Rediscover hope and help create a kinder world

Bernadette: 00:01:23

Well, somebody asked me yesterday and I thought it's a really good idea, isn't it, to be able to have a really neat way of describing what you do?

Bernadette: 00:01:30

And I don't have that, but I would say a writer and sometimes I perform the things I write.

Bernadette: 00:01:36

And at the heart of all my work is, yeah, kindness and compassion, hope and fun.

Bernadette: 00:01:42

I've been creative in various different ways of my life, in the last 10 years, really centred, I've really placed compassionate practice at the centre of all of it.

Carlos: 00:01:52

So you've always been, you say you're creative the whole of your life.

Carlos: 00:01:57

Is that something that's from childhood or is that something you've been introduced to?

Carlos: 00:02:01

Was that an influence from your parents, your environment?

Carlos: 00:02:04

What put you down this path, would you say?

Bernadette: 00:02:06

I've written about it a little bit, actually.

Bernadette: 00:02:08

I think children have, are invited to play and have a capacity for play and to use their imaginations.

Bernadette: 00:02:17

In some ways they have to, that's the way they sort of are empowered and how they learn.

Bernadette: 00:02:22

And some of us, for whatever reason, feel that we have to leave that space.

Bernadette: 00:02:26

You know, we have a positivity bias as children that we kind of tend to lose hold of around eight and 10.

Bernadette: 00:02:34

And then our, our survival mechanisms kick in and we get a negativity bias.

Bernadette: 00:02:39

I'm sure that everybody's sort of aware of all of those things.

Bernadette: 00:02:41

So I think I, in order to survive some quite challenging things, um, developed a gift that I had from a very challenging childhood, was a very vivid, brightly hued imagination.

Bernadette: 00:02:55

So that was a real gift from that.

Bernadette: 00:02:56

And I just carried on with that.

Bernadette: 00:02:58

Although I would say I'm very, very pro being a grownup.

Bernadette: 00:03:02

I think actually we need to be grown up now.

Bernadette: 00:03:04

We need to take responsibility.

Bernadette: 00:03:07

We need to consider the repercussions of our actions and what we do.

Bernadette: 00:03:13

But that we need to sort of perhaps redefine what being grown up is.

Bernadette: 00:03:17

And that being grown up can be taking responsibility and honouring our obligations, etc, but also that at the centre of it, we hold on to that child that jumped in puddles and spent time staring at rainbows and pretending to be other people by wearing silly wigs, all of that stuff.

Bernadette: 00:03:35

So I think it's important that we're grown up.

Bernadette: 00:03:38

I think the world really needs us to be grown up in the mythological sense of that, but that we need to hold in our hearts the child.

Bernadette: 00:03:48

That learnt and explored through play.

Bernadette: 00:03:51

I think, you know, we feel like in order to connect to this beautiful, playful, joyful, creative part of ourselves, we have to reject grown upness.

Bernadette: 00:04:01

But I've challenged that in myself.

Bernadette: 00:04:03

And I suppose I'm saying, I challenge that, I think, that we really need to be grown ups.

Bernadette: 00:04:08

Not least because of the climate crisis, right?

Bernadette: 00:04:10

We can't be going, we're all irresponsible children.

Bernadette: 00:04:13

We can't, children have to be allowed to be irres res, irresponsible.

Bernadette: 00:04:17

We have to be responsible and yet keep that joy and play and inventiveness and imagination.

Bernadette: 00:04:23

So I think it like lots of things like redefining profit, like redefining ambition, we also have to redefine what it is to be adult.

Bernadette: 00:04:31

And assimilate the things, the beautiful things of childhood into a grown up place, you know.

Bernadette: 00:04:37

We need to be warriors, and warriors are grown ups.

Laurence: 00:04:40

I love what Steven said about being grown up means making your own sandwiches.

Laurence: 00:04:43

. Bernadette: Yeah.

Laurence: 00:04:44

I'm carrying them.

Laurence: 00:04:45

Yeah.

Laurence: 00:04:46

Not leaving them at home.

Bernadette: 00:04:47

That's it.

Bernadette: 00:04:48

Having a nap sack, packing nap sack.

Bernadette: 00:04:52

Uh, so I kept hold of that.

Bernadette: 00:04:54

I, yeah, so I kept, I carried on.

Bernadette: 00:04:55

So I was a jobing actor for a long time, which was lots of fun.

Bernadette: 00:04:59

And I worked for music magazines and I, and then I started sort of like SAP storytelling cafes, and I guess.

Bernadette: 00:05:06

So I always have been creative, um, and, and just about made a living from it.

Bernadette: 00:05:12

Um, but I guess the big change for me was 10 years ago when I started to feel a bit lost in it.

Bernadette: 00:05:17

In it I didn't know why I was telling these stories or the purpose of telling them in the face of such enormous challenges.

Bernadette: 00:05:24

Yeah.

