Get Booked – Hello 2023 160123

Hello and welcome to the first show of 2023. My name's Hazel Butterfield, the host of Get Booked here at Women's Radio Station and Men's Radio Station. I am excited for a new year of shows, new books, and new authors. We have some great guests in the works coming to you. Let's kick off with a few book recommendations to sink your teeth into, and throughout the show we will be hearing from the many guests on Get Booked throughout 2022. Wow, that feels like absolutely years ago now, bizarre. And those who did some special readings of their books. Hokey smokey. Well, the first few books I'd like to tell you about are books with a nature versus nurture vibe, books that explore the effect of our environment versus our genetic makeup in either a fictional or non-fictional way. They really intrigue me and I can't get enough. Here are a few of my faves right now. First up, it is a guest from 2022, Jenna Adams with Can I Stray? Sometimes a book just cuts through you and gets you really assessing everything you know or thought you knew, and more importantly, getting you questioning right and wrong. This book had me deep in nostalgia, reminiscing about first loves, first date relationships, emotional minefields, and the dreaded ambiguity. Exploring the complexities of young love, wanting to be accepted, to be mature, the raging hormones, how the relevance of age difference that 10 years later can evaporate are so open to speculation. The difference between right and wrong and grooming and authenticity. Is our past not what we thought it was? We don't know what we don't know, or at least we didn't. Knowledge can be earth-shattering and completely change our past. Knowledge can make us feel vulnerable but also help us to understand the issues we have bubbling under the surface.. A very insightful read that throws our history into a speculative oblivion. Rightly so. It explains a lot of issues many people are currently dealing with. Was it me? My fault, my issues. Can I Stray? by Jenna Adams. This is one of those books that I really think should be introduced into the curriculum for teenagers in sex education. It's just got such a fantastic way about it that just helps you understand without being preachy. It's a fantastic book. If you haven't read it, please do go and get it. Next up is The Things We Do to Our Friends by Heather Darwent. This one was released on the 12th of January of this year. Now Claire wants a new start when she starts university in Edinburgh where nobody knows her and the strengths of her past will not affect who she can be. To be self-efficient and feel like you belong surely isn't too much to ask for. Then she finds a group that provide excitement, escape from mundanity, and that enigmatic dynamic that makes you want to be accepted. And they do so want her. How intoxicating. But all friendships have unique dynamics, some more complicated than others. I guess a lot of friendships are based on how much that works for us. Do we really know our strengths and our true selves? Fighting against who we naturally are is exhausting, and fighting against who we are told we are is confusingly soul-destroying. A chilling novel that explores many levels of nature versus nurture, an addictive read that could easily produce a sequel, and I'd be first in the queue. That was The Things We Do to Our Friends by the author Heather Darwent. Next up we have Manic Man by Jason Wagner. I was very lucky to be able to chat to Jason on the show at the beginning of 2022. All the shows that we do here on Women's and Men's Radio Station go up on our SoundCloud. You can either pop onto womensradiostation.com or mensradiostation.com and just click on the previous shows link or pop onto our SoundCloud. Now, Manic Man is everything I love about the power of a book. How we can learn from our mistakes and share our experiences, start conversations and challenge perceptions of the question, who am I? How Jason brings to life his recollection of his journey to being diagnosed with bipolar disorder 1 is powerfully and compassionately brought to us in a unique and empowering way that has you hooked on his roller coaster journey, rooting for his recovery and success as a human being. This next book that I want to tell you about, Let Your Hair Down by Bryony Gordon, who many of you may know that she normally writes adult fiction, normally quite ridiculously funny as well, one of my favourites being The Wrong Nickis. Yes, really. Um, I may be 40, but I do actually love some YA fiction too. Throw in an author like Bryony Gordon, and her adult fiction is so up my strasse, you get a winning combo. Barb, a 16-year-old influencer— sorry, sorry, creator is ready to ditch school and start her incredible life using her unbelievably fortuitous hair to get her noticed on the latest social media platform, Showreel, a platform that professes to be more real than any of the others, where the fame will also bring the friendships she so sorely needs after being ditched by her long-term friend. Then there is her aunt, who is also a guardian, and although she has incredible focus on supporting and directing her online success, she does, however, lack in any other real support such as affection, parental nurturing, and ability to tell the truth. When we do not get our basic needs met and our authenticity gets lost, we will crack at some point. That is Let Your Hair Down by Bryony Gordon, and rather bizarrely, as I was reading it, I realized it was actually set on an estate where one of the studios I use is based. I was like, oh, I go past that pub every day. I love books like that. So before we head over to our first reading from one of our authors, I've 2022. I have one more book in this genre to tell you about. It is called Strange Sally Diamond by Liz Nugent. This one is due