Get Booked – Christiana Spens, The Fear 200223

This is Get Booked for Women's and Men's Radio Station. Welcome to today's show. I'm Hazel Butterfield and a huge, huge book fan. I love talking to authors, chatting about anything and everything books related, and all the joy, enlightenment, and escape that good books can provide. Sit back and let us entertain you with a different guest each week, sharing who they are, what they do, and what inspires them. Today on the show, we're going to be talking to the author Christiana Spence about her latest book, The Fear. What is What is the fear? What are we afraid of and why? And how does fearfulness shape our personalities, relationships, and very society? Part autobiography, part philosophical reflection, The Fear seeks to answer these questions by demonstrating how the wounds we carry continue to make their journey through us until they're brought to consciousness through through dialogue, writing, and creativity. From gaslighting to single motherhood, complex bereavement to political violence, Spence shares her lived experience of fear, exploring what it is and how our response to it shapes our lives and choices. Through this process, she uncovers that repetition compulsion is often the driving force of fear and that It's only through facing one's fallibility and processing the original wound that peace can be found. And The Fear is an attempt to work out how we can renegotiate our roles in life and truly find freedom, so that rather than being merely a destructive force, fear can be the start of transformation. The Fear is out in March 2023, and I thoroughly recommend getting your hands on it. I must say there are some absolutely fantastic and exciting books flying through my letterbox at the moment and indeed added to the GetBooked pipeline. One that came through my door a couple of days ago which I'm just about to get started on is called Pull Yourself Together, Man: Emotional Health Advice for Men and Those Who Know Them by Philip Ely. I'm a mother of boys and And it's— this is what I love about Women's and Men's Radio Station, because we try and help to gear advice towards people who need to deal with them differently. And men and women are different. We do deal with things differently. Yes, we are similar in so many, so many ways as well, but we need to make sure that we are attacking particular situations in the right way, depending on who the person is. And everybody is different. And I love I love it, what Philip Ely is doing. It is written for people who sometimes struggle with difficult emotions, so most of us really, but Philip Ely's book, it's encouraging readers to build a healthier emotional approach to life and he talks about this goal as a project. It's not quick and easy, but it is achievable. So if you're listening and you're thinking, I want to be able to know how to speak to my children, my friends, my partner. Um, it's just— there are so many things that men and women have to go through, and I think in all honesty it's a little bit easier for women to talk about their emotions, just historically, or because of the situations we get put in, where we're a lot more comfortable with talking about these issues with with our peers. Not always, but it's definitely a lot easier than what it has been for men. So I think this is going to be an exciting book to really get our teeth stuck into on GetBooked. So watch this space. You can follow me on Twitter @nuttybutty or on Instagram @getbookedwrs. Right, today on Get Booked, we will be looking at what is fear, what are we afraid of and why, and how does fearfulness shape our personalities, relationships, and very society. Fear comes in many forms and plays out in many ways, not always easily spotted by anyone, especially ourselves. However, a state of fear often perpetuates more fear in other areas of our lives, like a disease or dis-ease. It, it infects who we trust, how we progress, develop, how we nurture ourselves and others, and how we stick with destructive patterns or live in a constant state of managing coping mechanisms. And it's exhausting, it's unhealthy, and it's not always easy to recognize. The Fear by Christiana Spence uses her own experience to help us understand and identify our fears individually and as a society, and how they may be controlling us to our detriment, using philosophy, arts, popular culture, poetry, and much more. A varied and thorough breakdown of fear and how we can help to understand, identify, and build upon it. The Fear is an attempt to work out how we can renegotiate our roles in life and truly find freedom, so that rather than being merely a destructive force Fear can be the start of transformation. More details on Christiana can be found at christianaspence.com, but also here now on today's show. Hello and thank you for joining us. Hi, thanks so much for having me. You are very welcome. Um, I finished the book. I've got so many different parts of the book where the pages are turned back, either as reminders to me, um, or things to bring up in this conversation. And I hopefully We'll get through as many as possible. Um, but why don't we kick off by if you tell our listeners a little bit about who you are. Hi, so I'm a writer and artist, but my background is in academia. So I did a PhD in terrorism studies, which looked at like social reactions to traumatic political violence, usually terrorist attacks, and how rituals of scapegoating would often follow these events as a way of sort of people coping with that fear and anxiety. So it's a sort of trauma-focused understanding of fear and fearfulness, and then how that is the repercussions in like all different levels of society. Um, so that's my sort of academic background. And then this book I wrote, it's a lot of it's about the time in which I studied those subjects, but it looks at my personal life at that time and how I had a lot of personal revelations and epiphanies where I joined the dots with these, you know, the personal and the political and cultural. And it was how I sort of, sort of looked beyond academia to try and understand fear in my own life and the wider implications of that. So, yeah. Quite a lot going on there. Yeah, there is. I must, I must say, the book is— I love the way you've done the book because I think drawing on your own personal experience helps people to identify similar situations for themselves rather than somebody preaching necessarily, or, you know, doing a course in fear and expecting to understand it inside out. So yeah, congratulations, I think that's fantastic. Thank you. You're welcome. Um, but how nervous were you about releasing a book with such honesty as the fears? It's funny because when you write a book, you're kind of— you're aware that people might eventually read it, but you're kind of not thinking of it in that way when you're writing it. You know, I think it would be hard to write anything if you were thinking too much about that side of it. Yeah, yeah. At the same time, I think because a lot of the books that I