[00:00:00] Marie: Hello and welcome to another episode of This Complex Life. Today, we are keeping up with our series on men’s mental health for Men’s Health Month. And I have with me Tim, uh, also known as Dr. Happy. So Tim, can you share with the audience a little bit about Your background, who you are, and how you got the nickname Dr.

[00:00:18] Marie: Happy. 

[00:00:20] Tim: Firstly, thanks for having me, uh, great to be here. I’ll give you the short, and then if you want me to elaborate on it, we can go back and go into a bit more detail. The simple answer is my background, my early professional background, was as a clinical academic. So I, I studied, I did my clinical master’s degree and became a therapist, then did a PhD, um, and I guess was known as a clinical academic.

[00:00:39] Tim: So I was a therapist, lecturer, and researcher for the first sort of, I’m part of my career, which is wonderful. Um, that was my, at that stage, that was my dream. And I was living the dream job in a fantastic team and a fantastic unit doing really fulfilling, satisfying work, but then had a bit of, I guess, an epiphany for, and for a range of reasons surprised everyone, including myself and left this dream job.

[00:01:01] Tim: And went into private practice, which is not something I’d ever really considered. Well, not something I considered at all up until that stem. And I didn’t really think it was going to become a permanent move. I thought it was going to be a sort of a way point. Maybe one thing led to another, and that then became a very successful private practice grew into, I was employing 40 had multiple offices.

[00:01:21] Tim: So what went from a quite a successful clinical academic career became quite a successful entrepreneurial private practice career. And then I had another epiphany where I realized. I didn’t actually really want to be a businessman running a big, which has sort of happened accidentally and I was spending all of my time, you know, running the business and not really doing what, what I enjoy doing.

[00:01:39] Tim: And around that time, coming back to part of your question with a very early seeds, I suppose, of, of what came to be known as positive psychology. So I got really excited about this and started to shift my attention away from more traditional clinical psychology to positive psychology. And, and that’s when I established the Happiness Institute.

[00:01:55] Tim: And along the way it was given the nickname, I suppose, by a friend and colleague, Dr. Happy, which I didn’t really take seriously to begin with. In fact, I was quite resistant for quite a while. I didn’t really think anyone would take me seriously and I didn’t really take it that serious, but I did actually realize he sort of kept joking with me about it.

[00:02:11] Tim: We both sort of quite quickly that. That, you know, it was an attention grabber. It was a conversation starter. And so, although reluctantly initially, I started to more actively use it as a way to start conversations and I suppose to get people involved. Attention for the topic and issues that I thought were important.

[00:02:27] Tim: And so that was the, that was the next stage of my career was, was the happiness since you promoted the principles of positive psychology and focusing mainly on happiness in the workplace, positive culture, et cetera. And along the way came some writing and PR and media work. And I guess that’s a simple or short version of sort of how I’ve got to where I am today, I suppose.

[00:02:44] Tim: What’s one 

[00:02:45] Marie: thing we get wrong about happiness? 

[00:02:47] Tim: Oh, there’s lots of things and that’s actually, and it’s a really good question because I spend like I talk a lot about happiness and write a lot about happiness, but I also spend, I spent a lot of that time busting myths and misconceptions. So I might sort of, I guess I’ll focus on some of the, the big ones, the more common ones, and probably the most common one is, uh, or there’s a couple of ones, I suppose.

[00:03:05] Tim: One of the, one of the more common ones is that happiness is just something that should come to us or something that should come easily to us. Now, there are some people out there and I’m sure some of you are listening. Wake up in the morning and find happiness comes easily. You know, there are some people that are just kind of born naturally, more predisposed to optimism and gratitude and happiness.

[00:03:22] Tim: And, and look, if you’re, you know, if you’re one of those people, good luck to you. It’s a fantastic thing to be, but for many of us, it doesn’t necessarily come naturally or for many of us, it can be quite difficult, I suppose. Uh, but the good news is we, you know, we can work on these things. There are skills that we can learn and skills that we can master.

[00:03:39] Tim: And if we do these things, Just like we can build a physical strength by going to the gym. I suppose we can also build our psychological strength and be happy. So, so that’s one of the myths I suppose is that it’s just something that should just happen. Whereas the reality is for many of us, we’ve got to work at it.