to be published on the 2nd of March 2023 and definitely one to get on your wish list. I saw this book and it, it caught my eye with the slightest of descriptions, so I knew very little of what to other than it involved a strange character shock. My fascination with understanding the Oedipus had me sold, therefore I had no idea of what was coming. This novel is disturbing in so many ways. The intense emotion that it invokes in you will have you reading a good 2 hours past your bedtime. A fantastically written narrative of two separate upbringings which transpire were not as they seemed. An incredibly intoxicating subjective perspective on nature versus nurture, how trusting those closest to us can be wildly dangerous. If you'd like to go and check out a couple of those books, please pop on to hazelbutterfield.com. Right now it is a time to pop over our first reading of the show, which comes from regular guest on Get Booked, Dr. Tony Ortega, with Enlightened as Hell. Chapter 3: Fear. False evidence. F that. It feels real. Not today, Satan. Not today, Bianca Del Rio. With my extensive background in substance abuse and as a friend of Bill W. myself, I tend to quote 12-step philosophy quite a bit. They have this really great saying about fear and what fear stands for: false evidence appearing real. This is very pretty, but when I was having fevers and body aches as well as a loss of sense of taste and smell at the end of March 2020, there was some real evidence to be scared. I was most concerned for who would take care of my diabetic cat, as the ongoing care and treatment for his diabetes is costly if something happened to me. These fears were real. They felt real, but were they really real? The inner victimizer thrives on fear. Any hint of fear causes the inner victimizer, victimizer to rouse from its slumber. It then stomps around in your inner psyche and gives you more fear to feed your present fear so that its appetite is satisfied. It's a never-ending cycle of torture. International drag queen superstar RuPaul likes to use the term inner saboteur and makes reference to all of us having an inner saboteur. A Course in Miracles refers to fear as a false creation of the ego mind, our human mind, as opposed to our inner champion. If you really think about it, fear is very primal. Most mammals experience fear at some level. More on this in a bit. Let's bring this down for a second to some street-level understanding. There are two kinds of fear: objective fear and subjective fear. The easiest way to differentiate between the two is as follows: objective fear occurs when your physical being may possibly be harmed. Think of a car barreling towards you, or someone pointing a gun to your head, or experiencing symptoms of coronavirus but you live alone and are not sick enough to go to the emergency room. These are all fears that anyone will agree are real. Folks who experience symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress disorder or have been formally diagnosed with PTSD have experienced an event or witnessed an event that threatened physical integrity. This all boils down to a fear that just about anyone can see, even if they are not the victim. Subjective fear is the one that only the person feeling it will experience. No outside observer can objectively see what they are subjectively seeing and/or feeling. This will include things such as making a mistake at work and fearing losing your job, or your partner hasn't called in over X amount of time and you fear they're cheating on you or about to break up with you. You think you're going to die from coronavirus and so will your diabetic cat because no one else wants the financial responsibility. As real as these fears feel, they are not real. Subjective fears feel real because they not only get fed by the inner victimizer, but they activate most of your bodily symptoms to a higher level. It can involve the muscular, muscular, respiratory, and/or cardiovascular systems. This is why it is so easy to feel fear and fall back into a pattern of allowing fear to run rampant. It literally is default setting in most mammals, just like a physical knee-jerk action. The key here is to know that it feels real because your body is now activated, thus giving us the illusion that it is real. To make matters worse, the inner victimizer, inner saboteur ego mind doesn't help provide any support through this fear. On the contrary, it feeds you more and gets off on the process. #ElevateNow. The key to conquering any subjective fear is to know that it feels real, but it is not real. I don't want to encourage you to minimize your feelings in any way. In my work with clients, I remind them to honor all their feelings. We need to take that to the next level and shift from it feeling real to engaging your inner champion into more objective, reality-based thinking. How the hell do we do that in the midst of this? Well, we engage by taking control of our breathing and taking control of our thoughts by looking for the physical evidence to the contrary of what your inner victimizer, inner saboteur ego mind is saying. I use the terms subjective and objective very strategically for this reason. When trying to work through a subjective fear, you need to engage objective thinking, feeling, and doing. I've worked with clients with PTSD. Having them work through a flashback by orienting themselves to where they are now alleviates some of the symptoms. Fear of losing your job? Breathe and remind yourself of the value you bring to your job. Scared your partner is cheating on you? Breathe and search for evidence beyond a shadow of a doubt, just like Law Order, to back this fear up. Fear you may die? Guess what, Mary? It's going to happen to all of us. So instead of focusing on the fact that you may be dying, focus on living your best life right