Bernadette: 00:05:24

And then so my, the other bit of my story started 10 years ago and I put a kind of activism, I suppose, at the center of it.

Carlos: 00:05:32

So I'm, I'm, there's so many different paths that we could follow there.

Carlos: 00:05:35

'cause I love the, I like the conversation about what it means to grow up.

Carlos: 00:05:39

And you talk about, what I heard there was this, there's a bit, there's this idea of, for me, agency and you talked about responsibility and even that, the word responsibility is an interesting word for me at the moment.

Carlos: 00:05:50

And then this sense of wonder, awe, freedom, play, that is the child aspect of things.

Carlos: 00:06:01

I'm going to park that for a bit, maybe, because you also then started unfolding the whole 10 year journey aspect of things, which is, I think, going to be at the core of the conversation we want to have.

Carlos: 00:06:11

Because one of the things, when we were talking the other day, an intention that we would like to have for people is to come away feeling a bit more optimistic and hopeful about the world, given where we're at.

Carlos: 00:06:26

And so I think telling a little bit about your story and your journey of What it sounded like 10 years ago, just thinking, oh my, you know, big things happening around me, what do I do about it?

Carlos: 00:06:36

Or how, what can I do about it?

Carlos: 00:06:38

Is how, how I, that's how I understood it.

Carlos: 00:06:40

And so maybe sharing a bit of that story would be helpful for people.

Bernadette: 00:06:44

Yeah, it, hopefully I'll, I think I'm doing my show at the, uh, in September, but I haven't spoken to Longs about that, so if you do see that, you'll see the whole version.

Bernadette: 00:06:53

But basically I, so I'd been having a lot of fun, mainly wearing pet coats and running up and down ladders, making sort of theatre and, like, really enjoying telling those stories, but in the background, this is about 10 years ago.

Bernadette: 00:07:08

I did have this sort of background tinnitus of, there's loads of really big problems in the world, you know, there's climate change, and there's oil shortages, and there's pollution, and there's wars, and there's famine, and there's racism, and there's all that, that was kind of going on in the background, and I suppose I was thinking, it's fun what I'm doing, but I don't know How it's helping anything really, apart from kind of entertaining people.

Bernadette: 00:07:32

And then 10 years ago some riots happened in London, started in London in 2011 as a result of the death of a young man called Mark Duggan, who was shot and killed by police.

Bernadette: 00:07:44

And then his relatives and his family started a protest to kind of, to fend him, it turned into a riot, and the riots spread all over London, Manchester, Birmingham, Bristol.

Bernadette: 00:07:58

And I was in Edinburgh when the riots were happening, and I just saw them on the television screen.

Bernadette: 00:08:02

And we heard really loud things, like there'd not been that many fires in London since the Blitz, and people were calling for the army to be called in, and water cannons, and it was a horrible, very deeply unpleasant response from the British media, saying the rioters should be clubbed like baby seals, and you know, it was a very racist anti poor people.

Bernadette: 00:08:25

Anty young people backlash, the response to the riots was kind of more depressing.

Bernadette: 00:08:31

And I came back from Edinburgh, it was the last, I was really deflated by it and it affected a lot of my friends as well in various ways.

Bernadette: 00:08:40

And so I was in the post office with all of this going around my head thinking, what is the point of anything I do?

Bernadette: 00:08:45

And also, what can I do?

Bernadette: 00:08:46

I have no power, I don't have money, I don't have a platform.

Bernadette: 00:08:51

And there was this boy in front of me in the queue, and he didn't have enough money to pay for his stamp, so I paid for it for him, and he was immensely grateful, it was a ridiculously grateful response to this 50p, which took me a few moments, and it wasn't anything that any of you wouldn't have done.

Bernadette: 00:09:05

It was nothing big.

Bernadette: 00:09:06

But.

Bernadette: 00:09:08

I saw that it kind of did make a difference to him in that moment.

Bernadette: 00:09:11

So on the bus on the way home in my usual impulsive style, I thought, I'm just going to do that every day.

Bernadette: 00:09:18

I'm going to try and do something kind for a stranger every single day for a year.

Bernadette: 00:09:22

I realised it would be 366 days because it would cover a leap year.

Bernadette: 00:09:27

And I was going to see if kindness could change the world.

Bernadette: 00:09:29

It wasn't a project.

Bernadette: 00:09:31

I didn't have a logo.

Bernadette: 00:09:32

I didn't have a plan.

Bernadette: 00:09:34

I didn't know what I was doing.

Bernadette: 00:09:35

I just and i started it on the first of january or you know i started it on the 18th of august and that's what i did.

Bernadette: 00:09:47

i had i put it on social media it got 12 likes and two comments which was revolutionary because at the time, like, i just didn't really do social media but i'm like 12 likes come on let's go.

Bernadette: 00:09:59

And uh i did it and it changed everything.

