the Henny Flynn podcast
A space to settle in and listen — and see where the episode takes you. This gentle, reflective podcast is an invitation into deeper self-awareness with profound self-compassion. Henny shares insights from her own life, alongside practices that help us connect with our inner wisdom, explore our relationship with change, and find a greater sense of flow.
There are no fixed answers offered here — just space to be with what’s true, and to grow from there. If you’re drawn to slowing down, listening in, and exploring what it means to live with greater authenticity, this podcast is for you.
Guided by psychology, mindfulness, therapeutic coaching, flow journaling, and everyday compassion, we explore ideas that help us step further into our inner worlds.
the Henny Flynn podcast
Choosing Love Over Certainty: Floating Home with Adam Lind (S16E10)
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In this episode I’m joined by the ever-wonderful Adam Lind - coach, author, speaker and narrowboat dweller - for a rich, honest conversation about vulnerability, creativity and the winding path toward a life of internal freedom.
Adam shares the profound challenge of losing his father when he was still just a teenager himself - and how that has informed his life choices: to create a life less ordinary.
We talk about writing, as a deeply personal process, the pull between being of service and staying in integrity, and what happens when we start telling the truth about how we really are (even in Tesco). We reflect on loss and grief, success and self-expression, certainty and the freedom to not know - and the deeply human longing for safety in an uncertain world.
Adam's new book, Floating Home: a life less ordinary, is an invitation to seek freedom, joy, and connection, wherever you call home. And I'm honoured to say that part of it was written here, on Adam's solo retreat at Bach Brook.
As always, this is a conversation that moves gently through different spaces - from laughter to tears, lightness to depth - and lands, ultimately, in love.
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Floating Home: a life less ordinary by Adam Lind published Sept '25
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Our conversation today is with Adam Lind. He's an author, a coach. He also has a relatively high profile existence as someone who lives on a narrowboat on the waters in England England. And more than all of this, he is a thoroughly wonderful human being, and I am delighted that he's joined us today to explore thoughts and reflections around the idea of vulnerability and what it really means when we show up as ourselves. Welcome to the Henny Flynn podcast the space for deepening self-awareness with profound self-compassion. I'm Henny, I write, coach and speak about how exploring our inner world can transform how we experience our outer world, all founded on a bedrock of self-love. Settle in and listen and see where the episode takes you. So first of all, I'm going to welcome you properly and also say thank you for starting a little bit later than planned.
Speaker 2:I appreciate that and it's very nice to see your smiley face here and yours.
Speaker 1:So just to sort of um center in on what we were originally going to talk about, which would be um, it still feels really present for me, and it was around vulnerability and and I think you were saying the last time we spoke about the vulnerability of writing um, and does that still feel present for you? Does that still feel like something?
Speaker 2:it does, for sure, but it also feels like vulnerability to me, doesn't? I feel like people often use it as like a scary word. It doesn't actually scare me. It's actually where I feel most comfortable. Being vulnerable, like telling anyone and everyone that will listen exactly what's going on with me in that moment is like a gift. So when we were talking about it in the writing aspect, it wasn't even so much from a feel end. It was like, wow, now I just get to write and write about all my vulnerabilities.
Speaker 1:What a joy yeah, and there's something, as I'm listening to you, there's something uh incredibly freeing about that and about really sinking into that feeling of vulnerability and going, well, what more can I notice here? That's that really comes up for me and there's and also you know that, um, that expression that you often hear in coaching and and therapy too, around being uh comfortable in the discomfort there's. That, for me, is what vulnerability feels like, you know, when we can kind of like properly just get into that uncomfortable space and go and this is okay for sure, I also think, for it's a real means of connection.
Speaker 2:I was thinking about this recently because someone said to me like why do you think you're so good with people?
Speaker 2:That's not a, that's not a slogan I give to myself, but kindly was given to me by someone close to me and we got into talking about actually like what makes a good conversation and the art of conversation and the art of connection, and I was like was, like you know, I do enjoy connecting with people, so maybe let's actually look into what I think does make a strong connection or communication. I actually said to them, I said I think it's being vulnerable. I said because I'm so unguarded, sometimes to my dismay, you know, if I can meet someone and lead with something that, like you know, and someone says, how are you? And you actually give the truth, rather than just like, yeah, good, thanks you. I think you've, you've got that connection because you've, you've opened yourself up a bit to them and therefore it's a little bit of a subtle invitation where they could feel safe to do the same. So I think, yeah, for me, really, vulnerability has been a great means to connect with people on a level like that's more than just you know, superficial or small talk.
Speaker 1:I'm really mindful of that moment when we met in the back of our camp at a secret garden party and Anna and I came back from a little wander around and there was this strange man standing in our camp with this enormous smile on his face, just looking around at it all and, just like you, were obviously loving what we'd created in that space. There was that space of vulnerability, the kind of like the releasing of social mores and those kind of constraints that we can have when we first engage with somebody, because you were just so delighted with what we'd created, we were so delighted with how delighted you were. And then that was this beautiful stepping off point for a connection that has just sort of built and built and built, which you know, sometimes those connections they fly by, don't they? But sometimes they remain.
