Get Booked – Tara Lal, Standing On My Brother’s Shoulders

Hello, I'm Hazel Butterfield and this is Get Booked for Women's and Men's Radio Station, a show all about books and their incredible way to help and support good emotional well-being and enrich our minds. And I hope you're all ready and raring to get booked today. And today joining me in the remote COVID studio is Tara Lal, female firefighter, and author on transforming her mental health after trauma, whose memoir is highly praised by the incredible director Alex Garland, and it is titled Standing on My Brother's Shoulders. And I recently did a review of this book that kind of explained that when I first started reading this in a café, when the cafés reopened, I burst into tears pretty quickly, and a man who was sitting in there with his dog kind of ushered his dog over to me as if to say, 'Come on, I think she needs your help a little bit,' which I thought was ridiculously cute and really welcomed, actually. I find books that kind of instigate some sort of outpouring of grief to be so cathartic, and Tara Lal does manage to make a story of great loss and confusion quite endearing. And Standing on My Brother's Shoulders refers to her brother Adam, who tragically killed himself, and it's about illness and the The effect of mental illness on a family and its growth. And I cannot wait to introduce you to Tara, so I'm not going to delay any further. Hello Tara, thank you for joining us. Hello Hazel, it's my pleasure to be here. And you're joining us all the way from Australia, aren't you? I am indeed, so I was about to say good morning and then I got all confused because it's evening here. Ah, yes, well, uh, thank you. Do you know what, the whole idea of having this COVID studio where instead of We have this fantastic studio in Covent Garden which we can't utilise at the moment because of the COVID restrictions, but it just means that it's so much easier. We're getting more and more used to using Skype, so we can speak to anybody anywhere. It's great. Yes, it is, it is. It's amazing. And so your book, I've worked my way through it ridiculously quickly, apart from every now and again I had to stop and just digest what was happening. Have you had a lot of responses from readers who have had to experience the same kind of stopping and starting element? Yeah, you know, it's so interesting how different people respond. I mean, I'm always quite amazed really by how many people have said, you know, it takes me ages to read a book, but I read yours in one go, in one sitting. And I take that as really such a compliment, I think, you know, that people managed to find a way to sort of wanna keep keep reading. And I think many people process it afterwards. Yeah, I mean, there is that. The only reason why I kind of stopped and started is because I don't know anyone who has actually killed themself, and I do have a lot of friends who have got mental health issues, but it's not just about what happened to your brother, it's about The effect of life and sometimes failing and sometimes having something horrible happen to you and getting back up again and again and trying to— and we are a constant work in progress. That's, that's the message I got from the book. Yeah, definitely. And, and I, I really hope that that comes through because I think it is so much about all of our experiences. And, and, you know, whilst obviously my brother's death had a huge impact on me, um, there were many other things that impacted me and how I kind of made my way through all of those things to come to a place where I could grow from it and I could really enable myself to be the person that I wanted to be and not the person that was really defined by my experiences up until that point. And also, it helped not only people who've just— I mean, I've had things in my life where I've just gone, wow, how am I going to get over this? Or how am I going to redeem myself? Because we all make mistakes, or we all do things, we go down a path that we don't necessarily— we, in retrospect, we know it wasn't necessarily correct, but we've always got that choice to try and turn things around, haven't we? Yeah, and I think that's what's so lovely. That's what I, you know, I love about that because I often look back and I think, you know, I know a little bit more now about this thing called post-traumatic growth and it— and, you know, that most people experience it sort of 2 to 5 years after an event. But, you know, for me, I look back and go, well, it was, you know, over 15 years before I started to, to really experience the growth from the things that had happened to me. And so I think that's a really important message that it's never too late and, and that we can always have that capacity to start to process some of the things that have happened to us and to find a way through them that becomes, um, I guess, growthful and helps us engage in life in a more meaningful way. And the actual power of understanding what has gone on and what is going on in our brain— the more we understand ourselves, the more that we can actually find a way to deal with life in a more positive way? Definitely, without a doubt. I mean, I think really what I've really realized, and I keep continuing to realize, you know, as I get older and older, is just how important that relationship with myself was. And actually peeling back, you know, layer after layer after layer of things that I created around myself and behaviors to try and kind of protect myself, I think, really initially, but also how they weren't really serving me. And And that, you know, I really think there's so many layers, and I'm sure I still have more to peel back. But, you know, that that's a really important process, is kind of getting closer to the centre of who we really are. And that takes a lot of work to be able to do that, and a lot of, I guess, introspection and reflection, and also support from other people to help you to do that. And it's actually knowing that you need to ask people for help as well. Yeah, without a doubt. I mean, there's no way that I could have done the work that I have done on my own. And to having that, you know, the right support person, whether it's a professional or a good friend or a mentor, but somebody that can really help reflect back on you the things that you're unable to see in yourself, I think, and to find ways to help you to dig a bit deeper into yourself and the ways that you behave and think and those sorts of things. And I think, you know, certainly for me, that process of writing whilst having support and therapy, really, to work through that stuff, that those two processes together were incredibly transformational for me, really. Do you know what? That is the one thing, when my friends are really struggling, I just say, "Write it down." They're like, "Well, we're not a writer like you, Hazel. We don't wanna, you know, other people to know what's going on." I say, "Well, no, no, no, you don't have to write for somebody else to read it. Sometimes you just need to write to unjumble what's going on in your head. Burn it, you know?" throw it in a drawer. Nobody else has to see it, but sometimes, you know, you just need to— how cathartic it can be to just unjumble what's going on in your mind is unbelievable, and it's a great power. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I definitely found that, and I think in a way the power in it in terms of helping me to process it was when I wrote it that I didn't think anyone else was ever going to read it. And that was the power actually that I didn't think anyone was ever gonna read it. And there's certainly more and more evidence now coming out about the value of expressive writing for processing trauma and traumatic events. And that, you know, if you just sit down for 20 minutes a day for 5 days and just write everything that you feel and everything that's inside, completely unfiltered, that that's a really valuable way to process difficult emotion. And I think, you know, I certainly found that. And there's something about writing your whole life story down as well that kind of really, it's like a jigsaw puzzle, you know, that you never think of all these memories that you never really think of altogether. And a lot of things that I couldn't even recall at first that started coming back to me. And it was like, it was like the jigsaw puzzle of my life. And I suddenly went, oh, you know, no wonder I became the person that I became. And it gave me so much self-compassion and self-understanding that I couldn't possibly have had had I not taken the time to basically just write my life story down, which is essentially you know, what the book kind of started as. It didn't start as a book, it just started me needing to get it all out really, and then it later became a book. But the value in just writing, you know, unsolicited and unfiltered was incredible. And even in what it does to your brain and how it, you know, you use a different part of your brain when you write to when you think and when you speak. And so it literally gives you a different dimension and a different perspective, and it certainly did that for me. There is actually a lot of science behind it, and I interviewed somebody called Sarah Adams who wrote a book called "The Life Edit," which encourages people for 30 days to write for a minimum of 15 minutes a day. And it's a process to try and retrain your brain and to try and order what's going on. And I engaged with it, and I slept so well during that time. I'd even just— I'd just write for 10, 15 minutes, before I went to bed, and then I wouldn't go to bed with overwhelming thoughts in my head, because I'd already kind of brain dumped them. And I've stopped it recently, because there's so much, so many other things going on. And I know that we do have time for 10, 15 minutes a day to just write, even if it is just before you go to bed, and it's gonna actually save time in the long run, because you won't spend time laying in bed, you know, with these thoughts whirring around in your head, and you'll actually get more sleep. I need to start it again, and it's something so simple that we just kind of, disregard so easily. Yeah, it is. It's so easy to just let all those things go, but I think there is so much value in, in just, just getting it all out and, and it's not just going round and round inside you, I think. And it gives you certainly that different perspective. Now, your book, Standing on My Brother's Shoulders, is not just about your brother Adam. It's about so many different elements of your life that, that affected who you are pretty much up until— would you say like a few years ago was when you really started to start making inroads into who you were and what you wanted to do? Yeah, I mean, I think I sort of look on myself, look back now, and I think of kind of two halves of my life in a way. I think of the first 15 years really since my brother's death as a kind of turning away and running from everything that was going on inside me. And then the last probably 17 years, because I'm now 49, has been turning towards. And so there was a point around about the age of 32 where I started the turning towards, and then it's just been that continual process since then of evolving and growing and coping, learning how to process some of the really difficult emotions that I had going on inside me as a result of all the things that happened to me as a child, really. And just so the listeners understand, before they get your book, we don't want to tell them everything that goes on because we want them to go out and buy the book as well. But your mum died quite young, your father had certain mental illnesses. Can you just explain a little bit more about that? Yeah, so my dad, you know, he was, well, really suffering from quite significant mental illness throughout my life, although I don't know at what point I realised that he wasn't well and at what point as a child I started to realise even, you know, what mental illness was, but there must have been at some point I must have realized that he was suffering from depression because I found an entry from a diary that I'd written saying, "Dad's depressed. I hate it when Dad's depressed because I always think that it's my fault." And I think, you know, when I found that I was just, it really made sense to me because I grew up thinking everything was my fault, you know, and I really started to think that Dad was ill because of me and it was my fault that he had become ill. And, you know, he loved to read. He, you know, our whole house was completely covered by books on every wall and every available space. But when he was ill, he wasn't able to read. And that was kind of how I came to realize when he wasn't well. And it was just like there was this tomb around him and I couldn't reach him however hard I tried. And, you know, it felt like he— I wanted him so desperately to love me in the way that I wanted him to. And he wasn't able to do that. But obviously as a child, I didn't understand that. That, you know, and he had quite a significant psychotic episode after our mother died and was admitted to hospital for most of a year really. And so he changed quite significantly when— before I remember him being depressed, but after her death he had this psychotic episode and that was quite frightening for me because he was acting as if mum's death was the best thing that had ever happened to him. And obviously as a child that's really confusing and going to visit your father in a psychiatric hospital and that was back in the '80s, you know, was really confronting, really confronting for me. And sort of thinking, well, why is my dad in here? You know, he's not crazy, and what's going on? And, you know, I think that had a much bigger impact on me than I probably realized at the time. Well, hindsight is a wonderful thing, isn't it? And it's incredible. We all know, we've all seen, you know, whether it's pop psychology or not, that, you know, our youth, what happens to us in our youth, does affect— it moulds us and develops our fears and, you know, how we lead our lives and what we gravitate towards. And again, understanding that is power. Knowledge is power. But, you know, if you had quite a lot happen to you at a particular stage in your life that I think I would have just kind of stuck my fingers in my ears and gone la la la for a little bit and dealt with it maybe at a different time when I thought that I could cope with it, which is pretty much kind of, I guess, what you did as well. Yes, exactly, that is exactly what I did. You know, I'm pretty much that image of you sticking your fingers in your ears. That's basically why if anybody mentioned the word suicide, I just did that for 15 years. I was like, no, nothing, do not want to, you know, just completely blocking out and basically just keep moving, never stop. You