Your Mind Matters – Jojo Sutherland & Stephen Ward, Comedy And CBD, Healing Businesses

Recognition of the impact of mental distress, anxiety and much more profound problems are being addressed worldwide. These are problems that are not only into the personal psyche, that is one's upbringing or one's reaction to social issues, but also physical problems. An injury can also create deep mental anguish. My name is Dr. Maria Kampinska and this is yous Mind Matters. I'm focusing on what C.G. jung called the wounded healer. He stated that the wounded healer is deep within us all as an archetype and said the archetype of the wounded healer has to do with the healing encoded within our wound, as if finding light hidden in the darkness, that is one who is in turmoil turns the self healing into healing for others. As Viktor Frankl said in his renowned book, Man's Search for Meaning, written after his imprisonment in the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz, life hacks off every individual a contribution, and it's up to that individual to discover what it should be. Charities and mental health organizations are suffering under the pressure of clients, numbers and needs. Can businesses fill the gap? And in particular the individual entrepreneurs who are more adaptable, innovative and unique in their approach? As an entrepreneur and psychotherapist myself, I believe they can. Now, both of my guests have taken their personal wounds into a social contribution and created or added to a business. My first guest is a brilliant comedian, J.J. sutherland, and she is now teaching the art of comedy, plus still performing. My second guest is Stephen Ward, who has spent many years in pain until he tried cbd. Now he's working with a company to promote its therapeutic effects. But firstly, welcome Jojo, and can you tell me how you started in comedy and give us some of your background? Well, it's quite the tale, Maria. Funnily enough, actually I had a brain hemorrhage and so 20 years ago at that time I was a single parent with three kids, having just got divorced, had my house repossessed, on the verge of bankruptcy and I thought, oh, comedy. And I did, I did a stand up comedy course, which I'd never really intended to be a stand up. I just, I used to, you know, I trained as an actor and I just thought, oh, do you know, you know, fancy getting back into acting. And I did this course and literally sort of 10 weeks later, you do an open mic at the end of it and I had five minutes and it just felt amazing. And, you know, I talked about what I knew, I talked about, you know, things that happened, I talked about my brain hemorrhage and it was just that sense of relief and release and using comedy to kind of challenge my fears and make my fears less painful, if you like. So, yeah, comedy has just always seemed to be a really good route to coping with mental health. Yeah, I'm just, as you know, a big fan of comedy. I own Junglers comedy clubs and have seen all the greatest comedians, including yourself, a number of times. I'm always over the moon to talk to a comedian because the challenges of a comedian are very aligned, I think, with entrepreneurialism, but also, as you say, mental health. But before we get into the depths of all that, which is going to be such a wonderful discovery into your particular mindset with comedy and how you use it in society, can we introduce Stephen? Stephen Ward? Can you go into your background and also what you're doing with CBD and generally in business and the world? Yes, certainly. Again, Stephen Ward, I was running my own business. Former police officer and former member of 10 Para. And that is the Army. That is, yeah. 10th Battalion Parachute Regiment. It's a TA battalion. Then I joined the police, left the police to take over a business on drainage and plumbing. And then I had a car crash into the back of me, driven by an orthopedic consultant, of all people. We were stationary at around about. He was in his Porsche doing about 40, collided in the back. That fractured and dislocated my clavicle. The belief that they now hypothesize is the clavicle went into the neurovascular bundle and caused embolic strokes and that left me badly injured. It's taken them six years to realize what I've been telling them about the neck, shoulder and the spinal column. It's true. So I've had to deal with the pain, the dizziness, all of the medication. And then I was part and parcel of the LDN CBD Veterans trial run by a mutual friend called Stuart. And I kept all of my log on how I got off all of the opiates and every other tablet that had been given me that made me extremely sick. And I've now started the road to recovery. I'm on a secondary trial where I'm taking 1 to 2 grams of CBD a day. Wow. So how do you both cope, obviously, individually, with your mental health, Stephen? How do you cope with that? Has it helped you, the cbd? Yeah. Before then I would. I didn't realise, but I'd find myself sitting on the sofa or just walking along and I'd be sobbing. I had no idea that I was sobbing for a few minutes until I realised, and then I'd just Start laughing at it because you got the choice and in life you either choose anger and fear or a bit of love and compassion. And I took the self love and self compassion route. Yeah. Wow. It's so powerful because both of you have had the upper body injury around your head, all that effect. And how have you helped with. How did that injury help you affect you, Jojo? And how do you deal with your own mental health? It was one of those sort of experiences that you have. So when you have a near death experience, it really does change your whole focus on life and your priorities and things that, you know, before the brain haemorrhage, I would get stressed about or upset about. You kind of reprioritize and just recognize how absolutely fragile life is. And, and, and in terms of that just, you know, it really has on a mental stable sort of guarantee made me really appreciate every second of life. Do you know? I mean it's, you know, for someone who was quite risk averse, I'm now just like, oh, you know, just do anything, try anything. And I have probably sort of quite a dark, I have a dark sense of humor, but a sort of dark attitude to life, you know, which is some of the reasons I've struggled with the impact of the last year is because you. I'm not scared of death, I'm scared of not living. So