Speaker 2:I mean, I knew the moment I met you I was like, okay, I am gonna infiltrate myself into this person's life until they become, until they become like a pillar in my life, because sometimes you just have that feeling and I'm very much like, if I feel like I need someone in my life, it becomes like a non-negotiable for me. I definitely had that feeling when I first met you and what a nice reflection. To think back from that essential field dance floor maybe two and a half years ago, I guess to this moment is, wow, what a journey.
Speaker 1:And so when you think about the journey that you've been on in that time and the journey that's brought you to writing the book, which is, um, you know we're recording it now in kind of middle of March I think. I think that's the month we're in, um, and then this is going to be heard sort of later in April, once the book has been published. So talk a bit about that journey that took you even to writing the book, adam, like what led you there?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, thank you for that lovely open-ended question. This is the moment where I think how to be concise in some way. But yeah, I think for me, the real turning point in my life that I guess is the grounds of the book was when I was 17,. I lost my father it. The main lesson I got from it that, I think, is the most poignant and pinnacle moment that led me to writing a book is I felt like the constructs of society and like the illusion of what our modern society is. These walls were just like ripped down, because I felt, well, you know, we are finite and I think we often so live as if we are infinite. And even though maybe we use these phrases like oh, like you only live once and like live for the day, like do we actually embody them, myself included? I'm asking that question too, because I need to remember this all the time.
Speaker 2:But I really had this awakening, I guess, of like why would I want to spend my life working nine till five at a job I don't enjoy? Not that saying there's anything wrong with this path, but I was observing so many people around me moaning about this path, people older than me and I had this moment of like well, my dad's gone. I'm not sure where he's gone, I'm not sure what happens after life. But this analogy of I was sorry, not analogy this story I always remember of like all my friends are like wondering about who they're going to kiss at the club on the weekend and I'm like where are we and who are we? And like where are we going to go after this thing of this meat, body, flesh that I'm in right now and grief really gave me that as a gift to be like okay, I want to carve a life out for myself that feels meaningful and that's on my own terms. Carve a life out for myself that feels meaningful and that's on my own terms. Um, so that was kind of the journey.
Speaker 2:I guess that then led me to meeting my wife and we decided to go on this journey where we were trying to hitchhike from London to India, which there's many tales within, but we lived on the road for like five years and it was amazing because when you take away the idea of like getting planes and trains and buses and you run really vulnerably, open yourself up to just complete strangers, like we would only use hitchhike rides, that was the deal. So we're picked up by like hundreds and hundreds, probably close to a thousand people over the time, and it was almost like a research project of like one opening ourself up to strangers to reinstate this belief that human beings are good and also being able to sneak peeks of everyone's life story to carve our own, because I remember people would say things to me like when are you going to join the real world? You know, and I'll I'll be thinking. Well, last week I was in like the mountains of Albania living with this family who, like, live completely off grid, and then, a month before that, I was in, you know, the back end of Germany living with like a community of like 20 people that all have children living in this big shared house. So it's like when you ask me when I'm going to join the real world, like we all have our own version of the real world, and I think when you're brought up in a, a bubble, let's say that you don't leave.
Speaker 2:It can be very easy to feel like your world is the center of everything and everything outside it is like not the real world. So I felt like I was on this research project for five years to kind of scope what I want my real world to look like, and on that journey had many twists and turns, highs and lows, some really bad mental states, some really high mental states, but they all kind of accumulated to now where I currently live on my narrow boat traveling around the UK and wrote this book kind of on the basis of that like of some life lessons that are really an invitation to look inside yourself. More than me saying this is what I've learned, because one thing I learned right in the book is that I haven't got any of these lessons down, and that's the beauty of what I want it to be. It's like an offering, an invitation to myself. Actually it's a very self-indulgent act. It's like a big reminder to myself that I'm hoping other people will find useful as well.
Speaker 1:I. I think, adam, all creativity is that, like all creativity unless it's something that that we're like pushing out or or is being like pulled out of us with a, with a sort of tension and resistance the act of creativity is the act of um birthing ourselves into being, you know, like what? What? What is it? How do we experience the world? Who am I in relation to um others? You know, that's really what creativity gives us, and I really love the expression on your face, as you said, because I kind of realized, like I literally know none of this, because that is the ultimate place of vulnerability, isn't it? It's being able to say well, here's a bunch of stuff that I thought I knew, but it turns out that, as I explore it, I don't, and yet I have a fresh perspective on something else you know and that really resonates as you're talking.