read on Yeah, like I've read quite a few memoirs and other books which look at personal experience. So, um, I'm a big fan of work by Lucia Osborne Crowley, Matt Rowland Hill, various other— Tom de Fresne is another great writer, and they're also honest and, you know, brave with their work. I suppose you followed the lead with other writers often, um, and I do think if you're going through difficult things yourself and if you're anxious and whatever's going on in your life. From my own perspective, I've found a lot of solace in these types of books myself, so I kind of feel like I'm handing on the baton a little bit, if that makes sense, you know. Yeah, my book will help other people the way other books— people— other people's books have helped me. Yeah, it's like, write the book that you wish you'd been able to read. Yeah, definitely. I think vulnerability definitely breeds vulnerability, but I think also when you explain things that have happened. It helps people to understand a little bit about why they've done similar things that they've not been able to decipher themselves. Definitely. And I always found that really hard, actually, especially with things like, um, difficult relationships. That's been something I have constantly, you know, it's gone round and round in my head, like, why, you know, you doubt your own choices, you doubt other people, and That's something I just really wanted to work out. So this book was kind of a way to try and do that. But also, I think, to try and be a bit more compassionate and to not— to look at the gray areas in life and to just acknowledge them and acknowledge how different people are. And how people have to deal with things differently as well, because— Absolutely. Yeah. I think we're so judgmental sometimes when somebody goes through something. We say, God, why would she put herself through that? Why would she do this? Why she— why he may do this as well. Yeah, that's— I was reading— And that's all valid. You can— I mean, that's normal. It's a normal reaction. And it's often— but people often project their own frustration on other people. So I think this is— so this is why scapegoating to me is quite interesting. I looked at it in an academic scenario, but it happens in people's lives every day where everyone's a bit confused or a bit emotional about things. And it's very easy to just sort of put that onto one other person. So I kind of just wanted to delve a bit deeper into that, you know, and, and I guess make it obvious, like, the different motivations or psychological roots of why people act certain ways. Um, just for myself, but just for other people as well. I think what was quite— what is quite interesting is how people react to other people's decisions is quite often a projection of their own fears as well, and they don't want to have to understand or acknowledge what somebody else is doing because it'll highlight their own actions sometimes, which I think, which is where a lot of— make different decisions, but everyone has different options. Yeah, the more we understand each other though, we don't have to agree with each other, we don't have to necessarily, um, agree with each other's decisions, but the more we understand each other, the kinder we can be. Absolutely. And it's about sort of, I think, tolerance for one thing, and also understanding that people's lives are long. So like, you might not be thrilled about the way someone is behaving this month or this year or whatever, but like, you need to take a slightly longer view and understand that that's a different journey that they're on, basically, you know, and they'll— they have to take accountability for their lives. And you can also— you can choose to be friends or not be friends with someone if you disagree with what they're doing, and that's, that's your decision. But I, I think like this general tolerance and being kind and trying to understand people is generally a good idea. And, you know, hopefully, hopefully more people do that. Yeah. Well, you know what, a good example of what one of the sections in your book is when you went on the journey to Feltham. And I can imagine so many people going, oh, why would you want to do that? Why would she want to put herself through that? And listeners, this is just to basically go through a trauma that Christiana had dealt with, and she wanted to kind of, well, trace your footsteps to understand it and try and see if you to kind of uncover the truth behind what had happened. And I'm sure many people, or many of your friends, said, why would you put yourself through that? But I was reading it and I was just thinking, no, it's exposure therapy. If you face your fears and feel, you know, if you can kind of overcome that and expose yourself so much to something that gives you fear that it becomes— the fear becomes less valuable then that's something fantastic to do. And it— I was reading it, I was thinking, I've done things like this in the past where people have thought, why have you put yourself through this? It's just going to upset you. When in fact, no, it has made me not allow a certain fear to control me by taking control of it. And obviously when you make that sort of decision, you're coming from a place where it is controlling you and you feel like you don't have any other options in a way. So for me, it was like I developed a real phobia of been on the Piccadilly Line. It sounds ridiculous, but— and then I realized, oh, it's because this event happened, you know, and I, I kind of escaped, came back on the Piccadilly Line, and that— but I didn't, I didn't fully understand why this specifically was upsetting me so much. And, but it got to the point where I was like, it was debilitating. I couldn't take the tube properly. So I did just decide that, you know, I am going to face my fears and like almost not just face them but explore them and find out what exactly is it that I'm that is unresolved for me, you know. And so going on that trip, it could have kind of backfired. But at that point I was like, well, I'm kind of willing to give it a go. And you go with your instincts on these things. So I knew that there was something there. Yeah. But can you imagine if everything we tried worked out perfectly? I mean, some things are hit and miss, but we've got to try. And I think this book kind of shows some fantastic examples of what— why we need to break down certain fears and take a few risks. Asks to understand it, understand ourselves. And well, the biggest gift we can give ourselves— I say this so often on the show— the biggest gift is understanding ourselves. If we understand ourselves, the good bits and the bad bits, we have that power to understand and to appreciate how people treat us or how we behave in particular circumstances. Yeah, and in that, that case, it turned out the event itself had been traumatic, but there was something else I hadn't quite realized, which was like, oh, I felt guilty because I didn't recognize a specific house or whatever, you know. There was like different it was just really a relatively small detail. But once I figured out that that was what was still kind of getting to me, once I had faced that fear and I understood the fear, then that did give me closure and then I could move on. And I, you know, so yeah, it was a bit experimental, I guess you could say. But for me it did work. But I think even like in a more standard, like in normal therapy sessions, you can— that can also be hit and miss. Like you can you can feel re-traumatized sometimes, and other times it works. And like, none of these things are like a known quantity. So that might have been a bit of a kind of rogue move in some respects, but I think all therapy, all types of therapy are a bit hit and miss, and you have to sort of go with your instincts at times. Um, yeah, I did read a book once, um, I interviewed her for Get Booked, and it was about 57 different therapies that she tried to see what worked. But you can't say something doesn't work for me unless you try it. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So you're a huge philosophy fan, aren't you? Yeah, so that was my undergraduate, um, degree. And then actually at the time I kind of got really fed up with it and found it too dry and really, really difficult, and I couldn't wait to leave. And then ever since I've ended up using it in some, you know, I've gone back to it basically. So So yeah, definitely. It was quite nice to go back to like authors and theorists I'd studied, you know, ages ago and kind of re-familiarize myself with those. I think, um, I think I'm going to know the answer to this question, but I'm pretty certain you've got a favorite philosopher, haven't you? Um, I think it comes and goes a bit. Like at the moment I'd say Simone de Beauvoir. So there's another book out, it's called How to Be Authentic by Sky Cleary., and I just started reading that, and it's, um, it's a really lovely book which combines her own experience with the teachings of Simone de Beauvoir. And I thought that was— it's just, you know, if you've read a text, you don't necessarily want to read the same thing over and over again, but it's quite nice to read new kind of perspectives on things. So yeah, I would say at the moment Simone de Beauvoir, but it does change from time to time. Fair enough. Yeah, I think anybody that is a huge psychology and philosophy fan will take so much from the fear. Um, but as I said in my intro, it's quite varied, all the different aspects and approaches that you use in trying to get your point across in the fear. I mean, I think I've even put it in my notes section. I— this is so bad, but I've never watched Mad Men. Um, it's a bit slow to get into actually, because other people have said that, and it's like you kind of have to bear with it for the first season. But well, I think it's one or to do it, but I, you know, I'm a northerner that lives down south, so I watch all the soaps—Emmerdale, Coronation Street, EastEnders—and so, and there's some great TV out there, and I've just never got around to it. But because of the fear, I've decided that it's going to be the next thing that I enjoy. The way you reference it as well, and the kind of the toxic masculinity, and sometimes how they, they have to be a bit bluff and bluster, but also have to break down every now and again to get better. And I love the way you kind of referenced Mad Men, and it really intrigues me. So I'm definitely going to be shoving that on my Netflix list. Well, I won't give you any spoilers, but yeah, I've watched it. I watched all of it through— I think I was at university or something. It was ages and ages ago. And then during lockdown, watched like all 7 seasons in the first bit of lockdown. So it was on my mind. Which is a strange time to maybe watch it. But yeah, I will say the one thing is it makes you want to drink whiskey and smoke, which is like a funny— if you watch the whole of it, you'll find that interesting because it's obviously about advertising people. So you end up sort of subliminally wanting to have a drink the whole time because they're drinking so much. But yeah, it's interesting. And the way that they romanticize not just, let's say, Don Draper, obviously, but the whole lifestyle means that you can see why it's bad. You know that from in the beginning it's bad, there's all these— it's, you know, people get hurt and everything, but it still kind of remains like glamorous and toxic in its own way. So I think that's— it was definitely one of the things that influenced me in a roundabout way of like how we think about men and like bad men, and, you know, not necessarily fully bad men, but like the bad boys and everything. And I was always into people as well. Lord, yes, just human people. And I think that's the thing is it's easy to think black and white, like he's bad because of X, Y, and Z. But I feel like Mad Men is quite good in showing sort of the full character, you know? Oh, well, I can't wait. I'll get cracking. I probably won't hit the whiskey though, because I get so jealous, especially when you see people like Mila Kunis advertising whiskey and she looks fantastic with it. I'm just like, I can't drink whiskey. Whiskey and brandies, they send me absolutely loopy and I just can't do it. Or maybe don't drink the whisky. You can get like an apple juice and pretend it's a whisky. Can I not just get a really strong port or a nice red wine? I think you can. I think you can have what you like, honestly. They have cocktails all the time, aren't there? Like, I don't know what that is though. But I'm Scottish mostly, so I think that's the gene which enables it. At least I used to be able to drink whisky and now I don't think I can really drink anything. Well, yeah, so, so if you're Scottish, you need to be able to drink whisky, and if you're from Yorkshire, you're supposed to be able to drink tea. But I've never had a cup of tea in my life, and I'm a Huddersfield girl born and bred, and I just can't do it. So, uh, go figure. And maybe I'm just— I'm not meant to, uh, conform to my hometown. You're rebelling. Well, yeah, I think that a lot of people would agree with that. So how old is your son now? He's 8. He just turned 8 quite recently. So, and he's very tall for his age. So I'm like, now I'm like, oh, he's so grown up. He feels like he's growing up really quickly. But yeah, he's 8. It's still quite little. Yeah, they do grow up. Mine, I've got 2 boys and one has just turned 16 and the other one 13. I've got 2 teenage boys in the house. One of them is the same height as me now and I'm quite tall. Um, but yeah, it flies by. Mine's like already at just above my shoulders and he's only 8, so I'm like, it's not— it's just not long until he's gonna— I mean, it's only like, what, 5 years and he'll be 12? No, 5 years and he'll be 13, and then he'll be a teenager. It doesn't, doesn't seem that far away. So I'm trying to like, look, you know, enjoy the little moments where he's still little. Yeah, well, you know what What sometimes motherhood takes away, it gives with another hand. I