If You’re a People Pleaser Listen to This! (Why Putting Yourself First Isn’t Selfish, It’s Necessary For Real Connection)

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
I stopped people pleasing when I realized the people that
I was trying to please were not trying to versificate
their energy to me. I also realized that I was
putting myself second almost all the time for other people
with very little versification. I had to stop for my
own sanity and for my own self respect. When you
compare your efforts to others and you almost look and

(00:22):
you can see they've got boundaries that I don't have,
because if I ask them to do what they're asking me,
they would say no. Why would they say no? Is
it because they're a horrible person? Is it because of
this or they're selfish? No, it's because of their boundary.
The Number one health and Wellness podcast, Jay Shedy, j Sheddy,
jem Lendy only shed.

Speaker 2 (00:44):
Hey, everyone, welcome back to on Purpose, the place you
come to become the happier, healthier and more healed. Today's
guest is someone that I've known for quite a few years. Now.
We'll share a bit about our background and story of
how we got to know each other. I'm speaking about
Meghan Rock, a first generation British Trinidadian entrepreneur, author, speaker,

(01:05):
and the inspirational force behind the renowned platform the good quote.
Her new book is out right now. It's called How
to Stop Breaking Your Heart. You'll see a little testimonial
here from me, because I think this book is brilliant.
It's got so many great insights, wise pieces of guidance
that will help you in your lowest, difficult, toughest times

(01:26):
and help you avoid those if you manage to be
able to surpass them. Please welcome to On Purpose, Megan Roxane. Megan,
it's so great to finally have you here. This is awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:37):
Thank you so much for having me Jay, thank you.
It's great to be here.

Speaker 2 (01:40):
I was so happy when you told me you were
writing a book and you said, you know, can you
read it and share a testimonial for it, because I
know how challenging this journey's been for you. For putting
yourself out there. I mean, you built the most motivational
page on social media without a doubt, the quote and

(02:02):
the amount of impact that it's had, how it shifted
the culture of what people were doing on social media.
It's had such a beautiful ripple effect to so many
other people. You've supported myself including I'll share a bit
on that. And you've always had this challenge of putting
yourself out there. And so when you were writing this

(02:22):
book and I picked it up and I looked at
it and you asked me for a couple of words,
I was just so proud of you as a friend.
I was so excited for you, and I was so
excited for everyone else that would now have access to
you as well and your story. So congratulations from a friend. Really,
I mean it.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
Thank you. I appreciate that. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
I just want to give a bit of background for people.
I remember I just i'd started posting content of Facebook
in twenty sixteen and it was really taking off. And
then I remember Instagram being a platform that I was
trying to find traction on and sharing my content, and
I was looking at other pages that had the same

(02:58):
values as mine, who believed in wisdom, people who believed
in wanting to share that freely with everyone, people who
wanted to make wisdom as cool and as sexy and
as accessible as everything else on the internet. And I
remember coming across the good quote, and I remember just
sending a DM and saying, Hey, would you guys share
my stuff? And I literally, at that time, you used

(03:20):
to just send I would find anyone of equal value
on social media and I would just DM them and say, hey,
I'd love to connect. I'm making content, would you be
able to share it? And you were so kind that
you decided to support me at that early stage, And honestly,
it gave me my first breakthrough on Instagram because all

(03:40):
of a sudden, all these people were aware of my work.
And what I always found was that it was always
still about the content, like content had to be good.
But what I found was that the fact that you
were able to distribute it to so many more people,
I was able to see that my content was resonating
with even more people. So I'm so grateful for that
initial connection and collaboration we had because it was so

(04:03):
important to me and the beginning of my journey. And
I know it's not just me, You've helped so many people.
So anyway, my first question is, how does it feel when,
at four years old, you hear from a grandparent that
they don't love you. Oh wow, that's how you start
the book?

Speaker 1 (04:23):
Yeah, okay, so that was the first time I ever
felt the impact of words physically. I didn't know that
words can hurt you. I didn't even know there was
a thing of internal pain. I was only four and
I was used to getting a little slap behind the
back of the leg if I did something naughty, but
to be told, especially when my entire reality was based

(04:47):
on love. I had a really great home growing up,
so to be told that was really difficult to comprehend.
But the physical pain of my chest, my heart, it
literally felt like somebody was trying to split it. And
I would never forget that pain because it was the
first time I've ever felt it. And when I explained

(05:08):
to my mother what happened and I described the pain,
it's almost like she knew, Okay, my family's gotten to
her now. It was a good four years, but she
didn't ever want me to experience that, and I did,
And if I'm being honest with you, it really took
away a lot of my innocence as well. I was
robbed of innocence during that time. I don't think children

(05:31):
should know what it's like to be hurt or spoken
too badly, or have to cry themselves at nighttime, or
sitting on the so far waiting for their parents to
come home, and you know, feeling sad. It's not an
emotion that a child should have to feel. I felt it,
and it's a lasting memory that I would always remember.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Why did he say? Did you ever ask him?

Speaker 1 (05:52):
Or did you My grandfather was a interesting man. He
actually passed away four days before my book came out.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (05:59):
Yeah, and it's been intense because I was caring for
him as well, a request that was given to me
by my mother, which I mentioned in the book. My
grandfather he lived a very selfish life in a sense
where he didn't care how he hurts people, what his

(06:21):
words did. He didn't care. He was a happy go
lucky rum drinker.

Speaker 2 (06:26):
You know.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
As a man, he did what he had to do
for his family. He provided, but as a person he
wasn't that great. He had great friends, you know in
the family in the West Indies. Everyone think he was
this great guy, but actually to live with him, he
was a bit of a monster. The reason why I'm
being careful of my words is because my grandfather and
I went on a journey in the last two years

(06:47):
of me caring for him and I forgave him and
he explained to me the reasoning behind his treatment towards
his children, and it was simply put what he experienced
is what he provided. So there's a level of generational
ignorance that was passed down from my grandfather, and the
ricochet of that is why I'm sitting right here with

(07:10):
this book in your hand. There wasn't that much emotional
intelligence with my grandparents. You know, they would do something
to you, they wouldn't apologize, and that was kind of
something the generation that they came from were customed to do.
And apologizing to your children, it's not really something that
you hear people do. My mother apologized to me many times.

(07:31):
She said to me one time, you know, anything that
I experienced in my house growing up, I will not
bring here. So my grandfather was just a character that
I knew. Was always miserable, always angry, drinking, love to
watch cricket, and that was basically it. He wasn't a
great person to be around if you were looking for
motivation or anything positive.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Wow, how did it feel? I didn't even think we're
going to go down this direction? But it's I have
to ask, like, how did it feel to care for
someone who told you they didn't love you that early
in your life? Because that process seems to be I know,
when I'm speaking to a lot of my community, or
I'm reading comments or I read dms, and I really
listen in on what my community cares about so I

(08:15):
can serve them better. And a lot of people find
themselves in that position where someone who's caused them pain
is the person that they're now caring for or they're supporting,
or they're in the same house for years, and the
question is always, Jay, how do I survive around someone
like that, let alone care for them? So how did
you even reconcile it in the beginning of that two

(08:36):
year journey, because that feels like the ultimate test of
everything that you're saying in the book.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
Well, this is going to sound so strange, but in
my spirit this morning, I knew you were going to
ask me something like that, and I saw that you
shared something on your stories. Somebody asked you about their
relationship with their mother and your reply was forgiveness and empathy.
And that's it, Jay, That's literally it. I My mother
asked me to care for my grandfather was passing away,
and reluctantly I said yes because that was my best friend,

(09:05):
and I knew that there was a reason behind it,
and at the time I didn't want to do it.
But I just knew through future Megan, this is an
investment that I actually have to go through and devote
myself to. And it was literally for that. My mother's
last lesson was for me to care for my grandfather
so I can understand the power of forgiveness. I thought
I understood forgiveness, but I didn't. Looking after my grandfather

(09:30):
meant that I had to create new boundaries. I had
to stand up for myself in so many ways. There
were so many rumors spread by other malicious family members
of mine that were untrue that I had to work
my way around whilst grieving for my mum. You know,
my grandfather was left unattended for the years that I

(09:51):
was looking after my mother. When she was passing away
from stage four cancer. We actually went to the West
Indies and when I got back, I assumed that my
mother's sit blinds were looking after him, but they weren't.
So when I got back, I was faced with the
responsibility of looking after him, renovating his house, bringing him
back to a full bill of health, which I did,
and during that entire process there was a level of