the idea that we've all been kind of be put on hold and our lives paused, I just, you know, it's the frustration of saying we don't, we don't know how long we've got. We don't. And I feel that we're all wasting time. So. And how did you fulfill your last year then under that sort of statement? Scared of not living? Which is a wonderful statement actually. And I do think that should be sort of a statement that people do recognize. I remember, I remember somebody telling me when they went into the lockdown the first time they felt that they were so afraid they'd never be able to walk again. That whole moment of not being able to move, take yourself forward, do something for yourself because you were being restricted. How did you cope? How did you keep yourself going during that time? I don't think I did. And I kind of pride myself through comedy because it's not just a job being a stand up, it's a lifestyle. So it felt like rug had been taken from me completely. And I use, I didn't realize just how much I use comedy to keep me buoyant and social and you know, you know, happy that you Know, I just felt helpless. I just felt completely, you know, that there was nothing I could do. And one of the things that I like about myself is what fills my battery is helping other people. If somebody's feeling down or upset, you know, I'm the first person, you know, to go, what can I do to help? I'll be right around. Let's have a hug, let's have a cup of tea, let's talk it through, let's have a laugh. And the. The inability, because I just felt so stranded and so kind of at sea, that the thing that makes me feel better, I wasn't even able to do that way, where I was just like, oh, my God, I can't. I can't cope with myself, let alone anybody else. So my own children, you know, my marriage broke up through lockdown, and it's that sense of, you know. Yeah, just feeling completely isolated and it's a horrible, horrible feeling. And, Stephen, how did you cope during this time, especially since you were in such pain? How are we. How were you able to cope through it when you were on your own? Well, there was no real difference for me since the stroke. My. My wife at the time had a breakdown and moved back to Italy. So I'd spent the whole of the last four years on my own until I met Samantha. And I had good family support, but I had to lock myself away. So the lockdown for me has been no different. But how I deal with it is, you know, I just take every day as it comes. I look at it as being. Attitude is everything, because your attitude creates your thoughts. Your thoughts create your chemicals in your body. I look at my environment, my both physical, mental, emotional, social environments, and I look to make the changes that I can given the level of pain, restriction or dizziness that I am affected by. Some days I lay in bed, I have to pee in bottles, do other things in bags, clean myself down and just crack on. You just laugh at it, really. It's like everything. If you take it seriously, I think you'd crack. But after taking the mickey out of it, telling, I suppose that yourself that there is a life force that's greater than myself and it will help me. For me, it's no different. It's just every day is ssdd, which is ssdd. Same poo poo, different day. And has the CBD taken you away from that? Has that really made a big difference to you? Yeah, it had. I remember about 18 months ago when I was first giving it, I. I just sort of decided at that point, I was going to get back into life. And I. I was on 10mg of amitriptyline for the nerve pain, but that just made me feel so violently sick, and it made me feel down. So I kicked that into touch. Then they gave me codeine and I decided that, I mean, I live in a rural area and the only thing I could find that was even remotely sociable was a salsa class. So I went to that. And that was my once a week or once a month extravaganza into the. Into life again. I met Sam. And then we were sitting on the sofa and Stuart phoned and he said to me, would I like to become part of the trial for cbd? For me, as a former police officer, that's cannabis. It's, you know, a controlled substance. And she said, no, it's not. So she knew Sam's bit of a plant health medicine. You know, her saying is, plants are alive, pharmaceuticals are dead. I started taking the. The plant based approach. I mean, I'd been on plant based diet for years, but this was the first foray into any form of controlled substance. But CBD had come off the list, so I tried that. And medical cannabis works. It took away. I mean, it doesn't get rid of the pain. It puts your body into a position where you can heal yourself. Relaxes you down, as if your body's always in a state of fight or flight. Joe, I don't know whether you experienced this after your incident. Yeah. But if you're in fight or flight, you cannot rest. If you cannot rest, you cannot be restored. And when you're in pain. And my neck, shoulders, both shoulders, both acromion clavicular joints, they are compressed, pushing down onto the structures underneath. My first rib at the T1 junction is open on both sides and that presses down. I get nerve pain from there. I get nerve pain from where? The sternoclavicular joint from the clavicle, which is a bit that attaches to your neck, that's sticking inside. So I've had to deal with all of those pains. It was unabated. Even if I took tramadol or pentadol or whatever it is, the next one up from that wouldn't get rid of the pain. But the cannabis CBD reduces the pain sufficiently for me to function. Joseph Oliver, who's the guy who owns the company ldn, he came up to see me about two to three weeks ago because I was having a really severe crisis. I was just lying in bed, peeing in the boat bottle and pooing in the bags and, you know, bless her, Sam was at whip's end. I would collapse a couple of times a month and if it was really bad, I'd wake up in hospital, they'd be telling me, oh, well, yeah, you're mad. Crack on, get on with it. And then I'd take the CBD again. Joseph got me up to the required element of about one to two grams a day. It removes the. The sting from it and allows me to function. So by that function I can now get about. I've gone out for walks, which I haven't done for a long time, and I will soon enough hopefully get back into the gym and, you know, start re engaging in life. So it's been a hell of a journey. And recently with