know, move to Australia, do anything rather than think about what had happened. Did at any point you ever think, well, if my dad had issues and my brother decided to do this, were you ever worried about nature versus nurture and whether you were going to struggle as well? And did you kind of try and block that out in many ways, whether they were helpful or not? Yeah, I was absolutely terrified. I think that was probably one of my biggest fears. You know, and I had panic attacks after my brother died and I didn't know what a panic attack was at that time. And I, one of my biggest fears when I had those panic attacks, 'cause I'd feel like I wasn't really in the world. And that really fed the fear that, oh my God, I'm going crazy. I'm gonna become like my father or maybe I'm gonna do what my brother did. And, you know, and it was a kind of this fueled fire really because other people, everyone around me was afraid that I would do what my brother would do too. So I didn't want to express the intensity of my grief because that fueled their fear and then that fueled my own fear. So it just became this kind of spiraling fear. And I think my whole life really became very much governed by fear for many years until I found the strength to actually turn towards it, not away from it. Yeah, I mean, it can be a vicious circle, can't it? You know, there's a lot of people, you know, that would rather drink to avoid thinking about it, and then that again causes its own problems. And it's just, books like this help people to understand why we might behave the way we do, and that, you know, we can still do something. And what I did find incredible is, I mean, there's a lot of advice in this book, but what I thought was absolutely excellent was belonging, your advice about belonging to a community. Yeah, giving yourself a sense of purpose, especially when you were volunteering, but then obviously you became a firefighter, which was just perfect for you. Um, you did, you did a lot, especially as you moved to Australia. There was so much where you just tried to involve yourself with the— it was rowing as well, wasn't it? Yeah, I found, you know, I was lucky and I found like this passion in, in doing my sport, which was, um, rowing a surf boat, and it was out in the ocean with a team of 4 people, and, and I found this incredible sense of joy, which, to be honest, when I look back, I I couldn't recall what joy felt like. Like, I don't think I knew even how to experience that. And it was only really when I started rowing, and that is a part of Surf Lifesaving in Australia, and that is a volunteer community where we volunteer our time to patrol the beaches to keep people safe. And surfboat rowing is a part of that. So that whole kind of experience really of volunteering in a community, being part of a club, doing something that I love really connected me to the community in which I live and gave me a sense of belonging and a sense of purpose. And I think all of those things are just so important in maintaining or improving our mental health and wellbeing. That is it, it's a sense of belonging, especially when you've had quite a lot of loss as well, and that you need to find a way that you're going to feel passion and that you're going to feel like you are a part of the world, and I think it's so incredibly important. And you— another bit that I absolutely loved in your book is, I mean, we've touched on it a little bit already, but the advice you give on expressive writing as well, to kind of just find that creativity and get your brain to engage with what is with your emotions, really. Yeah, I mean, I never thought that I had a creative bone in my body, to be honest. I just thought, you know, I do sport, that's what I do. I'm, you know, a physical person. I don't— I'm not creative in any way. And it really surprised me when I started writing. I was like, oh, I do, you know, I do. And I started to, I don't know, just find this bizarre sense of kind of flow in at times when I was writing and, and, you know, finding sort of all these analogies and metaphors and things. And that was really amazing for me. You know, it wasn't a passion that I thought that I had or anything that I, you know, was inherent within me. So it was something new that I found. And I think, you know, one of the amazing things about, I guess, working on myself for all those years and peeling back those layers was to discover all these things of me, parts of me that I had no idea were even there. And that was, that was just a fantastic kind of unexpected byproduct really, but was also really important in, in, in my mental health. Well, this is why there's a lot of people that say you need to write down 3 positive things a day, because we can get drowned out by the negativity and what we think we're doing wrong, and we really need to focus and change our mindset. And it's so powerful, you know, try and, you know, you can still engage what possibly is going on, but you need to focus on the positives as well, and it's, it's transformative. Yeah, and I think, you know, one of those things is just constantly finding that balance between the light and the dark, if you like. You know, and I think that we need to hold both. So I think, you know, there's certainly, you know, some, you know, this sometimes a push to kind of just be positive and think positively and all of that, which, but, you know, you, part of it is finding the darkness, do you know what I mean? And being able to sit with the difficult emotions and being able to have them and experience them, but not be defined by them. And then to be able to use them to guide you in, towards growth and towards the things that matter to you and, and those sorts of things. So I think it's a constant balance and a delicate balance to find that light and that dark within all of us. And I've certainly found that acknowledging both has been what's been most helpful to me. And I think it's really good to actually positively attribute what's happened. I mean, what, what you had to go through was horrific and definitely unfair, but if it hadn't have happened, you know, you wouldn't have been able to write this book that you know is going to have helped other people. As well. So although you didn't want it to happen, there's something positive that's come out of it. And try and focus on those elements as well. Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think, you know, now I look back, I just go, there's no— my life would have been so completely different, I mean, so, than it is now. And I think, you know, so much of what I do, um, you know, is a result of the things that happened to me. And I really see how those really difficult things you know, they have given the tapestry of my life, I guess, a darker, some darkness, but they, that also makes the colors so much richer and so much brighter. And it's given me a real sense of meaning and purpose in my life. And like you said, to write my book and even to perhaps have moved to Australia and become a firefighter and all these other things that have, are really important parts of my life now may well not have happened had I not had those experiences. Experiences. And what I'm quite intrigued to know is, you know, since your book's been released, what's, what's the highlight since it's been published? You know, just the amazing, just personal emails that I get every now and again by somebody that I don't know that just says, I just wanted to let you know, you know, how much your book meant to me, how it changed my life. You know, I lost my— often people will say, I lost my brother or my sister or my parent or someone to suicide, and I've, you know, reading your book has really helped 'God, to give me some peace.' And I think those are the most amazing things, just those little emails that you get from people, and sometimes from people that have never even told anybody about what's happened to them. And so that, to me, that's just incredible. Well, there's increasingly less stigma around mental health issues, mental illness, and these— your books like yours are helping people to understand, you know, that people aren't on their own. I can imagine, you know, 30-odd years ago that there was a lot less support for you dealing with what happened with Adam, but also with dealing with your father. I mean, that must have been quite lonely. But there are people now that are engaging a little bit more with what's happened in their past and engaging with whether it's family members or friends or themselves that have mental illnesses. And, and it's— there's a lot of prejudices and preconceived ideas of what's happening. And books like yours just explain that, you know, it's quite complicated and we're all different. And yeah, we all need to just engage with it a little bit more and have a little bit more understanding, but also encourage people to talk about it. You know, the more people talk about it, the less people will feel scared about doing so, which is, you know, keeping it inside is, is dangerous. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I think that, you know, one of my passions is to exactly do exactly that, is to how do you normalise those conversations so that people are free to talk and express, you know, difficult emotions and talk about difficult topics like suicide, like mental health, like grief and loss. And, you know, because even just in terms of death and grief, we're kind of so, so bad at it in our society, I think, in terms of acknowledging it and talking about it. And, you know, people go, 'I don't know what to say, so I'll just avoid that person.' And I think it's such an important space to be given to, you know, the biggest gift you can give to anybody who's grieving is just a safe space to express their emotion and how they're feeling. And, you know, we're getting better at it, but I think we still have a long way to go. And so many of the most amazing conversations I've had have been people who just said, oh, you know, what are you doing? Oh, I'm writing. Oh, what are you writing about? Oh, I'm just writing about, you know, I'm writing about my brother who died by suicide. And and they go, "Oh," and then they go, "Actually," and then they'll tell you their whole story. "Oh, actually, I've thought about it and da-da-da." And then they just go, "Thank you so much, I feel so much better." And, you know, to me that's incredible, and if we could all do that, it would have such a huge impact on people's wellbeing just by reducing so much of the stigma around mental health and suicide in particular. Yeah, and I suppose that it's a case of, right, well, she must understand a little bit more about what's gone on 'Wow, this is brilliant. This means I can actually speak to somebody who gets what I'm trying to say, and I don't feel as if I'm being judged as much.' Yeah, and there's so much power in that, you know. And I found with my research, because I'm now doing a PhD looking at the impact of suicide on firefighters, and obviously, you know, for firefighters, we wear a uniform. The majority of firefighters are men, and, you know, they wear a uniform, and we rescue people, and we're strong, and people think we're courageous and all these things. So it becomes even more difficult for firefighters to say, "Actually, you know what, I'm struggling and I need a bit of help." And how can we do that? You know, I've certainly found in my research through just creating a safe space, and really I don't say very much, I just ask a few questions, and then at the end, the firefighters will turn around and say, "Thank you so much. It's been so good to talk about it and to be given a space where I can talk about my experiences of suicide openly for you know, 2 hours, sometimes 2 and a half hours. And when do you ever get that opportunity? And yet without fail they all say, "Thank you so much, I feel so much better, it's been really good to talk about it." Well, what is quite interesting is one of my really good friends is— her other half is a paramedic, and he suffers quite greatly with exactly for the same reasons as firefighters. You are out and about in the public witnessing horrific things. We're talking, you know, death and destruction and great pain, and, you know, the responses from families, and it's not in, like, the kind of institution of a hospital, it is right in the middle of public, and the damning effects, I mean, it's mind-boggling, I can't even imagine. Yeah, I mean, it is, it becomes so, so difficult because there's so much accumulated trauma of all different sorts, and, you know, we know in we know now that that accumulated trauma often has the biggest impact. And, you know, how do you— if you're not processing it as you go along by talking about it and by being able to either write about it or talk about it with somebody, then it all just builds up and it builds up and it builds up. And then when do you ever get a space to just let it out and process it? And, you know, I think it constantly amazes me how just being given permission to talk about those really difficult things for firefighters is so helpful in itself. Well, one of the main reasons that we have women's radio station and men's radio station is because we want to give people the opportunity. And I don't know the exact stats, but there's— it's something along the lines of, you know, 75% more women have mental health issues, whereas even though 25% are men, they're more likely to go down the suicide route because of the lack of being able to express what they're going through. Women talk. They are given the, you know, if you put two men in a pub, uh, they're going to be talking about things that don't very rarely encroach on any sort of mental well-being elements, whereas if you put a couple of women in a pub you know, they're going to be talking exactly about what's going on. You know, I have dog walking groups where we speak for hours about what's going on, we completely let it all out, and then we move on, and it is so helpful. Whereas men don't get that opportunity as much, and it's not— they're not given that opportunity, and that's what Men's Radio Station is trying to achieve. But it is more of an issue for men, isn't it, do you think? Yeah, it is. And I mean, I think you're absolutely right in those, you know, it is so complex because as you said, more women suffer from mental illness, yet 3 times as many men take their own lives. You know, so we have to look at why. And I think, you know, one of those things is certainly that ability to express and form, you know, connected, authentic relationships where you can disclose what's actually going on inside of you and You know, women generally are better at doing that than men, and how can we, you know, support men to have those sorts of relationships where they can do that, because we know that that's really important. But it's also really