mean, they're growing up and you're going, oh, I'm going to miss this stage. And then they get into a different stage where they go, this is so much easier and I like this. And it's just, it's very cyclical. Yeah, it's actually a really sweet age, 7 and 8, because he's so chatty, you know, just have little chats all the time. Whereas obviously when they're littler, it's not quite, you know, you're just giving them snacks constantly. And yeah, yeah, it's been at least 20 minutes since I've had a whole sourdough loaf, please can I have something else before I shrivel up and starve? Yeah, that is boys, and it— that keeps on going on to, I think, till they're about 45. I made a cake and I just left it on the side just to cool down, and I came back and he'd eaten with his hands two-thirds of the cake. Yeah, that sounds about right, to be honest. Um, yeah, it's a bit of a standing joke that if my kids are hungry, they're like, can you not just make us up a huge batch of crumble or cake and it'll be gone before dinner. And I'm like, so you better make sure you eat dinner. But yeah, that, that's, that's kids, that's boys. Yeah, bottomless pits. He must be super excited about your latest book coming out. Yeah, it was really sweet when the, um, the proofs, or rather, well, the advanced copies arrived. There was like a box of them and I opened them and he was, yeah, he just came over and gave me a big kiss. It was so cute. He was very excited. And, um, there's like a little drawing of him at the end as well, and he liked that. So that was, that was sweet. Um, does he ask for any part of the book to be read to him? Is he intrigued by any of it? Uh, no, not so. That's probably a good thing. I, yeah, I don't, I don't think I would give it to him to read because, I mean, inevitably he'd pick the wrong part, you know. Maybe I'll find a section and read it to him. Or something. But so far he hasn't really expressed that much interest. And I've written other books before, and his dad's a writer, so in some ways I think he's a bit like used to it now. Um, but yeah, I think he likes the drawings and he likes that side of it. Um, but he used to— I remember when he was, I think he was just 3 when my thesis was turned into a book, and that was, had a picture of Osama bin Laden on the front, and he used to just think that was really funny. Um, he used to like, why would you write a book on that? And so, yeah, but no, he likes— I think he likes the pictures. So, and he's— so far he hasn't— he's got his own books, I think. So, yeah, fair enough. I mean, my kids are huge readers, and I've got a book that's coming out in the next couple of months, and they have no interest reading it. They know what's in it, um, and they're just like, yeah, no, we're good. I'm like, okay, are you all right with, you know, your friends knowing that Mum's bringing out a book, especially considering the content? They're like, Mom, 16-year-olds don't want to read some 40-something's book. Till you boot, we're fine. I'm like, oh, that is such a diss. Yeah, but they're all the same, it would appear. That's fine. Um, so you've, you've released several books, uh, one of them Shooting Hipsters. What's that about? So that was— it seems like forever ago now, but, um, that was basically about different protest movements and like how they sort of react, sort of looking for ways that protest groups could be a bit more savvy, I suppose, with like PR and relations with the media and so on. But taking a basically like promoting a sort of nonviolent approach. Because I come out of like studies of terrorism and political violence. And one of the things that stuck with me is that most, most movements that use violence are not successful. Obviously, there's exceptions and it's a big generalization, but nonviolent civil resistance is typically more effective. Um, so that was just— I mean, that was just the general thing that I was interested in at that time. Um, and then, yeah, I mean, it still interests me, but I guess I've gone down the rabbit hole of like more psychology and philosophy now. So I do like the idea of shooting hipsters because, um, especially with the social circles that I'm in, people don't like to get involved with the news when it's all about violence and doom and gloom, and then it scares people. I just don't think moral panic has its place as it did, say, 10 years ago. And I think, as you say, a better PR and better methods to getting points across will get a more gratuitous response from people. So yeah, just be a bit creative. And I think Yeah, being more compassionate and reaching out to people was often a more optimistic message. Like, so whether it's political groups or, you know, political parties, um, having like a vision of a more like a better future, I think that does engage people more effectively than like using fear basically, or, you know, doom and gloom to try and kind of push people into place. I mean, obviously that, that's used a lot too, but I think people become sort of oversaturated with these things. So if you can have like a really good message and a really good plan, um, like I would hope that that would be more effective. So yeah, people can't take anymore, can they? They can't take— yeah, I mean, there's so much other violence and doom and gloom happening that when politicians start trying to sort of use shock tactics, or not necessarily politicians but like any dissenting group as well, if you use shock tactics and violence to try and get your way. It might work in the short term in some ways, but usually it doesn't, you know. It's hard as well to kind of move out of that into like a productive political campaign. Yeah, or it's affecting the wrong people, a smaller group of people who are not necessarily the ones they want to be targeting. Yeah, definitely. Now I've just had a look at the title here of another book that you, um, published, The Betrayal and Punishment Terrorists in Western Media: Playing the Villain. Now that sounds like a joyful, easy read. That was fun. Yeah, no, that was my PhD basically. And so that, yeah, it looked at like different— fed into sort of public anxiety and the narratives in the media that were used to sort of assuage that anxiety, which is often through sort of death and punishment and so on, which makes sense. But I kind of wanted to delve into that a little bit more and understand like the emotional mechanisms going on and also like the history of that in Western culture. So, you know, going back to sort of capital punishment and different sort of ritualized violence and how that's used to kind of— I mean, obviously, if you've had something really terrible and traumatic happen, you want there to be a resolution. So often some sort of symbolic violence will be used to do that or some kind of scapegoating. But the effects are fleeting. You can't really rebuild a society or heal from that sort of trauma just from one act of symbolic punishment. So it was trying to sort of delve into that and understand that a bit better. You're definitely