If You’re a People Pleaser Listen to This! (Why Putting Yourself First Isn’t Selfish, It’s Necessary For Real Connection)

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Speaker 1 I stopped people pleasing when I realized the people that I was trying to please were not trying to reciprocate their energy to me.

Speaker 1 I also realized that I was putting myself second almost all the time for other people with very little reciprocation. I had to stop for my own sanity and for my own self-respect.

Speaker 1 When you compare your efforts to others and you almost look and you can see they've got boundaries that I don't have. Because if I asked them to do what they're asking me, they would say no.

Speaker 1 Why would they say no? Is it because they're a horrible person? Is it because of this or they're selfish? No, it's because of their boundary.

Speaker 5 The number one health and wellness podcast.

Speaker 3 Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty.
The one, the only Jay Shetty.

Speaker 3 Hey, everyone, welcome back to On Purpose, the place you come to become a happier, healthier, and more healed. Today's guest is someone that I've known for quite a few years now.

Speaker 3 We'll share a bit about our background and story of how we got to know each other.

Speaker 3 I'm speaking about Megan Roxanne, a first-generation British Trinidadian entrepreneur, author, speaker, and the inspirational force behind the renowned platform, The Good Quote.

Speaker 3 Her new book is out right now. It's called How to Stop Breaking Your Heart.
You'll see a little testimonial here from me because I think this book is brilliant.

Speaker 3 It's got so many great insights, wise pieces of guidance that will help you in your lowest, difficult, toughest times and help you avoid those if you manage to be able to surpass them.

Speaker 3 Please welcome to on purpose Megan Roxanne. Megan, it's so great to finally have you here.
This is awesome.

Speaker 1 Thank you so much for having me, Jay. Thank you.
It's great to be here.

Speaker 3 I was so happy when you told me you were writing a book and you said, you know, can you read it and share a testimonial for it?

Speaker 3 Because I know how challenging this journey has been for you for putting yourself out there.

Speaker 3 I mean, you built the most motivational page on social media, without a doubt, the good quote, and the amount of impact that it's had, how it shifted the culture of what people are doing on social media.

Speaker 3 It's had such a beautiful ripple effect to so many other people you've supported, myself included, and I'll share a bit on that.

Speaker 3 And you've always had this

Speaker 3 challenge of putting yourself out there.

Speaker 3 And so when you were writing this book and I picked it up and I looked at it and you asked me for a couple of words, I was just so proud of you as a friend. I was so excited for you.

Speaker 3 And I was so excited for everyone else that would now have access to you as well and your story. So congratulations from a friend, really.
I mean it.

Speaker 1 Thank you. I appreciate that.
Thank you.

Speaker 3 I just want to give a bit of background for people. I remember I just

Speaker 3 started posting content to Facebook in 2016

Speaker 3 and it was really taking off. And then I remember Instagram being a platform that I was trying to find traction on and sharing my content.

Speaker 3 And I was looking at other pages that had the same values as mine, like people who believed in wisdom, people who believed in wanting to share that freely with everyone, people who wanted to make wisdom as cool and as sexy and as accessible as everything else on the internet.

Speaker 3 And I remember coming across the good quote and I remember just sending a DM and saying, hey, would you guys share my stuff and i literally at that time used to just send i would i would find anyone of equal value on social media and i would just dm them and say hey i'd love to connect i have i'm making content would you be able to share it and you were so kind uh that you decided to support me at that early stage and honestly it gave me my

Speaker 3 first breakthrough on instagram because all of a sudden all these people were aware of my work and what I always found was that it was always still about the content like the content had to be good.

Speaker 3 But what I found was that the fact that you were able to distribute it to so many more people,

Speaker 3 I was able to see that my content was resonating with even more people.

Speaker 3 So I'm so grateful for that initial connection and collaboration we had because it was so important to me and the beginning of my journey. And I know it's not just me.
You've helped so many people.

Speaker 3 So anyway, my first question is:

Speaker 1 how

Speaker 3 does it feel when at four years old you hear from a grandparent that they don't love you.

Speaker 1 Oh, wow.

Speaker 1 That's how you start the book.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay. So that was the first time I ever felt the impact of words physically.
I didn't know that words can hurt you. I didn't even know there was a thing as internal pain.

Speaker 1 I was only four and I was used to getting a little slap behind the back of the leg if I did something naughty. But

Speaker 1 to be told, especially when my entire

Speaker 1 reality was based on love, I had a really great home growing up. So to be told that was really difficult to comprehend.

Speaker 1 But the physical pain of my chest, my heart, it literally felt like somebody was trying to split it. And I will never forget that pain because it was the first time I've ever felt it.

Speaker 1 And when I explained to my mother what happened and I described the pain, it's almost like she knew, okay, my family's gotten to her now.

Speaker 1 It was a good four years, but she didn't ever want me to experience that. And I did.
And

Speaker 1 if I'm being honest with you, it really took away a lot of my innocence as well. I was robbed of innocence during that time.

Speaker 1 I don't think children should know what it's like to be hurt or spoken too badly or have to cry themselves at night time or sitting on the sofa waiting for their parents to come home and, you know, feeling sad.

Speaker 1 It's not an emotion that a child should have to feel. I felt it and it's a lasting memory that I would always remember.

Speaker 3 Why did he say it? Did you ever ask him, or did you ever find out?

Speaker 1 My grandfather was an interesting man. He actually passed away four days before my book came out.

Speaker 3 Wow.

Speaker 1 Yeah. And it's been intense because I was caring for him as well.
A request that was given to me by my mother, which I mentioned in the book. My grandfather, he lived a very

Speaker 1 selfish life in a sense where

Speaker 1 he didn't care how he hurts people, what his words did. He didn't care.
He was a happy-go-lucky rum drinker. You know, as a man, he did what he had to do for his family.
He provided.

Speaker 1 But as a person, he wasn't that great.

Speaker 1 He had great friends, you know, in the family, in the Western D's. Everyone would think he was this great guy.
But actually to live with him, he was a bit of a monster.

Speaker 1 The reason why I'm being careful with my words is because my grandfather and I went on a journey in the last two years of me caring for for him and I forgave him and he explained to me the reasonings behind his treatment towards his children and it was simply put what he experienced is what he provided so there's a level of generational ignorance that was passed down from my grandfather and the ricochet of that is why I'm sitting right here with this book in your hand there wasn't that much emotional intelligence

Speaker 1 with my grandparents. You know, they will do something to you, they wouldn't apologize.

Speaker 1 And that was kind of something the generation that they came from were accustomed to doing apologizing to your children is not really something that you hear people do.

Speaker 1 My mother apologized to me many times. She said to me one time, you know, anything that I experienced in my house growing up, I will not bring here.

Speaker 1 So my grandfather was just a character that I knew was always miserable, always angry, drinking, loved to watch cricket. And that was basically it.

Speaker 3 He wasn't a great person to be around if you were looking for motivation or anything positive wow how did it feel i didn't even think we're going to go down this direction but it's it i have to ask like how did it feel to care for someone who told you they didn't love you that early in your life because that process seems to be I know when I'm speaking to a lot of my community or I'm reading comments or I read DMs and I really listen in on what my community cares about so I can serve them better.

Speaker 3 And a lot of people find themselves in that position where someone who's caused them pain is the person that they're now caring for or they're supporting or they're in the same house for years.

Speaker 3 And the question is always, Jay, how do I survive around someone like that, let alone care for them? So how did you even reconcile it in the beginning of that two-year journey?

Speaker 3 Because that feels like the ultimate test of everything that you're saying in the book.

Speaker 1 Well, this is going to sound so strange, but in my spirit this morning, I knew you were going to ask me something like that.

Speaker 1 And I saw that you shared something on your stories um somebody asked you about their relationship with their mother and your reply was forgiveness and empathy and that's it Jay that's literally it I my mother asked me to care for my grandfather as she was passing away and reluctantly I said yes because that was my best friend and I knew that there was a reason behind it and at the time I didn't want to do it but I just knew for the future Megan this is an investment that I actually have to go through and devote myself to and it was literally for that my mother's last last lesson was for me to care for my grandfather so I can understand the power of forgiveness.

Speaker 1 I thought I understood forgiveness,

Speaker 1 but I didn't, I didn't. Looking after my grandfather meant that I had to create new boundaries.
I had to stand up for myself in so many ways.

Speaker 1 There were so many rumors spread by other malicious family members of mine that were untrue, that I had to like work my way around whilst grieving for my mum. You know, my grandfather

Speaker 1 was left unattended for the years that I was looking after my mother when she was passing away from stage four cancer. We actually went to the West Indies.