here, right now. This is not to take away from individuals who are experiencing a life-threatening illness diagnosed by a medical professional, or people showing very real symptoms but have not yet seen a medical professional, as was the case for me when I thought I had COVID-19. In the face of a diagnosis and/or symptoms, fear of dying is very real. This is both a subjective and an objective fear. Instead of focusing solely on the dying part, share some of the focus on the living right here, right now part as well. Objective fears are about the immediate future. Subjective fears are about a projected future. #ElevateNow. You cannot feel subjective fear if you are anchored into the present moment. Focusing on your breath is the easiest way to do so. Let's go back to how our fears as humans differ from those experienced by lower life forms. I use quotations for lower, as sometimes they are way smarter and savvier than we are. One of the things that differentiate us from other animals is something we humans possess called a frontal lobe. It is the part of the brain that controls problem-solving, decision-making, labeling, planning, and many other higher-order mental processes. That mammals without a frontal lobe can't do. Here's the deal. While we need a frontal lobe to not turn into hedonistic bastards, we can't shut it off either. Therefore, when we have that one thought fed to us by the inner victimizer, inner saboteur ego mind, our frontal lobe starts to work overtime. This fuels that initial thought of fear, and all of a sudden we think we are dying at 2:00 AM just because we have a headache that won't go away. I live in a very busy bus train area of town. One Sunday, my cat Logan was playing with the toy in the bed. A bus came by and made quite the ruckus. Logan stood up on all fours and stayed very still, eyes wide open. When the bus went on its way, Logan resumed what he was doing. We could learn a lot from Logan. Feel whatever feeling you are experiencing. Don't add to it by thinking a bus is about to careen into the building. Don't judge yourself for feeling fear and go back to playing with your catnip toy. You may be thinking, I do not like fear. Well, duh, who likes it other than the inner victimizer? While I do dislike feeling fear, I recognize its inherent value in our lives. If we subscribe to fear being a primal response to our world, then to some degree it is part of our DNA. However, fear is one of those emotions we dislike the most. Why would we need it genetically? In lower-order behaviors, actions that non-human mammals engage in, we need to feel fear to survive. When we are in a situation unfamiliar to us, we need to fear to heighten our level of awareness to our surroundings, just in case. It's a simple way of seeing how fear is quite useful and necessary for our survival. In higher-order actions Those involving that frontal lobe, fear can arise in certain situations we may think of, sometimes fed by the inner victimizer, but we can decide not to engage in said action because we are scared of the consequences. If used and managed properly, fear can make us better people. I use the term managed with intent. Let's say we are in a new neighborhood, we are not familiar with the surroundings. We will have that very basic fear of getting lost or possibly encountering questionable people. This fear will help us navigate the streets with more mindful intention. Here's a different scenario with more frontal lobe functioning. Fear would be involved those times we want to exact our revenge on someone who has wronged us. While that very primal rage is getting off on our plot, the frontal lobe will kick in and provide 134 worst-case scenario conclusions of your act of revenge versus the one result you would want. You finally cancel the plans because you don't want to suffer the consequences. #ElevateNow. Fear is a necessary component of our lives that helps us survive in the physical realm as we grow mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. That was the always entertaining Dr. Tony Ortega with Enlightened as tell, please do go and check him out on your various socials and of course read the books. Another book that I thoroughly enjoyed reading last year and was very lucky to have the author on GetBooked was Rag Bear with her book 39 1, a very entertaining read, I thoroughly loved it and it was great to have her on the show. Here is Ragbir with a reading of her book. Hello, my name is Ragbir and my debut novel 39 1 tells the story of Rachel Collins who on her 39th birthday decides to embark on a quest to find her soulmate before she turns 40. Chapter 1: The Quest. Next year I enter the fourth decade of my life. It's a dirty word for me, known as the F-word amongst my close friends. Whenever they try to talk to me about what I'm planning for my 40th, I silence them and say, don't mention the F-word. They just laugh at me. By the way, most of them have already been there and find it amusing that I'm taking it so seriously. They are all married with 2.4 and living the imperfect dream, apart from Vince and Harry. Who think a good bonk solves all life's miseries. Getting back to the F-word. Yes, I'm in complete denial, I know. But how I remember those days dancing to Wham!'s Young Guns for the end-of-year school concert in the summer of '83, thinking how someday I would be married to my Andrew Ridgely lookalike. Only to discover my Andrew Ridgely lookalike used to like ramming his fists into me and I decided it was time to say goodbye to my Wham! days. So here I am, just turned 39, single, and for the past 7 years I haven't really had a serious boyfriend. I admit I have not explored all avenues. The thought of speed dating or even communal dinner dates horrifies me. The queuing up, the name badge, the viewing, and then the bids are cast. The