WARNING: This episode includes discussion of self-harm, suicide, addiction, and recreational and ceremonial drug use. If any of this affects you, the Samaritans are free to call anytime on 116 123.

Jon Hannan and Lee trained together in construction back in the 90s, back in the day when Jon's idea of a spiritual practice was a Stanley knife and a bottle of gin. Twenty-five years, one police chase, an ayahuasca ceremony in Costa Rica and a shaman in South Africa later, Jon's a very different man.

This one goes to some dark places. Self-harm, addiction, grief ... and comes out the other side somewhere completely unexpected: the Four Agreements, karma, and why your future might actually be your destiny (don't worry, we didn't fully understand it either).

Mind Cake: Not Self-Help. Just Slightly More Helpful Than Doing Nothing.

LINKS

Jon's Facebook Page

Samaritans

The Four Agreements Thingy

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Some conversations can’t be put off forever.

Ahead of Inevitable at Scripts the Thing in Dorchester, Gemma and Anne join me to step inside the world of Brian and Tom.

They perform a 90-second extract from the play while I discover that listening to actors perform something you’ve written, right in front of you, is excruciatingly uncomfortable and apparently best endured by doing a LOT of doodling.

Then we talk about the characters, the comedy, what’s lurking underneath it, and what happens when words you wrote acquire voices of their own.

Tea may be involved. Avoidance definitely is.

LINKS

Script's the Thing - Dorchester⁠

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Paul's back ... Fringe show done, baws deep in awards ... and it's been a hellofa week. Two rejections (Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival, Independent Podcast Awards) landed in the same 72 hours as some genuinely good news elsewhere. It's also six years since Lee was told I had six months to live.

Oh, and Lee's ended up back in A&E with a nasty infection from the cannula site, weeks after the hospital stay.

We talk about all of it: rejection, invisible illness, pacing yourself when fatigue has no rhyme or reason, and why we're building a genuinely stupid Wheel of Well-Being out of a paper plate (send us your ideas for what goes on it).

Not self-help. Just slightly more helpful than doing nothing.