Bernadette: 00:10:03

It brought me back to hope from despair.

Bernadette: 00:10:07

It showed me a version of the world that I can always return to and I can always occupy that isn't sort of Disney, Pollyanna land, but that is the truth, that is the smaller, lesser known story and version of the world, and that we're not told about.

Bernadette: 00:10:25

And I've kept carrying on doing it, so it's a daily practice, it has been since that date, so it's been 10 years now, yeah.

Bernadette: 00:10:32

And so it changed my life and it also changed everything I do in terms of my sort of creative work.

Bernadette: 00:10:38

So I'll just quickly tell you one of the things that happened that got me into trouble because it was funny.

Bernadette: 00:10:43

So I went out of the house one morning, it was in the middle of the first year, and you know when you go to the corner shop if you're lucky enough to live near a corner shop and you've just got like your like your yoga trousers on, you haven't really got dressed, you might have flip flops on.

Bernadette: 00:10:54

And I just went to get some milk and I saw this lady and she was carrying the biggest bags, they were just so big, so I said oh would you like me to help you carry your shopping back?

Bernadette: 00:11:04

Because I thought there's an opportunity to be kind and she says yes thank you so much.

Bernadette: 00:11:09

So two hours later, we got to her house.

Bernadette: 00:11:13

She lived miles away.

Bernadette: 00:11:15

When I told my partner that I'd just gone out to get a pint of milk, I was like one of those 70s dads that goes out for a packet of cigarettes and never comes back.

Bernadette: 00:11:23

I was gone for hours.

Bernadette: 00:11:25

It was really heavy, my arms really hurt.

Bernadette: 00:11:27

I don't know how she was going to do it on her house, they were lovely, her family.

Bernadette: 00:11:31

You know, she said I'd been sent by angels, which was very nice.

Bernadette: 00:11:34

I didn't look like I'd been sent by angels, I looked like I'd been sent by, I don't know, a secondhand shop.

Bernadette: 00:11:40

Um, I got back home hours late, late, late for work, not properly dressed, really sweaty, dirty.

Bernadette: 00:11:49

And Gareth, my partner just went, I thought you'd been a long time getting the milk.

Bernadette: 00:11:56

But I stayed sort of friendly with that lady ever since.

Bernadette: 00:11:58

'cause she does live locally, so it's very nice.

Bernadette: 00:12:00

So that was the, that's one example of trouble.

Bernadette: 00:12:04

Um, in terms of my creative practice, it was really extraordinary.

Bernadette: 00:12:08

So I'd been.

Bernadette: 00:12:09

I'm making theatre and sort of making living out of making theatre with other people and with myself.

Bernadette: 00:12:14

So, kind of at the same time, I'd started a storytelling cafe, which ran in London, Brighton, for about 10 years.

Bernadette: 00:12:22

And I talked to people, I was there every month, and I'd say, I talked to people about this kindness thing I was doing.

Bernadette: 00:12:29

So, the audience got to know it and they got to join in.

Bernadette: 00:12:31

So, a really lovely woman came up to me in the middle of one of these cafes and said, I've been really interested in what you're doing.

Bernadette: 00:12:37

Would you like to write a book, a children's book?

Bernadette: 00:12:40

And I've never really thought of writing a children's book, but a children's book about kindness and I went, okay.

Bernadette: 00:12:44

And I thought it was amazing.

Bernadette: 00:12:45

It's like when people say, oh, this woman came up to me and asked me to be in a film when I was in a shop in Peckham, it's like one of those, slightly annoying probably for other people but literally, a woman came up to me a book deal.

Bernadette: 00:12:57

I wrote two children's books.

Bernadette: 00:12:59

So things just came to me.

Bernadette: 00:13:02

I suddenly got really lucky, like I got asked to write two books, I then got asked to write a column for a magazine, I then got asked to write some books for adults.

Bernadette: 00:13:12

They all did really well.

Bernadette: 00:13:13

I went on tour all around America.

Bernadette: 00:13:14

And obviously I was genuine and sincere.

Bernadette: 00:13:19

I wasn't doing this experiment in life, if you like, in order to improve my career or to give me more opportunities, but it really did.

Bernadette: 00:13:27

It really did.

Bernadette: 00:13:29

And, and I'm not making any judgment or this is just what happened, money started coming to me.

Bernadette: 00:13:35

I'm not a person that normally says that, don't you think?

Bernadette: 00:13:39

It's strange.

Bernadette: 00:13:40

It was just, yes, it felt magical.

Bernadette: 00:13:43

It felt as if by doing this without any intention of making money out of it or getting a profit out of it or improving my chances as an artist, that happened.

Bernadette: 00:13:53

So lots of luck happened.

Bernadette: 00:13:54

But alongside that, whenever I did a project, I thought to myself, is this kind and what is it giving the people who are receiving it and what is it giving the people that are participating it and how can it playfully and joyfully trans, communicate the idea of kindness so that people can see it for themselves, this works, it's easy, it's joyful, it's really good fun and it can change the world and it is, it's actually what sticks the world together every day?