image that comes to mind is that of cattle lining up to be auctioned. Ooh, yes, the rump looks good on that one, or no, too old to bear children. Okay, I'm being cynical, but just the thought of standing around with a group of humanimals all waiting to be sized up and examined, all suffering with the same affliction, is not my kind of fun. It's the desperate yearning look They'll wait to see if someone has put a bid on you, the anticipation that this time the farmer has noticed your prize-winning qualities. No, it's another walk back to the fields. So yes, I know that I'm being very unfair. How can I possibly give an opinion on something I refuse to try? Then there's the internet. Well, remember as a child when your birthday was approaching, you'd get the Argos catalogue out and look through the pages. And list all the things you'd like and then place the list where everyone can see it, normally stuck to the fridge door. Then when eventually your birthday comes around, you open your presents imagining which one from the list it is, only to be disappointed with yet another set of pyjamas which you'll grow into, a pair of socks, a box set of bath foam and soap on a rope. I have on a couple of occasions registered on dating sites, but what a lengthy process. Boredom sets in by the time I get to the type of qualities I'd like in my ideal partner, and before I know it, I start comparing the virtues of internet dating with the traditional method. And suffice to say, my Argos days are over. It's not that I can't get a boyfriend, I'm just not that good at keeping them. I've been told that I'm too fussy, too pretty, too nice, too independent, and once even that my standards are too high. I mean, really? So I've decided to go on a quest for the next 12 months to find my perfect imperfect soulmate, to explore all avenues, to accept all invitations, even if they're not to my liking. I say perfect imperfect soulmate because, let's face it, nobody's perfect. And although it's all very nice and lovey, the first few years of a relationship, after a while all the things you tolerate for the love of the man becomes the things you absolutely hate in him, like the face shavings left in the sink, the smelly wet clothes strewn everywhere. And I know you won't believe me, but once on entering the bathroom I found poo halfway down the outside of the toilet bowl. And I'm not talking a little spot, I'm talking a great lump the size of a golf ball just clinging onto the side for dear life. Yeah, the explanation I got was that it had fallen off the loo roll during the wiping process and landed on the outside of the toilet. Well, I can't really talk about that anymore, but my point is that if you really love someone and find that perfect imperfect soulmate, then what you do is laugh about it and put up with all his poo. So my quest to find my perfect imperfect soulmate begins. Well, it all began with my journey back from work. I decided to stop at this new store that had recently opened. It was one of those organic deli-style shops. So there I am trying the little titbits on offer at the antipasti counter. I was rather peckish after work, and as I'm popping the third feta-stuffed olive in my mouth, I feel eyes on me. I turn and catch a glimpse of him. He's pushing his little trolley around the corner of the aisle, but I know it's his eyes watching me stuff my face. "Would you like to try the jalapeño stuffed?" I hear a voice from over the counter ask. "No thanks, I'll just take a small tub of the feta olives please, seeing as I've eaten most of the ones on the tray," I say, chuckling to the young lad who's serving me, but it goes over his head. I study his face to calculate how old he could be. He looks up and catches my eye as he passes the tub over the counter. At 39, I don't think I look too bad. A couple of grey hairs or so hidden under my brunette locks. No wrinkles yet unless I smile too hard. And apart from a slight muffin top when I wear low-rise jeans, everything's in the right place. 'Anything else, madam?' he asks as I pop the tub in the basket. 'No, thank you,' I reply as I walk away and turn into the aisle where, a few feet away, I'm faced with the one whose eyes were on me when I was olive eating. He looks up and smiles, and I pretend not to notice as he walks past. And then I hear a French accent. 'Hello?' I turn to look at him. He's cute-ish. The accent is much cuter. 'Hi,' I say, half smiling, and walking on. Oh God, I hope I don't have any of those olives stuck in my teeth. I make it to the cheese counter and check my teeth with my tongue, and then notice a tray of cocktail sticks with cubes of cheese attached, and grab one, wolf it down, then use the stick to clear olive debris from my teeth. Then I hear a familiar voice. 'Can I help you with anything, madam?' It's the deli counter boy. He must have rollerbladed over. 'No thanks,' I mumble, trying not to look like I'm eating my way around the store. All I need now is a drink, and as I turn into the next aisle, there's an organic wine tasting table. I smile and think, 'You don't need to go out to a fancy bar with your girlfriends. Just turn up at the Organic Deli Store and you can have a quick catch-up over nibbles.' I smile to myself and head on over to sample what's on offer. There's an elderly couple there chatting to the wine promoter lady. So maybe I could do a drink and dash without being noticed. I help myself to a weeny glass of red, knock it back and nod my head pretending that I'm listening to the narrative on the virtues of drinking organic wine, and then help myself to another when she turns and looks at me and asks my thoughts. Oh well, it's jolly nice, I say as I pop the empty vessel down and scoop up another thimbleful of happiness. And then I turn to the elderly couple and ask them what they think as I edge