(10:14):
trust that had to be obtained. Even helping my grandfather
walk again, I had to literally help him walk, and
there were times where he would just be like, pass
me the guinness, I haven't got time for this. I'll
just sit here, you know. And there were other times
where he was really determined. And it was through these
experiences I had no other choice but to seek forgiveness

(10:36):
because I was spending a lot of time with him.
And then there were a lot of unanswered questions, a
lot of things that I needed for my own journey,
a lot of things that I wanted to a lot
of chapters that I wanted to close for my mother,
even though she passed away, just for the principle of it,
you know. So my grandfather and I did a lot
of talking. When I became more aware of his reasonings,

(10:57):
his justifications, which weren't great at all, but transparently truthful,
I then started to develop a level of respect for him.
It takes a lot of bravery and courage at ninety
years old to admit where you've gone wrong in life
and actually apologize to somebody less than half your age,

(11:18):
especially if it's not part of your culture or it's
not something that you've been raised to do. So when
my grandfather passed away, you know. I went to view
his body and I sat there and I just thought
to myself, it is well, it is well. The chapter
is closed. I broke that curse. Moving on. My children

(11:40):
don't have to hear about their great grandfather. Is so
much anger in my voice. I could just say I
could talk about the last two years. I don't have
to talk about everything that happened before because I've healed
past that. And the reason why we do heal obviously
for our own harmony, but so we don't pass on
more pain. I didn't have to inherit my family's pain

(12:01):
and trauma, but I did. But it's my duty and
my job to ensure that I don't pass it on.
And I think that's what my mother was trying to
teach me behind the importance of forgiveness is to put
a final stop to it so that you can move
on and live your life. But you have to forgive
because I had so much anger in my heart for
my grandfather. But then when I saw him and his

(12:24):
little efforts of determination to get walking again. Or I
might go and see him in the morning, he might
make me some peel out, you know, or some curry
goat and Peelau or whatnot. And I think, Okay, there's
something bubbling here and I'm not going to be the
person to interrupt that. Let me just see where this
journey takes us. So when he passed away, I was

(12:45):
happy for him. I was happy that he was able
to transition. I prayed for him, and I was able
to walk away knowing that I don't have to carry
that burden anymore.

Speaker 2 (12:55):
What's so valuable with the insert you just shared is
that you were able to place the virtue of forgiveness
above how you felt about it because it meant something
to your mum, because you believe that it had something
to do with a better future for Megan. And I
find that to be remarkable in a time where I

(13:17):
feel we've actually gone the other way. So a lot
of the time, we're so fixated on what makes me
feel good now, what makes me comfortable now, what feels
right for me now. And it's really interesting, because I've
been thinking about this a lot lately, that this pursuit
of virtues is actually the only way you'll ever be happy,

(13:40):
because even if you did what you wanted now and
you disregarded everything else later on, you still haven't healed
or created and built forgiveness, and so you're still living
in that bitterness and that pain, even if the person
passes away, and even if you were away from them
for years and years and years. Yeah, but how do

(14:01):
we reconcile that, Like, at what point is it self
disrespect to aspire for a virtue while someone is potentially
creating havoc in your life? How do you see that
in terms of setting boundaries in I'm going to care
for them because I see this virtue being there, But
then at the same time, I'm not just going to

(14:22):
allow myself to be abused or disrespect.

Speaker 1 (14:25):
Growing up, I witnessed my mother do various things to
contribute to her healing, whether it was yoga, whether it
was going for walks, meditation, simply spend the time alone,
also forgiving enforcing her boundaries, which was really difficult for her.
She was the first child of six siblings, so she
didn't really get to enforce her boundaries, nor did her

(14:47):
siblings care or honor them. And I watched that growing up,
and I think one of the most profound experiences that
I spoke about in the book was when she bumped
into her father when they were in Sainsbury's and they
reunited and they had their conversations and she ended up
looking after him, And there was one day where he
was rude to her. And I remember coming home from

(15:10):
college and she was cooking really fast, and I could
just smell the curry from downstairs, and I was like, Okay,
it's in the middle of the week. Mum usually cooks
on a Sunday. Are we having guests? No, The guest
was the anger that came from the experience she had
of her father. She enforced her boundary and it was

(15:31):
the first time she's done it in years, so she
didn't know how to respond. And I watched that and
I watched how it actually strengthened the relationship with her
father because he started to respect it. And I think
he also realized there's no one else left. So if
I'm going to have this relationship, I'm going to have
to ensure that I stick to the rules to keep
it healthy. So with me now of the same man,

(15:53):
having to go through the same experiences, my boundary enforcement
came very quickly. There was one day where I bought
him a bottle of guinness. You know, he did a
lot of things that day, and we did a reward
system where if he did a hundred steps, you know,
and this and that will give him some something. He
loved guinness, so I brought him a bottle of guineas

(16:14):
and it was warm, so he kind of threw it
at me and he was like, put it in a freezer.
It's warm. And I said, actually, what I'm going to
do is I'm going to go home and I'm going
to leave the bottle right there and you can put
it in the freezer yourself. I'm not having that. That
is absolutely rude. And I got up and I left
and he called me, and he called me, and he
called me, and I picked up and I said, I'm

(16:34):
I'm not coming back until you apologize because that was
really rude. And when I got back, he made breakfast,
you know, he cleaned down, staid like everything that I
usually get him to do every day, he did it
all in one day. And you know, he apologized and
sat down and we had a conversation and I said
to him, moving forward, this is not happening because I'm

(16:55):
not going to care for you and deplete my own
energy at the same time. That's insane. I've watched my
mother do that. So throughout this entire process, I just
learned that my no is my no, my yes is
my yes. If I don't like something, I tell the person.
I don't feel bad about telling the person because what's
the other option? I take the bad treatment while they're

(17:15):
none the wiser. That is hurting me. It doesn't serve anybody.
So the boundary enforcement, I think I gained a lot
of confidence over the span of two years looking after
my grandfather, enforcing my boundaries, standing in my word, and
not being scared, and that was one of the most
powerful things that I learned. So it wasn't difficult. It
was more if I respect myself and love myself, I

(17:36):
will put these boundaries in place so that I don't
deplete myself every time I come to visit this person.
And if they respect and love and honor me and
even are thankful for my devotion to caring for them,
they will ensure that the environment is healthy and safe.
And that was literally the case. If it wasn't, I
would have just walked away, paid the NHS staff to
look after him and check in every now and then.

(17:57):
Because I have to put myself first. Learn that with
my mother's story, as well.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yeah, I hope that's really refreshing for people to hear,
because I feel like when we think of forgiveness, we
think of it as like this fully all encompassing thing
where there's no boundaries, you just give in. And to
hear that clarity because I found that when we don't
set boundaries, what we don't realize we keep enabling that
person to behave that way, and we become enablers. We

(18:26):
think we're helping them, but actually we're hurting them. Yeah,
and the only one we're helping is ourselves because we
feel better about ourselves for a second where we're like, oh,
I'm so tolerant and I did everything just perfectly for them,
But then what we don't realize is we're just continuing
that behavior. Yeah. One thing I've discovered really hearing from
everything you're saying is that there's three types of people

(18:47):
in life. The first is someone who repeats the pain
they saw, The second is someone who does the opposite
of the pain they saw, and the third is someone
who heals from that pain and gives people what they
never had and creates a space for people to have
the life that they never got the opportunity to have

(19:08):
and it sounds like you chose that third option. Yeah,
and anyone who chooses that third option protects their future self.
What's the difference between people pleasing and wanting people to
be happy? Because I think people get that confused they
don't know the difference. Before you hear the answer, here's
a quick break, big thanks to our sponsors. Let's get

(19:32):
back to it. How would you define what a people
pleaser is? Whereas it's someone who likes to see people happy.