Bernadette: 00:14:24

So I suppose everything I did after that, I think.

Bernadette: 00:14:27

I did a few sort of large scale installations with the South Wales Centre at the Royal Festival Hall.

Bernadette: 00:14:33

I did lots of small theatre projects.

Bernadette: 00:14:36

I kept thinking, how can I communicate this idea?

Bernadette: 00:14:38

It was always part of the question.

Carlos: 00:14:41

It resonates a lot what you're saying because of the kinds of things that we try and share on in our community and on our programs.

Carlos: 00:14:51

I think one word that springs to mind when you're talking about your journey is this serendipity.

Bernadette: 00:14:56

Yes.

Carlos: 00:14:57

And how, well, it feels like a very living example of the word serendipity.

Carlos: 00:15:04

I'm wondering from your perspective, have you, were you able to explain why these positive things are happening to you?

Bernadette: 00:15:12

Well, I mean, it was extraordinary.

Bernadette: 00:15:14

I, you know, it's difficult to talk about because I don't want, I don't want to put people off.

Bernadette: 00:15:20

By sounding like, either I'm saying if you do this, this is a really good way to like accelerate your success or get rich, because I didn't get rich.

Bernadette: 00:15:29

At the same time, it truly, in the deepest sense of the word, it is magical.

Bernadette: 00:15:38

So, to start with, if you do something kind, the signs on my journey, your body rewards you with oxytocin, serotonin, dopamine, so you get the helper's high buzz from doing it.

Bernadette: 00:15:51

And obviously, I was like pretty euphoric, because I was heavily into a year of doing acts of kindness, so I was really high, which was really beautiful.

Bernadette: 00:16:01

And I learned to be more open in the world.

Bernadette: 00:16:03

It kind of cracked me open, which wasn't without pain sometimes.

Bernadette: 00:16:08

Because I was also open to sadness and longing and suffering.

Bernadette: 00:16:12

But it was a really beautiful way of being that.

Bernadette: 00:16:14

We put that cracked open in the world.

Bernadette: 00:16:17

And I was interacting with strangers every single day.

Bernadette: 00:16:19

So I was gifted by their stories and their beauty and their honesty and their pain and their hopes and their joy.

Bernadette: 00:16:28

And I felt like I'd entered this wonderland that had always been there, always been in front of me, and I'd been wandering around in this fog of fear and worry.

Bernadette: 00:16:36

And that because I'd now entered the wonderland, which was the same place, just through a different lens, I would never go back.

Bernadette: 00:16:44

So I was rich.

Bernadette: 00:16:45

I was rich with experience and with connection and with wonder.

Bernadette: 00:16:52

And because of it, I think people were attracted to it.

Bernadette: 00:16:57

I wouldn't say even me.

Bernadette: 00:16:58

It was like they, what did you talk to me about it they wanted to do it as well they said to me can you do this project and that project can you write this and write that and do this and do that and it just continued.

Bernadette: 00:17:09

But for me it always came back to this daily practice there are people who say You don't need to do it every day.

Bernadette: 00:17:15

You can let it go after you've done it for a while.

Bernadette: 00:17:17

But for me, the magic is in the daily practice, the focused daily intentional practice of kindness.

Carlos: 00:17:26

And this is the, I think this is the interesting aspect of how we turn up in the world, somehow shifts the world that we perceive.

Carlos: 00:17:35

And when you're talking I thought it's like I think of parallel universes.

Carlos: 00:17:40

You know, you were in one universe and just looked not as great, and then you just shifted slightly and then stepped into a different parallel universe.

Carlos: 00:17:50

Exactly same place but for some reason things were different.

Carlos: 00:17:54

And and through that just it sounded like just setting an intention, looking trying to look at the world differently The world around you responded.

Bernadette: 00:18:04

If you think about, I invite you to consider when you, say when you fell in love, you had a crush, you had your crush, which wasn't yet crushed.

Bernadette: 00:18:14

It was a hope, you had a crush on someone, or you'd just fallen in love, or you just had a baby, you know, something like that.

Bernadette: 00:18:21

Then you go into the world and the flowers are yellow and everyone is really beautiful, and it does smell really great.

Bernadette: 00:18:28

So you can have that all the time.

Laurence: 00:18:31

Mm-hmm.

Bernadette: 00:18:32

The invitation for yourself is to, to fall back in with the world.

Carlos: 00:18:38

This is weird because this morning I was saying exactly the same thing in terms of this idea of this midlife startup thing.

Carlos: 00:18:45

I know, it's like, because one of the, the invitation I had was like, I asked everyone in the course, like, have you ever felt in love?

Carlos: 00:18:56

And how did that feel?