[00:03:53] Tim: One of the other really common myths is that we can or should be happy all the time. And that’s plainly absurd. [00:04:00] Uh, for me, it’s really not true. The reality is that happiness will come and go, just like other emotions will come and go, life will throw curveballs at us, there’ll be ups and downs, failings and fallings and stumbles and, and, and that’s all part of it.

[00:04:14] Tim: And I suppose that’s a big part of my new book, I suppose, about lost and found that, you know, we, we need to accept those imperfections, those failures, those. Uh, mistakes that we’re all going to make at times, and we need to accept that along with that will come, you know, stress, anxiety, worry, anger, frustration, sadness, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:04:32] Tim: So they’re probably two of the bigger myths. There are lots of other ones within there as well, but, uh, maybe I’ll leave it at that for now, unless you want to go into more detail. 

[00:04:39] Marie: When we think about men’s mental health in particular, how does this idea of maybe being happy all the time work against stress?

[00:04:47] Marie: Men in particular. I mean, it’s, it’s probably a bit of both, all gender, um, I guess would be impacted by this. But I think there are some either cultural differences, uh, in particular for men that might make this have a different impact. This idea of having to be happy all the time or, uh, being expected to, does that, how does that, how do you see that play out either in your academic work or clinical work?

[00:05:07] Tim: And a really interesting one, again, I mean, the, the big issue of whether we should be happy all the time or even what happiness means. Will affect everyone, regardless of gender to some extent, um, uh, because even, you know, whether it’s men, women or whatever, I mean, happiness will mean different things for different people will look different for different people.

[00:05:23] Tim: So your, your version of happiness may well be probably will be different to mine, um, as it should be, you know, you’re a different person with different background and different aspirations. So at an individual level, we all need to, I suppose, define our own happiness. What does happiness mean for us? And then work.

[00:05:38] Tim: Towards creating that as best we can, but to come back to your question, which is a great one, really, because there are some or there are some cultural differences, and there are some gender differences. And maybe just to go off on a slight tangent for now, there are, you know, there’s a lot of debate at the moment about how depression, for example, Um, represents or looks or, um, you know, can present differently for men than women.

[00:06:02] Tim: And in fact, a lot of the criteria we use in traditional clinical settings to define or diagnose depression do tend to be more the sorts of things that, um, the people who identified as female might present with. And what some people are arguing is that for, and I’m. I’m, I’m always a little bit reluctant to discuss it because by definition we’re overgeneralizing here.

[00:06:21] Tim: But if we just accept that caveat, what we do often say is that for men, depression can look quite different and it can present more in terms of anger or aggression, or it can present more in other ways, even withdrawal. So yeah, we do need to be aware of that or anyone that works in this area does need to be conscious of the fact that, you know, depression can look very different for different as can the other emotions as well.

[00:06:41] Marie: Yeah, it’s definitely something I noticed in particular, working with young, young people younger men, um, and working in schools, that the response would be different if you saw someone presenting with symptoms of depression from that really sad kind of maybe teary or sort of more a different emotional expression.

[00:06:56] Marie: But whereas boys, if they were irritable or cranky, it was seen as, as aggressive or something to be punitive and punished. So the response they got at a time of need was actually very different as well. 

[00:07:08] Tim: Yeah, sure. Again, again, if when you talk about this, I guess the classic symptoms of depression or sadness of teariness and, um, you know, they’re typically more associated with, um, sort of feminine responses, I suppose, or female rightly.

[00:07:21] Tim: So we do need to be worried, you know, looking out for other related type responses that young men or older men for that matter might be, you know, might engage in if they’re experiencing depression. And I suppose to come back to the other part of the question, the same can be said for happiness. You know, they’re a typical.

[00:07:35] Tim: Uh, versions of happiness that might be more associated as being, or might be more seen as being sort of female versus men. And, um, you know, and, and again, I think it all comes back to understanding what does it really mean for me as an individual? What does my happiness look like? And look, none of them are right or wrong necessarily, but ultimately we all need to find our own healthy version that works for us.