the findings on the X ray where they saw the damage and they're starting to realize that the MRI scan that I had, where you can see the bone hasn't healed. It's called a non union on the clavicle is there that's dislocated from the chromioclavicular and it's sticking my throat. I'm hoping now they all start taking it seriously. But I think the biggest frustration was the level of medical neglect that, you know, I appreciate the doctors only bothered about you for the 30 seconds that they can see you, but it's the, it's the LDN CBD that really did make the changes, not their medicines, nothing they did, no input from the men from them made any difference whatsoever. So I have very little faith in pharmaceutical medicine. But as for cannabis medicine or medical cannabis, absolutely. And I'm going to see if I can start including thc. So I've applied for the cannabis card, the can card, and that hopefully will stop you from not so much being arrested for it. The police may still arrest me, but I will now start looking at how to integrate THC because of its painkilling properties. And again, it doesn't kill the pain. Totally. From what I've read and researched, it reduces it substantially. So the combination of the two. Because if you have THC on its own with the skunk and stuff like that, it causes brain damage and issues. But if you balance THC with cbd, then it becomes very beneficial for the body. And do you need. Is Joseph Oliver, is he a practitioner? What's his knowledge? And is there. And I don't know if you know this either, Jode, is there. What sort of medical qualification do you need to become a CBD? THC, you know, medical cannabis practitioner. Well, Dr. Julie Malte in Sweden, she practices in Copenhagen and her and Dr. Tina Howitzer. I'm sorry, I don't know Tina's surname. Tina started the Copenhagen clinic. She, you know, she, she, she risked her career, I bet Billy. Both of them risked her career. Career. They could have been struck off for implementing a strategy using medical cannabis. But they've survived. They've been going for five years. It's now becoming used exponentially in the US. It's taken out most people that are in their 50s in the US are on 13 to 16 tablets. The CBD THC tablets are getting them off everything. So pharmaceutical companies will either take that as a threat to their bottom line because all they're bothered about is money, not your health. They want repeat prescription. Whereas the cbd, THC actually helps your body recover. I don't know whether it helps, you know, the pharmaceutical companies say our drugs heal you, which I disagree totally. The plant based medicine helps your body heal itself. What attitude are you taught? An attitude that you need to help you as well. Does he give you strategies to help you? What Joseph? Yeah. Or are you given or do you have. No, I think I, through my background and there's a guy called John Chambers who was our physical training instructor, PTI at Tempower used to always say, guys, remember, environment is everything. What you eat, what you think, what you do. So I adopted that from about the age of 20, 21. And I look at everything, you know, your home environment, your business environment, your mental environment, your every single environment that you have, you have an attitude to it. If you change how you see it, then what you see changes. So I look at now at plant medicine as being it gets rid of the inflammation, it gets rid of or reduces the pain. And when you talk to the doctors, read the books, they can all see this, they can all see the power of it. But there is such a blockage politically by the Maze and other people that have got massive financial involvement in this. So change the political environment, then we will get affordable cbd, affordable THC at everyone that needs it. And that's where Joseph's pushes. It's not for making money. He is there to try and do this for a social infrastructure. His CBD from what I've used from other ones is one of the purest. It has no thc. So anyone who's a frontline worker can use it. And it's just really amazing. So it's. Yeah, I get. Well, you know, sort of the plant based healing medicines have been around forever and you know, sort of you've got all the Dr. Bach remedies and you've got the homeopathy, which is based on, you know, the tinctures and so on. It's all very natural and I love to hear of natural medicine. But can I just switch to you for a moment and thank you, Stephen. You've given us a really deep insight not only to your physical state, which must at times have been so horrendous and the weight of that on your mind must have been so debilitating. But Jojo, how did you get through before we go into business and your humor. But how did you get through your brain hemorrhage and how that affected your life? So it's really interesting listening to Steven and it's one of those things I'm fascinated by saying about the pharmaceutical companies. Ever since I had the brain hemorrhage, I've been very conscious of my. Not conscious of my health in a way that I drink and I smoke, but you know, I do. But it's that thing of I like to listen to my body and I never take paracetamol or antibiotics or any of these kind of things. And I swear by reflexology, so, you know, does my feet every month and has done for the last sort of sort of founder about three or four years after I had the brain hemorrhage. And so, yeah, I mean, I live what I would say a kind of reckless life but. But still quite conscious of, you know, using plant based and, you know, natural remedies for things rather than turning to medicine. Did you have to use medicine when you had a brain hemorrhage? No. So what happened was I honestly, I had no warning whatsoever. I thought someone had thrown a brick at my head and I tried to turn around to sort of have a look and see who'd hit me. And I was sort of self diagnosed very quickly. My head was swimming and voices seemed like they were really far away and I felt really nauseous and. And I was self diagnosing meningitis. It was that sort of sud. Onset of a thumping headache and violently sick. And I was actually doing a play at the time. I was doing an amateur dramatics play and I was on the side of the wings waiting to go on. And typical meme, I sort of could hear my line coming up going, you know, trying to get on stage. I don't know how I did it, but they had to stop the show. It was all