Carlos: 00:18:58

And just to think about you getting to a stage in life where, you know, we're talking about get to an age, you get a bit more cynical, it's like, how could you then fall back in love?

Carlos: 00:19:07

And then what does that mean for your energy and your outlook and your optimism and your hope and all the things that you would want to do, you know, that you'll want to try?

Carlos: 00:19:15

Because everything feels like, yeah, I want to try things out, you're energised.

Carlos: 00:19:20

So that, again, the serendipity thing, just like, ah, that resonated a lot.

Bernadette: 00:19:26

I think the midlife thing is really a beautiful thing to consider, Carlos.

Bernadette: 00:19:31

It's really smart of you.

Bernadette: 00:19:32

Even if you're not there yet, I think it's a really useful analogy.

Bernadette: 00:19:36

Because it's about loving the world with the world's wrinkles and liver spots and cellulite and receding hairline and loving the world when the world's hairs a bit faded or, you know, continuing on that metaphor chain that, that.

Bernadette: 00:19:56

So it's letting go of the expectation in yourself or of the world of perfection, that it has to be good or bad, that it's complicated and beautiful and rich, and that people are sometimes grumpy and clumsy and stubborn, but always really beautiful and rich.

Carlos: 00:20:15

I'm curious before what you said about by being open to the world, you were able to experience all of these quite positive feelings and lovely connections, but it also meant being open to the sadness.

Carlos: 00:20:31

And I kind of, in my head, you know, that can be a bit scary for people.

Carlos: 00:20:36

They don't, they find it challenging to be exposed to the tougher experiences of life or emotions.

Carlos: 00:20:44

I'm curious from your perspective, how you manage to work with that?

Carlos: 00:20:49

Because it, you know, that can, some people bring them down or they just don't want to engage with that.

Bernadette: 00:20:54

Yeah, it's hard.

Bernadette: 00:20:56

So first of all, really go gently with yourself.

Bernadette: 00:21:00

If you're opening yourself to the world and what you encounter is pain, let's say, or anger, and your top job is to know yourself.

Bernadette: 00:21:10

To know that when you're, that is a bit much, actually, that's a bit painful.

Bernadette: 00:21:13

That's a bit too angry.

Bernadette: 00:21:14

That's a bit too depressing, it's okay to withdraw then.

Bernadette: 00:21:18

You know, there was a period, I had one day during the first year, And I talk about it during the show, where I met three people in today that were crying.

Bernadette: 00:21:27

It was a really difficult day, and the next day, although I'd made this promise to myself to always have a physical interaction with a stranger, I just thought, I can't do that.

Bernadette: 00:21:38

There's so much sadness, I can't take that risk another day.

Bernadette: 00:21:41

So on the next day, I actually Make this piece of artwork that I put on the church notice board, which was on the High Street.

Bernadette: 00:21:47

So it's, think it's really important if you're interacting and trying to be compassionate and kind, protect yourself by trying not to anticipate a response.

Bernadette: 00:21:59

You know, if you do something kind and you think someone's gonna go, oh my gosh, I love those flowers, thank you.

Bernadette: 00:22:04

And the response you get is, no thanks, I hate chrysanthemums, then you might get hurt.

Bernadette: 00:22:11

So first of all, notice if you're anticipating response and let it go.

Bernadette: 00:22:15

Secondly, if it hurts, if it's too painful out there, I'm gonna say shorthand, then withdraw and tend to yourself, tend to your wounds.

Bernadette: 00:22:25

You don't have to keep being on the front line.

Bernadette: 00:22:27

It is difficult.

Bernadette: 00:22:28

And the other thing is to do the work of learning to accept the complexity of life and of ourselves, you know.

Bernadette: 00:22:38

We're complex, you know, I guess Jung spoke about it in terms of shadow self, didn't he?

Bernadette: 00:22:45

We don't accept or find it hard to accept those darker or more painful things about us, and sometimes we can find it hard to accept the darker, more painful things about community or the world.

Bernadette: 00:22:56

So it's just accepting that it's all out there.

Bernadette: 00:22:59

And if it's too much sometimes, it's really fine to retreat.

Bernadette: 00:23:03

Retreat and attend to yourself first.

Bernadette: 00:23:07

Attend to yourself,

Carlos: 00:23:08

Putting on the oxygen mask for yourself.

Bernadette: 00:23:10

Yeah, it is.

Bernadette: 00:23:12

But it's also really thinking it through, you know.

Bernadette: 00:23:15

I think sometimes people told me the most extraordinary things and I'd have to go and sort of process it and say, OK.

Bernadette: 00:23:22

I think this is why they told me this is what had happened.

Bernadette: 00:23:25

I can't help or I can help.

Bernadette: 00:23:27

If I can't help, that's okay.

Bernadette: 00:23:29

If I can't help, this is what I can offer.

Bernadette: 00:23:31

Just allow yourself the time to, to process it.