[00:07:56] Marie: Is there. This [00:08:00] idea of having to be happy or striving to be happy, do you ever see it have an impact on how people respond to their friends levels of distress? Maybe they comment saying, you should just whatever, or think of the positive, like. Do you ever notice that perhaps, for some people, it dismisses more difficult experiences or emotions under this sort of like, well, just don’t think about it, just be happy, or be grateful for what you’ve got?

[00:08:27] Tim: Oh, for sure. You know, there’s, I suppose that, that touches on or relates to a concept. I’m sure you’re familiar with them. Maybe some of the listeners are familiar with called toxic positivity. I suppose the sort of unrelenting excessive or unrealistic versions of positivity, which, which we know around, you know, that can be quite dangerous and damaged for ourselves.

[00:08:44] Tim: But also as you’ve hinted at, if we respond to other people in a, in a way that might be dismissive. So let me go back. I mean, there’s absolutely no doubt that healthy versions of positivity or happiness are good for us. You know, happiness isn’t just feeling good, It’s also about people who are genuinely happy, do more good, they’re more altruistic, they’re more generous, they’re more successful in the workplace, but it’s also good for our health and well being.

[00:09:08] Tim: So if we’re psychologically healthy, we tend to be more physically healthy, it’s good for our relationships. So genuine, authentic versions of happiness and positivity are genuinely good for us. But what you hinted at in your question, those sort of toxic or unrealistic versions, are not necessarily, and they’re not good for us.

[00:09:24] Tim: So, you know, if I tell myself I should be positive all the time, well, that’s not going to recognize or appreciate the times when I’m not. And in fact, I’m just going to then be more upset with myself. So, for example, if I’m, you know, if I’m having a bad day, which I do, obviously, if I’m feeling upset, if I then put another layer on top of that saying, well, you’re an idiot, you’re hopeless, you’re stupid for not being happy, that just adds more and more layers of distress on top of the original problem to begin with.

[00:09:47] Tim: And we can do that to other people as well. So, yeah. If you were having a bad day and I said, you know, just, just pull up your socks, just get on with it. Just brighten up. That’s, that’s really not recognizing the experience that you’re, you know, you’re having the emotional experience that you’re going through at the moment.

[00:10:01] Tim: And that, that dismissiveness can be quite insulting. It can be quite offensive. It can be quite, Unhelpful. Um, one of the positive solutions to that and one of the, I have a love hate relationship with social media in this area, I suppose, but there are, you know, there’s a lot of good things. One of the good things is the sort of the hashtag I suppose we’ve seen in recent years called it’s okay not to be okay.

[00:10:20] Tim: And the reason I sort of. Don’t always like those things is that they, by definition, oversimplify and, and, you know, that is an oversimplification, but it’s a bloody good one. It’s a, so that’s one of the better ones, I think, because it’s such a simple, but important message. Of course, it’s okay not to be okay.

[00:10:34] Tim: And we need to sometimes say that to our friends and colleagues and loved ones and family members, you know, you don’t need to brighten up all the time. You don’t need to chirp up and pull it. It’s okay not to be okay. It’s okay to be sad or angry or whatever you’re going through, but we obviously don’t want that to be overwhelming.

[00:10:48] Tim: So, you know, yes, it’s okay to be okay. We need to accept that. But look, as soon as possible, you know, let’s try to do something about this. Let’s try to move on. I suppose that’s, you know, I’m sure you’re familiar with, and the listeners are familiar with one of the more contemporary approaches to therapy called acceptance, commitment therapy, and you know, that balance between acceptance on the one hand, but commitment to positive action is what we want to strive towards, I suppose.

[00:11:08] Tim: And, you know, and help other people strive towards. 

[00:11:10] Marie: Yeah, you mentioned, um, that over the toxic positivity can be quite dismissive. What impact does that have relationally? So not just, you know, couples, it can be father child, it could be mates, what, what’s the impact of if someone’s trying to kind of maybe hint or kind of sprinkle into the conversation that they’re not okay and you come at it with a, One bit, the trying to fix it, which let’s not get into that right now, but there’s like, Oh, you should just be okay.

[00:11:37] Marie: I’ll be grateful for that. Or the pull up your socks. What impact that, that does that have on a relationship? 