Speaker 2:I think also this idea that, like we do know it inherently, like I know the lessons in this book, so does everyone else, but I forget them. So it came to a point last week when I was proofreading one specific chapter and I read it and I thought, god, that's good. God, I needed to hear that, because I've so not been living like this for the last two weeks, like I've been completely catastrophizing, completely spiraling, and these words have really helped me, even though I wrote them so it's also this idea that, yes, I do know them, but so does everyone else.
Speaker 1:I get that yeah, I get that. So so the the first, the first book that I wrote was my darling girl, which was a collection of these poems that kept, like, I was basically like kind of vomiting them onto the pages of my journal. Every now and again something would come up and it would just go, you know, and land in me. And even now, like I look back sometimes I'm like I just think I wonder what she would say and I'll take the book off the shelf, I'll open it up at a random page and go god, I literally have no memory of writing that. None, no, none at all. And it is exactly what I need to hear.
Speaker 1:So this again, this sense that the creativity is as much for ourselves, oh, in fact, maybe completely actually, because I think there's also something about, you know, when you're in that process of creation, of creation that, um, it's not about having thousands or millions of eyes on it, although obviously you know it's nice and we want the, you know the things that we create commercially to sell. But the more important thing is, like, what's the feeling, that and the energy that's being carried through that piece, and then how does that resonate with others? Strongly, that the book has become something that has been really, really important to you in your own process of self-learning and discovery, and that I feel that is beautiful yeah, thank you, and absolutely it's become like my everything.
Speaker 2:like it's so crazy, like even the publishers have said to me, like we're not used to seeing people like this invested in their own book and I'm to but to me I'm like how? Firstly, how are people not this invested? And secondly, again vulnerably, to touch on your point it's been a real dance for me to remember that it's not about how many eyes see it, because there'd be times, even in the creation process, I'd get lost in, like how am I going to promote this? What's a good marketing idea? What's going to get people to buy this? Like, because of my job, which is essentially creating content online, it's very much measured and valued by how many eyes watch it. Like was this a success, for how many thousands of people watch this video I've created? And it's been so interesting to, as I say, dance with this idea of remembering, actually, what a special opportunity this is for me to be able to do and trust that it will be read by the right people, and also to enjoy the writing process and then, when that's finished, then focus on the marketing part of it.
Speaker 2:But it was amazing how many days my mind would just wander off into like ideas of how to promote this thing before it was even fully in existence.
Speaker 1:I love that, adam, I love the vulnerability to your point of that, because it's also the recognition of how we sort of segue up through, you know, into the head and then into the heart, and then we're like down and like, like deep, deep wisdom, and then up in the heart again about like, what will people think? And then up in the head about like, and these are the things I need to do, but being able to like, um, travel with ourselves through those different phases and remembering to keep anchoring back into that place of, you know, grounded connection and just like. Oh no, hang on a minute.
Speaker 1:What we're actually doing here is this there's something that's been coming up a lot for me in client conversations and also in in friendship conversations with some of the friends that you know very well. I've been saying are we asking the right question here? And this whole sort of this concept of asking the right question is something that comes from my brand and communication days. You know I used to do that in, you know, big, you know, when I was running. What were they called Meetings? That's it. That's the word.
Speaker 2:What were those things called? Were these people?
Speaker 1:gathering around the table, not a retreat, wasn't that? It was a meeting.
Speaker 1:People gathered around the table, not a retreat, wasn't that? You know? And I'd be sort of leading these yeah, sort of, you know, whatever these meetings and one of the questions I'd ask is, like you know, are we asking the right question? And just listening to you there talking about the recognizing those times where a part of you, for very understandable reasons, wanted to ask the question of well, how are we going to make sure this is a success inverted commas and and it would have had its own criteria of what success looks like and then the other part of you stepping in and going well, hang on a minute, we could. Also, how could we enjoy this process?
Speaker 2:and that feels like a much deeper question for sure, and I mean this is a bit of a I guess tangent or sidestep, which I think is allowed on this podcast, but it also got me thinking, as you were talking, something that's been coming up for me in regards to asking the right questions in like our interpersonal relationships, because you probably heard this before, but what I tend to do is like try and save everyone around me. So I had this thing with my wife recently that she won't mind me sharing, where she was just in a bit of like a tiz about something, and I was like, well, why don't you do this and why don't you do that and why don't you do this? And the magic question for me when you ask, am I asking the right questions? And when I asked myself after, what could I have asked in that moment was do you want advice or do you want me to just listen?
Speaker 1:oh.
Speaker 2:I love this question and after, as I went up to her and I said I should have said to you would you like advice or do you want me to just listen? Because how often do people just want to rant and vent and they're not looking for you to be like, well, how about if you did this? And then maybe we could figure out if you do this? Because that will come and really I just should have like allowed her to like offload. So this idea of asking the right question, I think comes up to me a lot, particularly when I have like a mind, I would say, similar to yours, where you know it will maybe remind us of something or a tool we've learned or a conversation we've had, and it can be so good to be like let me share this with you, but actually is that the right thing to be doing in that moment or is it just absolutely?