Bernadette: 00:23:35

But it also brought me very quickly to a really important process of my practice, which was realizing in the profoundest sense that you are what you eat in every sense.

Bernadette: 00:23:46

We are what we consume.

Bernadette: 00:23:47

So I changed very quickly in that first year.

Bernadette: 00:23:49

I think I spoke to you about this Carlos.

Bernadette: 00:23:50

I really was mindful of everything I read and everything I watched, primarily in terms of the news, but also in terms of all cultural input to counter the darkness that sometimes.

Bernadette: 00:24:03

I was up against.

Bernadette: 00:24:06

I can’t see who mentioned Joseph Campbell, but a teacher spoke to me, and I think this is really, really beautiful.

Bernadette: 00:24:11

And it's in terms of myth, and sometimes myths can really support us, I think, in trying to understand what we're going through.

Bernadette: 00:24:18

And I'm going to really oversimplify what he said.

Bernadette: 00:24:21

It's a wonderful teacher I have called Dr.

Bernadette: 00:24:23

Martin Shaw.

Bernadette: 00:24:24

He's a mythologist.

Bernadette: 00:24:25

And he talks about our personal journeys to the underworld.

Bernadette: 00:24:29

You know, when you go there, when you're in the underworld, which for me, I guess, that year was when I was really despairing when I first came back to Deptford.

Bernadette: 00:24:36

And it's to not get lost in the underworld, to not stay down there.

Bernadette: 00:24:40

But also to not be frightened of exploring when you're down there, that darkness.

Bernadette: 00:24:46

And then when you come out, you might be covered in soot.

Bernadette: 00:24:48

It's apparent you've been to the underworld, right?

Bernadette: 00:24:50

You emerged.

Bernadette: 00:24:52

And the important thing is what you bring with you back to the village.

Bernadette: 00:24:55

So what you've learned from the underworld, that experience.

Bernadette: 00:25:00

So you're not just bringing up pain and wounds and you're bleeding and you've got a bruised head and you're crying and you never stop crying and you just keep screaming, but that you, you examine the darkness and you learn and you actually bring with you from the underworld a gift and you share that gift with a village.

Bernadette: 00:25:18

Apologies if I'm misinterpreting what I think he said.

Bernadette: 00:25:22

But I really loved that because I thought, there it is.

Bernadette: 00:25:26

If we're depressed and we're down, that's okay.

Bernadette: 00:25:28

We're human, it's the human experience sometimes.

Bernadette: 00:25:32

And it's not getting lost there, so not getting stuck in our sadness.

Bernadette: 00:25:36

Having the courage to explore that darkness and what we can learn from it.

Bernadette: 00:25:40

And then come up and that thing about bring with you your gift for the village, it's so beautiful.

Bernadette: 00:25:46

What have you learned?

Bernadette: 00:25:47

And not only for yourself, but share that learning from your journey in the underworld with the village.

Bernadette: 00:25:52

It's amazing.

Bernadette: 00:25:53

And I suppose I, I suppose it's not a big thing, really, but I suppose I...

Bernadette: 00:25:59

Try to bring this thing which was actually the story that we are told about the world and about each other is one part of the biggest story.

Bernadette: 00:26:09

And I want to tell the tell the other story that the story is the world is run on love and it's messy and clumsy and imperfect love, but it is love nonetheless.

Carlos: 00:26:22

It reminds me of bringing you back to what you said before about responsibility.

Carlos: 00:26:30

Yes, being a grown up.

Carlos: 00:26:31

Yeah, being a grown up, responsibility.

Carlos: 00:26:34

So we found this new toy, I'm going to stretch the metaphor, and as a child you might just keep it for yourself, but as an adult you want to share it with more people because you have a responsibility to pass on that joy.

Bernadette: 00:26:49

And know that if you share it, if you share the toy, there's a lot more fun.

Bernadette: 00:26:54

I mean, if the toy's a ball, right?

Bernadette: 00:26:57

We all know that ball games are better with a few people.

Bernadette: 00:27:01

We just roll with this metaphor.

Bernadette: 00:27:02

I think that's.

Carlos: 00:27:09

I want to bring it back to you saying when you were making decisions about the work you were going to do or the choices, something around is this going to be kind, is this going to be compassionate, and I wanted to bring Laurence in here as well because We talk about on our programs, this idea of having a mantra.

Laurence: 00:27:30

Well, the key thing for me is a lot of the time we have great ideas of maybe where we want to go or direction we want to head in and struggle with implementing that in the day to day.

Laurence: 00:27:40

And so a mantra for me a bit like Bernadette's project is almost like a daily.

Laurence: 00:27:48

We know that future that we're trying to create or a feeling we're trying to create for ourselves.

Laurence: 00:27:52

And so just having a simple few words to think about, just to allow us to make decisions, I think is a key thing.