Speaker 1 (19:37):
Okay, So from the chronic people pleaser myself, I would
say just acknowledging the fact that you do not control
somebody's happiness. It doesn't matter if you give them everything
they want. There's going to be another factor in their
lives that's going to implicate their ability to be completely happy.
So it's not your responsibility, it's not your purpose to

(19:58):
make other people happy, and and it's a job that's
never going to have a reward because there's so many
factors to our happiness anyway, one person can't achieve that.
So for me with people pleasing, I just realized that
as much as I do want to make this person happy,
my happiness also is valid and it's also important to me,

(20:21):
So I have to set boundaries, and you have to
enforce your boundaries with people in general, I always want
to ensure that I'm creating a healthy space for people,
whether it's in my home or whether it is as
long as you're in my presence, I want you to
be happy. I want you to feel seen, heard, appreciated, valued, understood,
but again not at my own detriment. So if I'm

(20:43):
not receiving the same thing from you, then something has
to give or something has to stop. I stopped people
pleasing when I realized the people that I was trying
to please were not trying to recificate that energy to me.
I also realized that I was putting myself second almost
all the time for other people with very little reciprocation.
I just decided that it just wasn't for me. There's

(21:05):
a whole backstory in my book about people pleasing and
it explains my journey on that, but in the short form,
I had to stop for my own sanity and for
my own self respect, especially when you look when you
compare your efforts to others, and you almost look and
you can see they've got boundaries that I don't have.
Because if I ask them to do what they're asking me,

(21:27):
they would say no. Why would they say no? Is
it because they're a horrible person? Is it because of
this or they're selfish? No, it's because of their boundary.
So I realized that everybody around me had their boundaries
when it came to me. But as I was people pleasing,
I didn't have any for anybody else. And on top
of that, with people pleasing, it just takes you to
links that you were never prepared to go, you know,

(21:49):
and it's just unfair to put yourself in that position.
Do the best you can to support, but never at
your own detriment. And if it is going to be
at your own detriment, then that's something that you have
to sit down and discuss with yourself. Okay, this is
costing me this, But what am I learning in the process.
When does it come to an end? What are my
boundaries in this particular experience. But across the board, I

(22:11):
would say scrap people pleasing as a whole. You don't
need to do that, and the people around you will
feel uncomfortable with you doing that anyway. You know, there's
a lot of my friends that would be like relax,
you're overcompensating just to put me back into into gear.
Because people pleasing isn't for the habits of people pleasing
isn't going to stop overnight. It's actual small practices that
you have to implement on a day to day to

(22:33):
rewire this this vein of ours to stop doing this nonsense.
But yeah, I think boundaries. Enforcing your boundaries is the
main is the key thing to putting an end to
people pleasing. Then just realizing that put that love into yourself,
put that devotion and that time and that energy into yourself.
Why are you so scared to do that? Because you'll

(22:53):
find a lot of people who people please, they don't
actually have great relationships with themselves. So that energy's great,
But just bring it back to yourself, you know first.
Similar to when you're on the airplane, you have to
put the mask on first before you help other people.
It's very similar.

Speaker 2 (23:11):
Yeah, well said, I could agree with you more. I
think that I started people pleasing when I realized that
there was nothing I could possibly do to actually please
someone fully, that there'd always be some gap, some blemish,
some mistake, even if I tried with the deepest, purest
intention and I recognize that. Actually, if I simply tried

(23:35):
to create a space for people to flourish, and then
it was up to them to make the most of it,
and if they didn't, I could only make the space better,
but I couldn't please them. I could improve the environment,
but I couldn't improve them. I think that's when we
fail is when we make a person our project, or
we make a person our purpose. We make a person

(23:56):
our obsession, as opposed to the environment and the space
and the energy, which you can control. You can control
the energy someone feels when they walk into your house, Yeah,
you can't control whether they want to rise to that
energy or whether they want to bring it down. You
can control the energy someone has in your workspace, but
you can't control whether they're going to subscribe to that

(24:18):
energy or unfollow. Like, you can't change that. And so
I think if you're spot on that, if we spend
more time curating energy that we emanate and that we
live by and the spaces that we walk into have,
then now we're leaving it up to everyone else.

Speaker 1 (24:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:35):
Right, you came in this morning and you were smiling
and you were happy. We gave each other a big
hug like it's been we've been having bubbly conversation, like reconnecting,
like we both decided to be on that energy now.
I wanted this place to be welcoming and inviting and
hopefully felt that it felt calm and there weren't too
many people and it wasn't stressful. But then you have
to also meet me there and bring your energy, and

(24:58):
then I have to meet you there. And so I
feel like people will constantly meet you where you're at,
or they'll force you to meet you where they're at,
and it's your choice to decide whether you want to
rise or fall. I want to dive into your journey
a little bit because it feels like you got introduced

(25:18):
to needing an emotional vocabulary very young in your life.
Like when I was reading your book, I was like,
this is someone who the good quote isn't a page
with good quotes, because just because you're a good writer,
it's because you've had to live that. It's lived experience
that is now coming out in the form of good quote.

(25:39):
And I often think about that with me too, and
I aligned with that that what I share today is
stuff that I've lived, it's experienced it's pain, it's stress,
it's overwhelmed. It's a role I've played for many years.
I always say I mediated my entire family's relationship and
dynamic for many, many years. So a lot of the
mediation I do today is because that's the role I've

(25:59):
always played. And so with you, I got the sense
that your emotional vocabulary grew very young in life. Yeah,
and then you felt like sharing it. I wanted to
ask you were talking about. Twenty eleven was Tumbler where
you started sharing wisdom. Twenty fourteen was when the good
Quote was taken out, When you started writing and sharing

(26:20):
these experiences, How scared or worried were you originally about
how they'd be seen? And how long did it take
you to even have the courage to like write and
put out your first post?

Speaker 1 (26:31):
Firstly, to dive deeper into the reasonings behind a good quote.
There are so many quote pages out there. The good
Quote does have the most followers because we started but
it wasn't a hustle. It wasn't something that I thought.
I didn't even think of money, you know. It was
a hobby and it was something that came from desperation,
lack of community. I was in a really dark place

(26:53):
and I couldn't find the community that I was looking for,
so I had no other option but to create it
myself on Tumbla. Tumblr is a beautiful platform. Oh my gosh.
I absolutely love it. It's just it doesn't have any
of the metrics that we fuss over on all the
other platforms. It's just it is what it is. You
don't care about the followers. You can put your whole
self on there and somebody is going to follow you

(27:15):
because they like you. That's what I think is amazing
about tumbler. It's just a blank page blog post. Someone's
going to read your blog, and if they like it
or if they resonate with it, that's a follower. That's
now one member of your community. So when I started Tumbler,
I was listening to Whiskalifa. He had a mixtape called
Cushion Orange Juice and there's a song on there, and

(27:37):
oh my gosh, every time I came on podcast, I
talk about it and I never get the name of
the song. It goes something like we Belong at the
Top or something like that. And I was in a
really bad place when I was listening to that. I
dropped out of UNI. My friends were making their lives,
and I was still very stark, and I listened to
the lyrics and it's very simple, you know, and I
just thought to myself, Yeah, actually, I'm going to make it.

(28:00):
I'm actually going to make it. Just gotta keep telling
myself that. Okay, wow, that's what that quote did for me.
That was my first initial feeling. I was like, yeah,
that's what the lyvic did for me. So I went
on to Tumblr and I tried to blog with word first.
I remember at the time, Vice was starting to really emerge,

(28:21):
and I joined a Vice blog in Network and I
had my own blog and nothing worked. And then I
got on Tumblr and I took a picture of Whiskalifa
and I put that livic that touched me on top
of that picture. I darkened it. I posted it with
some hashtags and I fell asleep, and the next day
I woke up to like twelve thousand followers and a

(28:41):
whole bunch of requests, and I was like, Okay, briskly
was really popular at the time, so I think I
kind of jumped on that. But the fact is, nobody
else was making picture quotes out of positive hip hop lyrics,
and then I never told any of my friends that
this blog was mine. I started seeing my friends display

(29:01):
pictures on BlackBerry, Messenger and Facebook change to my quotes,
and then I realized that there were people who were
going through things that would find a particular quote and
put it on their display picture. So now you know
they're in their emotions today, they're sad about this, and
it kind of made it easier to share how you're
feeling within without having to actually vocalize it. So for me,

(29:24):
Cushion Wisdom and Tumbler was just like, Wow, I didn't
know I can connect to this many people. I didn't
think people needed these quotes as much as I did,
But I have twelve thousand people that resonate with me now.
So three weeks in to launching Tumblr, I started a
clothing line called Cool storybo, which was a slogan back

(29:44):
in the day. And my mother was an accountant a
bookkeeper at the time, and she was making about forty
thousand a year, and I pulled in thirty six thousand
pounds in three weeks for just selling that clothing based
on that community, and I kept it very transparent. I'm
building this, I'm putting this for sale because I'm trying
to figure out what it is I'm doing with my creativity.