Speaker 1 And when I got back, I assumed that my mother's siblings were looking after him, but they weren't.

Speaker 1 So when I got back, I was faced with the responsibility of looking after him, renovating his house, bringing him back to a full bill of health, which I did.

Speaker 1 And during that entire process, there was a level of trust that had to be obtained. Even helping my grandfather walk again, I had to literally help him walk.

Speaker 1 And there were times where he would just be like, pass me the Guinness.

Speaker 1 I haven't got time for this. I'll just sit here.
You know, and then there were other times where he was really determined. And it was through these experiences that I had no other choice.

Speaker 1 but to seek forgiveness because I was spending a lot of time with him. And then there were a lot of unanswered questions, a lot of things that I needed for my own journey,

Speaker 1 a lot of things that I wanted to, a lot of chapters that I wanted to close for my mother, even though she passed away,

Speaker 1 just for the principle of it.

Speaker 1 So my grandfather and I did a lot of talking. And when I became more aware of his reasonings, his justifications, which weren't great at all, but transparently truthful,

Speaker 1 I then started to develop a level of respect for him.

Speaker 1 It takes a lot of bravery and courage at 90 years old to admit where you've gone wrong in life and actually apologize to somebody less than half your age, especially if it's not part of your culture or it's not something that you've been raised to do.

Speaker 1 So when my grandfather passed away, you know, I went to view his body and I sat there and I just thought to myself, it is well.

Speaker 1 It is well. The chapter is closed.

Speaker 1 I broke that curse. Moving on, my children don't have to hear about their great grandfather with so much anger in my voice.
I could just say, I could talk about the last two years.

Speaker 1 I don't have to talk about everything that happened before because I've healed past that. And the reason why we do heal, obviously for our own harmony, but so we don't pass on more pain.

Speaker 1 I didn't have to inherit my family's pain and trauma, but I did. But it's my duty and my job to ensure that I don't pass it on.

Speaker 1 And I think that's what my mother was trying to teach me behind the importance of forgiveness is to put a final stop to it so that you can move on and live your life. But you have to forgive.

Speaker 1 because i had so much anger in my heart for my grandfather but then when i saw him and his little efforts of determination to get walking again or i might go and see him in the morning and he might make me some pilau you know um or some curry goat and pilau or whatnot and i'm thinking okay there's something bubbling here and i'm not going to be the person to interrupt that let me just see where this journey takes us so when he passed away i i was happy for him i was happy that he was able to transition.

Speaker 1 I prayed for him and I was able to walk away knowing that I don't have to carry that burden anymore.

Speaker 3 What's so valuable with the insight you just shared is that you were able to place the virtue of forgiveness above how you felt about it because it meant something to your mum, because you believed that it had something to do with a better future for Megan.

Speaker 3 And I find that to be remarkable in a time where I feel we've actually gone the other way.

Speaker 3 So a lot of the time we're so fixated on what makes me feel good now, what makes me comfortable now, what feels right for me now.

Speaker 3 And it's really interesting because I've been thinking about this a lot lately that this pursuit of virtues is actually the only way you'll ever be happy.

Speaker 3 Because even if you did what you wanted now and you disregarded everything else, later on, you still haven't healed or created and built forgiveness.

Speaker 3 And so you're still living in that bitterness and that pain, even if the person passes away and even if you were away from them for years and years and years.

Speaker 3 But how do we reconcile that? Like, at what point is it self-disrespect

Speaker 3 to aspire for a virtue while someone is potentially creating havoc in your life?

Speaker 3 Like, how do you see that in terms of setting boundaries in, I'm going to to care for them because I see this virtue being there, but then at the same time, I'm not just going to allow myself to be abused or disrespected.

Speaker 1 Growing up, I witnessed my mother do various things to contribute to her healing, whether it was yoga, whether it was going for walks, meditation, simply spending time alone, also forgiving, enforcing her boundaries, which was really difficult for her.

Speaker 1 She was the first child of six siblings.

Speaker 1 So she didn't really get to enforce her boundaries, nor did her siblings care or honor them and i watched that growing up and i think one of the most profound um experiences that i spoke about in the book was when she bumped into her father when they were in sainsbury's and they reunited and they had their conversations and she ended up looking after him and there was one day where he was rude to her

Speaker 1 and i remember coming home from college and she was cooking really fast

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 I could just smell the curry from downstairs. And I was like, okay, it's in the middle of the week.
Mum usually cooks on a Sunday. Are we having guests?

Speaker 1 No, the guest was the anger that came from the experience she had of her father. She enforced her boundary, and it was the first time she's done it in years.
So she didn't know how to respond.

Speaker 1 And I watched that and I watched how it actually strengthened the relationship with her father because he started to respect it. And I think he also realized there's no one else left.

Speaker 1 So if I'm going to have this relationship, I'm going to have to ensure that I stick to the rules to keep it healthy.

Speaker 1 So with me now, if the same man having to go through the same experiences, my boundary enforcement came very quickly. There was one day where I bought him a bottle of Guinness.

Speaker 1 You know, he did a lot of things that day and we did a reward system where if he did 100 steps, you know, and this and that will give him some something.

Speaker 1 He loved Guinness, so I bought him a bottle of Guinness and it was warm. So he kind of threw it at me and he was like, put it in the freezer, it's warm.

Speaker 1 And I said, actually, what I'm going to do is I'm going to go home and I'm going to leave the bottle right there and you can put it in the freezer yourself. I'm not having that.

Speaker 1 That is absolutely rude. And I got up and I left.

Speaker 1 And he called me and he called me and he called me and I picked up and I said, I'm, I'm not coming back until you apologize because that was really rude.

Speaker 1 And when I got back, he made breakfast, you know, he he cleaned downstairs, like everything that I usually get him to do every day. He did it all in one day.

Speaker 1 And, you know he apologized and sat down and we had a conversation and I said to him moving forward this is not happening because I'm not going to care for you and deplete my own energy at the same time that's insane but I've watched my mother do that so throughout this entire process I just learned that my no is my no my yes is my yes if I don't like something I tell the person I don't feel bad about telling the person because what's the what's the what's the other option I take the bad treatment while they're none the wiser that it's hurting me it doesn't serve anybody So the boundary enforcement, I think I gained a lot of confidence over the span of two years, looking after my grandfather, enforcing my boundaries, standing in my word and not being scared.

Speaker 1 And that was one of the most powerful things that I learned. So it wasn't difficult.

Speaker 1 It was more, if I respect myself and love myself, I will put these boundaries in place so that I don't deplete myself every time I come to visit this person.

Speaker 1 And if they respect and love and honor me and even are thankful for my devotion to caring for them, they will ensure that the environment is healthy and safe. And that was literally the case.

Speaker 1 If it wasn't, I would have just walked away, paid the NHS staff to look after him and check in every now and then because I have to put myself first. And I learned that with my mother's story as well.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I hope that's really refreshing for people to hear because I feel like when we think of forgiveness, we think of it as like this

Speaker 3 fully all-encompassing thing where there's no boundaries, you just give in and to hear that clarity, because I found that when we don't set boundaries, what we don't realize, we keep enabling that person to behave that way.

Speaker 3 And we become enablers. We think we're helping them, but actually we're hurting them.

Speaker 3 And the only one we're helping is ourselves because we feel better about ourselves for a second where we're like, oh, I'm so tolerant and I did everything just perfectly for them.

Speaker 3 But then what we don't realize is we're just continuing that behavior.

Speaker 3 One thing I've discovered really hearing from everything you're saying is that there's three types of people in life. The first is someone who repeats the pain they saw.

Speaker 3 The second is someone who does the opposite of the pain they saw.

Speaker 3 And the third is someone who heals from that pain and gives people what they never had and creates a space for people to have the life that they never got the opportunity to have.

Speaker 3 And it sounds like you chose that third option.

Speaker 3 And anyone who chooses that third option protects their future self.

Speaker 3 What's the difference between people pleasing and wanting people to be happy because i think people get that confused they don't know the difference before you hear the answer here's a quick break big thanks to our sponsors let's get back to it how would you define what a people pleaser is versus someone who likes to see people happy okay so from the chronic people pleaser myself

Speaker 1 i would say just acknowledging the fact that you do not control somebody's happiness.

Speaker 1 It doesn't matter if you give them everything they want, there's going to be another factor in their lives that's going to implicate their ability to be completely happy.

Speaker 1 So, it's not your responsibility, it's not your purpose to make other people happy, and it's a job that's never going to have a reward because there's so many factors to our happiness anyway.

Speaker 1 One person can't achieve that. So, for me, with people pleasing, I just realized that as much as I do want to make this person happy, my happiness also

Speaker 1 is valid and it's also important to me. So I have to set boundaries and you have to enforce your boundaries with people, with people in general.