interesting because there are some countries in the world where more women take their own lives than men. So there's certainly that cultural thing about, you know, gender and men and women, that there's an impact of our culture on suicide as well. So we know that it's not just purely about mental health, and I think sometimes, you know, what we— in our society, we very much associate suicide with mental illness, which there is obviously a strong correlation, but it's about more than that. And how can we change our cultures so that we better support men and women in the things that protect us from suicide? And one of that is having those close, connected, authentic relationships. Now in your book you have some great advice on dos and don'ts when talking about suicide with people who you either suspect are unwell or they've already told you that they're considering it. You— I mean, it's just towards the end of the book. I mean, you've got so much information in there, and that anybody that's listening, this is also a memoir as well. There's a lot to kind of involve yourself in, but it isn't just a to-do book, is it? No, I mean, it's really, it is, you know, the story is, you know, central to it, and my story, and that's really the main focus of the book. But being able to have now having my own, I guess, much more academic experience and intellectual understanding of mental health and suicide and working in that area and studying in that area and doing research in that area, I I wanted to be able to add more useful content for people. So I did add a section on, you know, how can we have safe conversation around suicide and how do we support someone who might be expressing thoughts of suicide or that we're concerned might be thinking about suicide. And, you know, part of what I teach in teaching Mental Health First Aid is exactly how to have that conversation and to ask someone openly, you know, are you having thoughts of suicide? And that's a really important question to be able to ask somebody and to know what to do when they give you the answer. And that, you know, empowering yourself with the knowledge and understanding to do that and have that conversation is enough to save a life. You know, and I often think, you know, I've been a firefighter for 15 years now, and I think without a doubt I've contributed to saving more people's lives by asking that question and knowing what to do with the answer than I have by pulling people out of fires and out of motor vehicle accidents and rescue situations. So what would be your 3— I mean, I know you've got probably 110 but if we could— if you had 3 tips on what to do if you thought that a friend or even a complete stranger in the street was in that situation, what would those tips be? It would be to ask them directly and unambiguously, 'Are you having thoughts of suicide?' It would be to stay with them, to keep them safe, and to connect them to professional help. Right, okay, and so the best places— I mean, there are definitely better places in Australia than the UK at the moment, aren't there? I mean, I gather there's some fabulous organisations in Australia that are definitely more informed than the UK. Yeah, I mean, there are still some great, you know, like suicide safety planning apps that are available, well, worldwide, but in the UK, Safety talk, and there's a couple of other ones. So certainly, look, you know, there's some great resources out there, and knowing how to create a safety plan for somebody, or to work with someone to create a safety plan that you can work through on the internet. So that's definitely a really important thing to, to know and to be able to access if you are worried about somebody. Brilliant. Okay, what I'll do is I'll get some of these links off you so I can make sure that I put them up up on our resource page as well. That'd be really helpful. Now, are you a reader yourself? Do you like to read? You know, you know what's quite weird is I'm actually not. So it's kind of a miracle that I wrote a book because I think it was a throwback, to be honest, and a rejection of, or a fear of, my father because he read so avidly that I kind of somewhere along the line thought that if I read I might become like him. So I probably shunned reading, which is a I do think that I probably, if I could, you know, I could have got past that, I probably would have enjoyed reading. Oh, that's such a shame. There's some fabulous books out there as well. I know, I feel guilty even saying that, you know, speaking to you, who I know is an absolute avid reader. I feel terrible. So most of the books, I mean, I do love to read autobiographies. I love reading biographical things and autobiographical things, and I have read many, many I guess books, I guess, like mine, you know, that are people's stories and own stories. And I don't know whether you call them self-help books, but those, you know, that those sorts of books, I've read quite a lot of those. But I somehow associate a lot of book reading with studying. I think that's my problem. Yeah, fair enough. I mean, I do get to read a lot with my job, but I mix it up. So I want like a comedy and mixed in with real life, mixed in with kind of some sort of mystery, if you see what I mean. And I've got to have all three and do them in a bit of a cycle, otherwise it can just get a little bit too much. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know what, one of the weird things that I think, which was a result of things that happened to me, was that I was kind of afraid of diving deep into too much fantasy because it kind of took me away from the real worldness, and to me that was frightening. So it was quite an interesting way that some of my experiences played out, that I didn't like to watch science fiction or read science fiction or anything that was really untrue and unreal-worldy, which was an interesting kind of, I don't know, reaction to those things that happened to me. So I only like the real-world things that are kind of tangible and real stories and real people. Well, I quite like to be outside of the real world sometimes, which is why I like to mix it up a little bit. It's, you know, just kind of kind of experiencing something crazy that actually for once isn't real. Yeah, no, I completely— I do feel like I missed out by that. I really feel like I missed out by not, not kind of— by being too afraid to kind of engage. I'd love to just go into this lovely fantasy world. It'd be fantastic. I somehow became a little bit afraid of it somewhere along the line. So yes, fair enough. Now, something that you did do that you write about in your book is about going back to India. With your dad. If you just explain a little bit about why that was necessary, and I find it quite interesting, like, the preconceived ideas of what your father thought his situation was and his brother's situation was, and just how much you learned from that, from that trip. Yeah, it was a really amazing experience. I mean, my father is Indian, and he had left India though when he was 6 years old, and he had— his father was called up to serve in the Indian Army during the war and his mother was hospitalized. So he had foster parents, English foster parents. So he had this kind of weird mix of kind of English and Indian in him. But he had never been back to India and in his 70s, And I had never been to India, but he still had one brother who was— had remained in India and served in