[00:11:44] Tim: Uh, another great one. And look, look, it’s going to depend on the person and the relationship. Obviously we all interpret these things in different ways, but if that happens to me, which has happened in the past, well, I suppose one thing is.

[00:11:55] Tim: Depending on who it was, more often than not, I guess I would assume that that [00:12:00] person’s they’re trying to help. You know, most people don’t do that. You know, they’re not being malicious or or nasty in any sort of way. So even though I wouldn’t necessarily see it as an ideal response, I would. You know, try to understand that that person probably is doing the best they can, I guess.

[00:12:14] Tim: But by putting that aside, um, if someone does say to me, Oh, you know, come on, just chirp up and just get on with things. I guess what they’re saying is that they don’t really understand me. They don’t really understand my experience that they’re not really, um, empathizing or being supportive in, in, in a genuine, authentic way.

[00:12:30] Tim: And so I suppose to me, I would maybe question the nature of that relationship. Do they really care? Are they really listening? Now, again, I think more often than not. It’s not that they don’t care, it’s that they don’t necessarily have the knowledge or skills to have these conversations, you know, that’s, that’s a whole other issue.

[00:12:47] Tim: I suppose it comes back to the point I made earlier about that kind of love hate relationship, you know, another, as well as the it’s okay not to be okay, but one of the other ones. You know that people I’m sure you have to the people like us, you know, we’ve promoted for many, many times for many, many years now is it’s okay to reach out and ask for help, you know, and that’s super important.

[00:13:04] Tim: Of course, it’s okay to reach out and ask for help. We all need help sometimes. But part of the problem with that is that if I reach out and ask for help. Many of the people won’t know how to give me that help, or they won’t know how to respond. So, until we train people essentially, and I don’t mean psychologists and health professionals, until we train the average person out there to respond helpfully and appropriately, Then reaching out and asking for help could actually, you know, it can backfire sometimes because if you don’t get the right response, that can actually be a bit unpleasant and, um, you know, be unfortunate in many ways.

[00:13:35] Tim: So, so yeah, now there are many layers to that. As I said, I think most people are trying to do the best they can. But again, it’s also sending that message if they respond in the way we talked about earlier, it’s kind of sending a message saying, well, either I don’t really understand you or I don’t really care.

[00:13:50] Tim: Although I don’t think that’s necessarily true a lot of the time. 

[00:13:52] Marie: Yeah, but I can see how that can feel that way. Um, especially when I work with. I mean, I work with couples a lot, uh, with young adults and, and when they talk about their parents, they’re, it’s really hard to say, to trust someone’s got your best intentions in mind when you feel like they don’t understand you.

[00:14:09] Marie: And dismissing something that easily can feel like, well, you haven’t understood me. You haven’t understood the whole thing I’m worried about. How could you possibly have my best interests at heart when it’s clear to me rightly or wrongly that. You don’t get it. 

[00:14:27] Tim: Yeah. And look, as I said earlier, I mean, very briefly, you touched on another point about that idea that sometimes people just want to fix them.

[00:14:33] Tim: And you know, that’s as a parent, you know, that’s a really common reaction. If we see our kids distressed or, you know, going through any sort of difficult period as a parent, we obviously don’t want that. We want our kids to be happy. You want them to be healthy. You want them to be. You know, successful, however you define that.

[00:14:47] Tim: So as a parent, it’s very easy to sort of jump into that fixing, which, you know, which is not completely a wrap, but it’s not always helpful, particularly in the first instance, because as I said, we want to show our children that we understand that we can want to listen to them and sometimes, you know, not everyone who’s upset wants to be fixed or wants people to fix them.

[00:15:06] Tim: Um, so yeah, well, you know, whether you’re a parent or a friend or a colleague, um, the principle is pretty much the same sort of thing, I guess, you know, sick first to understand, um, then to be understood. And then maybe if the person wants, um, Work towards solutions with them. 

[00:15:20] Marie: Yeah, I love that. Seek to understand.