Speaker 1:and actually I mean and as I listen like the the even cleaner way, potentially, is to say what do you need? Because often people don't know, and so that's then enabling them to sort of challenge themselves into a kind of what is it I actually? What do I actually need? Because often we can have a belief you'll have seen this in your coaching work, same as me that someone will come and say, um, you know, I just want you to, to give me some strategies for dealing with x, and it's like well, I have some strategies, but they're mine, they might not be yours, so let's begin with what your strategies are. And you know, not to say that you kind of withhold information and knowledge, but, like we always begin with with the other person, that there's also, uh, in the um theme of vulnerability and um and showing up fully.
Speaker 1:I have just been through a really challenging place myself. Bit of a dark night, a bit of a dark night. I love how I minimized it. It was absolutely horrific, adam. I've been in a really, really dark place and I've shared a bit about it on the podcast already. But one of the things that I have done so differently this time because these, these sort of depressive dips. They're something I'm very familiar with. I've experienced them all my life. I recognize them, um, but in the past what I would do is pull down a veil and just distance myself. And this time and I've been learning it for some time, but this time it was like super clear. You know, people were saying how are you? And I'd say I am not okay. And then I'd say, no, I am okay, I don't feel okay and that's okay. And then I'd say, and I don't need anything from you.
Speaker 2:I love that.
Speaker 1:And, oh my God, honestly it's been. It's meant I could remain in contact with other human beings when in the past I would have had to have just isolated myself because I just couldn't tolerate their care, their emotion, their feelings about how I was feeling. It's just like just keep all that to yourself. I can only tolerate what I'm going through right now, and being able to say that, express that with love but clarity, has been incredibly powerful and incredibly vulnerable.
Speaker 2:And I'd hope and imagine, incredibly inspiring for others. Like I have a bit of a rule where I won't say I'm good if I'm not good, sometimes again to my disadvantage. And there was this funny well, funny, yeah, let's call it funny period where I was in a really down place also and whenever I'd go into Tesco's or the supermarket and the person would scan my shopping, they'd be like, oh hi, how are you? And I'd be like, oh, not good. And the interesting thing is one of two things would happen. The funniest one that I'd love if they would go oh nice, because they're so used to a monotonous response that they assume I'm gonna say yeah, good, so I'd be level how are you? I'm like not good you. They're like, oh good, yeah, I'm good, thanks.
Speaker 2:And I'm like this is a brilliant um visual of how we've become as a society, really robotic and really are we asking how are you? Because we care or because it's you know this, or they would I'd. They'd say how are you? And I'd say not good, and they'd look completely shocked and nervous and I'd be like, oh no, no, don't worry, like I don't, I don't need anything from you, but you asked and I didn't want to lie um. And then sometimes I have these experiences after where I feel a bit guilty because I don't like to put people in like a situation like that, but I feel like it's a disservice or a dishonor to myself to not tell people how I am and again hopefully allow other people to be okay with how they are.
Speaker 2:I had this idea that it's really important to ask how are you? Twice to people, because if I'm like, oh hi, how are you, they're like good, thanks you. And I'm like, how are you?
Speaker 1:and then often you get a very different answer the second time it's a really lovely technique to you know, um, yeah, or even to ask it sort of three times, and then it's like because it's, because often it's like that kind of like how are you? And then it's how are you, and then it's how are you. So, yeah, I just by this, right yeah well, I just wondered did? Has anyone ever responded in a different way in the supermarket when you've done that?
Speaker 2:I think yes to memory. I can think because let's branch out the supermarket as well, because this is something that I just do everywhere I go, you get people being like.
Speaker 2:I hope you're okay which is also a really nice response and again, there's no like savior complex within it.
Speaker 2:It's just like an olive branch, I guess, if that's the right phrase, um, but it's um, but yeah, off.
Speaker 2:I think the the message for me was how that how shocked people were shows how potentially scared we are to say when we're not okay and this idea that we're so um, although this kind of contradicts itself. But I say sometimes I've I've struggled with the fear of success. So it's like I'm really good at telling people when I'm not good or when things aren't going well or when, like I was felt skin or like this, but then actually, when things were going really well, I'd actually struggle to express that. So and I guess by saying like yeah, I'm okay isn't saying you're really good either, it's just being in the middle, but vulnerably. I guess I have a bit of a weird thing with the other end of the spectrum, like when I'm in depths of despair, I can tell everyone, but when I'm feeling like I'm in a success state and one of my fears actually around promoting the book is like this like look how great I'm doing thing I find much more uncomfortable than I do. Yeah, you know, sitting with whoever will listen in my woes.
Speaker 1:I see this all the time, adam, this thing of where as a society, I think culturally, there is something about the British culture that slightly denigrates success or, you know, happiness or joy, or it's almost like well, well, you can't be striving hard enough if you're in a really like upbeat and everything feels easeful kind of place. That's definitely a kind of a bit of a. I think I have a little bit of that story. I don't really care that I have a little bit of that story. I kind of recognize it, but but.