very dramatic and took me to hospital, which is a good place to take you if you're not well. And they asked me all these questions. It was like, you know, they were like just doctors asking loads of questions. And then they said to me, do you have a strange taste in your mouth? And I said, yeah, no, I've got a really metallic taste in my mouth. Subsequently found out is a, is a, a sign of a brain hemorrhage. And so they, I mean that was, you know, like all alarm bells and they rushed me into a CAT scan and I lay in the CAT scan or I couldn't lie in the CAT scan took about half an hour because I kept being sick. And eventually they did the CAT scan and they couldn't find anything that was what was odd. So they admitted me to hospital, said, well, we just, we don't know what's wrong. And then a doctor came along and said 10% of CAT scans can be negative. You know, who knew every day is a school day. Said, but you textbook described a brain hemorrhage. So we're going to, we're going to give you a lumbar puncture. Well, what happened was they used a student and so, So they gave me not one but two lumbar punctures because the student couldn't do it properly. And from that they discovered there was blood in my spinal column. And then it was. Sounds very exciting and sort of 999 transfer from the Royal Infirmary to the Western Infirmary, which is world leading specialists in brain injuries. But when I say a 9, 9 transfer, you think they would do it. They drove at about five miles an hour because how did they. So it was slowest to the hospital and a sort of friend had taken me to hospital but she sort of left while they didn't know what was going on. So it was kind of, it was all in the middle of the night as these things tend to be. So I was very much on my own in and taken to the Western where they put me. And it still to this day makes me laugh that there was a woman there and they put me in this, what looked like a slab and, and they gave me an angiogram which is where they put a tube into your groin and inject dye into your brain to see what's happened. But none of that was very much explained to me. So there was a woman who was shaving my vagina and I was just like, I've got a brain hemorrhage, my fanny looking good. I was, I was just so confused as to what was going on. So yes, so they, they put this dye into your brain and it Shows up where the. Where the. So I'd had a burst to the. To the back of my head. A blood vessel had burst. And I. Just Incredibly fortunate. The blood had seeped out, but it was already healing over. And so, yeah, they just. They put this dye into my brain and. And I could hear them through this thing. Sort of like four down, three to go, two down, one to go. One down, none to go. And then this sort of specialist appeared. And so they explained that it was a genetic fault that I'd been born with, that. That. That it had. That it burst and it healed over and was healing over. And they had to monitor the blood. And that's just where. I mean, I thank my lucky stars every day. I mean, the blood, it could have. My movement, my sight, my speech, you know, killed me. And I don't know where the blood drained to, but it managed. I get dizzy spells, but apart from that, I am. I am okay. I'm absolutely. My life expectancy is as normal and it shouldn't happen again. And, yeah, like I say, and it's that thing that they could have tested me for it, but the test is more dangerous than, you know, to find out if you have that genetic fault, which is why I was never tested for it. Yeah. And also, you know, too much testing. Even recently, we've had the BRCA gene test, haven't we, for women, and they found out it doesn't actually tell you anything. And so it can be very dangerous to know in advance because I'm sure, as Stephen was talking about the cortisol levels in our bodies, when they increase, you have to work so hard to decrease it. And that's what you were saying about the cbd, but did you start your comedy after that experience? Yes. So it's so my recovery from brain hemorrhage. So I was put. I was given rat poison, which is war for him to thin my bone. Interesting. So, yes, I was given rat poison. And. But, yeah, my recovery was about. I mean, I just couldn't move. Even though, you know, the sort of. The bleeding diminished and things. I mean, my. The headache, I can't describe. It was literally like somebody dropped a house on my head. The pain was unimaginable, and that didn't go away for weeks. And that's when I became very kind of conscious about anything going in my body. So I wouldn't. I wasn't drinking, I wasn't smoking, eating fruit and vegetables, and I was so conscious about, you know, everything being pure going into me, and it was about. I Think it took me about four or five months to feel any sense of normality. And then about nine months after the brain hemorrhage, I just was, I literally just had a sort of a eureka moment of I'm alive, you know, sort of smoking, drinking, just. And I went a bit wild, actually. I was just like, oh, I've got to cram everything in in case, you know, in case I die. And I've been pretty much doing that ever since. Quick, quick, quick, quick, quick. But it was that. So I did, I'd seen that, you know, like I say, I trained as an actor and I'd seen this comedy course and it was just sort of, you know, to, to see, you know, if I could get back into acting. And, and it was the discovery of comedy. And, you know, it's taken me all over the world and it just is. People say to me, are you. Oh, do you get nervous before you go on stage? And you know, I'm like. And he's like, oh, does it not frighten you? I think there was a survey done of people's top ten fears. Number two was dying. Number one was speaking in public. So people would rather die than speak in public. And stand up comedies, you're speaking in public, extreme sports. And people always kind of look at me strangely when I go. Honestly, when I go on stage, that's, that's me time. That's where I go to relax. That's where I just feel so at home and you know, and I can just talk about, you know, the kids can't phone me, you know, I just, I can. I forget about anything. You know, some days, you know, we all have bad days and things. I literally decompartmentalize, go on stage and laugh and it is just, it's like being, you know, my battery being filled, it's like being refueled. I love it. So, Jojo, I actually did my PhD