[00:15:22] Marie: That’s one of the things I talk about a lot is connection first and then it’s, there’s all these other things first. So seeking to understand is a probably a big part of that. If we think about, I mean the, there’s a few themes that have been popping up in my conversations for Men’s Health Month and a lot of them when it comes to seeking help or mental health, there’s a lot of things are floating around, around shame and stigma.

[00:15:45] Marie: How do you. Bring that into your work. So in some of your talks and in various podcasts, you talk a lot about your own journey, which is, you know, it’s very brave, but also I imagine very destigmatizing for a lot of people to hear someone who is not only a professional, [00:16:00] but maybe looks like them or sounds like them or the same gender, like sharing some more vulnerable bits.

[00:16:06] Marie: How do you kind of understand that whole shame and stigma and help seeking in your In your space and in the circles you move through. 

[00:16:15] Tim: Yeah, look, that’s, you know, that’s been a big part of my life for the last decade. I guess to go back to the beginning, for those who aren’t familiar, um, I guess many people won’t be familiar.

[00:16:23] Tim: I’ve experienced mental ill health, so despite being known as Dr. Happy, I’ve been very unhappy for much of my life. I’ve had quite significant episodes, many, multiple significant episodes of major depressive disorder, anxiety, suicidal ideation and self harms. And I, I didn’t talk about that for a long time.

[00:16:38] Tim: Uh, largely because no one did back in those days. And also I didn’t have the vocabulary. I didn’t know how to talk, or I didn’t even know you could talk about, I suppose, back in the days, it just wasn’t done. Um, you know, when I was younger, um, in fact, it was actively hidden, you know, it was seen as shameful and embarrassing and a failure and weakness, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:16:56] Tim: So, you know, for much of my earlier life, I didn’t ever talk about it for multiple reasons and then started to more and more, again, approximately a year. I can’t remember exactly when. Approximately a decade or so ago. As we started to see this movement, you know, are you okay today? And beyond, you know, the work Beyond Blue and particularly, you know, mental health organization that I’ve been very involved in for many years.

[00:17:17] Tim: And I didn’t do that because I necessarily want to, I’m quite a private person. And I don’t, and it’s a lot about my life. I don’t share, but I did do it for those exact reasons that I, you know, at that state, there’s more now, but at that stage, there just weren’t enough men, particularly. talking about it, sharing their experience.

[00:17:35] Tim: And we know from the research that that’s vitally important. Um, we know that, you know, sharing experiences does smash stigma. Smashing stigma increases the chances that people will seek help. If people then seek help, they can get better a lot more quickly, you know, they suffer a lot less. So, so I really, I guess I started to do it because I was encouraging other people to do it.

[00:17:53] Tim: And I thought, well, I need to, you know, And also, you know, I guess I just want it to be a bit of an example for my kids. I wanted my, you know, at that stage, my kids would get into that age when, you know, I didn’t want to hide it from them anymore. I thought it was important that they knew that, you know, you didn’t have to be perfect all the time.

[00:18:10] Tim: You didn’t have to be happy all the time. So there are multiple reasons. And now I do talk openly and this latest book is, is part memoir. So I share, This is the most personal book I’ve ever written sharing more details about my lived experience of mental health, particularly, and other aspects of my life as well.

[00:18:26] Tim: But I think again, particularly for my, and particularly, I guess, at a certain age, it just wasn’t done for so long. And it was problematic because the more we hide these things, the more the shame grows. And the more we let them out, the more we can actually feel, there’s nothing to be, you know, I’m not embarrassed.

[00:18:42] Tim: To have to see an optometrist and get glasses to fix my eyesight. I’m not embarrassed to say, you know, a doctor for something else or a mechanic, if my car’s broken, why should I be embarrassed? Because, um, you know, psychologically not perfect. I mean, none of us are, so yeah, I suppose talking about it is a way of maybe helping a few other people out there realize that, you know, again, it’s, it’s okay not to be okay.

[00:19:01] Tim: And it’s okay to get help. 

[00:19:04] Marie: Yeah, I think that’s so powerful and the more people that share their journeys and use their, their, their platform or their reach to promote open conversations, I think is so beneficial. Um, the, the episode before you with Shannon Molloy, he was sharing his experiences of childhood sexual assault and.