Speaker 1:But you know it doesn't inhibit me too much, but I think that's quite common and I think there's also the kind of that very natural, like human tendency of like we don't want to say that things are really great, in case we're, you know, creating a sort of risk, you know upsetting the fates. You know going right back into like Greek mythology and this idea of like you know, you know, don't tell everybody how fabulous your cow is, because the cow is going to get struck by lightning, because Zeus will be jealous of how much you love your cow. You know. That's a very ancient bit in our brain and I think it's. I think there's something really sort of beautiful in the extension of this vulnerability story, actually about what it feels like to really sit in the discomfort of, of that aspect of vulnerability that's it is.
Speaker 2:I've been trying to practice it more. I think for me a big part. When I tried to unpick, it was also around. I don't want people to feel like I'm bragging or like I don't want people to leave my presence and think oh or like.
Speaker 2:I don't want people to leave my presence and think, oh, he's full of himself, which has been such an interesting process in the book. Because, essentially, who am I to think? I can write a book and people should read what I have to think, and with that you have to have a little bit of like. I believe in what I say. So at the beginning of the book I relay this story that happened when I was in India and I was living in an ashram for a while and the guru there I had depict to me as like the wisest man I've ever met, because he taught me so much and he would give us these lectures and philosophies about life every day. And at the beginning of every lecture he'd stand up and he'd say, just so you will remember, I know nothing. And I used to think how can this man say he knows nothing, like to me, he knows everything. And he'd go on to be like the more a person thinks they know, the less they know, because essentially, when you become the knower, you stop becoming the student and you stop being open to learn.
Speaker 2:So I start the book with this anecdote because, again like yes, I am happy to be proud of myself, for where I've come and what, the way I've developed my mind, but none of this is like I know this or you should this, like for me, the words no, should and shouldn't I've tried to eradicate from my vocabulary, could and couldn't can be there when it comes to advice and rather than I know it's, I believe or I feel because I think. Yeah again, this balance or this dance between wanting people to read what I have to say because I really believe there is some value in that, but without it being this. You know, I was trying to explain to the publisher and we were talking about it. I want to be like the anti-guru. I don't want to be the guru like the all-knowing anything.
Speaker 2:I'm like I know nothing. But also I might have something that might be of interest to you. But how do you like fully back yourself if you're only being like? This might be interesting to you, this might help. It's way harder to sell than to be like seven lessons to change your life.
Speaker 1:Absolutely A hundred percent. So this is. I think this is. Maybe there's a bit of zeitgeist-ness around this and maybe that's just my wishful thinking, but it is a lot easier to sell certainty because there's a human condition, that's what so many of us are looking for, because, perhaps for very, very valid reasons, we haven't had certainty in our lives and and actually, with your backstory and what you experienced as an adolescent, it would have been extremely understandable if that had taken you off in a different path, where you'd actually sought certainty down a path where I'm not saying that certainty has never been important for you, but where you know some of those like classic social guardrails around certainty you rejected. So you know hitch hiking for five years to India. It's not a classic path. You certainty.
Speaker 2:So interesting to hear you reflect this because you're so right and I've never framed it like that, but like my biggest, my biggest struggle is usually when I'm searching for certainty, because you know particularly, I suffer quite badly with health anxiety. When I like get something wrong with me, I'm convinced I'm dying. It happens way more than I'd like it to currently happening a little bit in the last week as well for full vulnerability and all I'm searching for in those moments when I'm either scrolling through google or like wanting doctors to talk to me, is certainty. Yet, like you say, my, my actual physical life path, yeah, has constantly been in almost the search for uncertainty, even living on the boat, and I've never really framed it like that, um, as someone that feels like they can only really only happy when they have certainty. Yet I seem to have disproved that, I guess, over the way I've lived and also I mean the metaphor of being on a boat.
Speaker 1:I mean, it's literally like water, it's constantly in a state of balancing you know, balance as a, as a verb, not a noun, you know, um. So I think that is very curious, very, very curious, and obviously what I'd really love to do is dive into that bit of the conversation.
Speaker 2:But this is a podcast and not yeah, I was gonna say I'd love to caveat this by saying I'm very lucky that obviously I've had a lot of life coaching therapy from you. So if at any part of this conversation, if someone's listening and it feels like I'm going into these like deep reflections, is because that's how I'm very used to this, this kind of style going. So it's like this is like half a live therapy session because it would be in exactly the same setup and half a podcast. So I'm like gosh, I'm gonna listen back to this and be like wow, that was a tangent, like amazing mixture of everything that we embody together. So, yeah, I was definitely falling a bit into there of like another epiphany. Right, let's go deep into that. I'm going to wait. People might hear this.