Speaker 1 I always want to ensure that I'm creating a healthy space for people, whether it's in my home or wherever it is. As long as you're in my presence, I want you to be happy.

Speaker 1 I want you to feel seen, heard, appreciated, valued, understood, but again, not at my own detriment.

Speaker 1 So if I'm not receiving the same thing from you, then something has to give or something has to stop.

Speaker 1 I stopped people pleasing when I realized the people that I was trying to please were not trying to reciprocate that energy to me.

Speaker 1 I also realized that I was putting myself second almost all the time for other people with very little reciprocation. I just decided that it just wasn't for me.

Speaker 1 There's a whole backstory in my book about people pleasing and it explains my journey on that.

Speaker 1 But in the short form, I had to stop for my own sanity and for my own self-respect, especially when you look, when you compare your efforts to others and you almost look and you can see they've got boundaries that i don't have because if i asked them to do what they're asking me they would say no why would they say no is it because they're a horrible person is it because of this or they're selfish no it's because of their boundary so i realized that everybody around me had their boundaries when it came to me but as i was people pleasing i didn't have any for anybody else and on top of that with people pleasing it just takes you to lengths that you were never prepared to go, you know, and it's just unfair to put yourself in that position.

Speaker 1 Do the best you can to support, but never at your own detriment. And if it is going to be at your own detriment, then that's something that you have to sit down and discuss with yourself.

Speaker 1 Okay, this is costing me this, but what am I learning in the process? When does it come to an end? What are my boundaries in this particular experience?

Speaker 1 But across the board, I would say scrap people pleasing as a whole. You don't need to do that.
And the people around you will feel uncomfortable with you doing that anyway.

Speaker 1 You know, there's a lot of my friends that would be like, relax, you're overcompensating just to put me back into into gear because people pleasing isn't, well, the habits of people pleasing isn't going to stop overnight.

Speaker 1 It's actual small practices that you have to implement on a day-to-day to rewire this brain of ours to stop doing this nonsense. But

Speaker 1 yeah, I think boundaries, enforcing your boundaries is the main, it's the key thing to putting an end to people pleasing and just realizing that put that love into yourself, put that devotion and that time and that energy into yourself.

Speaker 1 Why are you so scared to do that? Because you'll find a lot of people who people please, they don't actually have great relationships with themselves.

Speaker 1 So just that energy is great, but just bring it back to yourself, you know, first. Similar to when you're on an airplane, you have to put the mask on first before you help other people.

Speaker 1 It's very similar.

Speaker 3 Yeah, well said.

Speaker 3 I could agree with you more. I think that

Speaker 3 I stopped people pleasing when I realized that there was nothing I could possibly do to actually please someone fully, that there'd always be some gap, some blemish, some mistake,

Speaker 3 even if I tried with the deepest, purest intention.

Speaker 3 And I recognized that actually, if I simply tried to create a space for people to flourish, And then it was up to them to make the most of it. And if they didn't,

Speaker 3 I could only make the space better, but I couldn't please them. I could improve the environment, but I couldn't improve them.

Speaker 3 I think that's when we fail is when we make a person our project or we make a person our purpose or we make a person our obsession as opposed to the environment and the space and the energy, which you can control.

Speaker 3 You can control the energy someone feels when they walk into your house.

Speaker 3 You can't control whether they want to rise to that energy or whether they want to bring it down.

Speaker 3 You can control the energy someone has in your workspace, but you can't control whether they're going to subscribe to that energy or unfollow. Like you can't change that.

Speaker 3 And so I think if you're spot on that if we spent more time curating energy that we emanate and that we live by and the spaces that we walk into have,

Speaker 3 then now we're leaving it up to everyone else.

Speaker 3 Right. You came in this morning and you were smiling and you were happy.
We gave each other a big hug. Like it's been, we've been having bubbly conversation, like reconnecting.

Speaker 3 Like we both decided to be on that energy.

Speaker 3 Now, I wanted this place to be welcoming and inviting and hopefully felt that it felt calm and there weren't too many people and it wasn't stressful but then you have to also meet me there and bring your energy and then i have to meet you there and so i feel like people will constantly meet you where you're at or they'll force you to meet you where they're at yeah and it's your choice to decide whether you want to rise or fall i want to i want to dive into your journey a little bit because

Speaker 3 it feels like you got introduced to needing an emotional vocabulary very young in your life.

Speaker 3 Like when I was reading your book, I was like, this is someone who the good quote isn't a page with good quotes because

Speaker 3 just because you're a good writer, it's because you've had to live that.

Speaker 3 It's lived experience that is now coming out in the form of good quote.

Speaker 3 And I often think about that with me too, and I align with that, that what I share today is stuff that I've lived, it's experienced, it's pain, it's stress, it's overwhelm, it's a a role I've played for many years.

Speaker 3 I always say I mediated my entire family's relationship and dynamic for many, many years. So a lot of the mediation I do today is because that's the role I've always played.

Speaker 3 And so with you, I got this sense that your emotional vocabulary grew very young in life. Yeah.
And then you felt like sharing it.

Speaker 3 I wanted to ask you, we were talking about 2011 was Tumblr, where you started sharing wisdom. 2014 was when the good quote was taken out.
When you started writing and sharing these experiences,

Speaker 3 how scared or worried were you originally about how they'd be seen? And how long did it take you to even have the courage to like write and put out your first post?

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Speaker 1 firstly to dive deeper into the reasonings behind the good quote there are so many quote pages out there um the good quote does have the most followers because we started but it wasn't a hustle it wasn't something that i thought i didn't even think of money you know uh it was a hobby and it was something that came from desperation, lack of community.

Speaker 1 I was in a really dark place and I couldn't find the community that I was looking for. So I had no other option but to create it myself.
On Tumblr, Tumblr is a beautiful platform.

Speaker 1 Oh my gosh, I absolutely love it. It's just, it doesn't have any of the metrics that we fuss over on all the other platforms.
It's just, it is what it is. You don't care about the followers.

Speaker 1 You can put your whole self on there and somebody is going to follow you because they like you that's what i think is amazing about tumblr it's just a blank page blog post someone's going to read your blog and if they like it or if they resonate with it that's a follower that's now one member of your community so when i started um tumbler i was listening to whiz khalifa um he had a mixtape called cushion orange juice and there's a song on there and oh my gosh every time i come on podcast like i talk about it and i'd never get the name of the song it goes something like um we be long at the top or something like that And I was in a really bad place when I was listening to that.

Speaker 1 I dropped out of uni. My friends were making their lives, and I was still very stuck.

Speaker 1 And I listened to the lyrics, and it was very simple, you know, and I just thought to myself, Yeah, actually, I'm going to make it. I'm actually going to make it.
Just got to keep telling myself that.

Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 1 wow, that's what that quote did for me.

Speaker 1 That's that was my first initial feeling.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that's what the lyric did for me.

Speaker 1 So, I went on to tumble up

Speaker 1 and I tried to blog with WordPress.

Speaker 1 I remember at the time Vice was starting to really emerge and I joined a Vice blogging network and I had my own blog and nothing worked.

Speaker 1 And then I got on Tumblr and I took a picture of Wiz Khalifa and I put that lyric that touched me on top of that picture. I darkened it.
I posted it with some hashtags and I fell asleep.

Speaker 1 And the next day I woke up to like 12,000 followers. and a whole bunch of requests and I was like, okay.

Speaker 1 Whiz Khalifa was really popular at the time, so I think I kind of jumped on that.

Speaker 1 But the fact is, nobody else was making picture quotes out of positive hip-hop lyrics.

Speaker 1 And then I never told any of my friends that this blog was mine. I started seeing my friends display pictures on Blackberry Messenger and Facebook change to my quotes.

Speaker 1 And then I realized that there were people who were going through things that would find a particular quote and put it on their display picture.

Speaker 1 So now you know, they're in their emotions today, they're sad about this. And it kind of made it easier to share how you're feeling within without having to actually vocalize it.

Speaker 1 So for me, Cushion Wisdom on Tumblr was just like, wow, I didn't know I can connect to this many people. I didn't think people needed these quotes as much as I did.

Speaker 1 But I have 12,000 people that resonate with me now. So three weeks into launching Tumblr, I started a clothing line called Cool Storybo, which was a slogan back in the day.

Speaker 1 And my mother was an accountant, accountant, a bookkeeper at the time, and she was making about 40,000 a year.

Speaker 1 And I pulled in £36,000 in three weeks for just selling that clothing based on that community. And I kept it very transparent.
I'm building this.