my way back to let them take centre stage. I can see Mr French Accent at the end of the aisle looking at something on the shelf, so I fake a hello and raise my hand as if to wave to him as I calmly walk away. I'm not going to shy away. The vino has helped to ease my demeanour. Besides, I haven't had a date in ages, and as we pass, he stops and introduces himself as François. Hi, I'm Rachel. I feel a bit awkward when I notice a lady close by glance over, raising her eyebrows, smiling as she snoops in on our conversation. I catch François taking a nose of my feta-stuffed olives in my basket. He looks up and smiles at me. He's not very tall but has a nice smile and accent, and after a small talk about the new store, he asked me if I'd like to go out sometime. I give him my number, say goodbye, and as I walk away slowly I can hear him say that he'll call. Later that evening, I receive a message from François saying that he wants to meet me on Saturday at 6 PM. That's only 2 days away! What shall I wear? Where are we going? Casual or dressy? This calls for an emergency Friday night with the girls to discuss. Harriet and Naomi meet me at our usual Friday night hangout called the drinking hole. It's a little Spanish bar in Windsor that serves great tapas. I order a bottle of wine and 3 glasses and wait for them to arrive. Harriet is the all-important party girl who can handle her drink until she passes out, of course. She has a well-paid job that can afford her to buy whatever designer piece she likes and would not concern herself with how much she has spent. Once she showed me a simple hair clip and told me that she had paid £15 for it. To me, it just looked like a plastic hair grip. But what do I know? Naomi is the quiet, doesn't-drink-too-much, practical earth mother type who hasn't been shopping for herself in years and would rather go without than be a fashion-conscious victim. I've known both of them since school. They've both married young to their childhood sweethearts, and I suspect they think the grass is greener. Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn't. French? I don't much like the French, exclaims Naomi. 'Too arrogant. They think they're the bee's knees. And what's the thing with the snails?' 'Well, I think they're romantic, charming, and that accent is so sexy,' Harriet purrs. One for and one against. Great. 'Look, you haven't had a boyfriend in ages. He could be the one,' continues Harriet. 'Well, as long as you don't serve us snails at your wedding, I'm fine with it,' Naomi chips in, rolling her eyes. 'Oh, for God's sake, it's only a date,' I add, laughing. As I suspected, I'm none the wiser after meeting up with them. But I should remember that they haven't dated in years, and I guess wouldn't have a clue anyway. And me? I feel like I've been dating for a lifetime and I still don't have a clue. Hello, you're listening to Get Booked. I'm Hazel, and welcome to the second half of today's show. I am such a huge book fan and I absolutely love doing the show. Get Booked is all about 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 throughout 2023, sharing who they are, what they do, and what inspires them. For the first half of today's show, we've been looking at books to really sink your teeth into in 2023. We've also been hearing from some of our fabulous 2022 guests, those that were kind enough to do readings of their books, and we also have a fabulous reading now from the author Becky Hall with The Art of Enough: 7 Ways to Build a Balanced Life and a Flourishing World. Let's kick off 2023 with some fantastic goals. I absolutely loved reading this book and chatting to Becky on GetBooked in 2022. I hope you enjoy this reading. An extract from The Art of Enough. By Becky Hall. Why we need The Art of Enough. Picture the scene: I'm sitting opposite Kate, a senior leader who I'm coaching. She's telling me that despite her external success and glittering career path, nothing she does can make her feel good enough. No matter how hard she works or how many accolades she receives, which are plentiful, She cannot shake her fear that she is an impostor waiting to be discovered. This drives her to work relentlessly to achieve a goal which never feels within reach. Kate is stuck in a mindset convinced that she lacks what she needs. She has no permission to rest, and her inner landscape is full of fear. A serial overachiever, She's tired and nothing she does takes her insecurity away. In her mind, she simply cannot be enough. Now let's zoom in on Omar. Omar is working from home during one of COVID-19's lockdowns. He has a demanding job and lives in a 2-bedroom flat with his wife and their 1-year-old son. Omar describes his working life to me. He's at his desk by 7 AM, has back-to-back online meetings throughout the day, during which a stream of emails fills his inbox. He takes an hour to be with his wife and son in the early evening before returning to work late into the evening. He feels overwhelmed by the volume and complexity of what he has to do and unable to give himself permission to stop either. Understandably, Omar is nearly burnt out with tiredness. It's as if he can never do enough. And then let's turn our focus to our planet. Our house is on fire, Greta Thunberg said in Davos in 2019. The IPCC report released in October 2018 gives our planet just 12 years to radically alter our carbon usage and emissions to stem catastrophic climate change. Our oceans are now host to plastic islands the size of countries. According to UNICEF, across 86% of the UK, children are breathing dangerous levels of toxic air. We're at the start of the 6th mass extinction, where thousands of habitats and species are on the verge of extinction, driven by ecocide. And yet our response as individuals, societies, and institutions is not creating change at sufficient