(30:07):
So I'm invested in myself. You can purchase if you want,
so many orders Jay, And it made me realize how
needed this platform is. People really need encouragement, you know,
people really need to be seen. And just as Chushian
Wisdom started to grow, and my mother got diagnosed with

(30:28):
breast cancer, so I took a year off and I
cared for her. And during that year, I think I
kind of lost the momentum of Christian wisdom. I met
my business partner in a Caribbean restaurant and he was like,
this is what you should be doing. We can do this,
we can do that. We move over to the good quote.

(30:49):
And on the good quote it was a bit different
because I instead of taking pictures that I didn't take
and other people's lyrics I didn't write, I had to
find writers. So I went on to Twitter and I
started looking for writers and I found a bunch new
up and coming writers, maybe five hundred followers, a thousand followers.
But I was reading through their timelines and I was like,

(31:09):
oh shit, this is really I like this. And the
demand on Instagram was much more than Tumblr. So I
went from posting a few times a day on Tumblr
to twenty four hours a day on Instagram. And I
was explaining this to other people. Anytime people ask me
about this story, I tell them I slept for fifty
minutes and then I would wake up quickly post because

(31:31):
there was no scheduling. There was no scheduling apps. I
was going mad. My mental health was declined the day.
But my followers. I gained a million followers in the months. Wow,
in my first months. We've never seen anything like that before.
And every celebrity at one stage was following us. We
had when I met you in La I actually messaged

(31:52):
Chloe Kardashian and she replied, you know, and so many people.
I actually had an I think the first person that
had been of us was a singer called Keerry Hilson.
I think we credit her incorrectly found out that it
wasn't even her quote. I mean, this is just between
me and you. But it was insane the impact that
it had. And I didn't have any confidence to post

(32:13):
my staff. I didn't because I cited myself up to
believe that I'm just a distributor. I'm not the talent.
I find the talent and I bring it to the
platform for the community. This isn't about me. And there
was one occasion where I did try to put my
face to it and I was hit with a lot
of racism. And it upset me because obviously this is
a community that I put my heart and soul into.

(32:35):
Why are they racist? Who is following me? That's racist?
So I stopped putting my face out there, and I
did that for ten years. I didn't gain to answer
your question. I didn't gain the confidence to put my
work out there until maybe about four or five years later.
You know that was from the encouragement of the writers
that I was sharing. You know, we would have really

(32:55):
deep conversations. I would post things on Twitter and they
would be like share this, share this. And it was
not until I really saw your growth that I thought
to myself, Okay, the good quote is really huge. I
could change my life at any moment. And then the
anxiety came in and the imposter syndrome came in, and
I just thought, you know what, I'm best to be

(33:16):
behind the scenes. Let me just work with great people,
let me meet great people, Let me use this as
an opportunity to network and I'll figure out myself later.
You know. I spoke in the book about premonitions. I
used to get a lot of premonitions as a kid.
It's one of the reasons why my mother went back
to church, because she left the church after she gave
birth to me. She was a part of a really
strict church. You know, you couldn't wear trousers, you could

(33:39):
not be pregnant if you were not married. So Mum left,
you know. But I kept seeing things, and I kept
getting really interest in dreams. And I remember from a
young age my mother would say to me, you know,
you have to get ready to like education is the
most important thing. And I said to her, not in
my life. I'm going to live my life when I'm thirty.
That's when life is coming from me. Because I kept

(34:00):
getting told that, whether it was in my dreams or
just something subconsciously, life will start for you in your
mid thirties. Everything leading up to that would be experienced.
And that's literally what has happened. So I allowed myself
to make loads of mistakes and try and tell and fail,
and I did a lot of that. On a good
quote with myself and it boosted me enough to make

(34:22):
me realize that I'm a good writer. You know, even
though I knew that I was kind of bred to
become a writer. My mother loved literature, so sharing my
work wasn't difficult after a while. But at first it
was so intense. The imposter syndrome was wild. You know,
some other writers would get one hundred thousand likes. I
would get fifty, and I'll be upset with that. It's
crazy because it's like, fifty thousand people is two two arenas.

(34:47):
If you ever stood in the two arena and you
look around, I think the capacity is twenty five thousand seats,
two of them full of people liked what I had
to say. But because this writer got one hundred k,
I don't feel I hate it that energy. It took
away from the creativity. It took away from my love.
It took away from the experience that I needed in

(35:07):
order to create that particular quote. So I posted myself
once or twice a week, and that's kind of the
habit that I've been doing over the over the years.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
What I find fascinating about that is you had the
courage to listen to your intuition like this premonition part
where you're saying everything before thirty five is experienced, and
then thirty five is when I start living. What I'm
fascinated by is how did you build that courage? Because
what I find is so similar for me where when
I was fourteen, I felt my inner voice got really loud,

(35:40):
and so I remember my parents really wanted me to
do math and science and all this stuff at a
GCSE and a level and obviously you have to do
at GCSE you don't get to choose, but then at
a level in the UK you get to choose, so
you're around for anyone who's listening in the US or
outside of the UK. When you're between sixteen to eighteen,
you get to choose three to four subjects that you

(36:01):
study at a levels. And I remember from fourteen, when
you're starting to think about this, my inner voice was
just like, do what you love, do what you're good at,
do what you love, do what you're good at, do
what you love, and that just kept repeating itself. But
I grew up in an environment where it was like
it was all about getting a good job, and it
was all about doing things that other people valued. And

(36:21):
you have a chapter in the book called we follow
other people's visions for our lives instead of our own,
and that's how we break our own hearts. In that
section of your book, and for me, I made a
pact with myself that I would never follow my parents
or anyone extended family's vision for my life. I would
only study subjects that were true to me. Now that

(36:42):
sounds like a really small decision, but it was the
beginning of a pattern of decisions that gave me the
confidence to always back myself. So I said to my parents,
I was like, I'm going to do art and design.
I'm going to do economics, I'm going to do sociology.
I'm going to do things that I find interesting. And
obviously to my parents who'd work so hard and immigrants

(37:03):
who'd really worked hard for me to have a good
education and everything, they're like, what you're going to do
with art and design? Like, how's that going to help?
And I was like, no, no, no, I just know it.
I just know it. And now I realized what I
was saying. I knew it is I knew it internally,
and since that day, every decision I made when I
decided to become a Monk. I knew internally that was

(37:23):
right for me. When I decided to leave, I knew
that was internally right for me. When I decided to
start creating stories and telling stories, I knew that was internal.
It wasn't ever someone something someone said to me, or
it wasn't like, oh this is a good strategy, or
it wasn't that. It was internally guided. And even till
this day, I find that when I abandoned that internal voice,

(37:46):
that's when I make mistakes. But when I listened closely
to that internal voice, that's when I make my best decisions.
But I find for a lot of people, when you've
ignored that voice for maybe five years, ten years, fifteen years,
it's so quiet now. But first, here's a quick word
from the brands that support the show. All right, thank

(38:06):
you to our sponsors. Now let's dive back in. So
two questions. The first is how have you always trusted
your inner voice? And two, if someone's lost connection with it,
how do they get it to become louder again.