about stand up comedy and they accepted my whole premise, which is quite difficult because I, when I came to have my viva at the end of eight years, you've written this sort of 80,000 words and the only way you can pass is if you can find people who are accredited themselves to be the adjudicators of your work. And I found one guy who'd seen Stand up twice and somebody else who'd only seen theatre and fortunately both of those were willing to read my piece and I passed. And that was exactly, you know, talking about stand up comedy and the power of stand up comedy, which I'll come to. But during that time or just before that time, I did 10 minutes stand up myself for charity and I did it within six weeks. Yes. So it was what an experience. And I do think, actually, Steve, it's something you should try because what it taught me, and I know you know this because as you say, it gives you. It's you and it is all about you. However you know it is, it was so scary. And I'm not as natural as you are on the stage. And during that period of time, six weeks, five weeks, four weeks, three weeks, two weeks, and having decided a what you're going to say, how are you going to say it, you know, can you make people laugh? What's your beginning, what's your ending? And so on. By the time I got onto the stage, I was so myopic I could not see anything in front of me. I don't know how I got through it. And I'm so glad I had a video of it because I don't think I'd believe it to this day. But what I did find out was the power of stand up. And my whole work has been about, you know, comedy and humor and how to turn people's lives around, or how we can turn our own lives around, if you like, through it. But the whole power of you engaging with an audience, but generally engaging with the world and this art of self deprecation in comedy is so powerful. And so what is the way that you deal with your comedy? What do you have your comedic voice, as I call it? Do you have your tone, your. Your delivery level? Is it, what's the cadence there? Is it a rhythm? I mean, it's like music, isn't it? Music has, the whole world of music is deconstructed into soul, you know, hip hop, rap, you know, scar and all the rest of it. Where do you sit within that realm of comedy? I think in terms of, I mean, yeah, it's sort of having a Persona. But I mean, one thing that's sort of often said about me is I'm as, I'm exactly the same on stage as I am off stage. I mean, everything's obviously heightened, exaggerated to a degree for comic effect. But it's very much me. And I just, I think because of my life experiences, because I've had a near death experiences, you know, suffered the grief of both my parents have died, going through divorce, you know, I was in domestic violence, relationship, my first marriage, you know, a friend who's committed suicide. I've brought up four children with varying things. And it is just it comes, it's. It's just that recognition. Comedy works on recognition and people recognizing and understanding emotion. And comedy works with that sort of extreme emotion, whether it be love, whether it be hate, whether it be fear. And I just tap it. I just. I think it's the sense of honesty that I come with, but also I'm very flippant. So I could be talking about some of the worst things that can happen in life, like suicide or domestic violence or, you know, grief, but. But laugh about it in a way where I'm not. I'm not belittling it, I'm very much owning it. But that sense of giving other people the power to kind of go, do you know what the worst things can happen? But, you know, what is the alternative? Either you kill yourself, in which case, you know, or you get on with it and you put one foot in front of the other and. And it just is that sense of humor. And I think people really buy into the fact that I can be so starkly honest whilst, you know, very much and. And flippant and, you know, I sort of. I've got a person of sort of badass mum. You know, things I say about my kids, it's obvious that I love them, but I'm also very honest about, you know, how frustrating life is. Life is. Can be so frustrating and especially if you don't feel in control. And that's what comedy gives me. It gives me a sense of being in charge, of being in control of my own life. And I remember watching Ava Vidal talking about her daughter many, many years ago. Yeah, she's a great comedian. And she was talking about her daughter and sort of berating her on stage and there was this sort of disquietening, sort of murmur around the audience. Oh, how can a mum talk about her daughter like this? You know? And do you get the same when you open up about your family? I do. I think people. It's funny because it's that sort of, you know, that sort of sharp intake of breath followed by laughter of recognition and that, you know, it's always that thing about, oh, my God, I can't believe you said that, or I wish I could say that. You know, a lot of people come up to me afterwards and, you know, go, is it true? You. You really. Because I'm married to my ex husband's brother as well, so, I mean, keep it in the family. Although I've separated from him as well. So, I mean, everybody keeps, you know, so married, two brothers. And everyone goes, has he got A sister. She does look a bit worried when I visit, But, yeah, I think it is. Yeah. I think people like it when you say things that they would love to see but just don't necessarily hear the guts. So coming back to what I. I'm sure it's a recognizable term of your comedic voice. What is your pattern? I remember talking to Sean Mayo at one point about something funny, you know, sort of an incident. And he was editing it and rewriting that into his comedic voice. What is yours? How do you re. Edit something in your own head? How do you make an incident funny before you present it to the world? I think it does come from exaggeration. So, for instance, I don't know, it just falls into my head because I emcee quite a lot when I'm on stage. Something that I'll just have improvised in the moment. I go, God, that was really funny. I can use that with this. And, you know, I look at the. But it's for an example. So one of my daughters, she was. Now, it didn't even happen to me. So my daughter was quite drunk, and she was at a nightclub in Edinburgh, and she couldn't get a taxi, and she ended up phoning her sister, and her sister went and picked her up. And