its speed. It's as if we don't know how to stop. We can't seem to have enough. These stories aren't unusual. I've worked to support people and teams for over 20 years, people working hard to give the best of themselves to businesses, universities, charities, institutions, and governments that they work for. And what I've noticed is that so many people are out of balance. It's as if we're on a seesaw the whole time, swinging between too much and not enough, oscillating from one extreme to the other. Our inner lives tormented by a lack of inner balance, our outer lives swamped by complexity, while at a meta level, the very ecosystem of our planet is pushed to breaking point. I believe that finding the art of enough from the inside out is the challenge of our age. My book attempts to explore these three fundamental questions: Why are we so out of balance in so many areas of our lives? How can we find a way of leading our 21st century lives fruitfully within the limits of enough? What becomes possible for us when we learn to be, do, and have Enough. What is enough? Here's what I mean by enough. Enough is a state of being and a way of living. With enough, we learn how to live within the natural limits of our lives, and this sets us free to flourish. Enough is resourced by love. And abundance. When we believe we are enough, we can find freedom and flow that allows us to shine. From a state of being enough, we can put in boundaries— sorry, from a state of being enough, we can put in place boundaries so that what we do is enough. We allow ourselves to live and work at a sustainable pace and contribute to making the world a better place for everyone. Enough is a way of living that welcomes the clarity that boundaries can give us and appreciates the renewable power of our resources. Enough gives us the wisdom to follow the natural patterns of growth and transformation that go way beyond always needing more and recognize when we have enough. Enough connects us to each other and to the planet that we share. One of the concerns that people have expressed to me about the concept of enough is that it represents mediocrity, settling for average, not trying hard. I think the reverse is true. Enough allows us each to stand on the fertile ground, well-rooted and well-resourced, so that we can flourish with creativity and brilliance. From our place of enough, we can grow to be the right size, connecting and contributing to others and our environment so that we can do amazing things. We move from the ever-hungry, never-satisfied state of striving to a state of fullness from which we can thrive. Far from being mediocre, Enough is a springboard to a healthy and sustainable life. James Lovelock's Gaia hypothesis suggests that the world is one living organism held together by interconnected complexity. The famous idea in Gaia is that everything is connected through a series of networked self-organizing systems so that when a butterfly flaps its wings in America, it can set off a chain of, of mini changes that can result in a thunderstorm in Africa, which in turn can trigger a hurricane in Asia. In self-organizing systems, change starts with small disturbances, like a butterfly flapping its wings, which eventually become amplified by the connected networks within the system to affect big changes elsewhere. Like a thunderstorm. In the same way, I believe that enough starts with each of us on the inside. For us, small internal changes are the place to start. I have a hunch that there is a deep interconnection between our individual feelings of not being enough and our experience of being overstretched in our daily lives in service of doing enough and our inability to stop consuming too much to say we have enough. That how we feel on the inside is deeply connected to how much we feel we need to do and ultimately how we can live sustainably together without harming the planet. Wow, absolutely love it! That was the author Becky Paul with The Art of Enough: 7 Ways to Build a Balanced Life and a Flourishing World. You can find out about all our previous guests if you pop onto my Twitter @nuttybutty, or you can pop on to our website. And please remember to hit men's and women's radio stations to check out the various shows, presenters, and what we're all about. Now, our final reading of today is from the author Colin Stewart with Fled. Kevin Donnellan was delivered at Walton Hospital on the 28th of November 1961. His mother Agnes, heavily sedated at the conclusion of the long and difficult birth of her 5th child, was barely conscious. There was pity rather than wonder when the newborn was revealed, with Agnes still too confused to take proper account of what was uncharted territory., and no one knowing if Kevin would last the night. Thalidomide, the superdrug, had been withdrawn from the pharmaceutical shelves by the morning, with cause belatedly following effect. I first came to know Kevin through my brother, Gary, who met him off the back of a 6-month youth employment scheme he was forced to attend in the spring of 1984. Our relationship initially conducted at something of a remove. Kevin was 22 and slowly filling out into the man he would become, no longer the child he'd once seemed set to remain. Though his smooth heart-shaped face, with its button nose and fleshy pink lips, was ageless, some said cherubic, initial impressions proved misleading. The squashed red pug nose, which had been broken on numerous occasions, that of a boxer or a drunkard. The chin cleft. The man himself anything but an angel. Kevin's face was broad and articulate, with widespread asymmetric blue-gray eyes, the right of which, its feathery brow lifted in permanent entreaty, like glass compared to its heavy-lidded companion. Rising lavishly over these eyes on the ridge of a particularly pronounced brow, the untutored supercilia allowed for the full range of expression. Worldly and innocent, candid and calculated, incredulous and naive, as quick to engage a friend as a stranger, Kevin was a challenge to interpretation. Behind the bloated childlike lips that retreat to reveal a gummy protuberant smile, his most habitual expression, Kevin's teeth are straight, square, and false. 