Speaker 1:Well, I think and it does it does really echo back to what you were saying about, about the book as well. But this, this sort of stance, of kind of like this, isn't about giving certainty. It's actually about saying well, here's a thing, how do you feel about that? What does that bring for you? That's enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's very much also about there's a lot in it around this idea of like taking the first step, because one of the things was that I heard when I got back from the hitchhiking trip and now we live on the boat and we've built this community of people online. Everyone's always like but how did you do it? And there's these some misconceptions that we were either like given money from our parents which, completely untrue, like over the five years we'd saved about three thousand pound between us before we left. And when you take out the cost of travel because we were hitchhiking and you take out the cost of accommodation because we would either wild camp or stay with strangers on this platform called couch surfing, where people host you all over the world, you need very little money to travel and so, yeah, there's either this misconception that we're rich or have some kind of trust fund or I don't know. We have this kind of special ability and the one of the reasons as well I wanted to write the book was says people like I am no one or nothing special and that's the best thing, because neither are you, so you can do all these things that I've done.
Speaker 2:And also, to caveat, I don't think you want to do the things I've done. I think you want to just be living a life slightly outside the one you're living now, and it's easier to depict that on someone that's living what you say is like a dream life, are you? This is really nice anecdote. Can I say an anecdote that I've written is really nice?
Speaker 1:sure, yeah, you say whatever you like.
Speaker 2:I retold this story in the book of how, like when I'm it's the summer, I'm sitting on the roof of the boat. This is a common occurrence and whatever I'm doing, I could be having a great time. I could be having a difficult time. People will walk past and they'll look at me and they'll be like, ah, that's the life, right. And the interesting part there is I could have been having like an existential crisis up there. But what is actually happening is when they say that's the life, is that they're, they're taking this man on top of this boat is the idea of freedom outside of their life and a life that maybe they would love to live but don't find an achievable one.
Speaker 2:So one of the chapters in this book is to entertain. What does freedom look like and what's the very first step we can take? And that doesn't necessarily necessarily mean leave your marriage, quit your job, go live on a boat or travel the world. It could literally mean the smallest of things. You know, I can't think of an example right now, but that one smallest step could feel like freedom to you. But this depiction of me on top of the boat to so many people is freedom. Yeah, half the time I'm up there absolutely. Spiraling to so many people is freedom, yeah, half the time. I'm up there absolutely spiralling.
Speaker 1:So I'm just a figure of their imagination. Really I love that. Anton and I almost bought a house based on a similar thing. We walked up to this cottage. There was a guy sitting outside on a sort of wooden fold-up chair, a kind of really like. It was kind of wooden fold-up chair that, you know, you just really really wanted to have in your life. It was beautiful, kind of like maybe like 1930s sort of classic design, and he was playing a guitar and there was incense burning and we were just like, well, we're buying that.
Speaker 1:I mean obviously we weren't going to get the man Like what we really wanted was him. And I think obviously we weren't going to get the man Like what we really wanted was him, and I think I'm not sure, I think we might have put an offer in and then about three days later went oh my God, what have we done? Like it's completely illogical, the house doesn't work, like there isn't, you know. And then we suddenly realized we just Like there isn't, you know. And then we suddenly realized we just, we just absolutely dived into what our perception of what his life looked like in that moment, and then we'd gone every minute of our life from now on will be like that, which, of course, course, is nonsense.
Speaker 2:It's nonsense and an amazing gift, because what it then makes you can allow you to ask yourself is what feeling do I believe that that man has and how can I bring that feeling into my life exactly? I always say to people when they're like how do I live like you? And I'm like well, you, you will never live like me and trust me half the time you wouldn't want to, but what do you think I'm living like? What feeling do you think it will bring you? And then how do we bring that in your life? It's also I talk about this when it comes to like goals, like how can we say you know, I'll be happy when I have this house, or I'll be happy when I have anything that I've never had before, because how can I know what feeling it's going to bring me when I've never experienced it in the first place? So then when we say, okay, I'll be happy when I feel x, and we use a feeling that maybe we felt before, and then we ask ourself okay, how can I potentially feel like that right now if nothing in my life changes? I don't gain anything material or lose anything material.
Speaker 2:How can I bring that feeling into my life right now? Because we might spend 5, 10, 20 years chasing something that we could have had right in front of us. Because it's the feeling of what we believe something's going to bring us that I think we need to focus more on than the thing itself.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I mean that I did a, an event last night, all about intention setting and using journaling to help us with intentions and manifestation, and that is fundamentally what intentions give us, isn't it? You know they give us this like well, what's the how do I want to feel? And then we, and then we set a statement of intent that I feel it now and, interestingly, actually, what? Um, you used the word freedom earlier and the intention that fell onto my page when I was because I do the exercises with everybody was I am free, like that, and normally my intention is I am safe or I am calm, I am kind, I am clear. That's been one that's like traveled with me for a long time, but now it's like I'm clear. That's been one that's like traveled with me for a long time, but now it's like I am free.