Speaker 1 I'm putting this for sale because I'm trying to figure out what it is that I'm doing with my creativity. So I'm investing in myself.
You can purchase if you want.

Speaker 1 So many orders, Jay.

Speaker 1 And it made me realize how needed this platform is. People really need encouragement.
You know, people really need to be seen.

Speaker 1 And just as Cushion Wisdom started to grow, my mother got diagnosed with breast cancer. So I took a year off and I cared for her.

Speaker 1 And during that year, I think I kind of lost the momentum of Cushion Wisdom. I met my business partner in a Caribbean restaurant and he was like, this is what you should be doing.

Speaker 1 We can do this, we can do that. We move over to the good quote.

Speaker 1 And on the good quote, it was a bit different because I, instead of taking pictures that I didn't take and other people's lyrics I didn't write, I had to find writers.

Speaker 1 So I went onto Twitter and I started looking for writers and I found a bunch new up and coming writers, maybe 500 followers, a thousand followers.

Speaker 1 But I was reading through their timelines and I was like, oh shit, this is really, I like this. And the demand on Instagram was much more than Tumblr.

Speaker 1 So I went from from posting a few times a day on Tumblr to 24 hours a day on Instagram. And I was explaining this to other people.
Anytime people asked me about this story, I'd tell them.

Speaker 1 I slept for 50 minutes and then I would wake up, quickly post because there was no scheduling. There was no scheduling apps.
I was going mad. My mental health was declining by the day.

Speaker 1 But my followers, I gained a million followers in a month. Wow.
In my first month,

Speaker 1 we've never seen anything like that before.

Speaker 1 and every celebrity at one stage was following us we had um when i met you in la i actually messaged chloe kardashian and she replied you know and so many people i actually had an i think the first person that had beef with us was a singer called kerry hilson i think we credit her incorrectly found out that it wasn't even her quote i mean this is just between me and you but it was insane the impact that it had and I didn't have any confidence to post my stuff.

Speaker 1 I didn't because I psyched myself up to believe that I'm just a distributor. I'm not the talent.
I find the talent and I bring it to the platform for the community. This isn't about me.

Speaker 1 And there was one occasion where I did try to put my face to it and I was hit with a lot of racism. And it upset me because obviously this is a community that I put my heart and soul into.

Speaker 1 Why are they racist? Who is following me that's racist?

Speaker 1 I stopped putting my face out there and I did that for 10 years.

Speaker 1 I didn't gain, to answer your question, I didn't gain the confidence to put my work out there until maybe about four or five years later.

Speaker 1 You know, and that was from the encouragement of the writers that I was sharing. You know, we would have really deep conversations.

Speaker 1 I would post things on Twitter and they would be like, share this, share this. And it was not until I really saw your growth that I thought to myself, okay, the good quote is really huge.

Speaker 1 I could change my life at any moment. And then the anxiety came in.

Speaker 1 The imposter syndrome came in. And I just thought, you know what?

Speaker 1 I'm best to be behind the scenes let me just work with great people let me meet great people let me use this as an opportunity to network and I'll figure out myself later you know I spoke in the book about premonitions I used to get a lot of premonitions as a kid it's one of the reasons why my mother went back to church because she left the church after she gave birth to me she was a part of a really strict church you know you couldn't wear trousers you could not be pregnant if you were not married so mum left you know but i kept seeing things and i kept getting really interesting dreams and i remember from a young age my mother would say to me you know you have to get ready to like education is the most important thing and i said to her not in my life i'm going to live my life when i'm 30.

Speaker 1 that's when life is coming for me because i kept getting told that whether it was in my dreams or just something subconsciously life will start for you in your mid 30s everything leading up to that would be experience And that's literally what has happened.

Speaker 1 So I allowed myself to make loads of mistakes and cry and fail. And I did a lot of that on the good quote with myself.
And it boosted me enough to make me realize that I'm a good writer.

Speaker 1 You know, even though I knew that I was kind of bred to become a writer, my mother loved literature. So sharing my work wasn't difficult after a while.
But at first, it was so intense.

Speaker 1 The imposter syndrome was wild. You know, some other writers would get 100,000 likes.
I would get 50 and I'll be upset with that. And it's crazy because it's like 50,000 people is two O2 arenas.

Speaker 1 If you ever stood in the O2 arena and you look around, I think the capacity is 25,000 seats. Two of them full of people liked what I had to say.

Speaker 1 But because this writer got 100K, I don't feel, I hated that energy. It took away from the creativity.
It took away from my love.

Speaker 1 It took away from the experience that I needed in order to create that particular quote. So

Speaker 1 I posted myself once or twice a week and that's kind of the habit that I've been doing over the over the years.

Speaker 3 What What I find fascinating about that is you had the courage to listen to your intuition, like this premonition part where you're saying everything before 35 is experience and then 35 is when I start living.

Speaker 3 What I'm fascinated by is how did you build that courage? Because what I find is, so it's similar for me where when I was 14, I felt my inner voice got really loud.

Speaker 3 And so I remember my parents really wanted me to do math and science and all this stuff at

Speaker 3 gcse and a level and obviously you have to do it gcse you don't get to choose but then at a level in the uk you get to choose so you're around for anyone who's listening in the us or outside of the uk when you're between 16 to 18 you get to choose three to four subjects that you study at a levels and i remember from 14 when you're starting to think about this

Speaker 3 my inner voice was just like do what you love do what you're good at do what you love do what you're good at do what you love and that just kept repeating itself yeah but i grew up in an environment where it was like like it was all about getting a good job and it was all about doing things that other people valued yeah and you have a chapter in the book called we follow other people's visions for our lives instead of our own and that's how we break our own hearts in that section of your book and for me i made a pact with myself that i would never follow my parents or anyone extended family's vision for my life.

Speaker 3 I would only study subjects that were true to me. Now, that sounds like a really small decision, but it was the beginning of a pattern of decisions that gave me the confidence to always back myself.

Speaker 3 So, I said to my parents, I was like, I'm going to do art and design. I'm going to do economics.
I'm going to do sociology. I'm going to do things that I find interesting.

Speaker 3 And obviously, to my parents, who'd worked so hard and immigrants, who'd really worked hard for me to have a good education and everything, they're like,

Speaker 3 what are you going to do with art and design? Like, how's that going to help? And I was like, no, no, no, I just know it. I just know it.

Speaker 3 And now I realize what I was saying, I knew it is I knew it it internally. And since that day, every decision I made, when I decided to become a monk, I knew internally that was right for me.

Speaker 3 When I decided to leave, I knew that was internally right for me. When I decided to start creating stories and telling stories, I knew that was internal.

Speaker 3 It wasn't ever someone, something someone said to me, or it wasn't like, oh, this is a good strategy, or this is a good, it wasn't that. It was internally guided.

Speaker 3 And even till this day, I find that when I abandon that internal voice, that's when I make mistakes. But when I listen closely to that internal voice, that's when I make my best decisions.

Speaker 3 But I find for a lot of people, when you've ignored that voice for maybe five years, 10 years, 15 years, it's so quiet now. But first, here's a quick word from the brands that support the show.

Speaker 3 All right. Thank you to our sponsors.
Now let's dive back in. So two questions.
The first is, how have you always trusted your inner voice?

Speaker 3 And two, if someone's lost connection with it, how do they get it to become louder again?

Speaker 1 So my mother was born in a boardhouse in Trinidad.

Speaker 1 It's a house that consists of board-like material on wooden stilts, very basic, you know, two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, a lot of people in the house.

Speaker 1 So you had to stand up for yourself in that house. Even if it came to dinner time, the best meat is being taken by your great uncle or your cousin.
You have to stand up for yourself.

Speaker 1 Then you take that person, bring them to England, very similar environment a lot more damaging you know still have to stick up for yourself my mother didn't stick up for herself there so when it came to her raising me like i said before all of the mistakes that she made all the things that she saw or witnessed growing up in her house in london with her family she was not bringing that into our house so my house was full of so many different affirmations.

Speaker 1 Every day was just like a particular prayer I had to say. Then it was followed by a list of affirmations that I would say to myself from four.

Speaker 1 These were the things. I am smart.
I am beautiful. I can do anything I put my mind to every day.
And then that went from affirmations to my mother affirming my creativity.

Speaker 1 So, you know, when you're a kid and you create images, and your parents might put it on the fridge or they might put it on the wall, my kitchen was my gallery, right?

Speaker 1 So I was raised in an environment where it was just like anything that I want to do

Speaker 1 creatively, I have the freedom to do that. Communication was a huge thing with my mother and myself.
We barely watched TV, was always books or just lying in bed and talking.