Speaker 1 (38:20):
So my mother was born in a board house in Trinidad.
It's a house that consists of boardlike material on wooden stilts.
Very basic, you know, two bedrooms of living in the kitchen,
a lot of people in the house, so you had
to stand up for yourself in that house, even if
it came to dinner time, the best meat is being
taken by your great uncle or your cousin. You have

(38:41):
to stand up for yourself. Then you take that person
bring them to England, very similar environment, a lot more damaging.
You know, still have to stick up for yourself. My
mother didn't stick up for herself there, so then it
came to her raising me. Like I said before, all
of the mistakes that she made, all the things that
she saw or witness growing up in her house in
London with her family, she was not bringing that into

(39:04):
our house. So my house was full of so many
different affirmations. Every day was just like a particular prayer
I had to say. Then it was followed by a
list of affirmations that I would say to myself. From
four these were the things. I am smart, I am beautiful,
I can do anything I put my mind to every day.
And then that went from affirmations to my mother affirming

(39:26):
my creativity. So you know, when you're a kid and
you create images and your parents might put it on
the fridge, or they might put it on the wall.
My kitchen was my gallery, right, So I was raised
in an environment where it was just like anything that
I want to do creatively, creatively, I have the freedom
to do that. Communication was a huge thing with my

(39:47):
mother and myself. We barely watched TV. Was always books
or just lying in bed and talking. And my mother
would feed and entertain me through life stories of her own.
And it's quite common in the res andds tell stories,
you know, And I learn a lot of the importance
of standing up for yourself by watching my mum struggle

(40:07):
to do that with her family. And I would see
her face light up when she was telling me certain
stories of where she did have the confidence to do that,
and those were the things that encouraged me growing up. Again,
I used to have a lot of premonition, so I
was a bit nervous of what to express, and when
I started to speak about them with my mother, she
put me in touch with an elder who encouraged that, right,

(40:32):
and that's how come she ended up going back to church.
And that elder is mentioned in my book. A woman
called Millie. I love her to pieces, and she enforced
pride into me, pried for the way I think, because
I think out of the box, you know, pried for
so many different things. So again, as I was getting older,

(40:54):
I had a lot of elders abound me, people who
are not only older, but you expect someone who's fifty
sixty to know about themselves or know about the world.
So when these people are pouring into me, it's boosting
my confidence. And it just came to a point where
my mother and really started to encourage me to listen
to my intuition because there were certain things that I

(41:15):
just wouldn't do because something can tell it. Something inside
was telling me not to do it. And my mother
was like, Okay, well, it seems to be telling you
the right things, so honor it. And the best way
to honor that is to just listen. You have to
develop a relationship with it, right, So your intuition's funny
because it has to develop trust with you. You have
to develop trust of it, and it will test you

(41:36):
like when you were dating and courting your wife, you
guys subtly probably tested each other in certain things or
even just to see what this person's deep reaction is
to certain things. So, for example, my intuition would say,
don't walk straight onto the station today, take a left.
Take this left. It's quicker. I will take the left
and there's roadworks or there's somewhere on a pavement that

(41:57):
I can't and I'll be like, why the hell did
I to my fols? And every time I went against it,
even if it was wrong, I noticed the relationship was
just further in apart. So what I decided to do
was respond differently. I noticed that my intuition was testing
me and tricking me. So every time it was like,
don't eat that, eat this, and it would be horrible.
Don't do you know. I'm just trying to give some examples.

(42:20):
So what I started to do was say to myself,
I'm actually going to have to depend on you for
my life one day, and I'm listening to you, so
I need you to start giving me some proper instructions.
And it just developed after that, you know, And it
gets down to the point Jay where I it's almost
like I have two I listen to my intuition for everything.

(42:41):
Should I do this today? Yeah, let me do that
today because that's what I've been told within to do.
It's like I trust it with everything, and it's gotten
to the point where it's almost right all the time.
And I know that it's a good sense of energy
because it tells me not to do things that could
be harmful for me. So don't interact with that person,

(43:01):
don't drink that drink. Don't and you know, and I
feel like through more I encourage the relationship between me
and my intuition, the stronger it got, and so now
it's just something that I honor. It could be a
gut feeling, don't go down there, don't go to that
place tonight, I don't go something happened. And when that happens,
I just think to myself, Wow, this is really powerful,

(43:25):
you know. And it definitely got stronger with me through fasting.
Fasting is something that I love to do. I watched
my mother do it a lot with the church. I've
watched a lot of doctor Mindy's interviews and docu and
I've read her book. And you know, the power behind
Faster than Itself is just the negative voice in your

(43:46):
head disappears three days after you start a water fast.
So on your third day, the negative voice goes, I
do water fast all the time, right, I might not
look like it because I love food. But at the
same time, water fast is something that I go to
you anytime I feel unbalanced in order to re define

(44:06):
my inner voice. I do it through fasting. I strengthen
my relationship with my intuition through fasting. It's almost much
louder like kind of what you explained when you were fourteen.
These are practices that I do on a daily basis.
I pray, I meditate. I write down for things that
my subconscious tells me that I should be doing, Like

(44:26):
why don't you start a podcast doing this? I would
write it down. An elder once told me everything your
body give, everything, your intuition or your gart gives to you.
You're subconscious, you write it down, you acknowledge it, and
you say, I don't have the time to do that
right now, but I'm going to write that down. Thank you.
Because imagine if as you're subconscious, I'm your subconscious. I

(44:47):
keep giving you these great ideas and you keep ignoring me. Eventually,
one day I'm going to stop communicating with you, And
the day your subconscious stops communicating with you, it's over.
I genuinely believe that's what creative blocks are. I believe
that's what hindus are from doing so many things. You know,
you have to find the time to develop a relationship
within your life improves drastically when you do. Life is

(45:11):
like on ten on the Victor scale when you have
full harmony between these things compared to not being aware
of it. So for me, it's that every day investments
at every day devotion. You know, even today, as I
was saying, I was driving and I'm thinking, oh my gosh,
I'm running late, where am I going to park? And
something inside of me was just like, relax, I got you.

(45:31):
And there's a park right outside of this office, and
that's it. And I kind of knew as I was
driving on the road, I kind of knew I didn't
have to worry. And it happens all the time. And
people see that as nonchalant, or you might have like
a less urgent response to things, but living in the flow,

(45:52):
you end up at your destination less stressful, you know,
also with more intention. I love the relationship of my intuition.
It saved me when I was looking after my mother,
It saved me when I was stranded in the West Indies.
It saved me when I was writing my book, every
aspect of my life, my intuition is their guide in me.
I generally believe our intuition is is almost, if I

(46:15):
say it, an ancestor of some sort, somebody, somebody you know,
and it's just it just goes into the phenomenon of life, really,
isn't it? Like? What are these things? What is the
gut feeling? What is the subconscious? What is the intuition?
Why are these things conspiring together? What are they trying
to get me to do? They're trying to get you
to live the best life that you possibly can.

Speaker 2 (46:35):
Yeah, yeah, so well said. I mean so wonderful to
hear your experience with it, and I love hearing about
other people's experiences with that. The bugger Geta talks about
the soul and the super soul, and so were the
soul and the super soul is the all knowing, the
you know, the all powerful. And it's almost like when
the conversation starts between the soul and the super soul,

(46:56):
the soul gets all of this inner wisdom and knowledge
and now is able to make decisions. And I can
resonate with so much of what you're saying. But the
thing that I loved that. I think you put so well.
Was this idea of sometimes your intuition is testing whether
it can trust you. Yeah, and it may even misguide

(47:16):
you in little, little ways, not huge ways, and most
people give up there they got. I listened and it
was just stupid. I'm not listening again. And that's exactly
what you need to break through because that little test,
that mini understanding of creating a collaboration, like you said,
happens in friendship, happens in business, happens in romantic relationships.

(47:37):
You just checking, You're just checking are we on the
same page? Are we with each other? Because I'm going
to say something crazy one day and it's like are
you going to hear it? And I can relate to
so much of that because I feel the same way
as You're very clear energetically when I meet someone. Are
we're going to vibe? But we're going to connection? We
spend time there? Should we not? And it's so easy

(47:57):
to think, oh, I'm just mad I should have that,
and to have an elder that's.

Speaker 1 (48:01):
Where my intuition comes in the songs. Yeah, It's like
when I was a kid, I used to see orders
and I used to feel people before they spoke, and
now with my intuition, my relationship with my intuition, it's
almost like it protects me. So just off the bat,
I know, don't say too much to this person, you know,
or this person needs a little bit more of a

(48:24):
listening here, don't talk about yourself as much. These are
the things that I would feel inside. You know. Yeah,
I think it's amazing.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
So if someone's lost touch with it, like if someone's
listening right now and they're like, jee, Meghan, thanks a lot,
like you know, I wish I listened to at forty
or four and they're thinking, I'm just so disc I
never hear that at all, Like I don't feel anything.
I just don't know what to do enough. Because I
also find that we outsource it, right, Like I have
so many friends who will have like thirty people on

(48:51):
a chat and they'll be like, what do I do
in this situation? And then they'll go on their private
stories on Instagram and be like, guys, what do I
do in this situation? It's like we're constantly outsourcing advice,
so we don't find it weird to go to like
ten twenty thirty people who know us, but they don't
know us that well, but we find it scary to
sit in silence. And you talk about the power of
solitude in the book in the second section and this

(49:13):
ability to spend time with ourselves, but we don't usually
go there. So if someone's struggling and saying, yeah, Jay,
I'm that person. I'm the one texting all my mates.
I'm not constantly asking my family to make decisions for me,
constantly asking everyone's opinion, but it never works. How do
I start doing this? How would you guide them?