well-versed, and the amount of, um, academic studies you have gone through to come up with your, your particular take on, well, everything that you've published, but maybe more specifically the fear. Yeah, it's— I think it's a different take and it's a rounded approach. Yeah, I think I wanted, I wanted to like break out of the academic viewpoint a bit as well because I felt it had its limits. Like, it was a really good groundwork for all of this, but I was going through my own sort of personal things at the same time, and I felt like I was almost trying to understand things in an academic level as a, you know, to resolve things, and it— there was something missing. And so that's why I ended up sort of going further into art and, you know, more other sort of personal analysis and personal experience, because I felt that I needed to sort of break out of that very analytic way of thinking. I just want to quickly remind— although I said at the beginning as well— quickly remind our listeners, if they pop onto christiana-spence.com, because you— they You've got a fantastic section there of your artwork as well, just to give a little bit of an idea of the— your style of art. And, um, it was a little bit like a rabbit hole when I was on your website, kind of going in all different pages, like, oh, and have a look at this, and then this, and then this. But yeah, I know it's a great website. I, I would like to know, because I've read page to page of The Fear, what was favorite section to write? Which I think— I know it's going to sound a little bit of a paradox considering the content, but was there a section that you enjoyed writing the most that felt more maybe cathartic? I would say, and probably the ending, that was because that was me, me figuring it out, you know, like, um, and obviously it's more to do with friendship and art and that sort of thing. And doing the illustrations, um, that was probably the most enjoyable part, which makes sense in the book because obviously it's about finding an outlet and through art and finding those, I guess, a kind of solidarity with other artists like Paula Rego especially. So I really enjoyed that, that part of the book and that part of the lived experience as well. Um, but there were parts of— it's hard because I kind of think like there's the parts of the, the experience which— so I write about my son a little bit, but it's sort of slightly touched upon. But when I think about my own life, I'm like, oh, I really you know, I remember him as a baby. So like, even though it was a tough time in some ways, that was still like my favorite part of the experience in other ways. So, so yeah, a mixture. But there's a bit about going to LA at the end with my friends, and that was, that was, that was fun to write. So yeah, it was fun to read as well. Oh, so something I like to ask all of my guests here on Get Booked are a couple of questions, and the first one is for 3 top tips. On mental wellbeing, and so many of my guests come up with the most simplest but common sense tips that we sometimes just forget the simplest things work. And I like the variety of the tips that my guests come out with. Um, so what would be your 3 top tips? Um, I would say the first one would be to be brave, because I think sometimes I react against— like, there's a lot of stuff online, sort of in therapy speak, and maybe I'll, in another, in a few years, I'll get to a different place in my life where I'm more like this. But there's all this emphasis on stillness and, you know, getting away from fight or flight and all of these things. And I'm like, that's great and it makes sense, but sometimes you, you do need to kind of stand up for yourself and be brave and and fight a little bit. I did not fight, but you know, like to stand up for yourself and to be brave. And I would say that's, for me personally, helped me get through quite a lot. Not all the time, but I think it's okay to sort of to reclaim that if that's who you are. I don't know. Um, and so number 2, I guess it links into that, is to like have your to, to kind of take— have faith in your own integrity and to just remember your own integrity. Because especially when other people are trying to— if you've had some sort of traumatic experience where you feel like, you know, you can't remember who you are at most of the time, you've been hurt and you feel very isolated, it's good to remember that regardless of all of that, you have this integrity, you know who you are, and to sort of ground yourself in that. And then the third one is in terms of, you know, it's very hard to trust people sometimes if you've had bad relationships or bad experiences. And it's easy to fixate on negative people, negative experiences. But it's just good to just try and remind yourself, like, in your whole life, the people who have hurt you or upset you are a few people, probably. They're relatively, you know, a small amount of people. And there are so many other nice people out there and so many good people and And it's just to have to try and remember that and not let the kind of the negative people and the negative thoughts overwhelm you when there's like so much to be happy about. Yeah. Remind ourselves what matters. Sometimes you can have 20 people in a day saying something lovely to you and you just have somebody you don't even know who says something flyaway that actually is quite hurtful. And that's what you'll focus on. And it's a real mindset issue. We need to train our brains to focus on the positive and actually just remember that 'Oh, somebody has said something crappy to you, you know, what did they want to achieve from that? Because of that, do they really matter? Does their opinion matter?' Yeah, and often it's they're projecting onto you. It's their problem in the end. It's not about you, and, you know, you don't need to take it personally. It's hard, and it takes a bit of training, I think, for yourself if you're a bit of a people pleaser as well, or like you care about other people, you know. You don't— it's not nice to have to experience that, but I think this certainly with this book, it took, it took ages and ages to realize that you can kind of, you can take a bit of a stand and push people's negativity, you know, you can kind of try and repel it. So it's like you're, it's not your problem to deal with anymore. Well, yeah, I mean, I wasn't hugely a fan of affirmations up until a couple of years ago, but actually it's just the power of telling yourself something over and over again until you believe it, you know. 