Laurence: 00:28:02

So if we get an opportunity or something lands in our laps, like, Oh, I had this chat with someone yesterday.

Laurence: 00:28:07

Or this sounds great.

Laurence: 00:28:08

Someone's saying I should do this.

Laurence: 00:28:10

Or like that woman who came to offer you the book deal, is that something you want to do?

Laurence: 00:28:14

And so I think having a mantra.

Laurence: 00:28:16

allows I think people to make those decisions rather than having to then do a lot of soul searching.

Laurence: 00:28:23

So yeah, I do need a bit of a gut check.

Laurence: 00:28:26

So yeah, for me, my mantra is effortless impact.

Laurence: 00:28:31

And that always brings me back to simplicity, really.

Laurence: 00:28:34

How can I make, I always ask myself, what would this look like if it was easier?

Bernadette: 00:28:39

I can't tell you how much I love that.

Bernadette: 00:28:42

It's so important what you just said.

Bernadette: 00:28:44

And it connects for me with art and activism, which is the space that I occupy, the cross section, I suppose a lot of people do.

Bernadette: 00:28:51

Because there's a couple of things.

Bernadette: 00:28:53

One, it has to be easy, otherwise it's really tiring and you just end up lying on the floor, eating a burger and giving it up.

Bernadette: 00:29:01

But secondly, in terms of uh, sort of art and activism or, or wanting to make any sort of positive change, I think it's really good to think what can I offer?

Bernadette: 00:29:10

So what can I bring back to the village?

Bernadette: 00:29:12

What can I offer the village?

Bernadette: 00:29:13

But also in that offer, whatever your offer is, how can you enjoy it and may have it be easy for you, you know?

Bernadette: 00:29:21

Where's your joy in the thing that you are offering so that it's so that it's maintained, it's sustainable.

Bernadette: 00:29:27

So if you're a business person or you're an artist, whatever you are, whatever kind of creative, whether it’s creative enterprise, creative business, creative artist, but if the thing that you're offering the world is a joy to you as well and is easy, wow, that's just gonna carry, that can continue forever, right?

Laurence: 00:29:44

And I think that's the challenge with a lot of activism, isn't it?

Laurence: 00:29:47

That people burn out because it's hard and it's a struggle, because they care so much.

Laurence: 00:29:53

It's almost part of persona.

Bernadette: 00:29:54

But also 'cause I think people also can get concerned with scale, like they have to do a big, it has to be big, it has to be a big splash.

Bernadette: 00:30:03

And actually, if you give yourself permission to be small and you understand the power, the might of small things, you can always do small, right?

Carlos: 00:30:13

You know, linking the mantra to also what I heard before, you say something about letting go of expectations a little, and I'm going to mix.

Carlos: 00:30:21

The serendipity, there's having this kind of simple guiding principle, which is your mantra, or is it kind?

Carlos: 00:30:29

And then there's letting go of what you think should happen versus what actually happens.

Carlos: 00:30:35

And what that means In terms of ensuring the right things come about, but also how our experience of the world changes because we're less, I think, driven by this ego to make things at scale.

Carlos: 00:30:52

We're responding to things in the moment.

Carlos: 00:30:54

And we feel that we have agency, as opposed to, oh, it isn't worth it because I can't do anything about this thing anyway.

Bernadette: 00:31:02

I worked with some prisoners a little while ago, some women prisoners.

Bernadette: 00:31:06

And one of the women I was working with said to me, I'm able to be hopeful as long as I allow myself to have small hopes some days and to know that having a small hope is okay.

Bernadette: 00:31:19

And I just thought that really affected me.

Bernadette: 00:31:21

And I asked her what she meant and she went, sometimes I just hope that I really enjoy my breakfast, and that's fine, you know, and then it allows, it allowed her to have bigger hopes other days.

Bernadette: 00:31:34

So it's kind of, I suppose it's about adjusting to the moment that you're in.

Bernadette: 00:31:38

What can I do right here, right now?

Bernadette: 00:31:41

It might not be what I was planning yesterday because this has happened or this has come up, this has changed.

Carlos: 00:31:48

Related to that with people in our community who, on one hand they wanna build these sustainable businesses.

Carlos: 00:31:54

They wanna build these lives that are filled with freedom, autonomy, and agency.

Carlos: 00:31:58

But also some of them also quite purpose driven.

Carlos: 00:32:01

They wanna make change in the world.

Carlos: 00:32:02

They wanna see these big shifts happen in the way we live and what we're doing maybe with the planet or even within just generally in society.

Carlos: 00:32:11

And when maybe you pin your hopes onto that change happening and maybe even pinning your happiness that that change happens, if it doesn't happen fast enough, if it doesn't go the way you want it to go right now, how that affects your energy and your ability to continue.

Carlos: 00:32:29

And so, yeah, I'm trying to connect this idea of this like, while you have the big hope, how you make sure the tiny hopes keep you going.