Speaker 1:And I mean this is a complete, like little sidestep all about me, this experience that I've had, this like dark night of the soul that I've been through, where it's left me is, you know, my strong desire is to swear quite sort of baldly right now, but is to say I am free, like, and fearless, and releasing so much of that crap that still clings. Even with all of the work that I've done, even with all of the knowledge that I have, even, even with all of the work that I've done, even with all of the knowledge that I have, even, even with all of the life experience that I have, there's still stuff that clings. And you know, and I recognize this as a cycle and I'll go through this again as I, you know, at another stage I'll go oh, hang on a minute, there was still some more, I'll just release that. Um, but that sense of being sort of free and fearless also ties in to the concept of vulnerability, I think, because, you know, it feels incredibly brave to say I am free, free of what well, I think that's also the thing is the free of whatever it is at that experience, because you know how.
Speaker 2:You say we're going to go through this again and we will. But I do think it is different every time and like, as you know, on a personal level, I've gone through like a really, really difficult year and you said to me in a voice note the other day you were like I really feel in your energy and in your words that you've like turned over a page and I have, and I found freedom in one, one aspect of my life and in a way that I never thought I would have found. It really, um, a lot to do with kind of like attachment, stars and all this kind of like textbook stuff that I think was actually taught me is. It can be quite dangerous because for me to say, right, well, I've got an anxious attachment style, I've been labeled that as myself, and when I say I'm free, I've really broken a pattern of anxious attachment and feel so much more securely attached to everyone in my life in a way that I thought I would never probably reach, with the danger of knowing that, well, I'm an anxious attachment. So that's just how I show up and it took a lot of ruffling of most my feathers to throw me into the dark night of the soul, to have to crawl my way out of it as a more securely attached person. So that was finding freedom right, yeah, and I think freedom comes up.
Speaker 2:I originally wanted to call the book searching for freedom because, again, a big part of my journey was, you know, like I said, I lost my father. I embark on this travel around the world in the search for freedom and I found it externally and then went through a very dark mental stage. And there's this story of me being in a hammock in Bali drinking from a coconut and my wife takes a photo of me and she puts it on Facebook and everyone's like you guys, freedom, freedom. And I'm sitting there literally having a crisis and then it hit me like a light bulb, like I found freedom externally but it's going to count for nothing until I find it internally.
Speaker 2:And again, the premise of this book being that is like hoping. It's an invitation to help people look for freedom internally more than externally, because that is true freedom in my belief. And again, so much easier because you don't have to travel the world for five years, because you're not going to find it there, you're going to find it exactly where you are. So you don't have to get a narrowboat or get a camper van or any of these things to find freedom, because we're looking for it again externally, but it's, it's not there and isn't it interesting that, um, you know, as I A, that's utterly beautiful.
Speaker 1:So, just really honoring what you've just said and as I listen and I think about you know my, so my background, you know, corporate exec, you know, feels so unlikely as I sit here now, but was true. And the way that for so many people, and certainly for myself, we get caught into systems like that because we're looking for safety and in exactly, safety and freedom. You know they're the two anchor points and the two anchor points. And you know, looking for safety in the external world, looking for security in the, you know the job and the paycheck and the and the sort of the position and the connection with colleagues and all of that. You know it gives this this trap, the trappings of safety.
Speaker 1:But we also recognize, of course, that the world is not stable.
Speaker 1:Nothing is stable.
Speaker 1:You learn at a very young age that life can be taken very suddenly, and that is the fundamental truth for every single person who's ever born, the fundamental truth for every single person who's ever born.
Speaker 1:And yet we resist that thought. You know the parts of us with these like egoic tendencies that are so terrified about what might happen if we don't exist. You know we resist that so strongly that we're endlessly looking for this sense of safety and and I wonder whether it just feels like there's this correlation between the things that people also label as freedom that are outside of them. You know, endlessly looking for something, because then actually you don't have to look inside, you don't have to seek the freedom within, you don't have to seek the freedom within, you don't have to seek the safety within, because all the attention is out there. So I think anything that any of us do create, share, feel, experience, that help to really bring our attention and our focus like into this inner landscape, is so important yeah, and often it's brought to us through, for example, a time of adversity exactly it's like a really common story and I like I love adversity.
Speaker 2:There's one of the chapters in the book is called the gift of adversity, because I started to notice all the most inspirational people in my life had a really pinnacle adverse moment that happened to them, which led them to become the person they are today, and that for me, yeah, I guess, was losing my father, but also other things that have happened, and obviously it's so hard in the moment to remember that adversity is going to bring you these gifts and these lessons. But I really feel like they are and it's. I feel like, if we view adversity as almost like an opportunity, it's. Yeah, I don't want to move into like the toxic positivity state of like, yay, bad things are happening, gonna learn so much, but there's an undercurrent of truth that I actually feel in that, um, and yeah, just this, just this remembrance that it's. Yeah, I do think adversity is a gift.