Speaker 1 And my mother would feed and entertain me through life stories of her own. And it's quite common in the West Indies to tell stories, you know.

Speaker 1 And I learned a lot of the importance of standing up for yourself by watching my mum struggle to do that with her family.

Speaker 1 And I would see her face light up when she was telling me certain stories of where she did have the confidence to do that. And those those were the things that encouraged me.

Speaker 1 Growing up, again, I used to have a lot of premonitions. So I was a bit nervous of what to express.

Speaker 1 And when I, you know, started to speak about them with my mother, she put me in touch with an elder who encouraged that. Wow.
Right.

Speaker 1 And that's how come she ended up going back to church. And that elder is mentioned in my book, a woman called Millie.
I love her to pieces. And

Speaker 1 she enforced

Speaker 1 pride into me, pride for the way I think, because I think out of the box, you know,

Speaker 1 pride for so many different things.

Speaker 1 So again, as I was getting older, I had a lot of elders around me, people who are not only older, but you expect someone who's 50 or 60 to know about themselves or know about the world.

Speaker 1 So when these people are pouring into me, it's boosting my confidence.

Speaker 1 And it just came to a point where my mother and Millie started to encourage me to listen to my intuition because there were certain things that I just wouldn't do because something something can tell it, something inside was telling me not to do it.

Speaker 1 And my mother was like, okay, well, it seems to be telling you the right thing. So honor it.
And the best way to honor that is to just listen. You have to develop a relationship with it, right?

Speaker 1 So your intuition is funny because it has to develop trust with you. You have to develop trust with it.
Yeah, well, sure. And it will test you.

Speaker 1 Like when you were dating and courting your wife, you guys subtly probably tested each other in certain things, or even just to see what this person's like deep reaction is to certain certain things.

Speaker 1 So for example, my intuition would say, don't walk straight onto the station today. Take a left.
Take this left. It's quicker.

Speaker 1 I would take the left and there's vodeworks or there's somewhere on the pavement that I can't. And I'll be like, why the hell did I listen to my voice?

Speaker 1 And every time I went against it, even if it was wrong, I noticed the relationship was just furthering apart.

Speaker 1 So what I decided to do was respond differently. I noticed that my intuition was testing me and tricking me.
So every time it was like, don't eat that, eat this. And it would be horrible.

Speaker 1 Don't do, you know, I'm just trying to give some random examples. So what I started to do was say to myself, I'm actually going to have to depend on you for my life one day.
And I'm listening to you.

Speaker 1 So I need you to start giving me some proper instructions. And it just developed after that, you know, and it gets down to the point, Jay, where I, it's almost like I have two.

Speaker 1 I listen to my intuition for everything. Should I do this today? Yeah, let me do that today.
Because that's what I've been told within to do. It's like like i trust it with everything

Speaker 1 and it's gotten to the point where it's almost right all the time and i know that it's a good sense of energy because it tells me not to do things that could be harmful for me so don't interact with that person don't drink that drink don't and you know and i feel like the more i encourage the relationship between me and my intuition, the stronger it got.

Speaker 1 And so now it's just something that I honor. It could be a gut feeling.
Don't go down there. Don't go to that place tonight.
I don't go. Something happened.

Speaker 1 And when that happens, I just think to myself, wow, this is really powerful, you know? And it definitely got stronger with me through fasting. Fasting is something that I love to do.

Speaker 1 I watched my mother do it a lot with the church.

Speaker 1 I've watched a lot of Dr. Mindy's interviews

Speaker 1 and I've read her book. And, you know, the power behind fasting in itself is just the negative voice in your head disappears three days after you start a water fast.

Speaker 1 So on your third day, the negative voice goes. I do water fasts all the time, right?

Speaker 1 I might not look like it because I love food, but at the same time, water fasting is something that I go to anytime I feel unbalanced. In order to re-define my inner voice, I do it through fasting.

Speaker 1 I strengthen my relationship with my intuition through fasting. It's almost much louder, like kind of what you explained when you were 14.
These are practices that I do on a daily basis.

Speaker 1 I pray, I meditate, I write down the things that my subconscious tells me that I should be doing like, why don't you start a podcast doing this? I would write it down.

Speaker 1 An elder once told me, everything your body, everything your intuition or your gut gives to you, your subconscious, you write it down, you acknowledge it and you say, I don't have the time to do that right now, but I'm going to write that down.

Speaker 1 Thank you. Because imagine if, as your subconscious, I'm your subconscious, I keep giving you these great ideas and you keep ignoring me.
Eventually, one day I'm going to stop communicating with you.

Speaker 1 And the day your subconscious stops communicating with you, it's over. I genuinely believe that's what creative blocks are.
I believe that's what hinges us from doing so many things.

Speaker 1 You know, you have to find a time to develop a relationship within. Your life improves drastically when you do.

Speaker 1 Life is like on 10 on the Victor scale when you have full harmony between these things compared to not being aware of it, so for me, it's an everyday investment, it's an everyday devotion.

Speaker 1 You know, even today, as I was saying, I was driving and I'm thinking, oh my gosh, I'm running late. Where am I going to park? And something inside of me was just like, relax, I got you.

Speaker 1 And there's a park right outside of this office. And that's it.
And I kind of knew as I was, as I was driving on the road, I kind of knew I didn't have to worry. And it happens all the time.

Speaker 1 And people see that as nonchalant, or you might have like a less urgent response to things but living in the flow

Speaker 1 you end up at your destination less stressful you know also with more intention i love the relationship i have with my intuition it saved me when i was looking after my mother it saved me when i was stranded in the west indies it saved me when i was writing my book every every aspect of my life my intuition is there guiding me i genuinely believe our intuition is is almost if i say it an ancestor of some sort somebody somebody you know and it's just

Speaker 3 it just goes into the phenomenon of life really isn't it like what are these things what is the gut feeling what is the subconscious what is the intuition why are these things conspiring together what are they trying to get me to do they're trying to get you to live the best life that you possibly can yeah yeah so well said i mean so so wonderful to hear your experience with it and i love hearing about other people's experiences yeah with that the the bhagud gita talks about the soul and the super soul and and so we're the soul and the super soul is the all-knowing the you know the all-powerful and it's almost like when the conversation starts between the soul and the super soul the soul gets all of this inner wisdom and knowledge and now is able to make decisions and I can resonate with so much of what you're saying but the thing that I loved that I think you put so well was this idea of Sometimes your intuition is testing whether it can trust you.

Speaker 3 And it may even misguide you in little, little, little ways, not huge ways. And most people give up there.
They go, I listened and it was just stupid. I'm not listening again.

Speaker 3 And that's exactly what you need to break through because that little test, that mini understanding of creating a collaboration, like you said, happens in friendship, happens in business, happens in romantic relationships.

Speaker 3 You're just checking. You're just checking.
Are we on the same page?

Speaker 3 Are we with each other? Because I'm going to say something crazy one day and it's like, are you going to hear it? And I can relate to so much of that because I feel the same way as you.

Speaker 3 I'm very clear energetically when I meet someone. Are we going to vibe? Are we going to connect? Should we spend time there? Should we not? And it's so easy to think, oh, I'm just mad.

Speaker 3 I should avoid that. And to have an elder.

Speaker 1 That's where my intuition comes in the strongest. Yeah.
It's like when I was a kid, I used to see auras and I used to feel people before they spoke.

Speaker 1 And now with my intuition, my relationship with my intuition,

Speaker 1 it's almost like it protects me.

Speaker 1 So just off the bat, I know, don't say too much to this person, you know, or this person needs a little bit more of a listening ear, don't talk about yourself as much.

Speaker 1 These are the things that I would feel inside, you know, yeah, I, I, I, I think it's amazing.

Speaker 3 So if someone's lost touch with it, like if someone's listening right now and they're like, Jay and Megan, thanks a lot. Like, you know, I wish I listened to it at 14 or four.

Speaker 3 And they're thinking, I'm just so discouraged. I never hear that at all.
Like, I don't, I don't feel anything. I just don't know what to do.
And because I also find that we outsource it, right?

Speaker 3 Like, I have so many friends who will have like 30 people on a chat, and they'll be like, What do I do in this situation?

Speaker 3 And then they'll go on their private stories on Instagram and be like, Guys, what do I do in this situation? It's like we're constantly outsourcing advice.

Speaker 3 So, we don't find it weird to go to like 10, 20, 30 people who know us, but they don't know us that well. But we find it scary to sit in silence.

Speaker 3 And you talk about the power of solitude in the book, in the second section, and this ability to spend time with ourselves.