Carlos: 00:32:39

Yeah,

Bernadette: 00:32:40

it feels to me, recently I've been thinking a lot about acceptance and how important acceptance is, which includes tricky things for me like accepting that I might have to go slower than I thought I'd have to go.

Bernadette: 00:32:55

Accepting that I might have to say things again and again and again before they're heard.

Bernadette: 00:33:02

And that that's okay, it's not because people are deliberately not listening, it's because sometimes you just have to do that.

Bernadette: 00:33:09

So accepting you might have to say things a few times, you might have to do things a few times, you might have to repeat yourself, you might have to try different ways, you might have to learn to be more gentle, you might have to learn to be less judgmental.

Bernadette: 00:33:24

All of those things and accepting that.

Bernadette: 00:33:26

I also think there's something useful for me about remembering to be humble.

Bernadette: 00:33:30

This is just for me.

Bernadette: 00:33:32

I am one person in a planet full of amazing earthlings, which includes humans and all other creatures.

Bernadette: 00:33:40

And if I accept that I'm in that beautiful ecosystem, just carrying on doing my thing that I'm able to do instead of trying to be like Wonder Woman, don't have to be Wonder Woman.

Bernadette: 00:33:54

Just to have to accept my beautiful, important, but small space in that sort of ecosystem of connectivity, it's relaxing in a way, because it's like, do you know what?

Bernadette: 00:34:05

I'm not doing this alone.

Bernadette: 00:34:07

It's not even just up to the people that are in my town or country.

Bernadette: 00:34:12

There's lots of us.

Bernadette: 00:34:14

It can energize you to continue knowing that you don't have to carry it all.

Bernadette: 00:34:19

In fact, we shouldn't, you know.

Bernadette: 00:34:19

I'm not sure whether.

Bernadette: 00:34:21

I think that heroism and courage is important, but I'm not sure whether heroes are very useful to us anymore.

Bernadette: 00:34:29

You know, we don't need to have our capes, just need to carry on.

Carlos: 00:34:34

Is there anything that you'd like to share with people that they, if they want to get in touch with you, you know, you say you've got a new show coming out, where we can point people to learn and experience you more?

Bernadette: 00:34:44

Yeah, well, I'm on social media, I don't really do Facebook very much, but I'm on Twitter as Betty Russell, Betty, spelled B E T T E, Russell.

Bernadette: 00:34:53

And I'm on Instagram with my name, which is Bernadette Russell.

Bernadette: 00:34:57

And my website is just BernadetteRussell.com.

Bernadette: 00:34:59

I'm on tour with 366 Days of Kindness at the moment.

Bernadette: 00:35:04

And that the dates for that can be found on the in-crowd website, which are my producers.

Bernadette: 00:35:10

My new book's called How to Be Hopeful, which a little bit of, I've spoken about.

Bernadette: 00:35:14

So just before lockdown, I kind of chatted to loads of people from all over the world about hope and it came as a result of me noticing that it was quite almost under attack, and I wanted to sort of find out why it was important to me and to others, to kind of define it for myself because I suppose I was talking about active hope, in the way that the great Joanna Macy talks about active hope.

Bernadette: 00:35:39

The week that I handed the manuscript into my publishers, COVID happened.

Bernadette: 00:35:46

So then there were a few reworks because obviously you can't really ignore a global pandemic when you're discussing hope.

Bernadette: 00:35:53

But it came out, yeah, it came out during lockdown in the UK which felt kind of amazing and also sort of challenging.

Bernadette: 00:36:02

And sorry, I haven't responded to, somebody said, can we be our own hero?

Bernadette: 00:36:06

I think that's, that's for a much longer conversation.

Bernadette: 00:36:09

I, I made a show six years ago called How to Be a Hero because I'd met a man in Seattle who was a self-styled superhero.

Bernadette: 00:36:17

He literally had a superhero across James called Phoenix Jones.

Bernadette: 00:36:20

He was amazing and I got interested in that as a phenomenon, and I, and I sort of got interested in heroism and heroes and, yeah.

Bernadette: 00:36:29

I interviewed hundreds of people about who their heroes were as part of the project.

Bernadette: 00:36:33

So it's, it was.

Bernadette: 00:36:35

It's really interesting.

Bernadette: 00:36:37

And for me, it crosses over into whole conversations about statues, who we have statues of.

Bernadette: 00:36:44

Should we have statues of solo people when actually truthfully everything is collective, all efforts and achievements are collective.

Bernadette: 00:36:52

It's a really big thing to consider and I don't, I'm just in the middle of thinking about it myself.

Bernadette: 00:36:57

I would just say, I'd just like to issue everyone with a challenge, which is, just in the next 24 hours, just allow yourself to notice one kindness that you receive from a stranger, from someone you don't know, it can be really small, to allow yourself to witness an act of kindness and notice it, and to do one kind thing for anyone, which can include yourself.