Speaker 1:I think there's something that really resonates with a conversation that I had with an amazing woman actually, who I think you'd really love, aisling Mustan, who talks about going through her own dark night of the soul, going through her own dark night of the soul, and the theme that really came strongly through was this thing about like, being with like I have a book in me, by the way, which is about that, but anyway, that's a separate topic but this sort of concept of like, of really being with what we're experiencing, and knowing that if we keep going forward, there will be light.
Speaker 1:And what she said was that depression is when you get it, you're in the middle of the tunnel, you can't see the light behind and you can't see the light ahead and you just stop and sit. But the process of like, taking ourselves like through the tunnel, is about recognizing this is part of the process and if I keep going forward, inch by inch, maybe I will start to see the light. And and I think sort of part of that to your point around um, that kind of the power of adversity is not about the toxic positivity of like yay, bad things are happening and I'm gonna grow, but just going, like okay, this is this is happening. This is happening. This is happening, and my past experience is that I can come through difficult times and that from then you know, other things have been good. So I will learn something. I just don't know what it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it can almost move into this whole like non-duality thing that I really enjoy of like this is happening and it's actually not good, a bad thing or a good thing. It's just happening and it's how we respond to it. Right, because it will be both. You know, it took a really long time for like some of my family to accept that I would say I'm really grateful for losing my father, because they would be really triggered by that and I understood why. At the time, of course, I wasn't grateful and I thought it was terrible. Now I don't think I would have gone on to live any of the life I live if I hadn't. So I can. It can also have turned out to be, in ways, a good thing and a bad thing, and neither, because it just happens and I think that space I really enjoy of like you know, when are we going to?
Speaker 2:are we going to react to this conversation, or are we to this situation or are we going to respond to it? And that difference for me between reacting and responding is that, ok, this is happening and I can, you know, go through so many different doors to choose how I'm going to respond to it. But let's try and make a mindful choice and maybe visit quite a lot of the doors and then come to a place of like OK, this is how I'm going to choose to move through it.
Speaker 1:Because there's also no right or wrong way to do it. Again, I'm a non-duality match. But, um, yeah, yeah, gosh, I love I mean that that imagery of of the doors and opening and and the opening as many of them as you want and choosing to close them or to walk through, and then to come back and then to you know the fact that they're one of my favorite phrases is there are no rules, and you know all. All we can do is love, love.
Speaker 2:Fantastic.
Speaker 1:Let's come back to that. Adam, yeah, and that also brings me straight back to that moment of finding this wonderful young man in our camp and Anna and I coming in and just saying hello and you turning and saying hello, do you live here? Yes, it's wonderful.
Speaker 2:And just this feeling of like I want to live here too.
Speaker 1:Well, that's, I think, I think a doorway, a portal into love opened in that moment. And yeah, I'm sending you a lot of love right now and so much deep respect for everything that you have traversed in the last when, the time that I've known you but and in the time before and, and how beautiful that you were able to find this place inside you, for writing the book in the way that feels so sort of like it's really honoring your value set and and how you really want to be expressing yourself. It's beautiful thank you all right, my darling.
Speaker 1:So look, um, I'm gonna press record in a minute and then we'll do the interview. Yeah, I was like, why wouldn't? I was like, I'm gonna finally get through a conversation with you about crying.
Speaker 2:And then it was about to come and I was like, okay, I'm, I wouldn't. I was like I'm going to finally get through a conversation with you about crying. And then it was about to come and I was like, okay, I'm so glad you broke the state.
Speaker 1:Oh honey bunny.
Speaker 2:Thank you.
Speaker 1:That was gorgeous. Thanks, Adam.
Speaker 2:Thank you for, uh yeah, Wanting me to be a part of your podcast sphere. It's a complete honour and a privilege.
Speaker 1:Oh you.
Speaker 2:I hope people enjoy it.
Speaker 1:It's been really gorgeous, really really gorgeous, talking, and do you know what. So normally I, particularly if I'm, you know, in conversation with someone, I'll have some kind of thoughts I'll have, like you know, I'll have a kind of arc, a narrative arc that I very skillfully and, you know, gently guide us through. And then I realized, as I was, as I was kind of moving through today, I just kept thinking I really do need to like write some notes, and then it was just like I obviously wasn't doing it. It became very clear to me that I wasn't doing it and that, for me, speaks to the willingness back to this sort of theme of vulnerability, really the willingness just to show up of theme of vulnerability, really the willingness just to show up and see where something takes us.
Speaker 2:so I have loved this traveling journey with you today yeah, equally, I sometimes go into a podcast thinking of like certain points I want to say and then just thought, nah, we'll be all right. I mean there's like, it's beautiful because there's the part trust, the part like belief for knowing, and the part that we both really like talking that I just knew would just carry everything so perfectly, particularly the final part and on that note, I'm gonna press stop recording.
Speaker 1:Thank you.