then Kira, you know, told me the story of the journey, and I completely instantly, I went, oh, well, I'm having that. So that now ends up as she phoned me. And, you know, I tell the thing about, oh, yeah, God, you know. You know, you shouldn't have favorites. And I do like my eldest, because he's left home. He's absolutely my favorite. But my third. My third one, she's coming up in the ranks. She's like a mother. She drinks, she smokes. She was in a nightclub in Edinburgh a few weeks ago, couldn't get a taxi, so she phoned me. So I went to pick her up. Mother of the year. And I picked her up. And I say drunk. I mean, absolutely paralytic. She couldn't. You know, she couldn't speak. She could. There was no consonants. There was no vowels. There's just a noise coming out of her mouth. And. And I. I was driving home, and windows are open. She's like. I said, the sound is like a whale. It was just faintly soothing. And so I said. Until we got towards our house, and then she piped up. Then she found the words, and the words were, it's left here. I was like, oh, my God. Oh, my God. Are you so drunk you think you phoned the taxi and the taxi. And I say to the old audience, that's how drunk she was. She thought I was. I was the taxi driver. I was a taxi driver. I said, So I took 40 quid offer. You got your own back. Yeah, so it's that thing. It was a. It was a story. But instantly that Kira told me the story of her picking her up and nearly saying that. I was like, oh, I can have that. And then I just reworked it and I ramped it up a bit and added some. You do mean. Yeah, so, yeah, that's wonderful. And I know, Steve, in your world, not only as a Para, in the world of the army and also police, there's a lot of humor there. When you are using humour, how do you use it for yourselves? Is it to engage with others? Is it to create a sort of tribal community connection? I think it's because we're all alpha males that everyone just sees a weakness and exploits it to its maximum. Okay, let's. Let's dig into that a little bit, shall we? So what do you do? Is it a case of, you know, I mean, as women, we are, you know, a little bit more sensitive? Maybe that's just me. I'm sure you're sensitive in some way. But for example, I know men will say, God, you put on weight to another man, and another man might not take that personally, but is that the type of thing you do to lower their status in everybody's eyes? Do you jibe at them? Do you make them feel small? It's not with an intention to make someone feel small. It's just the banter. Yeah. One of the guys, James, is a former Marine officer and one of the lads, Ben, I think Ben was in 2 Para and he and Dave were taking the mickey out of him for being a Marine, which is quite easy to do because they surrender a lot and, you know, I'll probably get attacked by every Marine. Careful, Steve. They give us the same level of banter back. So it's. It's that rivalry, It's. It's abuse. It's. But it very rarely goes beyond the abuse and the, the sort of, the laughter. Some people take it seriously and get up to, but then they just get ripped by everyone else around them. Yeah. Now, I presume in, you know, both the police force and in the army, or whichever forces you're in, you have to understand the difference areas of the forces to really make sense of how to find their weakness or how to humiliate them slightly in a comedic way. Well, we have paratroopers and we have crap hats. So I don't really understand much about them, but it's just banter. It's just, you know, like the, yeah, the Royal Air Force have got a, a so called infantry unit called the RAF Regiment which are probably maybe. Well, they made a video about, you know, you can do your 5 miler of death and go and stand toe to toe with the powers and the Marines. It's like you what? You know, so they, the rough regiment get ripped. Anyone that drops the ball at the club gets the RAF regiment plaque. And that's sort of like the biggest insult you can give. Right. And it's difficult to explain because some guys get really stroppy about it and want to have a fight. Others just take it in the context of its banter and well, it's just interesting to discuss humor. And we'll move on in a second to Jojo and the work you do as a business as well outside the business of stand up. But they say that somebody who is not only a psychotic psychopath doesn't laugh at themselves. And I think that's such a good measure of, you know, sort of humor and self. You know, your own attitude, your own mental attitude to yourself in the world. And also perhaps a good dating tip that, you know, if somebody doesn't laugh or can't laugh at themselves. My professor thought that his big thing was if you can't tell a joke, you must have a mental health issue. My big thing is if you can't self deprecate, there's a problem there. But Jojo, how do you take humour into the workplace and how do you make it into a business? What do you do? The business that I run now, which is stand up and be counted, I mean it came about very organically and very naturally that, you know, as a stand up people would ask your advice and you know, it started initially with sort of younger, you know, people wanting to get into comedy and sort of giving them tips and hints and. And then a company called Universal Comedy, which no longer exists sadly got in touch with me and said, oh, you know, we like your stuff. And we, we work with people with mental health issues and physical health issues, sort of going into hospitals and working with young people. And so we just sort of designed these courses that ended up, you know, sort of working with all kinds of different groups, different age groups, different physical ailments, mental ailments. I went into a locked ward at Gart Naval which was just the most exhilarating thing I've done actually is that with severe mental health issues. Severe mental health, yes. So they're, they're in a locked ward and you know, you're obviously your, your instilled, you know, perceptions or prejudgments. I was just, you know, obviously I agreed to do it but still went in with it. Oh my goodness, what have I agreed to do? Yeah, and I don't think I have laughed as much as, you know, these people who, there's a sense of they've let go of their mind but they're very in control, if that makes sense. So. Because there's just no boundaries to them and they just didn't give a shit. But