Speaker 1 (49:31):
The first thing I would say is to start removing
your distractions. Start removing the distractions, because the more we're distracted, obviously,
the less we are going in within And for me,
if I'm constantly distracted with TV, friends, work, when do
I actually get to spend time with myself. So the

(49:52):
best way that I spend time with myself is every morning,
before my day, before my day starts, as soon as
the sun rises, I go for a walk in my
local park, and or I might just go for a walk,
just walk straight for an hour, no headphones. No, I
do carry my phone for safety, but no headphones, nothing
and any thought that comes into my head I write
down any thought that comes into my head, I write down.

(50:15):
It could be Ah, this is shit, isn't it? Or
this is so long? Why am I going for this
walk this morning? I write that down and then I
ask it why, And I get used to communicating with myself. Everybody,
in my opinion, has something internal that communicates with them.
I only recently realized that not everybody has an internal dialogue,

(50:37):
which I found so strange because I definitely do. But
there is something within our guard that is there and
it's worth seeking because it could potentially be your best friend. So,
as I was saying, communicate with yourself, start asking yourself
the same questions that you would ask somebody else. If
you find that the voice in your head is you're

(51:00):
intuition is negative, you know, takes some time to really
why do I think like that? There's been so many
times I've gone for walks. I'm just like, today's a day.
I'm going to put myself out there. Today's dy I'm
gona put myself out there. I'm going to post this
video and then something would be like no, we're not.
I'd be like, okay, but why, and it will go
silent and I might walk for a little bit more

(51:21):
and I'd be like, no, why am I not doing that?
And it'll be silent and I'll be like, okay, but
why do I think I'm not doing that? It's because
and before you know it, I'm coming up with my
own answers. The more you do that, you're going to
get some sort of response one day, you know, energetically
from your stomach or whatever it is that you feel
that sensation and it's going to give you the answers

(51:42):
that you didn't even know was there. Jay, the amount
of times I've done that, and sometimes I baffle myself
with what it is my self conscious gives back.

Speaker 2 (51:50):
To yes, yes, I agree.

Speaker 1 (51:52):
It's like wow, is that that's really sad? Or oh
my gosh, that's cool. I didn't know I thought of
that of myself.

Speaker 2 (51:58):
You know.

Speaker 1 (51:59):
But as you were saying before, these things need nurturing, nourishit.
If you want to have a healthy body, you're going
to fit it with the best foods. You're going to
make sure you're moving, You're going to make sure your
mind is right. With the mind, how do you have
a healthy mind? Obviously there's professionals and stuff that you
would go to, but the holistic ways. Definitely journaling, writing, exercising, fasting.

(52:21):
Those are the first four things I would say to
anybody who says they don't have a relationship. You're going
to hear that voice as loud as hell when you
are two days in through and water fast. That voice
is going to be loud and you're going to have
no other option but to communicate with it. So put
yourself to a challenge if you want to find it.
It's there, it's been hidden because it hasn't been communicated with.

(52:43):
If you have this urge to write, you have this
urge to draw, but you're playing games instead, or you're
watching this. Eventually, like we said that, it's going to
fade away so it doesn't exist anymore. It's your responsibility
to go and seek it. So you actively have to
do things by yourself that are going to cause you
to end up speaking to yourself internally or outwardly. I
don't mind and communicate with that. That's my honest opinion.

(53:06):
That's what works for me for sure. Any time I'm
feeling disconnected, I go for a walk, I write down
what my feelings are, and I always come back feeling lighter,
with some sort of answer. Whatever answer I get, I
might google it, put it in chact me to you,
or might go back to my therapy notes, or even
call a friend and be like, this is what's happening,
you know, and then it gives me something to work on.

(53:28):
Then I will look online. Okay, I'm feeling sad about this,
all these podcasts will come up. Let me start listening
to other people's experiences. Okay, all the things that they've mentioned.
How do I bring that back into my life? How
do I use their practices to gain a deeper relationship
with myself? People think that self love and all of
these things is just surface. It's a lot of dedication

(53:49):
and devotion to oneself, and you've really got to believe
that you're worth it. It starts from there. It starts
from your intention. What are you intentionally trying to receive
from your inner self as to why you want to
have these conversations? And then you were build up on that.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
Yeah, so true. Most of us, I feel like only
having a conversation with fear. Yeah, we're not really having
a conversation with any other part of ourselves or anxiety. Yeah, exactly,
so in a voice, we think in a voice is
fear or anxiety. But what we're referring to is something
deeper than that, and something so much more you than that.

(54:24):
And that's why I think we're scared of having that
time out, that internal dialogue, the solitude, because all we
hear in that time is fear and anxiety. And like
you said, with the fast thing, it's the same. It's
true for fear and anxiety and meditation. I remember the
first time I sat down to meditate for two hours,
my whole body was rejecting it and there was just

(54:47):
fear and anxiety. Am I doing this right? This is
are uncomfortable? I hate this. This is the worst. And
then after you get through that first two hours, four hours,
six hours, eight hours, it starts to go quiet to
just naturally yeah, and you go, oh, now now there's
space to actually listen. And I think so many of
us give up just before that. Yeah. So I love
that you used fasting as an example, and.

Speaker 1 (55:08):
I definitely struggle with meditation. That's why I find a
lot more power and fasting. Yeah, I find it quicker
and more intense. I can't switch off my thoughts of meditation. Well,
I couldn't until I had to practice and I did
exactly what you just said. I had to get through
those loud moments and just tell my brain, tell myself,
we're not moving until everyone is quiet, you know. And

(55:30):
then again, what is it that I'm saying, write it
down or store it. But meditation, I find it was
more of a physical experience. I don't know if you
ever feel like a buzzy feel the circumference of your body,
That to me is a completely different level. I'm very
basic in meditating. I've really just started to pick it

(55:51):
up properly, and I do about ten to fifteen minutes
a day in the morning, and it accepts my day
because any fears I have for that day able to
just calmly go through it. Breathing help so much. You know,
when you're having anxiety and your thoughts are racing and
you just deep breathe for about six or seven times
and you can actually feel the pressure coming down. Yeah.

(56:15):
I think breath work, meditation fast and these are all
really great practices.

Speaker 2 (56:19):
Yeah, and you talk about them in the book and
some of your tools. Before we dive into the next moment,
let's hear from our sponsors and back to our episode.
We're talking about fears, Megan, I wanted to end on
this because I wanted to talk about it with you.
This idea of we learn about how much you love
your mum in the book, even today, in this conversation,
you learn about what a pivotal role she's played, like

(56:41):
introducing you to elders, like the affirmations, giving you the
gift of learning forgiveness at a time in your life,
like so many things, but walk us through the healing
of that process, like what are all the things that
are going on inside when you're in the process of
losing the person you love most in the world.

Speaker 1 (57:03):
It wasn't just my mother I lost. So I lost
my mother in twenty twenty one in March. I started
to lose people around August twenty twenty well, I lost
sixteen people to COVID. Right, I lost sixteen people to COVID,
and I lost three friends, one to cocaine, one to murder,

(57:25):
and one to illness. I lost both my parents. My
mother passed in March, my dad passed in August, and
then I lost an uncle later on that year. So
that all happened in the space of twenty twenty to
twenty twenty one. So it wasn't just losing my mom,
never met my dad, never knew my dad, not interested.