Speaker 3 But we don't usually go there so if someone's struggling and saying yeah jay i'm that person i'm i'm the one texting all my mates i'm constantly asking my family to make decisions for me constantly asking everyone's opinion but it never worked how do i start doing this how would you guide them

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Speaker 1 The first thing I would say is to

Speaker 1 start removing your distractions. Start removing the distractions because the more we're distracted,

Speaker 1 obviously, the less we are going in within. And for me, if I'm constantly distracted with TV, friends, work, when do I actually get to spend time with myself?

Speaker 1 So, the best way that I spend time with myself is every morning before my day, before my day starts, as soon as the sun rises, I go for a walk in my local park.

Speaker 1 And, or I might just go for a walk, just walk straight for an hour. No headphones, no, I do carry my phone for safety, but no headphones, nothing.

Speaker 1 And any thought that comes into my head, I write down.

Speaker 1 Any thought that comes into my head, I write down. It could be, oh, this is shit, isn't it?

Speaker 1 Or, or, this is so long. Why am I going for this walk this morning? I write that down and then I ask it why.
And I get used to

Speaker 1 communicating with myself. Everybody, in my opinion, has something internal that communicates with them.

Speaker 1 I only recently realized that not everybody has an internal dialogue, which I found so strange because I definitely do.

Speaker 1 But there is something within our gut that is there and it's worth seeking because it could potentially be your best friend. So, as I was saying,

Speaker 1 communicate with yourself. Start asking yourself the same questions that you would ask somebody else.
If you find that the voice in your head is

Speaker 1 or your intuition is negative, you know, take some time to really

Speaker 1 why do i think like that there's been so many times i've gone for walks i'm just like today's the day i'm going to put myself out there today's the day i'm going to put myself out there i'm going to post this video and then something would be like no we're not

Speaker 1 i'll be like okay but why

Speaker 1 and it will go silent and i might walk for a little bit more and i'd be like no why am i not doing that

Speaker 1 And it'll be silent. And I'd be like, okay, but why do I think I'm not doing that? It's because, and before you know it, I'm coming up with my own answers.

Speaker 1 The more you do that, you're going to to get some sort of response one day, you know, energetically from your stomach or whatever it is that you feel that sensation.

Speaker 1 And it's going to give you the answers that you didn't even know was there. Jay, the amount of times I've done that, and sometimes I baffle myself with what it is my subconscious gives back to me.

Speaker 3 Yes, yes, I agree.

Speaker 1 It's like, wow, is that. That's really sad.
Or, oh my gosh, that's cool. I didn't know I thought of that of myself, you know? But as we were saying before, these things need nurturing and nourishing.

Speaker 1 If you want to have a healthy body, you're going to fill it with the best foods, you're going to make sure you're moving, you're going to make sure your mind is right.

Speaker 1 With the mind, how do you have a healthy mind? Obviously, there's professionals and stuff that you would go to, but the holistic ways, definitely journaling, writing, exercising, fasting.

Speaker 1 Those are the first four things I would say to anybody who says they don't have a relationship. You're going to hear that voice as loud as hell when you are two days in to a water fast.

Speaker 1 That voice is going to be loud and you're going to have no other option but to communicate with it so put yourself to a challenge if you want to find it it's there it's been hidden because it hasn't been communicated with if you have this urge to write you have this urge to draw but you're playing games instead or you're watching this eventually like we said that it's going to fade away till it doesn't exist anymore it's your responsibility to go and seek it so you actively have to do things by yourself that are going to cause you to end up speaking to yourself internally or outwardly.

Speaker 1 i don't mind and communicate with that that's my honest opinion that's what works for me for sure anytime i'm feeling disconnected i go for a walk i write down what my feelings are and i always come back feeling lighter with some sort of answer whatever answer i get i might google it put it in chat gpt or i might go back to my therapy notes or even call a friend and be like this is what's happening you know and then it gives me something to work on then i will look online okay i'm feeling sad about this all these podcasts will come up up.

Speaker 1 Let me start listening to other people's experiences. Okay, all the things that they've mentioned, how do I bring that back into my life?

Speaker 1 How do I use their practices to gain a deeper relationship with myself? People think that self-love and all of these things is just surface. It's a lot of dedication and devotion to oneself.

Speaker 1 And you've really got to believe that you're worth it. It starts from there.
It starts from your intention.

Speaker 1 What are you intentionally trying to receive from your inner self as to why you want to have these conversations?

Speaker 3 And then you will build upon that yeah so true most of us i feel are only having a conversation with fear yeah we're not really having a conversation with any other part of ourselves or anxiety yeah exactly so our inner voice we think our inner voice is fear or anxiety but what we're referring to is something deeper than that and something so much more you than that

Speaker 3 and that's why i think we're scared of having that time out, that internal dialogue, the solitude, because all we hear in that time is fear and anxiety.

Speaker 3 And like you said, with the fasting, it's the same is true for fear and anxiety and meditation. I remember the first time I sat down to meditate for two hours, my whole body was rejecting it.

Speaker 3 And there was just fear and anxiety of, am I doing this right? This is uncomfortable. I hate this.
This is the worst.

Speaker 3 And then after you get through that first two hours, four hours, six hours, eight hours, it starts to go quieter just naturally.

Speaker 3 And you go, oh, now there's space to actually listen. And I think so many of us give up just before that.
So I love that you used fasting as an example.

Speaker 1 And I definitely struggle with meditation. That's why I find a lot more power in fasting.
I find it quicker and more intense.

Speaker 1 I can't switch off my thoughts of meditation. Well, I couldn't until I had to practice.
And I did exactly what you just said. I had to get through those loud moments and just

Speaker 1 tell my brain, tell myself, we're not moving until everyone is quiet, you know?

Speaker 1 And then again, what is it that I'm saying? Write it down or store it. But meditation, I find it was more of a physical experience.

Speaker 1 I don't know if you ever feel like a buzzing feeling on the circumference of your body. That to me is a completely different level.
I'm very basic in meditating.

Speaker 1 I've really just started to pick it up properly. And I do about 10 to 15 minutes a day in the morning.
And it sets my day because any fears I have for that day, I'm able to just calmly go through it.

Speaker 1 Breathing helps so much. You know, when you're having anxiety and your thoughts are racing and you just deep breathe for about six or seven times and you can actually feel the pressure coming down.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think breath work, meditation, fasting, these are all really great practices. Yeah.

Speaker 3 And you talk about them in the book as well. Some of your tools.
Before we dive into the next moment, let's hear from our sponsors.

Speaker 3 And back to our episode. We're talking about fears, Megan.
I wanted to end on this because I wanted to talk about it with you. This idea of

Speaker 3 we learn about how much you love your mom in the book.

Speaker 3 Even today in this conversation, you learn about what a pivotal role she's played, like introducing you to elders, like the affirmations, giving you the gift of learning forgiveness at a time in your life, like so many things.

Speaker 3 But

Speaker 3 walk us through the healing of

Speaker 3 that process. Like what are all the things that are going on inside when you're in the process of losing the person you love most in the world?

Speaker 1 it wasn't just my mother i lost so i lost my mother in 2021 in march

Speaker 1 um i started to lose people around august 2020 well i lost 16 people to covid right i lost 16 people to covid and i lost three friends one to cocaine one to murder and one to illness I lost both my parents.

Speaker 1 My mother passed in March. My dad passed in August.
And then then I lost an uncle later on that year.

Speaker 1 So that all happened in the space of 2020 to 2021.

Speaker 1 So it wasn't just losing my mum,

Speaker 1 never met my dad, never knew my dad, not interested.

Speaker 1 It was actually losing my entire community. All my elders went.
Millie's actually the only elder I have left.

Speaker 1 And it was very important for me to get her name in print and share her story as well as my mum.

Speaker 1 The journey of my mother's transition started in July 2020 when she got diagnosed with stage four cancer. And at that moment, Jay, I was in the position of putting my face to my band,

Speaker 1 like actually doing it. Sat down with my business partner, like, this is what we're doing.
I'm ready, you know.

Speaker 1 And that happened. And I thought, oh my gosh, this is happening again.
This happened with Tumblr. And I was, okay, well, maybe it's not time, you know?

Speaker 1 So I just saw that as a huge step back for me to take

Speaker 1 because this is more important and this is where my life is heading towards.

Speaker 1 I then had to become a carer, and

Speaker 1 there were many times I had to parent my mum immediately as she got diagnosed. I then had to put my feelings aside and comfort her and then become very optimistic for our journey moving forward.

Speaker 1 And it was heartbreaking because all while that was happening, I was watching,

Speaker 1 you know, the energy deplete from somebody who's being told that in a couple of years' time they might not be here.