using humor with that was. And because it was just, it was, I think that sent that sense of honesty. You know, they're not hiding anything, they're not trying to pretend to be something. They've accepted their mental illness. And yeah, I mean, it was really, really profound in terms of the difference, having a bit of structured comedy made to them. Yeah. So, and then, you know, universe comedy sort of went by the wayside and I just, yes, just, you know, I kept getting asked, so I had a friend who was head of HIV Scotland who said, you know, do you think you could put a course together for our clients who are, you know, HIV positive or, you know, or with aids? And again, just working with people who have life threatening conditions. HIV now is much better managed. There's lots of ways to manage it, but still a very daunting future and prospect and again, talking, doing comedy with them. They're just incredible, the things that come from people's insides. Yeah, because that's the joy of comedy, isn't it? Yeah. You know, and that's what I always loved about organizing all the comedy shows that I did for all those years and which I still do, is that, you know, comedians have a short space of time to get on stage, make people laugh. And in that they, it's almost an opening the door to that cave of themselves, you know, that, you know, sort of the mirrors, the feelings, the darkness, the lightness, the quirkiness, the idiosyncrasies, everybody is so different and it's so powerful and I absolutely love that moment. And I worked very, as a very young person in a mental asylum and they weren't, they were locked away, all of them. But they didn't have the mental, they didn't have all the medication which they have now. And so that in itself was interesting to be around people. And I love that thought that you said that you through the stand up Comedy, it gave people the structure. That's what I love about stand up comedy. It gives people a structure to take the quirkiness, to take those crazy ideas and put them into a framework that can work not only for themselves but for others as well. And I think as well it's that, you know, that sense of judgment that we always feel, I mean, we're always being judged. You know, we judge everybody whether we mean to or not, within and with stand up, you know, sort of you have to make them laugh. Within the first 30 seconds you make a judgment. As soon as you meet somebody, you make a judgment about how they sound, how they look, what they're wearing, you know, and we do it, we do it subconsciously. And I think that judgment and being a stand up, you are, you're being judged the entire time in a live environment, but equally the people in the audience. That's, you know, why people never want to sit on the front row because they don't want, you know, so there's that there's a vulnerability on both sides and the vulnerability in the audience is them feeling vulnerable, that they might get picked on. And the vulnerability comes from the comedian because they are opening up and they are presenting, you know, their, you know, sometimes their innermost demons and, you know, finding the humor. I mean, sometimes it's just dick jokes. But do you mean there is that Generally when you write about a lot of knob gags, unless you're my. No, not Michael Barrymore. Mr. Barrymore. Michael McIntyre. Oh, Michael McIntyre, yeah. So Steve, do you think now that you feel physically less in pain? Do you think if you were given hints and tips of how to do stand up that would help you in those days when you are feeling that you can't move quite as much or you've done your run and everything, do you think it was something. Would be something you might do because you've got a natural sense of humour anyway, as I know. But I don't know, I, I just don't think I'm funny or anything. Everybody says that. Everybody I know everybody, everybody says that and everybody's funny every. I totally agree with you, Jojo. I'm there with you. Would it be something that you might think, yeah, actually I'd quite like to get. Do you find humor helps you anyway, even if you weren't going to do stand up? I'm not talking about stand up per se, but just the ability to be more fun and to focus on that. I just think when I get up in the morning, walk past the mirror Naked. That's funny enough as it is true. And especially, you know, all this in the early lockdown days when people used to do zooms and used to see all the most extraordinary things happening when they're on zoom. You know, the Italian, I think, politician who's married Italian politician whose girlfriend walked semi naked behind him during the interview he was doing on television. Always very funny. So yes, there's an awful lot of that. But coming back to the CBD and both of your abilities to take something new into the world, do you think that, you know, how can we help promote the work you do? And do you think both of you should be working more with psychotherapists and counsellors generally? Because if psychotherapists really wanted to help people, they would look at plant based medicines. The CBD helps balance your emotions. The THC has the CB1 and CB2 receptors through the body. And the whole of the endocannabinoid system is something that has to be understood by medics. I think it's probably one of the most understood underrepresented areas in medicine. Again because it has an effect the same as magic mushrooms and microdosing. Why give people traumatic medicines that make them sick then? They have to have something to counter that, medicine to counter the medicine, etc. Whereas these things are there, they've been used for 7,000 years through recorded history. And I think that when pharmaceutical companies finally stop strangling the market and people realize how powerful cannabis and mushrooms are, then I think there's going to be a seed bed change in how people deal with all forms of trauma, be it physical, mental or emotional. And by trauma, I mean your thoughts, your, your health, if you smoke, if you drink, if you hurt yourself, all those different things, it's will have a big impact. And yeah, I think that GP should be taught how to assess, use and then get people onto plant based medicine. My own personal experience of it has been incredible, absolutely incredible. So, yeah, I think that psychotherapists should look at it. There are so many white papers that have been