[00:19:21] Marie: the help seeking behavior after that and interviewing different people. And he was sort of sharing similar things of like, well, the more we talk about it, the more other people can talk about it. And the response, uh, from listeners of his audio book or, or, or readers, you know, they might have the first person that they’ve come across that feels relatable.

[00:19:41] Marie: That has broken about something that sometimes feels unspeakable. Well, 

[00:19:45] Tim: 100%. And, and the other part, you know, I experienced this and I think a lot of people do, you know, again, when I, you know, when I was younger and felt some really bad episodes, uh, on top of all of the distress and, you know, it was incredibly dark and difficult times.

[00:19:57] Tim: And on top of all that, I thought I was [00:20:00] the only one, you know, and it seems absurd now, but I just don’t, no one else has been like this. No one else would understand this, which is again, absurd because millions of people experience it every day. But back in those days when we didn’t talk about it, you felt more and then feeling more alone is just, again, adds to the problem.

[00:20:16] Tim: It just makes it even more, even harder. So, you know, there are many reasons why I think it’s beneficial to share stories, but, but one of them is that hopefully some other people and hopefully some younger people, because I say that, because then they don’t have to go through years and years before they get help.

[00:20:30] Tim: But hopefully other people out there, you know, they’re not. In fact, you know, it’s incredibly common. Significant number of people at some stage in their lives will experience mental ill health, will experience suicidal ideation, will experience self harm, all of these sorts of things, etc, etc. And realizing that we’re not alone makes it just a little bit easier to reach out and ask for help because I can then say, well, I know I’m not alone and I know, well, other people have had it, got help.

[00:20:53] Tim: Other people have got better. Maybe I can too. 

[00:20:56] Marie: Yeah. So for people listening, if they’re listening to this and they’re thinking, okay, so how I respond is also really important without kind of giving them a full sort of. Incidental counselor training or mental health first aid. Maybe, can you give me two or three things that somebody should not do?

[00:21:13] Marie: And then maybe a couple of ways that they can respond. If somebody close to them hints at, or starts to share that they’re not doing okay. What should we avoid? 

[00:21:21] Tim: Well, I might just, before I get to that point, people to, you know, there’s some great resources online, there’s some pretty crap resources online.

[00:21:28] Tim: So you need to be careful. There, again, there’s a bit of a, a warning about where you go to advice. But. But I will actually point people to the R U OK? Day website, and I’ve got no affiliation with them, but they’ve done some fantastic work over the years. People are probably familiar with R U OK? Day, but they might not be familiar with the website, and the website has some absolutely fantastic resources, including Tip sheets and videos about how to respond when people say they’re not okay.

[00:21:54] Tim: So there’s some great videos that really step you through, walk through step by step about how to ask that question and then how to respond. Because again, R U OK? Day has been fantastic about promoting that question. But a lot of people are still afraid because I think, well, if I ask you and you say, well, no, I’m not.

[00:22:09] Tim: Okay. Well, God, what am I going to do then? And that’s, you know, that’s understood. So yeah, I would direct people, um, to that. There’s a lot more to the website than just that question. Some really, really good resources. And beyond blue has some great resources as well. I think black dog Institute, all of those, you know, some really good institutions and organizations that have some great resources.

[00:22:26] Tim: So, but I suppose to come back to your. Again, I think so, you know, remember you don’t have to be an expert. You don’t have to be a qualified psychologist. You don’t even have to get all your words or your questions or your sentences right. Just show you care, just show that you want to be there, that you can be there just to sit with them.

[00:22:43] Tim: So, you know, this is one thing people are afraid of. Well, what if You know, what if Maria says she’s not okay? Well, I don’t know how to fix her. You don’t have to fix it. You don’t have to have the answers. There are professionals who do that, hopefully. So, you know, you don’t, it’s not about having all the answers or having all the solutions or knowing everything about mental health or whatever.

[00:23:00] Tim: It’s really just being about a genuine caring human who’s prepared to sit with another human who might be going through a difficult period. And that might be a bit uncomfortable, but it’s. Very valuable as well. So, you know, just try to understand, just try to be there at best. You know, if that person really does need professional help and you’re not qualified to do it, you know, try to get them to the GP, try to get them to a qualified professional, or, you know, maybe get them to one of those good websites.