Speaker 1 Then I'm thinking, okay, wow, in a couple of years, my mom's going to die when I'm in my 30s. I thought she was...

Speaker 1 I thought I had a pact with God that mommy's not going until she's 100. You know, like, what are we doing? What are we talking about? Okay, so.

Speaker 1 stage four cancer these are all the things that was in my head okay let me research them and i'm seeing there's not many there's there's

Speaker 1 it's terminal you know and that's literally what the doctor told my mother. So it was, it was really hard.

Speaker 1 I knew that I didn't have time to be depressed, you know, because depression is the first thing that comes to me when emotions are too heavy. I just, I stop, I pause, I bed rot.

Speaker 1 And, you know, I didn't have time for that because I have to go back to caring now. Every night I would cry myself to sleep.
And then I would watch some people on TikTok who talk about grief.

Speaker 1 There's a lady who talks about working in a hospice. And I just realized, okay,

Speaker 1 I'm

Speaker 1 being called to help my mother transition. So I actually need to put myself second.
And I did the entire time. It's hard operating with a broken heart.

Speaker 1 It's hard watching the person that you love crumble and lose their power, eventually losing their life.

Speaker 1 You lose yourself.

Speaker 1 The moment my mother took her last breath, I also took my last breath.

Speaker 1 And I felt, you see, that same feeling that I spoke about in the beginning of the book with the heartbreak, I felt something leave me.

Speaker 1 I felt so cold and hollow. That's the best way I could.

Speaker 1 Everything within me that was fun and brought lights and the things that everybody loved, it went. My entire essence left with my mother.

Speaker 1 It's only till I got older along the last couple of years I've realized actually I just evolved and the best inheritance I received was my mother's love and her and her essence.

Speaker 1 But that feeling was awful. I didn't want to be here, went through so many different things, so many different emotions.

Speaker 1 You know, my mother got ill just as COVID started to happen, and it got really cold. And she was like, I want to go home.
And home for us is Trinidad. But Trinidad's borders were closed.

Speaker 1 So I ended up going to St. Lucia.
And it was just supposed to be a quick break. And maybe a month or so, you know, and it was crazy because COVID out there was so different different to the UK.

Speaker 1 Like, you could still go to the beach, you could still do things. So, my mum was,

Speaker 1 she was really happy, you know, it's hot,

Speaker 1 it's sunshine, you can eat the best foods, you know, we had her on a really holistic whole foods diet, and all of the stuff came from St. Lucia, so it was just literally eating from the ground.

Speaker 1 And at one stage, I thought she was getting better, and then her health just plummeted. And next thing you know, I'm in St.
Lucia for six months, and my mother passes away. And

Speaker 1 I then had to,

Speaker 1 okay,

Speaker 1 she wants to be buried in Trinidad. What do I do now? So, my grandfather sent me £10,000, and all the planes were stationary, all the airports were closed.

Speaker 1 I had to spend about two weeks begging the ministry in Trinidad to let me in. And when I was able to send them all of my mum's documentations, she was a national, they brought her home.

Speaker 1 And they were, at one stage, they were like, we can't bring you into the country because you're not a national.

Speaker 1 And I was just like, okay, well, I'm going to go on the good quote and talk about this. And literally, the next day I woke up to

Speaker 1 access into Trinidad, put my mother on this private plane that my grandfather played for, got over to Trinidad,

Speaker 1 had to quarantine. I didn't bury her until a month later.
Family switched up on me by myself in a foreign country. Trinidad is not an easy place to be on the best of days.
I love Trinidad. I love it.

Speaker 1 I was raised to love Trinidad. It's part of, it's me, you know, been going to Trinidad since I was seven years old.
So I kind of know the area.

Speaker 1 No, when you're there by yourself, no family, no money, your mother's in a morgue, you know, I had a breakdown. I completely broke down to the point where I think I landed in St.

Speaker 1 Lucia, maybe 110 kg because I was, when I'm stressed, as you can see, just finished writing the book, but when I'm stressed, I put on a lot of weight.

Speaker 1 I left and landed in trinidad 74 kg i lost so much weight due to stress it depleted me completely but i i did it all with honor because that was my best friend she was scared and i was scared and

Speaker 1 I needed to ensure that she had everything that she needed because at one stage, that's what she did for me. You know, I slept in the hospital the entire time.

Speaker 1 I actually got all the nurses to sign off their responsibilities. I washed my mum.
I fed her. I creamed her.
I helped her move. I changed her bed.

Speaker 1 I did everything because for me, it was the last time I was ever going to be able to do it. So I had all this energy to do it.
And honor is such a big thing for me. And so is loyalty.

Speaker 1 And because of my mother's story and the amount of sacrifices she made for me, it was important for me to reciprocate in the only way that I knew how at the time, which was to ensure that she had a peaceful transition.

Speaker 1 And it was so hard. You know, I slept in the same bed as my mum for that entire time, for a year and a half.
I've got so many recordings of her. We have our own podcast that I can go to.

Speaker 1 There's certain things I asked her like, when I get married and I want to run away, you know, what advice would you give me? And she gave me all these advices.

Speaker 1 When I become a mother, what advice would you give me? And we had these really beautiful conversations. I've got all of it recorded.

Speaker 1 She even recorded me a birthday message so that every year for my birthday, I wake up and I play it because it's just significant for any year. It's not specific, you know? And so

Speaker 1 we prepared and we did as much as we could. And that's why I don't have any regrets with losing my mother.
Or, well, I don't have any regrets of how it all panned out. But I lost myself completely.

Speaker 1 And I think, to be honest with you, I really only got it back recently. And I got it back through the process of writing this book because it gave me something to do.
I got really low.

Speaker 1 I got a really strong dependency on marijuana.

Speaker 1 I became very suicidal. I made various attempts.
I was by myself for a long time. In Trinidad, I

Speaker 1 started off in the hood and I met some really great people in some of the areas where, you know, rumors and the government and just culture would tell you that you shouldn't be.

Speaker 1 I met some of the kindest people there and these people elevated me enough to believe or to generate self-belief that I'm Megan.

Speaker 1 I built something really great. I have a great story to tell and I can actually still try again.
And I started off in the hood in Trinidad and ended up in one of the best places

Speaker 1 in a villa that cost me four and a half grand a month because I started to do podcasts. I started to start again.
You know, I was filming people. I was interviewing people.
I was traveling the island.

Speaker 1 I was trying to find who Megan was without Janet, without my mum. And I'm still trying to find that.
It's really hard. It's really hard.
She wasn't just my mother.

Speaker 1 She was my best friend, my sister, my homie, you know, the person I would talk to about everything. That's gone.
And then not only that, but all of the people that raised her, they're gone too.

Speaker 1 I lost my great aunt. You know, I lost great uncles.
I lost cousins. I lost a lot of people.
And all I really have now is just their memory, WhatsApp conversations, voice notes, and their essence.

Speaker 1 And that is what I use now to drive me. You know, there were times I still live in my mother's house when I took her to St.
Lucia. Stayed in Trinidad for a year.

Speaker 1 When I got back, I had an apartment in Docklands, a penthouse. And I remember my mum mum came to see it with me and she was like,

Speaker 1 I can't believe this is you. Because she started off in a boardhouse.
Her daughter's 24 floors up, you know, own business. It was starting to happen for me, you know.

Speaker 1 Now I'm back at home back in Watford, you know, in my mum's place. And it's humbling.
It's, it's hard.

Speaker 1 The memories, when people say, oh, I have to leave this environment. There's too many memories.
I never understood what that meant.

Speaker 1 It means that when you're in bed and somebody's walking in your hallway, you get a quick, oh, mum, that's no, it's not, it's just your friend.

Speaker 1 Or, or if, like, I don't know, you're cooking and you sit in the living room while your food's cooking and you can smell the food and it reminds you of when your mum used to cook on Sundays.

Speaker 1 There's memories everywhere. So my main intention now is to try and do as much work as I can to leave.
But the entire journey of

Speaker 1 losing your parents up until now, you lose yourself. You have to rebuild yourself.
You have to parent yourself. You have to love yourself.

Speaker 1 you have to give yourself a reason as to why you're being alive why you're here why you're why why you're going to even work towards anything releasing this book was the hardest thing i've ever had to do since my mum passed away because it was one of my biggest accomplishments and my cheerleader wasn't there so you learn how to be your own cheerleader it's a complete reset

Speaker 1 and it has been the worst journey that i've ever encountered but also the best I met the love of my life.

Speaker 1 I've been able to filter through my circle. So with the boundaries that I put in place, there were people I was able to get rid of ASAP because it wasn't good for me.