'What that person says doesn't matter.' Say it 10 times, you know, that is an affirmation and it does help. Um, 'I am worth more than this, I am worth more than this,' you know, 'I, I have people's best interests at heart.' Just keep on telling yourself the truth about yourself because you know yourself more than anybody else, especially some stranger on the street with a bad attitude. Exactly. And it's good to remember, like, so many people don't know you, they don't know anything about you. They might be making— and obviously it's hurtful to have people be judgmental, to say things when they don't know you, you know, that's in itself hurtful. But I think even like in a visual way, like to just sort of imagine yourself with a bit of a space around you so that maybe this is almost like a type of meditation or something, but it's similar to what you're saying. It's almost like an imagine, like a visual affirmation of you having your space in your life and people can't, you know, you don't have to accept people's negativity all the time. No, kind of. You can see it and then say no. Yeah, I like that. Yeah, brilliant, brilliant tips. And again, they're just things that sometimes our listeners, they know, but they need a reminder of just how important they are. So thank you so much for those, Christiana. And finally, um, for somebody that you admire in the public eye— how public? Like, um, celebrity public or rather politician, your next door neighbor that you always see. That somebody else needs to know how amazing they are. I think it's just— yeah, right now I was rereading her books. So Lucia Osborne Crowley, I mentioned her before because she's a writer who I really, really admire, and she's written a lot about, um, PTSD and, and trauma and so on. But she takes it— her, her work is more about how it affects the body and, you know, how trauma stays in the body. And but she writes it in a very fresh kind of modern way and from a female perspective and with her own experience tied into that. And she's, she's a huge advocate for other women, and especially like victims of Epstein and so on. So she's been on my mind lately because of those books. And, um, yeah, I have huge admiration for her. And I think having other writers like that is— it's like, it's, it's just very inspiring. So yeah, her books are great too. I like that. I like that. Some, some great examples there. Well, thank you so much for joining us on Get Booked and for talking to me. You're so welcome. You're very, very welcome. I really enjoyed reading the book, and I think there's something for everybody in there. There'll be— there's somebody will be able to take something and identify either with you or help understand somebody else, um, somebody who's close to them, or just, you know, help people to understand each other a little bit more. It's a great book, it's meticulously written, and I wish you all the best of luck with it. Well, thank you so much, and you with your book as well. Oh, thank you very much. Well, when you release your next book, I hope you'll be coming back on the show. Oh, thank you, I hope so. Thank you so much for joining us on Get Booked for Women's and Men's radio station. Bye. That was today's guest, Christiana Spence, the author of The Fear, available to buy from March of this year. And here is an extract from The Fear read by today's guest. Over the years, I realized that masochism is more complex than being simply a trauma response or merely a form of flight or freeze when faced with danger. It was something I really chased, however unconscious consciously. It was something that on some level I wanted to experience again and again, as if I would somehow know more or feel more if I kept chasing what I could not have and was not supposed to want. It was an act of rebellion, a search for impossible freedom. My life felt empty without the extremes of emotion, the turbulence of toxic love. I missed it whenever it was gone. I was addicted to it in a way, and this desire would eclipse my own sense of self-preservation. And sense. In some attempt to understand and override whatever was compelling me to be this way, I first looked to Sigmund Freud, who explored masochism as a challenge to what he termed the pleasure principle, essentially the will to self-preservation and life itself. Why do people do things, often many times over and compulsively, which were obviously bad for them? Why did some people seem to chase pain and their own destruction? He developed a theory of what is known as the death drive, the idea that even though we as humans have a will to live, we also have a will to die, to retreat from life, and crucially, to have some control over that eventuality. "The organism seeks to die in its own way," he wrote, "and as death is inevitable and a part of life itself, people are also affected by the desire to define their own ends, their own destruction, or at least to entertain the fantasy that they can control the contours of their own life." Freud also wrote about the compulsion to repeat, which he saw as a drive distinct from the pleasure principle. Here, by repeating experiences, people transform their relationship to those original experiences and often diminish the power that the root memory or fear has on them. In a sense, by reclaiming a traumatic memory, for example, by repeating it on one's own terms, one may diminish its power and hold. In particular, Freud wrote about the repeated departure in relationship to masochistic pleasure, which is less evident because it is the opposite of good sense, which assumes the sad and painful form of a repeated departure. He discusses a childhood game in which the child expresses and so learns about the tragic nature of human experience, about the loss inherent to life itself. Finding the object is never other than finding it once more. The encounter with the object of love masks and erases what truly constitutes the object in itself: its loss. The object is lost not by misfortune or chance, but by its essence. Love is held by a thread, he says. Something at the very heart of the drive opposes its full satisfaction. The experience of the loss constitutes the object. And so be it. We cure evil with evil, poke a painful tooth with the tip of our tongue, derive pleasure from the loss of— if that is what love means. In this primary, imminent, or radical form, masochism is wed to the generic form of melancholy. Sexuality takes its revenge and invests at the very heart of that, that which gives its birth, its own limit, the impossibility of satisfaction, the deferred fulfillment of desire. In short, disappointed love ceased to contravene the desired aim, to become the aim itself. This melancholic nature expresses itself in repeated departure, in a sort of indulgence in the tragedy of love and loss, and indeed life itself, can begin to explain why we as humans become involved in compulsive patterns of pain and self-denial in reaction to fear. It also gives insight into the role of fantasy and contrived masochistic situations or cycles in which pleasure is derived from the control one has over a scenario rather than just a scenario itself. The masochist, after all, is typically on some level in control of the painful situation they seem to submit themselves to. They are the architects of their own pain and humiliation, and so that pain may feel like a form of empowerment, however counterintuitive. They do not have to fear what they are in some ways in control of or emotionally detached from. As Jacques André has written