, they say the wrong thing. But when it comes to suicide, there's nothing wrong in saying died by suicide Committed suicide is something that needs to be stopped by you know, we must stop saying that And that is something I think a lot of people have stopped saying I still hear it far too much by people who really should know better working in, you know, some people who even work in mental health have heard people saying it and it's got to stop because that does send the wrong message across and died by suicide taken theirir own life is terminology I would use and n't send me in any way Do you think people have maybe focused on the word suicide as opposed to the committed word and now're just tense about that word. Yeah, I think it's been said for so long. People again, mean no harm by. they don't say and committed in the word that we think it it's just the way it says, but it just when you've heard it, you just know it just isn't wait to say it anymore Let's talk about some of the things on your gratitude list. They can be Big things, enormous things or they can be small things could be something that day that you've been reminded that you're grateful for, what would be number one So it's a bit predictable, number one, but it's got to be my mum and dad. So I lost my dad last year s been a massive It's rocked our family considering we thought we had thisving grieving thing under wraps. but My momum and dad are are the most amazing people in the world. They gave up everything for me and especially Holly and Isaac. they gave us that stability. they have done so much for us. So for me, I will always, always be grateful for them. They are my real life superheroes I know it's still quite recent, so Please don't feel really need to talk about your dad's death wasas that whole new flavor of Grief again more raw I wouldn't say worse Very, very different. and far more painful which It shouldn't really. It's the circle of life in that respect, isn't it? And he was eighty two. I think with Paul and George, I think it made me realize how numb I was with Paul and George for so long I'd never felt pain like it. I struggle to talk about my dad without getting upset But I can talk about Paul and George forever And I know it's more recent, but that's not why I can do it. and I don't know why Yes, he was in my life for or my forever, but Yeah, it's it hit us hard and it emotionally has been really difficult to live with the last ten months Do you think you' experience of grief for your dad is H painful and present because in a sense you're dealing with it in a more natural way than you were dealing with Paul and George. post the EMDR ye therapy With my dad, I just miss him There's no questions around it. It was peaceful we were with him No regrets I just miss him more than anything in the world and I think about him constantly and That's hard was W the boys, it was just totally different totally different What's the next thing on your list 's got to be things photos and videos and things. so I am I love taking photos and years ago I had a proper camera. So when I had the kids, hadad loads of Holly, not so many of Isaac because he was a handful. Loads of George Lad to the three of them Lads of Paul and George And I can remember after they died thinking, and all my friends used to make fun of me for taking all these photos and then they were like, wow, we need to go out and get a camera And even now I take so many photos like the kids hate it. They're teagers, aren't they Photos, cameras, you've got to be grateful for that And did you return to those photos quite early on after you lost George, orr was it a while before you could sort of go there Photos pretty quickly. Videos not so quick and I've still got a a video. So the day George died, would you believe, in nursery They used to do this thing where they used to put the little the little kids in cars and then superimpose a background on it and have him driving his little car Like a green screen kind of thing. Yeah And it was an insect and he was in a little car in the long grass and all these insects and Isaac was in the little car with him as well because they were nursery together never watched it got it. and So it shows I'm still a long way to go on the journey, but the majority of photos,'s like the same with my dad, photos amazing, videos, just too much be the next thing So it goes back to what we were talk about earlier, glimmers. So I call them glimmers. I'm obsessed with glimmers. So however hard your day is, your life is There is a glimmer So weirdly someone bought me a book and put it on my doorsteps this morning because my word of the month, I'm choosing a word every month to sort of stand by and my word this month is glimmers because Fbrary It's the anniversaries of both their deaths and it's my dad's birthday as well So this month I'm going to need to look for glimmers. and I'm grateful for them because they are there. You've just got to look for them So are you talking about stuff that happens that Really good or unexpected Or are you talking about seeing Good in in things that you might otherwise be ignore or not notice. Yeah, like a mixture really. So like if I'm having a bad day work which isn't very often because I am very I love my job If I'm a bad day wor and you get getting bogged down with stuff and whatever. It may be just L look at that star wall because it's something positive, even though it's sad, a reminder of why it's important we do what we do or You know, the kids if the house is messy and the kids com in, I can hear them laughing downstairs. It's just that glimmer. And I think I've always been a positive person and even in the darkest of times it's looking for those There's little glimmers,' little signs, there's little rainbows, there bright stars at night You know, all these things that make you sound a bit crazy sometimes, but hey, if it's what gets you through the day, it's what gets you through Tell us about the Star War. We didn't actually cover that in the main episode. It's incredible So at Toish, we very early on, there was a photo of Paul and George on the wall. There always was And then one Christmas, The firstirst Christmas we had in office, I didn't want to leave George and Paul alone in the dark on Christmas Eve. So I put a big candle, battery candle underneath it But' have for Christmas And then we decided to put a star up for Paul and George then And then we decided to start and we were talking we had hardly any families then, so it was never going to be a problem. we just put a couple of stars up with a child's name on who had died And then we decided we'd give every family who'd lost their child a star with their name on to go on the wall And that wall now has these thousands of stars, wooden handmade stars by volunteers with the child's name on. covering the walls in our office And every Christmas now we light a battery T light every single star. So we did three thousand this year and we covered the landing with the stars. So at Christmas Eve, we always L to think that that Father Christmas knows where those children are because the lights are shining Oh go. wow, that's amazing Very, very moving but you are having space issues Well, yeah, we are, we are having space issues. We are going to continue growing them, which is fine, but inevitably one day we will run out of wall space So we are now thinking of what we can do what we can do that we can either preserve the stars or change it slightly. And you know I've been looking for a piece of land or like a wood, I'd love a little forestry where we could have a starlit Tish forestry or a wall where we could put the stars, engrave them on the wall or something like that. There'll always be something somewhere that families can come to because Even though it's a simple wooden star, people travel from all over to come and see it And I think it's just a nod that their child is living on, but' also amongst others and isn't alone because that's something you do worry about about your child being on their own as well Amazing So what would be the fourth thing I think it'd have to be my trainers because since Since all of this happened, even though I was a P teacher and people think' super fit and outgoing and so on. N never really done anything. So since they died, I've done Oh, fourour marathons, ten half marathons, loads of ten Ks I'm slow. donon't look at me thinking I'm super good because I'm not You know, things like I've jumped out of a plane and I've cycled hundreds of miles and I've done Kilimajaro in Everest and My daps have got me. my Welsh daps have got me in these places and I think it's just great for your mental health. gettingetting outdoors. I do a lot of walking and trainers. Do you are you sort of obsessed with different trainer models and makes because I have recently begun a running journey and I've really gone down a rabbit hole of heel drop stack height kind of thing It's a nightmare. I did go through a phase of it and then I just became a bit tight and I just thought I'm not paying all that money just to run around the block a bit. So now I've just got the ones that look nice. Mine are like orange and pink or something now. Lvely And what's the last thing on your Gresse list Oh. is music because I'm not I've never been a musical person You know, my favorites are the boy bands, You take thats, Boy Zones and things like that. N never really been a musical person, but I think when you have gone through something Music has a completely different effect on you and you listen to the wor like I' used to listen to the words of songs' now do You know, I've got a specific playlist, I've got a running playlist, which