'Crownz!' he cries, reading over my shoulder. 'They're crownz!' Drawing the discriminating eye almost intentionally from the scar cutting a left-right diagonal across the soft convex of his pale philtrum. His hair, which would suffer any number of revisions over the years, was at the time a feathery brown mop, his diminutive ears showing like golf balls through the rough, while his upper lip would soon be sporting the bum fluff moustache which was then the fashion. By the time I'd been properly introduced and first took account of his appearance up close, Kevin was boasting a high alkaline permanent wave from his recent visit to Smithies on College Road, having spent the better part of an hour straddling a reclining chair as the noxious glue was applied. Reveling in the weft of his new pelt, russet gold in full sun, Kevin had felt like a new man when he set off on a celebratory drive. 'A Solid Bond in Your Heart' played on the radio and he sang hoarsely along, licking at the footballer's moustache now perched on his upper lip. The moustache was gone within a month, Kevin shaving smooth after learning of its preponderance within the gay community. 'I had a reputation to uphold,' he chuckles, though the approbation of the hair did little to forestall his next misguided phase. New Romantic. Kevin, in truth, rarely stuck with anything. His hair, short and sharp one day, might be left to go to seed for the rest of the year. His most dramatic makeover came during the fortnight when he briefly considered himself a punk. His dismayed mother barely recognizing her son when he rattled home a bona fide goth. The jarring effect of the heavily applied eyeliner and the jetpack liberty spikes was only slightly confused by the checked shirt that Kevin wore down below. "Is that you?" his mother quivered, which seemed an exaggeration. Kevin's gossamer-thin locks were all too soon receding anyway, and though he made an occasional attempt at the Bobby Charlton comb-over, it was quickly apparent that he was fighting a losing battle. Henceforth, he kept the styling strategically short clipping those steadily reducing strands back up with the tide of a naturally high hairline. The gold glint of stud that idled on the dimpled lobe of his high-set left ear was a later addition and came as a surprise when Kevin called me across, asking after my brother. "He's in, I think," I said, just as Gary came striding down the path, kicking up stones. Kevin turned the engine in reply. Dropping the ball from under my arm, I backed away to watch from a suitable distance as, spinning full circle, the van departed with a sputtering throttle. Kevin had still been in college when, having seen a girl get it done in Michael John's, he decided that he would have his ears pierced too. Though he was, by his own admission, shitting himself when he finally took the plunge. He was letting out preemptive cries before the needle even hit. Twisting round for a better view when it was done. "You're very brave," the assistants cooed, already considering what to attach. Kevin was too proud to correct the condescension. That simple gold stud was an unexpectedly elegant first pick, Kevin fitting it into the soft left lobe to make his sexual orientation clear—not that anyone cared. A larger ring featuring a white-on-black CND insignia would take its place with a snarl of political defiance within a week. The latest constant of a fickle wardrobe, Kevin would soon tire of such ornaments altogether, leaving the punctured holes to seal up in their own good time. They were nothing but a memory when Paula forced a heated needle through to prise the rift apart again, after declaring with undue irritation, "You looked better with an earring." Though way past caring what Paula might have thought by this point, Miss Harrison was a force of nature and hard to refuse. 'As long as you know what you're doing,' Kevin allowed. 'Course I do,' Paula snapped with a malevolent sneer. In the event, there was blood everywhere, on the mirror and the walls, with shrieks and squeals of the sort of open laughter they hadn't shared in years. The suture was blistered rather than breached, however, with Kevin indefatigably refusing to insert any sort of ring or stud into that quickly closing aperture again, or to let Paula anywhere near. Absolutely smashing. I love it when guests do a reading of their book. It's just got that personal edge, a little bit like when on Audible it's the actual author that reads the book and you kind of know them a little bit. There's been some fantastic ones that I've listened to in 2022. Now time for a couple more book reviews that I have loved in 2022 to hopefully add to your 2023 TBRs, and the first one is The Satsuma Project by Bob Mortimer. I just, I love his dry tone and northern sweary charm, the style of which is perfect for those who like an Audible, like I just mentioned, where he reads this book in his own inimitable way in which the book has been written. The plot itself is endearingly weird, as is his unique stream-of-consciousness relationship with the local squirrel, which in all honesty isn't too far off from my own Conversations with my beagle who goes absolutely anywhere and everywhere with me. Random characters, human nature, corruption, gangsters, and longing create this balls-out crazy book. All the books that I do read and love I do put up on hazelbutterfield.com and make it nice and easy for you with a link on there to various different