of this phenomenon, the perversion repeats the actual bodily attack It conserves the tight and monotonous rhythm of the traumatic neurosis. Yet it— yet the fact that the pain is staged and sexualized marks the distance the subject has taken. We repeat painful things that have been done to us, with the crucial difference that in this new situation we have some level of distance or control that we did not have before. Although many of Freud's theories have been challenged in the century since their they were published. This idea about masochistic behaviors following childhood trauma in particular resonates with more recent research into PTSD and how the mind becomes stuck in a loop, in a sense, in a dysregulated fight-or-flight mode where responses become defined by past trauma. In this sense, the traumatized individual is prone to cyclical behavior in which any lasting release or peace from anxiety and anguish is hard to access. There— therein addictive or compulsive behaviours in which the individual repeats a contrived version of the original trauma— becomes a default behaviour very hard to escape from. Moreover, one not need necessarily have experienced a particular trauma to act this way. If Freud was correct in picking up on the inherent tragedy of life— that we lose it ultimately, and that we lose those we need and love— then we can understand trauma in a far wider sense, for the purpose of understanding seemingly masochistic practices. Masochism in this way is a logical response to human existence, which is tragic and fleeting. By embracing the suffering in a ritualistic and symbolic way, we confront and meditate on this melancholic truth. We accept our fates and selves for what they are: precarious and vulnerable. Jacques Lacan developed his own theory of jouissance in response to Freud's ideas, which provide further insight into the phenomenon of masochism. Hedonism, insofar as desire itself is compulsive and somewhat detached from the satisfaction of one's needs. As Nietzsche also said, it is the desire, not the desired, that we love. Lacan, following Freud, understood that desire, whether sexual or otherwise, is far more complex than fulfilling one's basic needs or finding straightforward pleasure. We do not always want what we need, and vice versa. There is pleasure to be found in the striving itself. In the tension of the chase and the ambivalence and even fear it may cause. As he wrote, the subject does not simply satisfy desire, he enjoys desiring, and this is an essential dimension of his jouissance. We want what we cannot have, what we are not allowed, what is not good or right. We want bad and harmful things. Why? Evidently, there is neuroticism interconnected with surrendering and even chasing of ambivalence, chaos and precarity, of loss itself. There is also something compelling about indulging in the behaviour of the femme fatale, for instance, to be the siren, the death wish, the doomed romantic, the fallen woman. It is an act of rebellion. There is something tempting and satisfying about giving into these things, and therefore surrendering to chaos, in another person and oneself. There is something about admitting one's fallibility, one's weakness, one's worthlessness even, and perhaps a peace to be found. We can still understand this behaviour as a form of fight or flight, a perpetuation of unresolved trauma through cycles of pain and relief, which can be addictive and compulsive. Trauma is not unusual. In fact, trauma is usually a part of life. We are primed to live with and react to it, and such a life may inevitably involve suffering. This fact perhaps helped to un— helps to explain why people are set up to lean into their own suffering to some degree, in some effort to reconcile with it and learn to live with it. Freud intuited this existential state when he wrote about the death drive, which was an articulation of behaviors he had observed in his own clients. It seems clear now, as then, that we do not always want what is good for us or other people. We indulge in our dark sides, our shadows, because they offer us some feeling of connection, of truth even, about ourselves and our experiences and our capacities to relate to others in whatever way feels right. They allow us to repeat what we don't understand, what we have loved and lost, what we need but can't have, what has hurt us, confused us, and trapped us. We make peace with our own ends before death itself has come. We meet it halfway. We tease it with self-destructive behaviors, with submission on our own And therein lies both the beauty and madness of being alive and wanting. That was an extract of The Fear, read today by the author and today's guest, Christiana Spence. Please do go check her out at christianaspence.com. Thank you so much for listening in to today's Get Booked with your host— that's me— Hazel Butterfield. You can find out more about me at hazelbutterfield.com and check out my latest book reviews. Make sure you tune in next week for another show, and as ever, here is a quick reminder of last week's show. If you want to listen to the whole episode, please pop on to womensradiostation.com/shows/getbooked or pop on to our SoundCloud. Right now, as promised on Get Booked, we're going to be looking at the book Wilder Journeys with today's guests Laurie King and Miriam Lanswood. Now, many of us feel the need to escape the chaos and incessant noise of life, and what better place to do that than in nature? There's forest bathing, digital detoxes in a countryside setting, silent retreats, and even good old camping. They're all great ways that we're trying to embed nature in our lives. However, these are short-term quick fixes, and Wilder Journeys follow this notion to intense levels of nature absorption that results in a variety of profound connections that the contributors have experienced and share with us. Nature is stunning and too many of us take it for granted and see very little of it, opting to swoon over nature posts on Instagram. But let's delve into the incredible journeys of those that did it #IRL. Uh, here are today's guests, Laurie and Miriam. Thank you for joining us on Get Booked. Oh, thanks, Hazel. Well, thank you for having us. You are very, very welcome. Congratulations on the book, and I must say it looks fantastic. It's kind of getting you already in that vibe of absorbing in color and something that kind of feels very wilderness-esque. You must be very proud of the end product. Yeah, it looks, it looks fantastic. Really happy. Um, we wanted to go for the kind of travel poster vibe and I think it works really well. It definitely does. It's one of those books I'm definitely putting on my coffee table. And I think the best way to get cracking today is if— Laurie, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself and your involvement in the WilderJourney project? Yeah, sure. So I came up with the idea for WilderJourneys about a year and a half ago. I kind of downloaded it overnight. Um, and woke up with the idea. But it was really