written on schizophrenia with how to treat it using CBD and thc. So yeah, I think it's going to be explosive when the world finds out just how we've been lied to in relation to plant medicine. So I see humor and what you're doing with humour, Jojo, not only as a stand up, as we know, they just did a, you may not know this, they did a recent survey here in London, maybe all over the uk about what people missed most of all through Lockdown and you expect it to be, you know, sort of wine or pubs or, you know, theater or something, but it wasn't, it was laughter, communal laughter. That's what they miss most of all. So you. Do you think that we should bring humor more into psychotherapy, into counseling, not into it, because it's a very sensitive area. And I know when I work with my clients, clients, you have to know at what point you can use humor and you have to know them quite well by that point. Of course. But do you think it's something that most therapists and counsellors should be taught? Absolutely, 100%. I've always said, I think that stand up comedy should be on the nhs. And it's. Yeah, I think that idea that we've, you know, societally we're just ingrained with, you know, sort of negative idea that, you know, selfishness, vulnerability, failure, all those things are such negative words. Although ironically, they're all the things you need to be in order to be a good stand up. And, you know, when I talk to people about comedy, it's, you know, you never want to listen to someone on stage who's, you know, happily married with four kids and their life's amazing, they've got lots of money in the bank and they've got fantastic houses, Fantastic job and so nobody wants to hear, hear that. They want, you know, people want to know that other people have had a time and when you can, when you can hold a mirror up to an audience and using humor, make fun of the fact or, or laugh about, you know, divorce, grief, all these things which everybody suffers from. Nobody escapes grief, nobody. And it's a fundamental thing. But we are so proud, programmed to keep our feelings to ourself and, you know, don't say anything. And we're just, it's incredible how much we're required to not make other people feel uncomfortable by being a bit wobbly and actually being a bit wobbly and showing your vulnerability, showing your weaknesses is absolutely a way to connect with other people and have a shared. And I know what you say about there's a fine line and when to use humor and it is about learning how to use it appropriately. But everything, I mean, I don't think, and that's the last bastion for me is stand up. There isn't anything you can't laugh about. Absolutely not a thing you can't laugh about. Yeah, I do think there are times when you should give a bit of space. So talking about grief, you know, give a bit of space around that moment of grief. Yeah. So that people can truly grieve. And then after that, finding those measures, if you like, those protocols are always important. And for me, absolutely, humor, unadulteratedly is the key, I think, not only to sort of being able to cope with life, being able to face things that you cannot normally face, and to actually engage with humor. Just a quick one before we finish. Jojo, you're incredibly eloquent and I know Steve and I have been talking quite extensively as you talked about domestic violence. Tell me something. Do, as a woman in Stand Up. Does it make a difference? I always say that audiences assume a man is funny until he proves otherwise, and they assume a woman is unfunny until the truth the of prove otherwise. And is it harder to prove that as a woman? I don't. It's certainly. I mean, I think it's getting better. I actually, funnily enough, I remember Jongla's in Glasgow. I was. You could see where you go on. On stage. And I remember I was emceeing and the lights went down and the man turned round, nudged his mate, and his mate turned around and basically went, oh, fuck, it's a woman. Haven't even been introduced. Hadn't even got on stage. And you just go, oh, but that drives me, that just going, I know I'm funny. And you're gonna find that out too. And. And that is the bottom line. You just have to go out there and be funny. So I don't think it is a gender issue. And the more that women do it and the more that they prove that they're funny, the more that people, you know, get it. And. And it is such a silly notion, isn't it? You know, sort of. I know not everyone I speak to have gotten, you know, usually their mothers or grandmothers or their aunts are powerful, strong, funny women in their lives. So, yeah. And, you know, when I look. When you look at somebody's life, like Robin Williams, for example, his mother, he came from fairly wealthy background, but his mother was absent. Yeah, I'm going to keep this short, but it's a good story. And his mother was absent, so he engaged with her even as a young person through humor, and that kept her attention. And so I think humor plays an awful lot, especially in our world when we have to meet people very quickly or make an impact. That's the way to do it. One quick thing. How do you spread the word, both of you, quickly? How can you spread the word? And how can we spread the word about your work and well, it's the good old social media, I suppose, isn't it? That's where everyone is. But it's, again, it. It's that word of mouth. I think a lot of the work I get comes from a recommendation from somebody else and they say, oh, gosh, we, you know, we had JoJo and she ran this course and, you know, so. But, yeah, wherever I can kind of get the word out, then, yeah, please. And that way. And also, we'll do the same with you, Steve. Yeah, it's, again, it's social proof, isn't it? It's, you know, we can all prove exactly how comedy. LAUGHTER Having the right mindset, which takes you out of the pain. The CBD from LDN helps me. So, yeah, it's all about getting the message out through social proof. And I think what is so great about both these components, whether it's comedy or whether it's cbd, it relaxes you enough. Both CBD and comedy act as an anesthetic which removes the pain from our daily lives and then we can get into the area healing. And I just love the idea that we now have CBD and comedy in the marketplace that people can turn to to help heal their minds. And this is Maria Kampinska from. Dr. Maria Kampinska from youm Mind Matters. Until next.