book outlets for you to get hold of the book. Another one I want to tell you about that's not actually available until the 27th of April of this year, but sometimes I think it's nice to have something to look forward to as well. And this one is called Only Love Can Hurt Like This by Paige Tune. Wren has just been dumped by her fiancé as he has fallen in love with someone else, and so she decides decides to escape to Indiana for a couple of weeks to see her somewhat estranged dad and stepfamily. Straight from one unrequited situation to another and potentially another. Sometimes when we feel like we are lost, we need to search for something, anything, to ignite our soul and feel a sense of belonging. Opening ourselves up to something new or searching for those parts of ourselves that we had forgotten, maybe. However, as with most matters of the heart, honest communication is key, but it is often hard to communicate what we can't even decipher and rationalize in our own heads and hearts. Love hurts for so many reasons. Life rarely goes to plan. What we want be to the ones we love is not always aligned with what we can be, and that hurts. This book is beautifully written. It's got this bittersweet journey of not just Wren but all those around her trying to find love, acceptance, and be the best they can be. And sometimes we make mistakes and we need to work a little bit harder to undo those, but sometimes all we need to know is that somebody wants to do that, and that's what I absolutely love about this book, Only Love Can Hurt Like This by Paige Tune. Now if you are listening to this show and you're thinking, ooh, I love books, I'd love to talk about them with Hazel on GetBooked, please do get in touch. You can get in touch with me throughout a variety of different methods, but predominantly if you pop onto HazelButtercup.com www.sarahwinterfield.com and contact me that way or through my various social media platforms. Maybe you are a PR specialist or a publisher and you want to give some hints and tips to our listeners about how they can get published or how to edit their book, how to even start coming together with the idea that's swirling around in your head and you just can't quite figure out how to start getting that novel out of you, please do get in touch. And likewise, I'm a huge fan here at GetBooked of listening to debut authors, emerging authors, and it's so hard sometimes for us to get the word out about ourselves. Please do get in touch because GetBooked. It is all about listening to you, chatting to you, finding out about how you managed to get that first book out of you and to get it published, or whether you got self-published. There are so many different weird and wonderful ways to get your story out there, and it's such a joy on Get Booked that I get to chat to such a variety of different authors out there. You can pop on to womensradiostation.com/shows/getbooked to listen to the previous shows. There's something out there for everybody. I'm a huge fan of fiction, non-fiction. I myself, when I'm reading, I like to make sure that I alternate my genres, otherwise sometimes your brain can just go boom, because I do like those hard-hitting thrillers or the memoirs that really ignite something within you or help you to understand somebody else's trauma or the way somebody else is. And I think it is really good to just mix it up a little bit. And sometimes you come across a book where you would normally not be— you would think that that one's not for you, and those are the ones sometimes where you find out something new about yourself, and this is the joy of reading. Even if you're not a huge fan of specifically reading, the joy of the likes of Audible have opened up literature to so many more people, and the likes of Kindle make it easier for those of us who are suddenly saying, "Ah, but the print is too small!" It's so much more easier and accessible. Now coming up in the coming weeks on Get Booked, we are going to be talking to the author Beth Wood, and she has written Madeline and the Forest. This is a fantastic book about— it's fictional— about poetry. Madeline and the Forest is a remarkable book that plunges the reader into a world inhabited by Poets and Madmen. Brilliant. Madeline Parker is bright and funny. She has lived the life of a struggling poet and recently found commercial success without too much compromise. As she tells a press conference, she believes in happy endings. But when a central relationship crumbles, Maddie's mind and her life start to fragment. She tries to claw back as her subconscious becomes the landscape of her life, but the forest won't be banished. It lives, it breathes, and it waits. Beth Wood, the author, has written more than 60 plays which have been performed internationally. For many years, Beth wrote the drama activities for the Longman Shakespeare Series. A theatre director, she became fascinated by the mind, trained and set up at the company Mind Fitness. In 2019, Beth co-wrote the acclaimed Unlock You: A Guide to Unlocking Potential by Harnessing the Power of the Brain. This was published by Pearson. Her work in this field continues with the new book Developing Your Emotional Health. And Beth has always loved writing stories, and Madeline and the Forest is her first novels. I'm looking forward to chatting to Beth next week on Get Booked. And a show after that, we're going to be speaking to a variety of different book lovers and bloggers who are going to be chatting to me here on Get Booked. If you want to be a part of that, please do get in touch at hazel@hazelbutterfield.com. Thank you so much for listening to Get Booked Today with me, your host Hazel Butterfield, and hopefully you will tune in next week. Every day of the week, 5 PM at Women's Radio Station, and every Tuesday, 4 PM at Men's Radio Station.