inspired, um, from going on several solo nature connection journeys where I was in nature for prolonged periods of time on my own. And during that time, I realized that it was such a powerful healing tool, and it also was really good for finding out about myself. And I, um, during that time had many people that had been on sort of long, prolonged adventures in nature, um, such as Roz Savage, who's one of the authors, who rode across all three oceans solo, and another woman that had walked around the world for 11 years called Fiona Campbell. And that's dedication, isn't it? That is dedication. And if I have so much rich experiences just from, you know, a week here and there, or a couple of days here and there, what on earth will these women have, um, have discovered about themselves and about their connection with nature? And I really wanted to find that out. So I approached many, many, um, people that had— that were in my sort of awareness of who have been on big adventures, such as Miriam, um, and said, hey, I've got this idea, are you up for collaborating? And, um, I was just amazed by the amount of yeses, actually. But, you know, I'm I've done some freelance writing, but I've never had a book published before. But it seemed that, um, the idea was one that people were really investing in and were writing chapters without knowing if it was going to be published. And, um, Miriam was so keen and wrote her chapter in amazing quick time and also helped me link up with a few of the other authors. And I thought, Miriam has some really good knowledge and wisdom to share. And so I invited her to be co-editor, and we, we collated the volume together, which has been a really amazing experience, and we've, we've made a really nice friendship. I love that, and I completely understand how so many people wanted to get involved, because those that have gone that step further in nature, it's a little bit like another level of our psyche has been opened up, and it's a little bit like a drug, and people just I just want to tell as many people as possible so that they're not missing out on what potentially is a free way of having a better understanding of the world around us. And I, I completely understand. I mean, it's that thing, isn't it, when, when your friends go off on backpacking and all they want to do is talk about it when they got back, when they get back, because they've just experienced a variety of the world that we just don't get day in, day out, living and doing our 9-to-5s and being in a corporate world, or even just the employment world, it kind of stops us from experiencing the incredible world out there. Definitely. Yeah, there's, um, there's a kind of added layer of magic to life when you connect with nature in that way. Yeah, yeah. And I think it's lovely that people try and share that and they want to make sure that they're not just keeping it for themselves. They want people to realize just how much more there is out there in the world and how much better it can make us feel. And Myriam, can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your place in Wilder Journeys? I think my story started in 2010 when my husband and I left civilization and moved into the wilderness for 7 years in New Zealand. When I wrote the book called A Woman in the Wilderness, um, it got published in New Zealand, later in Holland, and translated. I got invited to writers' festivals, and there I met some of the authors that are now in this book. And that was really handy for, you know, when you meet people in person, more likely they want to commit to such a thing. So, yeah, my writing experience and just happened to meet those people has been really good. For Wildwood Journeys. And that ability to be able to share as well. I must say, the, the collection of short prose, stories, poems, there's such a variety. And the people that you've managed to contribute, uh, Lemnissei, the Olympian, um, poet laureate, is it? That's how you pronounce it? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I met him in Australia. We had a nice little click and kept in contact ever since. Wow. So when the book came out, I said, hey, Len, would you like to write a poem? He said, sure. And the next day he sent one. So yeah, it was really nice. He's like, yeah, I just wrote this award-winning poem in just over a cup of coffee. Yeah, maybe it goes that quick, I don't know. And well, I must— it did spark a lot within me because I'm one of these people that I love to travel. I travel with my kids all the time, but I'm all or nothing. I'm neither backpacking or I'm staying in 5-star accommodation, and there's kind of nowhere in between. And I, I've done my fair share of going here, there, and everywhere. Um, I do remember, and this is what I love about books like this, they kind of remind you of the journeys that you've had and how profound they were for you, kind of encouraging us to delve back into that as well. And I do remember backpacking when I was 18 with my 76-year-old grandma and we'd kind of gone on this trip into the jungle in Thailand. It took us about 3 and a half hours on this little rowing boat with the tiniest bit of an outboard in the back. And at the end of the day, some of the people that were— had planned the trip, they said, oh, Hazel, if you want, you can, you can stay overnight if you want. We've got some more people coming tomorrow, you can go back with them. I was like, oh, okay. My grandma decided to go back to camp anyway. I stayed there for 5 days because they just kept on being more trips and there's kept on being no more reason to go back home. And my grandma's very self-sufficient at 76. She's probably more adventurous than most people have ever come across. And you were just staying on a floating bamboo raft in the middle of the jungle, and at nighttime it was kind of too dangerous to go to the toilets that they had vaguely onshore. And you, you know, if you wanted to pee, you had to jump in the river with the, with the water snakes and whatnot. And it was completely back to basics. And it really was just, you ate whatever was on offer. And I remember coming back and really struggling with having to get back into routine and normality and conformity. And that was only 5 days. Imagine these people who, well, and, and, you know, and yourself, Miriam, have done this for months and years and experienced that kind of freedom. Yes. Yeah, indeed. And I think also that surviving or just spending time out in nature gives you a sort of confidence that is not based on comparison. Like in school, they teach kids, are you good at mathematics? And it gives the kids some pride and confidence. Right? But it's based on comparison. If it goes to another class, it might lose the confidence. So out in nature, you survive a storm, maybe, or you walk in the dark, or you find an animal to hunt, or you walk through the snow or whatever, something challenging. And afterwards, you think, "Wow, I did that. That's amazing." And that gives a sort of inner strength. And I think that's very important.