the Indian Army. And I had never met him. And I was quite afraid to go to India because my brother had been to India shortly before he died. And although he loved it, he found it very difficult to cope with the inequality in the world and the poverty that he saw there. So I was quite afraid, but I really wanted to because I felt like I needed to understand. And I wanted my dad to go there, and I knew he wanted to go, but he was also very afraid. Sort of finally sort of realized that this was the time and I was going to take him back and I wanted to give him peace really for his childhood. And I knew that he was afraid because he had still very strong memories. So I took him back probably about 10 years ago now. And so he hadn't been in India for over 70 years and he hadn't seen his brother for over 40 years and I'd never met him. And it was just incredible to see to see the two of them meet and to see how completely opposite they were in every possible way, in the way that they viewed the world. And I had thought that, oh my God, my uncle was gonna think I was strange because, you know, I was not married in my late 30s at that point. And, you know, I was a firefighter and I rode surfboats and I had big muscles and all this antithesis of thinking that, you know, Indian women were petite and, you know, petite and feminine and, you know, would just get married and have children. And this is what I thought that he would expect me to do. And in fact, he was completely the opposite. And he just thought it was absolutely fantastic that I was a firefighter. And we had many conversations because he was in the Indian Army and he was so passionate about it. And my father was like, you know, "Oh, don't be ridiculous. You couldn't possibly, you know, that must be terrifying. You know, how could you possibly have a career like that and enjoy that?" And it was just really interesting to see how completely opposite they were. And my father, although he'd had a very privileged upbringing, you know, in comparison to my uncle in the UK in terms of, you know, material things, you know, he just wasn't able to see how anybody could be happy being— growing up in India or being in India. And he wasn't able to— he had such fixed ideas about India and what it was from all the reading that he'd done, you know, books and books and books of books that he'd read on India. And that actually things had changed significantly and the way that my uncle saw, you know, growing up in India was completely different. And he absolutely loved and does love India. He's still alive. So it was just a real, really interesting insight into, I guess, nature-nurture, you know, and to see these two brothers who were completely different and yet identified so strongly with my uncle and had this incredible bond with him even though I'd never met him. And I felt like we just completely understood each other, which amazed me but was really, really important for me. It's so important that this is— this is the kind of moral of that part of the book, was that we shy away from things that we're scared of, and sometimes, do you know what, sometimes it doesn't work out as well as it did for you, but you know what, you don't know unless you try. Yeah, definitely, and I mean, I think that's it. I think without a doubt, you know, when you are governed by fear, which I was for many, many years, it's so— it makes your life smaller. And actually, it was only through turning towards those fears. And as you said, some of them, you know, they, they didn't work out how I wanted them to work out. But just doing that really enabled me to find my strength and to be vulnerable and realize that I was stronger than I thought that I was. And that enabled me to not be driven by fear anymore. And that was just, just brought my life, you know, made it bigger and made it better in so many ways. See, interestingly, I mean, I'm on a constant journey of discovery and I'm trying my best for many reasons to learn more and more about the way I do things. And I'm constantly thinking that, you know, up until a few months ago that I realized why I did something. I thought I was kind of bordering on masochistic and always wanting some trouble because if I'd had a situation where somebody had been mean to me or a split up with a boyfriend or something like that, or, or there was certain people that had done something that would make me feel uncomfortable, I would kind of orchestrate situations where I'd come across them. And I think, is that just to cause trouble? And it's not. It's because I don't want the fear. I want to get it over and done with. I want to know. I'd rather know what the situation is going to be like. And I kind of realized, and once I managed to kind of decipher what was going on in my brain, I feel so much better about my processes. But, you know, if I'd rather go towards scary situations than be fearful of them. Yeah, definitely. Because I think, you know, when we're afraid of anything, it does just make our life smaller, and it can get smaller and smaller. And, and how do you grow and expand as a person if you're not going to dive into those difficult situations. I think, you know, so often it's more about the why behind what we do than what it is that we're actually doing. And, you know, I think one of the things that I found really, in a way, because suicide is kind of the biggest why, that, that constant questioning actually kind of led me into bigger questions and other questions about why— what does it mean to live? And why do I do this? And wanting to dig deeper into that and that questioning actually was really beneficial to me in the end, and certainly having support to dive into those difficult questions. And that meant turning towards that fear, and that's when my life changed. And, and as I said, I grew stronger and I grew bigger. Do you sometimes have moments where you know you're creeping back into the depth of something? Um, I think what's really interesting is what I think the best and the most valuable skill that I've learned is kind of how to struggle well and struggle in a way that's growthful. So although I still have things that confront me and challenge me and I go, oh God, you know, what's this? What's this telling me? Where am I going with this? I am able to process that much more quickly and to decipher what's really going on. And, you know, I had so many years when I was completely unconscious as to why I would have these all sorts of reactions to things that might seem quite small. And I think, so I think I've become much better at identifying very quickly what it is that's really going on, and if there's, if it's really triggering something from my past, or if it's just something, you know, in this particular situation, and being able to move through that in a way that's constructive, not destructive now. And so do you know what inspires you, what builds you up? Yeah, I mean, there's so many things, and I think that's what's amazing, that, you know, when I discovered one passion, I discovered so many passions. And I think, you know, it's realizing my own strength more than anything, and realizing that, you know, having that innate knowledge that I'm okay, I can cope, I can cope with whatever it is that is coming my way. And knowing that I can— that I have people around me to support me, and I can ask for help, and that there are people that genuinely care. For me. And those things I think are just