(57:48):
It was actually losing my entire community. All my elders
weren't Millie's actually the only elder I have left, and
it was very important for me to get her name
in print and share her story as well as my mom.
The journey of my mother's transition started in July twenty
twenty when she got diagnosed with stage four cancer. And
at that moment, Jay I was in the position of

(58:09):
putting my faith in my brand, like actually doing it,
sat down with my business partner, like, this is what
we're doing. I'm ready, you know, And that happened and
I thought, oh my gosh, this is happening again. This
happened with tumbling out. Okay, well maybe it's not time,
you know. So I just saw that as a huge
step back for me to take because this is more

(58:32):
important and this is where my life is heading towards.
I then had to become a carer, and there were
many times I had to parent my mom immediately as
she got diagnosed. I then had to put my feelings
aside and comfort her and then become very optimistic for

(58:54):
our journey moving forward. And it was heartbreaking because all
while that was happening, I was what, you know, the
energy deplete from somebody who's being told that in a
couple of years time they might not be here. Then
I'm thinking, okay, wow, in a couple of my mom's
going to die. And in my thirties, I thought she was.
I thought I had a pact with God that Mummy's

(59:16):
not going until she's a hundred, you know, like, what
are we doing? What are we talking about? Okay, so
stage four cancer, these are all the things that was
in my head. Okay, let me research them, and I'm
seeing there's not many. There's there's it's terminal, you know,
and that's literally what the doctor told my mother. So
it was it was really hard. I knew that I

(59:37):
didn't have time to be defressed, you know, because depression
is the first thing that comes to me when emotions
are too heavy. I just I stop, I pause, I
bed what And you know, I didn't have time for
that because I have to go back to caring now.
Every night I would clib myself to sleep and then
I would watch some people on TikTok who talk about grief.
There's a lady who talks about working in a hospice,

(59:59):
and I just really, okay, I'm being called to help
my mother transition, so I actually need to put myself second.
And I did the entire time. It's hard operating of
a broken heart. It's hard watching the person that you
love crumble and lose their power, eventually losing their life.

(01:00:21):
You lose yourself. The moment my mother took her last breath,
I also took my last breath, and I felt, you
see that same feeling that I spoke about in the
beginning of the book, with the heartbreak. I felt something
leave me. I felt so cold and hollow. That's the
best way. Everything within me that was fun and brought

(01:00:45):
lights and the things that everybody loved it went. My
entire essence left with my mother. It's only till I
got older along the last couple of years I've realized
actually I just evolved, and the best inheritance I received
was my mother's love, her and her essence. But that
feeling was awful. I didn't want to be here, went

(01:01:08):
through so many different things, so many different emotions. You know,
my mother got ill just as COVID started to happen,
and it got really cold, and she was like, I
want to go home, and home for us is Trinidad,
but Trinidad's borders were closed, so I ended up going
to Saint Lucia and it was just supposed to be
a quick break and maybe a month or so, you know,

(01:01:30):
And it was crazy because COVID out there was so
different to the UK, like you can still go to
the beach, you can still do things. So my mum
was she was really happy. You know, it's hot, sunshine,
you can eat the best foods, you know. It was.
We had her on a really holistic whole foods dye
and all of the stuff came from Saint Lucia's was

(01:01:51):
just literally eating from the ground. And at one stage
I thought she was getting better, and then her health
just plummeted. And next thing you know, I'm in Saint
Lucia for six months and my mother passes away and
I then had to Okay, she wants to be buried
in Trinidad. What do I do now? So my grandfather

(01:02:12):
sent me ten thousand pounds and all the planes were stationary,
all the airports were closed. I had to spend about
two weeks begging the Ministry in Trinidad to let me in,
and when I was able to send them all of
my mum's documentations she was a national, they brought her
home and they were at one stage they were like,
we can't bring you into the country because you're not
a national. And I was just like, Okay, well, I'm

(01:02:34):
going to go on the good quote and talk about this.
And literally the next day I woke up to access
into Trinidad, put my mother on this private plane that
my grandfather played for got over to Trinidad, had to quarantine,
didn't bury her until a month later. Family switched up
on me by myself in a foreign country. Trinidad is

(01:02:57):
not an easy pace to be on the rest of days.
I love Trinidad. I love it. I was raised to
love Trinidad. It's part of it's meat.

Speaker 2 (01:03:05):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:03:06):
Been going to Trinidad since I was seven years old,
so I kind of know the area. No when you're
there by yourself, no family, no money, your mother's in
a morgue, you know. I had a breakdown. I completely
broke down to the point where I think I landed
in Saint Lucia maybe one hundred and ten kg. Because
I was when I'm stressed, as you can see, just

(01:03:28):
finished righting the book. But when I'm stressed, I put
on a lot of weight. I left and landed in
Trinidad's seventy four kg. I lost so much weight due
to stress. It depleted me completely. But I did it
all with honor because I was my best friend. She
was scared and I was scared, and I needed to
ensure that she had everything that she needed because at

(01:03:49):
one stage that's what she did for me. You know,
I slept in the hospital the entire time. I actually
got all the nurses to sign off their responsibilities. I
washed my mum, I fed her, I creamed her, helped
her move, I changed her bed. I did everything because
for me, it was the last time I was ever
going to be able to do it. So I had
all this energy to do it. And honor is such
a big thing for me, and so is loyalty. And

(01:04:10):
because of my mother's story and the amount of sacrifices
she made for me, it was important for me to
reciprocate in the only way that I knew how at
the time, which was to ensure that she had a
peaceful transition. And it was so hard, you know, I
slept in the same bed as my mum for the
entire time for a year and a half. I've got
so many recordings of her. We have our own podcast

(01:04:31):
that I can go to. There's certain things I asked her,
like when I get married and I want to run away,
you know, what advice would you give me? And she
gave me all these advices. When I become a mother,
what advice would you give me? And we had these
really beautiful conversations. I've got all of it recorded. She
even recorded me a birthday message so that every year
for my birthday, I wake up and I play it

(01:04:52):
because it's just significant for any year. It's not specific,
you know. And so we prepared and we I did
as much as we could. And that's why I don't
have any regrets with losing my mother or well, I
don't have any regrets of how it all panned out.
But I lost myself completely, and I think, to be
honest with you, I really only got it back recently,

(01:05:14):
and I got it back through the process of writing
this book because it gave me something to do. I
got really low, I got really strong dependency on marijuana.
I became very suicidal, made various attempts. I was by
myself for a long time in Trinidad. I started off
in the hoods and I met some really great people

(01:05:37):
in some of the areas where you know, rumors and
the government and just culture would tell you that you
shouldn't be I met some of the kindest people there,
and these people elevated me enough to believe, or to
generate self belief that I'm Meghan. I built something really great,
I have a great story to tell and I can
actually still try again. And I started off in the

(01:05:58):
hood in Trinidad and ended up in one of the
best places in a villa that cost me four and
a half grand a month. Because I started to do podcasts,
I started to start again. You know, I was filming people,
I was interviewing people, I was traveling the island. I
was trying to find who Megan was without Janet, without
my mum, and I'm still trying to find that. It's

(01:06:19):
really hard. It's really hard. She wasn't just my mother.
She was my best friend, my sister, my homie, you know,
the person I would talk to about everything that's gone.
And then not only that, but all of the people
that raised her they're gone too. I lost my great aunt,
you know, I lost great uncles, I lost cousins. I
lost a lot of people, and all I really have

(01:06:41):
now is just their memory, what's up, conversations, voice notes
and their essence, and that is what I use now
to drive me. You know. There were times I still
live in my mother's house. When I took her to
Saint Lucia, stayed in Trinidad for a year. When I
got back, I had an apartment in Docklands, a penthouse,
and I remember my mum came to see it with

(01:07:03):
me and she was like, I can't believe this is you.
Because she started off in the board house, her daughter's
twenty four floors up, you know, own business. It was
starting to happen for me.

Speaker 2 (01:07:14):
You know.