[00:23:26] Tim: As I said, there’s some great resources and tip sheet, you know, that might not be enough for everyone. Who’s going through really severe circumstances, but it’s a good start point to, you know, some of those tip sheets or information about how to. How do I overcome depression? How to deal with anxiety?

[00:23:40] Tim: Whatever. So, you know, just show that you care, I suppose, would be the main advice. 

[00:23:45] Marie: Yeah, absolutely. So really holding space as well is what I’m kind of getting from that is listening, maybe empathizing, validating, and not trying to fix it, not trying to be overly positive. [00:24:00] Just allowing that person to share.

[00:24:04] Tim: And also, I suppose, don’t be afraid to ask that person what they, you know, what that person needs or wants might not be what we would need or want in that circumstances. And so this goes back to the, that idea about trying to fix it. Some people might want help, they might want practical suggestions, they might want, you know, fixes.

[00:24:20] Tim: And if you can offer that, fantastic, but not everyone does for a variety of reasons. And some people just want you to sit there and. either literally or metaphorically hold their hand. And if that’s, if that’s what they, we can, we can only understand that if we ask that person. So, you know, it’s a really simple question.

[00:24:35] Tim: You know, what do you need now? What can I do for you now? How, in what ways can I help you now? So you don’t actually have to know the answer to that. You can ask that person and hopefully they’ll, you know, they’ll tell you. 

[00:24:44] Marie: Yeah. That’s really great advice for people listening. Um, you’ve got a new book coming out.

[00:24:50] Marie: Tell us a little bit about what are some of the, the, the key insights and takeaways from that. 

[00:24:57] Tim: Well, it’s a lot about what we’ve talked about us, you know, I’ve spent a big part of my life. I suppose I’ve spent a big part of my life working towards being an expert and trying to help other people with my expertise and my advice and a lot of that’s been helping people strive towards better mental health and happiness, etc.

[00:25:13] Tim: I, I I guess I’ve known this for a long time, but it became crystallized, you know, a few years ago when I started to realize that I don’t really have a fucking clue what’s going on, but I’ve also come to accept that that’s okay. And I think this is in it so much of our society. excuse the swearing. Same with us our societies, you know, setting goals, working towards goals, finding clarity, knowing who you are, knowing what, you know, a career path, a personal like, you know, married children, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:25:39] Tim: Um, and look, that’s not all bad at all. That’s fantastic. If you know the answers to all those questions, and if you know. You know, where you want to go fantastic, but a lot of us, and even if we do, we can get lost on the way, you know, we fail, we stumble, we take a wrong, but we don’t talk about not enough.

[00:25:54] Tim: People talk about those things. You know, I started to realize that I’d taken many, many wrong turns in my life. I’ve had many failings in my life and so have most people. So that’s what this is really about. It’s about failing, but learning from that so you can succeed. It’s about feeling, accepting misery so you can then become, it’s about literally and metaphorically getting lost.

[00:26:14] Tim: So you can find what you really want to find or what you never imagined you could found, but it’s actually better than you’d ever imagined. So you know, it’s both sort of a literal and metaphorical meaning to that title, which I hope people, I guess it’s about vulnerability and acceptance of the sort of some of the key constructs within that.

[00:26:31] Marie: I love that. Yeah. You know, the more, the more you understand, the more you learn. You’re sort of saying the less clue you’ve got, what, that’s an interesting paradox. Well, you know, if, if, if I’d thought about that, or if 

[00:26:41] Tim: you’d asked me about that years ago, I would have thought that was a problem, you know, I would have thought not no.

[00:26:46] Tim: And so, and my response would have been study and learn. And you know, one of my top strengths is a love of learning. So I would have gone to research and study and learn more about it. I guess I’ve come to accept that, I mean, you can’t know everything, you can’t do everything. And that’s okay not to know, it’s okay to make mistakes, it’s okay to have failings and weaknesses.

[00:27:07] Tim: That’s just, you know, part of being a human. 

[00:27:09] Marie: Yeah. And it ties in really nicely to everything we’ve been speaking about is, I think, not being okay with that. And having, um, maybe an unrelenting standard or impossible expectations or this idea that we don’t make mistakes can really make it hard for somebody to reach out for help, to lean on loved ones, to take a breath and look after themselves.