so, so important in helping me to get through whatever life challenges face me. But see, there's a couple of things I've come across quite recently. One was in a book called Shine Brighter Every Day by Donna Moore, and it's all to do with, you know, healthy living, healthy eating, and what you absorb both, you know, physically and mentally. And And she calls the things you put into your body secondary foods, but the primary foods are what you take in socially, what you allow to kind of affect who you are. If you're stressed, you eat too much, you know, along those lines. And she says you need to identify what makes you feel good about yourself. And if you know what that is, then you can always try your best to you know, bring your mindset around. Yeah, I think that's a really interesting way of looking at it. I mean, I know that when I'm behaving and acting in a way that is completely in tune with my values and my central core beliefs, then I'm good. Then I know I'm— it's like I'm living my truth, and it's a sense of completeness within me and sort of gentle solidity. And that's when I'm at my best. And it also, it seems to invite quite positive energy for some, you know, good things seem to happen when I'm, I'm, when I'm in that space of, you know, and I will go off course here and there without a doubt, you know, things come into your life and you kind of go a little bit off course. But when I can come back to that, and I'm much better at coming back to that space and even being able to identify what it is and what I need to do to be able to bring myself back to that space. But certainly that sense of living, behaving, thinking totally in aligned with your core values and belief systems, to me, is really at the heart of wellness. It's all power of attraction, isn't it? And I keep on, and I know that power of attraction works, but I also, every now and again, read about it and go, you know what, I want to understand that a little bit more, and then something else happens and I completely forget. But, you know, the law of attraction is powerful and it does work. It does, and I mean, I think that's what's so hard, because it's, I don't think it's something that we can capture. I don't think that we can say that this is, this is a roadmap to the Law of Attraction. I think it's, it's such an individual and unique experience, and there are things that we can do to facilitate that that will probably help everybody. And, and, but that's just a really fluid concept, I think. And, but for me, it's— what it means to me is living my truth. Ultimately, that's what it feels like, and that's what it is for me. And if I'm living my truth, then, then the law of attraction will just evolve. Living your truth, that just means like you're being honest with yourself? Essentially, yeah. I mean, living my, my meaning and my purpose in life, living my value system and being aligned with that, expressing myself in being true to what's on the inside and expressing myself in that way. To the outside world as well. So all of those things, I think it combines, yeah, all of that. And that's what I mean, I struggle with that word because it sounds so kind of, I don't know, well, for want of a better term, bit wanky really. But it's the only way that I can kind of, the only way I can kind of say it is exactly that. To me, that's what it means. It means living in a way that's aligned with my values and my beliefs and that's true to myself, that's honoring myself, that's respecting myself. That's speaking and living my truth. There's so many people out there though, aren't there, who are living up to other people's values and perceptions of what they should be. And that is why a lot of people do have issues with, you know, who they are and how they're living, because it's not in line with what sits well with them. I mean, if you think about, you know, what was expected of you when Adam died, that, you know, it was because the expectations of you were incredibly damaging, weren't they? Yeah, without a doubt. And I mean, I think, you know, if it was— it's very difficult to be true to ourselves, really, you know. And there's a great book called The Lies We Tell Ourselves. And, you know, it's written by a psychotherapist. But it's so true. You know, we tell ourselves all sorts of lies that we don't even realize. And, you know, to be able to get to that point where you've, you actually can be completely honest with yourself is really, really difficult. And I mean, I'm certainly not saying that I can do that all of the time, but I've got much better at that and negotiating what is my truth and when am I actually lying to myself because I want to do something that maybe isn't really aligned with my values. And that's a really tricky road, and I think we can only really do We do that by constantly dedicating ourselves to understanding ourselves better, and that takes a lot of work and effort. I don't think it's something that you can just kind of switch on and have. It takes a lot of work and effort over many, many years. I was actually talking about this on last week's show with Lulu Wood, and she's written a book called Milkshakes for the Almost Dead, which is about, you know, perceptions of who we are and who we— how we judge other people. And she's got some fantastic lines in her book that just make you want to take a picture and put it up on Instagram or whatever. It's one of those ones where you just sit there going, "Oh my God, that is brilliant." And I kind of said to her, you know, you need to read Glennon Doyle's Untamed. Have you heard of it? Yes, I have. I haven't read it yet, no. I'm already— I'm about 3/4 of the way through. And Lulu started it since our interview last week, and she's absolutely loving it. But it's one of those books where you're just sitting there going, this is common sense, why is Glennon Doyle needing to point out this obvious thing that we should already know? It's a brilliant book and I've got it on Audible because it's quite nice sometimes with books like that to have somebody actually put their personality into what they're trying to tell you. And I'm already panicking about when the book finishes because I want to hear more, she's brilliant. Just, it's common sense about, you know, from pretty much the age of 10, how— I mean, it's very female-focused about what we're told we should be and what we should be wanting, you know, to find a man or a partner and to have a job and to feel guilty if we decide to put ourselves first, even though men can put themselves first and it's perfectly normal. It's a fantastic book if you are actually gonna go down the route of reading another bit, because it is kind of memoir-esque, so hopefully you'll like it. It's just fantastic about the ideas that are put into us, that are bred into us from a young age, that we think we should be, and then we find ourselves wasting time and energy fighting with what we think we should be doing and what feels right. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I spent an enormous amount of my, you know, thinking that my sign that I was gonna, that I was okay was that I was gonna get married and have children. Children. And I wanted that, you know, when I was writing the book, I wanted a happy ending and that was gonna be it to prove that I'd somehow, you know, become this, you know, person that was what I thought I should be. And that was gonna be getting married and having children. And then of course that never happened. And now I think, you know, that was so ingrained in me to think that the definition of success for a woman or for me at that time was that I had to get married and have children and my life couldn't be successful if that didn't happen. And, you know, now I think, wow, wow, how destructive was that belief? Which, as you said, I think is so, so ingrained in us. And there, as along with many other beliefs that, you know, from when we're young. Well, and likewise, you know, I have two very strong boys. I'm a single parent, but I do three or four different jobs. You know, I'm on various radio stations that I do. Certain other jobs that aren't as interesting just to make sure that I can pay the mortgage and things like that. But I do go out, I treat me and my kids, we go out for nice dinners to kind of congratulate ourselves for all working really hard. And the preconceived ideas of me just going out and doing stuff with my kids when I should be staying in and doing homework is, you know, why is that? Why does that even matter? It's, you know, my kids are well behaved and they go out and they are very confident because we're out quite a bit and they love food and they're very excited about it. And the idea is, even among the other mums as well, of other mums that kind of go out and engage— I mean, I don't even get babysitters because I don't need to, my kids come out with me, you know. I enjoy spending time with them, but there's so many different people that are scared of other people's way of living. And I was brought up by a single mum, so it never actually felt different to me that you would, you know, this is always how I've lived. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, and it is the way that, you know, those things, those beliefs sort of play out in our life and affect us that are so constricting and constraining in many ways, I think. And, you know, it's those subliminal messages often that we're kind of taught. And it's taken me, you know, a very long time to kind of realize that it's okay to be different and, you know, to be a firefighter and to like rowing surfboats and, and to engage in that and to not have children. And that, that it didn't mean that my life was a disaster because I didn't have children. And I didn't, you know, I haven't got a partner at the moment either. So it's not like like, you know, and that therefore my life was a failure because I didn't have those things. And I really realized that it's okay to be different. And in a way, what one of the fantastic things about getting older is just to really kind of go, actually, God, all those things I thought were so important, they're not. And I don't care, you know, nearly as much about what other people think anymore. It's just like, you know what, I know who I am, and that's taken a lot of work and effort to know who I am enough to not to not care, you know, when other people say things and to realize— I think one of the amazing things about doing a lot of work on, on yourself and on myself is that ability to then differentiate what's mine and what somebody else's. So when people react in certain ways, instead of thinking, oh my god, it's my fault, what have I done, I can see what's their stuff and what's my stuff. And that's a really incredible skill to have. And just don't judge other people. I mean, at the end of the day, some people want to blend in and other people want to stand out and, and just be different or do what makes them feel comfortable. We— there needs to be a lot— I find a lot of people are judgy when they're fearful of change. Yes, definitely. Yeah, yeah, I agree completely. I think— and that's where fear is so destructive, um, you know, and that being able to you know, face those fears is helpful, not only for us, but, but for so many people around us. Because definitely with that, you know, when I see people that are incredibly judgmental, it comes from a place of fear. Well, actually, yeah, I mean, I took my kids backpacking around Vietnam once, and people were actually quite judging, saying, well, that isn't safe. But if my ex-husband had wanted to do it, they wouldn't have a problem in any way, shape, or form, would they? Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, I know, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's so true. But I'm a lot more worldly-wise when it comes to backpacking. But either way, they get to do incredible things, and it's just, yeah, I wish the world would be less judgy but a bit more open-minded. And, you know, whether you like to read or not, there's many other ways of, you know, especially with the likes of Audible, if people just genuinely don't like reading, just finding out about a out other people's lives and opening your mind a little bit to, to what's going on. You don't have to be like somebody else, but if you can understand, then you can be less judgy. And you know what, you'll feel a lot better about yourself if you're not constantly wasting energy on judging somebody else. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, I think, you know, that's one of those things I realize is that, you know, you can feel when you sort of reacting to someone And when I'm really, as I said, going back to that being true to myself, you know, there is no judgment. There is no judgment around other people and accepting people for who they are and what they are and their differences and valuing the differences as well as the similarities. And there's so much to be gained from recognizing both. Now, I'm a little bit conscious of time because we have raced through the last hour unbelievably. But I do have a question I really want to ask you. Is there somebody in the public eye that you think is just smashing it out the park in terms of just being a decent human being or being incredible in some way or inspirational? I think that would be Brené Brown and her work and how she portrays her work, I think, is incredible in terms of combining research and storytelling in a way that that people just get it and can relate to it. And so, yeah, I think it would be her. Do you know what? You are not the first person to say that. She really is one of those people that is killing it. Actually, Brené Brown was the one that was— she has been one of the people that have written or done, not the foreword, but some of the comments on the back of Glennon Doyle's book, Untamed. So, she's— Yes, I saw that. Yes, I did see that. She's brilliant. I need to— it's one of those things where I just— I do like to just have people like Brené Brown just in the background. Sometimes I'll like have a look on an evening and send all the videos that I want to listen to the next day when I'm like trying to do some form of exercise. Let's be honest, I don't do exercise that often. I should do it a damn sight more. But, you know, I do try and be inspired. Now we are coming to the end now. Thank you so much for listening. I've had an absolutely lovely conversation with you, and I do want everybody to go out and buy Standing on My Brother's Shoulders: Making Peace with Grief and Suicide. And if people can go and check it out on your website at tara-j-lal.com. And thank you so much for joining us. Oh, thank you, Hazel. It's been my absolute pleasure. And good luck with the book, and hopefully we'll hear from you when you release your next book. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Bye-bye.