Speaker 1 (01:07:15):
Now I'm back at home, back in Watford, you know,
in my mum's place, and it's humbling. It's hard. The memories.
When people say, oh, I have to leave this environment,
there's too many memories. I never understood what that meant.
It means that when you're in bed and somebody's walking
in your hallway, you get a quick oh that's not no,

(01:07:37):
it's not it's just your friend or if like I
don't know, you're cooking and you sit in the living
room while your food's cooking, and you can smell the
food and it reminds you of when your mum used
to cook on Sundays. There's memories everywhere. So my main
intention now is to try and do as much work
as I can to leave. But the entire journey of
losing your parents up until now, you lose yourself. You

(01:07:59):
have to rebuild your you have to parent yourself, you
have to love yourself. You have to give yourself a
reason as to why you're being alight, why you're here,
why you're going to even work towards anything. Releasing this
book was the hardest thing I've ever had to do
since my mom passed away, because it was one of
my biggest accomplishments and my cheerleader wasn't there, so you
learn how to be your own cheerleader. It's a complete

(01:08:20):
reset and it has been the worst journey that I've
ever encountered, but also the best I met, the love
of my life. I've been able to filter through my circle.
So with the boundaries that I put in place, there
were people I was able to get rid of asap
because it wasn't good for me. Like everything that I'm
doing now is for the benefit and the safety of myself,

(01:08:42):
and I would have never gotten to this point if
none of this stuff happened, you know. So I'm just
learning that my mother was just a little girl who
tried her best, and she left behind some really great
lessons that I'm taking forth with me. Now. I look
exactly like her, so it's really hard not to, you know,

(01:09:02):
have that energy where I'm still somebody. Still, I'm still
responsible for how it is I portray myself. I'm still
somebody's responsibility. I still belong to somebody. So these are
all the things that you know, I had to learn
along the way. It is a journey that I don't
think everybody is prepared for. I don't think there's any

(01:09:25):
way you can prepare to lose your parents. I don't
think three weeks is enough time for you for work
to give you time off for you to mourn. And
I don't think people understand how much it actually takes
you lose everything. You lose everything. I've never lost a sibling,
and I don't have a child yet, so I wouldn't
know what it's like to lose a child. I hope

(01:09:45):
I never do. But I don't think there's anything is
painful as losing your mother. If I'm being honest with you,
you don't know you're left to your right. You don't
know you have to start all over again. And then
you have to parent yourself. So when you're having a
bad day, you got figure out how to You've got
to figure out how to calm yourself down, how to
encourage yourself, how to celebrate yourself. These are all things

(01:10:07):
I'm learning how to do by myself. Never had to
do that thirty two years. I never had to do
that last two years. That's what I'm now having to
do in order to give me some sort of peace
and happiness. I don't think anything prepares you to lose
a parent. And this is why I talk about it
so much, because I keep saying to people, if you've
got good relationships of your family, start recording content. If

(01:10:33):
your parent is about to pass away because they're dying
from a disease, record content because there are random days
where I just want to hear my mum's voice and
I can have a list of videos and I could
hear her laugh and joke about things, and it's almost
like she's still here. If you are listening to this
and you are dealing with a parent who is passing away,

(01:10:54):
preserve as much of the memories you can because that's
the only thing that keeps you going. I didn't have that, Jay,
I don't know, I wouldn't be here, that's for damn sure.
So it's the most life change in transformational experience you
would ever have, and it really does show you who
you are and your life can either become something great

(01:11:14):
or you can fall and never get back up again.
And I've been straddling both, you know, and the depression
that hits after you lose your parent. There's an aimless,
hollow feeling in your entire life and it doesn't matter
what or who comes into it again with the people
pleasing it doesn't matter. You're not going to take that

(01:11:36):
from me. I have to do something with it. And
my therapist always said, you know, the relationship that you
had with your mother would make it ten times harder
to deal with the grief because you were very close.
And I love that. I love the fact that I
was loved and I loved something so powerful enough that

(01:11:56):
without it, my life is shit, and I love the
fact that with the essence of that love, I'm reminded
as to why I need to make a better life
for myself. I think that is the best lesson I've
gotten out all of this. My mother would be telling everybody,
even down to the man at the newsagents, that I

(01:12:17):
have a book, you know, So it's for me to
start doing that now. You know, I used to see
her leave the house all the time. Anytime she got
changed from a ten pound note or five pound note,
she'll put it in her pocket, and any time there
was someone who needed it, she'll give it to them.
There were so many people within our community and what
for that knew my mother. I get discount at so
many different stores because of her up to this day.

(01:12:38):
So I want to be that person.

Speaker 2 (01:12:40):
Now.

Speaker 1 (01:12:40):
I'm really trying to like get rid of this sadness
so I can spread more light because my plan now
with the good quote is like ten times more intentional
now because at first it was something that I needed
and needed the community, but now it's something that I
want for others to be able to have that same
feeling of life security that I had when I was

(01:13:02):
building it. Because you know, when you're losing a parent.
Every time I speak about my mother online, I get
a wave of DMS from people telling me like, this
speaks to me, this is how I felt, and Jay,
It's something that almost everybody is starting to experience because millennials,
we're getting old, our parents are getting old, and there

(01:13:22):
just needs to be a lot more transparency and openness
around the topic of death and grieving. It's not taboo.
It's every day we deal with it. But it's hell
on earth and I'm trying to do everything I can
in my power to not make it that way. But
some days take over, and when they do, I give
myself the grace to, like just from having a bad

(01:13:45):
day when it comes to grief. I'll let everyone around
me know and then I'll just switch off because I
can't I can't function. And then there are other days
where I'm just like, oh my gosh, this is amazing.
I'm happy to be alive. It's like this, but it's
not as heavy as it was three years ago. I
have a great therapist, a man called Michael Adams. He

(01:14:06):
is somebody who's been working with me for the last
two and a half years now, and I had intense
therapy two hours twice a week, and now I only
do one hour a week. We've gone through it all.
I've got so many notes that I'm writing for my
next book when it comes to grief, But I can't
stress how hard it is to lose your mother. If

(01:14:30):
you have a love and relationship, it's going to be
ten times harder. If you're distant, you most likely might
have a lot of regret. I didn't have any regret.
I didn't have any when my mother passed away. I
knew exactly what was happening. She was transitioning. You know,
there's a whole, a whole story about that in itself
that will always have to talk about another time. But

(01:14:51):
you see the glory of God when somebody's passing away.
You see the impact of the different realms. You know
that we're in riven this realm right now, but there's
a spiritual realm. There's all types of different realms that
open up when somebody is transitioning. It is probably one
of the most beautiful journeys you would ever see. And
you start to think to yourself, when we became babies,

(01:15:12):
what were they doing on the other side. Were they
giving us some sort of celebrationary leaving Doo for us
to come to earth, because when you're transitioning, it's important
that people celebrate rather than more so I learned that
as well. You know, I mourned three days after my
mother passed away because I knew the fragility of her spirit.
She's just become a spirit, so she's probably going to

(01:15:34):
be just as scared as me. I don't need her
to come back and see me screaming and crying down
the place. I need her to see that I'm functioning
fine after three days. Some people believe that the spirit
then passes on and that's when you could do all
of your morning, and that's what I did, And I
just started to listen to the elders and start to
incorporate more traditional practices, you know that come from the

(01:15:56):
West Indies or within Trinidad or things that I've been
raised to and that's kind of what's been helping me
that during that time. But when you do lose a pairent,
you need community more than anything, because you're not even
going to be able to make yourself a drink. You're
not going to eat, You're not you're not going to
bathe you're not going to do anything, You're just going
to be very stark, and so it's really important that

(01:16:20):
we invest wholeheartedly into the relationships that we have because
those are the only things that are going to sustain
you when you go through the hardest times of your life.
For sure.

Speaker 2 (01:16:32):
Megan, thank you for being so vulnerable, so open. Thank
you for pouring your heart into this book. I'm hoping
that everyone's been listening and watching as moved as I am.
And genuinely, if you pick up a copy of How
to Stop Breaking Your Heart, I feel that you'll be
able to walk through life with grace. You'll be able
to deal with the discomfort that comes along your way,

(01:16:55):
and you'll be able to find your way even when
it feels completely foggy, fuzzy and uncertain about your future.
I want to give a big theck thanks to Megan
for putting yourself out there, for having the courage and
the bravery for taking that step. I know how that
was for you, and I really believe that you doing
that is going to help so many people. So thank

(01:17:16):
you so much for coming on and sharing your story today.
Thank you to your story, and I want everyone to
read the book to find the rest of it and
how it all connects.

Speaker 1 (01:17:24):
Thank you, Sam, thanks so much, and also thank you
for adapting your outfit with the kind of my.

Speaker 2 (01:17:30):
Appreciate I was like, yeah, I have to thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:17:35):
Glad you noticed. I saw that when I came in
and I thought, Okay, I see you.

Speaker 2 (01:17:39):
I appreciate you. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:17:40):
No, thank you Jay. Thank you sharing your community and
your platform with me. I appreciate that. And thank you
for such a beautiful conversation. Thank you, Thank you beautiful.

Speaker 2 (01:17:48):
If you love this episode, you'll love my interview with
Dr Gabor Matte on understanding your trauma and how to
heal emotional wounds. To start moving on from the part
everything in nature grows only where it's vulnerable.

Speaker 1 (01:18:02):
So a tree doesn't grow where it's hard and thick,
does it. It goes where it's soft and green and
vulnerable

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Jay Shetty

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