Speaker 1 Like everything that I'm doing now is for the benefit and the safety of myself. And I would have never gotten to this point if none of this stuff happened, you know?

Speaker 1 So I'm just learning that my mother was just a little girl who tried her best and she left behind some really great lessons that I'm taking forth with me now. I look exactly like her.

Speaker 1 So it's really hard not to, you know,

Speaker 1 have that energy where i'm i'm still somebody's still i'm still responsible for how it is i portray myself i'm still somebody's responsibility i still belong to somebody so these are all the things that you know i had to learn along the way

Speaker 1 it is a journey that

Speaker 1 i don't think everybody is prepared for I don't think there's any way you can prepare to lose your parents. I don't think three weeks is enough time for you,

Speaker 1 for work to give you time off for you to mourn. And

Speaker 1 I don't think people understand how much it actually takes. You lose everything.
You lose everything. I've never lost a sibling and I don't have a child yet.

Speaker 1 So I wouldn't know what it's like to lose a child. I hope I never do.
But I don't think there's anything as painful as losing your mother.

Speaker 1 If I'm being honest with you, you don't know your left to your right. You don't, you don't know.
You have to start all over again. And then you have to parent yourself.

Speaker 1 So when you're having a bad day, you got to figure out how to, you got to figure out how to calm yourself down, how to encourage yourself, how to celebrate yourself.

Speaker 1 These are all things I'm learning how to do by myself.

Speaker 1 Never had to do that.

Speaker 1 32 years, I never had to do that. Last two years,

Speaker 1 that's what I'm now having to do in order to give me some sort of peace and happiness.

Speaker 1 I don't think anything prepares you to lose a parent.

Speaker 1 And this is why I talk about it so much because I keep saying to people: if you've got good relationships with your parents, of your family, start recording content.

Speaker 1 If your parent is about to pass away because they're dying from a disease, record content because there are random days where I just want to hear my mum's voice and I can have a list of videos and I could hear her laugh and joke about things and it's almost like she's still here.

Speaker 1 If you are listening to this and you are dealing with a parent who is passing away, preserve as much of the memories you can because that's the only thing that keeps you going.

Speaker 1 If I didn't have that, Jay, I don't know. I wouldn't be here.
That's for damn sure.

Speaker 1 So it's the most life-changing, transformational experience you would ever have. And it really does show you who you are.

Speaker 1 And your life can either become something great or you can fall and never get back up again. And I've been straddling both, you know, and the depression that hits after you lose your parent,

Speaker 1 there's an aimless, hollow feeling in your entire life. And it doesn't matter what or who comes into it again or the people pleasing.
It doesn't matter. You're not going to take that from me.

Speaker 1 I have to do something with it. And my therapist always said, you know, the relationship that you had with your mother would make it 10 times harder to deal with the grief because you were very close.

Speaker 1 And I love that. I love the fact that I was loved and I loved something so powerful enough that without it, my life is shit,

Speaker 1 you know? And I love the fact that with the essence of that love, I'm reminded as to why I need to make a better life for myself. I think that is the best lesson I've gotten out of all of this.

Speaker 1 My mother would be telling everybody, even down to the man at the news agents, that I have a book, you know? So it's for me to start doing that now, you know.

Speaker 1 I used to see her leave the house all the time. Anytime she got change from a £10 note or £5 note, she'll put it in like her pocket.

Speaker 1 And anytime there was someone who needed it, she'll give it to them.

Speaker 1 There were so many people within our community in watford that knew my mother i get discount at so many different stores because of her up to this day so i want to be that person now i'm really trying to like get rid of this sadness so i can spread more light because my plan now with the good quote is like 10 times more intentional now because at first it was something that I needed, I needed the community, but now it's something that I want for others to be able to have that same feeling of like security that I had when I was building it.

Speaker 1 Because, you know,

Speaker 1 when you're losing a parent, every time I speak about my mother online, I get a wave of DMs from people telling me like, this speaks to me. This is how I felt.

Speaker 1 And Jay, it's something that almost everybody is starting to experience because millennials, we're getting old. Our parents are getting old.
And

Speaker 1 there just needs to be a lot more transparency and openness around the topic of death and grieving. It's not taboo.
It's every day we deal with it.

Speaker 1 But it's hell on earth. And I'm trying to do everything I can in my power to not make it that way.
But some days take over.

Speaker 1 And when they do, I give myself the grace to like just, if I'm having a bad day when it comes to grief,

Speaker 1 I'll let everyone around me know and then I'll just switch off because

Speaker 1 I can't function. And then there are other days where I'm just like, oh my gosh, this is amazing.
I'm happy to be alive. It's like this, but it's not as

Speaker 1 heavy as it was three years ago. I have a great therapist, a man called Michael Adams.

Speaker 1 He is somebody who's been working with me for the last two and a half years now. And I had intense therapy two hours, twice a week.
And now I only do one hour a week. We've gone through it all.

Speaker 1 I've got so many notes that I'm

Speaker 1 writing for my next book when it comes to grief. But I can't stress how hard it is to lose your mother.
If you have a loving relationship, it's going to to be 10 times harder.

Speaker 1 If you're distant, you most likely might have a lot of regret. I didn't have any regret.
I didn't have any. When my mother passed away, I knew exactly what was happening.
She was transitioning.

Speaker 1 You know, there's a whole, a whole story about that in itself that we'll probably have to talk about another time. But

Speaker 1 you see the glory of God when somebody's passing away. You see the impact of the different realms, you know, that we're in.
We're in this realm right now, but there's a spiritual realm.

Speaker 1 There's all types of different realms that open up when somebody is transitioning. It is probably one of the most beautiful journeys you would ever see.

Speaker 1 And you start to think to yourself, when we became babies, what were they doing on the other side?

Speaker 1 Were they giving us some sort of celebrationary leave-and-do for us to come to earth? Because

Speaker 1 when you're transitioning, it's important that people celebrate rather than mourn. So I learned that as well.

Speaker 1 You know, I mourned three days after my mother passed away because I knew the fragility of her spirit. She's just become a spirit.
So she's probably going to be just as scared as me.

Speaker 1 I don't need her to come back and see me screaming and crying down the place. I need her to see that I'm functioning fine.

Speaker 1 After three days, some people believe that the spirit then passes on and that's when you could do all of your mourning. And that's what I did.

Speaker 1 And I just started to listen to the elders and start to incorporate more traditional practices, you know, that come from the West Indies or within Trinidad or things that I've been raised to believe.

Speaker 1 And that's kind of what's been helping me that during that time.

Speaker 1 But when you do lose a parent, you need community more than anything because you're not even going to be able to make yourself a drink. You're not going to eat.

Speaker 1 You're not going to bathe. You're not going to do anything.
You're just going to be very stuck. And so it's really important.

Speaker 1 that we invest wholeheartedly into the relationships that we have because those are the only things that are going to sustain you when you go through the hardest times of your life. For sure.

Speaker 3 Megan, thank you for being so vulnerable, so open. Thank you for pouring your heart into this book.

Speaker 3 I'm hoping that everyone who's been listening and watching is as moved as I am.

Speaker 3 And genuinely, if you pick up a copy of How to Stop Breaking Your Heart, I feel that you'll be able to walk through life with grace. You'll be able to

Speaker 3 deal with the discomfort that comes along your way and you'll be able to find your way even when it feels completely foggy, fuzzy and uncertain about your future.

Speaker 3 I want to give a big thanks to Megan for putting herself out there, for having the courage and the bravery for taking that step. I know how hard that was for you.

Speaker 3 And I really believe that you doing that is going to help so many people. So thank you so much for coming on and sharing your story today.

Speaker 1 Yeah, thank you.

Speaker 3 Part of your story. And I want everyone to read the book to find the rest of it and how it all connects.

Speaker 1 Thank you so much. Thank you so much.
And also thank you for adapting your outfit with the color of my photo. I appreciate it.
I did it on purpose. Yeah.

Speaker 3 I was like, yeah, I was like, I have to wear this today.

Speaker 1 No, thank you. I'm glad you noticed.
I appreciate it. I saw that when I came in, then I thought, okay, I see.

Speaker 3 I appreciate you noticing.

Speaker 1 No, but thank you, Jay. Thank you.

Speaker 1 Sharing your community and your platform with me. I appreciate that.
And thank you for such a beautiful conversation. Thank you.
Thank you. That was beautiful.

Speaker 3 If you love this episode, you'll love my interview with Dr. Gabor Mate on understanding your trauma and how to heal emotional wounds to start moving on from the past.

Speaker 6 Everything in nature grows only where it's vulnerable. So a tree doesn't grow where it's hard and thick, does it? It grows where it's soft and green and vulnerable.

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