[00:27:39] Tim: Personal experiences than ever before. And part of it is sort of reflecting on some of my, some of my success. I mean, even, you know, so this is my seventh book. I would never have thought that would be, and I’ve had 11 audio. You know, I, I still remember writing when my first book was published thing, it was the most incredible thing in the world.

[00:27:54] Tim: And it was, I was so proud. It was such an achievement. I never thought there’d be so many, but when I think about [00:28:00] that and the other, what might appear to be the other successes in my life. Almost every one of them has come after or as a result of some failure or some mistake or some stumble or some accident of fate, dare I say.

[00:28:14] Tim: And yet again, we don’t recognize them. So when, what that means is when we do make mistakes, which we will, because Cause we’re human. We see that as a bad thing. And then, you know, look, I guess we know I’ve got to be real. Sometimes it is a bad thing. Sometimes mistakes are problematic, but a lot of the time we can learn from them and they’re a concept, you know, there’s learning through growth and post traumatic growth and there’s all sorts of concepts that are referred to this and philosophical ideas like wabi sabi that some of your listeners might be familiar with, you know, seeing the beauty and imperfection.

[00:28:40] Tim: I guess it’s just trying to bring all of that together and help people understand that it’s okay. If or when you stuff up, maybe that’s okay, you know, maybe some good will come from it. Or how can you make some good come out of that? How can you learn from that to become better or stronger or wiser?

[00:28:54] Tim: Because that’s certainly been the case for me many, many times. 

[00:28:58] Marie: Yeah. So what, what would be a kind of key takeaway you’d like people to come away from this, this episode with around maybe happiness or, or toxic positivity or even kind of just mental, mental health in general? 

[00:29:15] Tim: Well, I think I’d say. The genuine happiness.

[00:29:18] Tim: It’s really about accepting ourselves in all of our human. It’s about accepting all of ourselves. And as humans, as I said, we’re not, you know, we make mistakes, we stuff up, we get. So if we really want to be genuinely authentically happy, we need to accept. All of us, you can’t have the light without the dark, I suppose.

[00:29:38] Tim: And so that level of acceptance is not something that I gave enough consideration to early on. And it’s not something a lot of people do. I think we, we, we tend to fight those unpleasant emotions like grief and sadness. We tend to try to push away stress and anxiety or we use distraction or. Yeah. Drugs or alcohol or all sorts of other things.

[00:29:59] Tim: Um, but that doesn’t, or not necessarily, it doesn’t work in the longterm either. So if we really want to have a genuinely good life, we need to accept all of life. And sometimes that’s ugly. Sometimes that’s, but you know, that’s not sure if that was quite as succinct as I would have liked it to have been, but I hope that sums it up for some people out there.

[00:30:16] Marie: Yeah. I love it. Except the ugly and the messy. It’s very beautiful. Thank you so much for your time today. People can find your book Hopefully very soon after this podcast episode is, has been released and wherever they buy books. Is there an audio book coming out too? Cause that’s kind of my favorite is to listen to.

[00:30:38] Tim: Oh, there are so thanks. I’m not quite sure when it’s going to air, but the book will be out on July 6th, 2020. Should be available in all book, good books, bookshops. We’ve got a, there’s a bit of a special happening at Dimmick. So if anyone’s there, but it’s also available on, You know, booktopia and hopefully an all bookstores and yes, there is an audio version.

[00:30:51] Tim: So if you’re an audio listener, it’ll be available there again on the same day, July 2nd, thanks so much for having me. And thanks for giving a bit of a plug. 

[00:30:57] Marie: Thank you so much. It’s always a pleasure to kind of hear people share. I love this. It’s kind of a unique position to have both the clinical experience and the lived experience.

[00:31:06] Marie: And I think more people do then share it for a variety of reasons, but I think it really helps position, um, what you, what you talk about in a very different way and people can really relate to that, um, very differently than feeling it’s just purely kind of theoretical or academic. So thank you for being runnable and putting your stuff out there.

[00:31:27] Tim: Thanks again for having me.