(Short | Music) #1566 Let me bore you to sleep | Jason Newland | 25th February 2026

Hello, hello. Welcome to Let Me Bore You To Sleep. My name is Jason Newland.

Please only listen when you can safely close your eyes. Alfred Hitchcock, that sounds a bit like Alfred Hitchcock, doesn't it? Hello, ladies and gentlemen. Today's adventure is going to be very, very, okay, maybe not, maybe not.

So, my website is jasonnewland.com and my store, where all my archives recordings are, is jasonnewland.store. Yeah, I'm still in the process of uploading stuff and organizing things, but there is a link to the store from jasonnewland.com and all the latest recordings are available on there, jasonnewland.com, so you can stream, you can also download them directly from there as well, the latest recordings. I now do two types.

I do overnight without music, overnight with music.

They're available on all the major podcast hosts. If you have any trouble finding where they are, you can just go into the website and it gives you a link to Apple, gives you a link to Spotify as well for both the websites, both the podcasts. So, yeah, I've got two podcasts now, Let Me Boyd You Sleep and Hypnosis for Sleeping Deeply, I think.

Yeah, so that's the two podcasts. I've just got two now. So all the other podcasts I had are now being uploaded onto jasonnewland.store. So when I do a new recording, I'll upload it, a new hypnosis recording, I'll upload it to the podcast.

And so, yeah, and then at the end of every month, I will take off those maybe and put them onto jasonnewland.store, if that makes sense. So, also YouTube, my overnight recordings are on YouTube, and that's with music, but it's with different music, because of the copyright situation. So I can only have YouTube music on the video.

And the recordings that you can download off of my jasonnewland.store, this is confusing, without music, because I don't have the copyright to get for those to be available. If you do want to be on YouTube, please subscribe, that'd be awfully kind of you. And that's it, I've just uploaded my latest recording to TikTok.

I'm not live on TikTok today while I do this, because I couldn't be bothered. And it's quite nice to not have that distraction, to be honest with you. Oh, I'm just wondering, I don't know if I've put on a clean t-shirt or if it's a dirty t-shirt.

As in, well, not even if it's a clean t-shirt, it might still have parts of my breakfast on it. So I better keep my top on up, even though it's a bit warm, a little bit, a little bit warm. So I hope you're well.

And I realize I haven't been producing recordings daily for a few days. But that's solely because I've been focusing on trying to organize the different aspects of this thing that I do. So I'll go through some of the things I've been doing, just I'll bore you with that information today.

So on my YouTube channel, I've gone through and looked to delete a lot of this stuff that wasn't really valid anymore. So anything that wasn't to do with what I do, I've taken off of there. I'm still in the process of doing that.

So I really want to keep it to just sleep stuff, you know, other hypnosis stuff is fine as well, but just sleep. So whether Let Me Bore You To Sleep or hypnosis sleep, anything else I've taken off of the YouTube channel. And now I'm leaving stuff on that isn't overnight, because that's already on.

So I'm not going to do anything about that. But all future recordings will be overnight. So it'll be 10 hours ish.

And the only ones that delete the only ones that upload to YouTube will have music so there won't be any ones without music being uploaded to YouTube. And the reason for that is, yet again, I don't want to keep duplicating things. By putting lots of different versions of stuff onto YouTube, just gets me less viewers.

So I figured, because it's YouTube, they're more the audience tends to like the stuff with music. So, all hypnosis recordings will have background music. But all Let Me Bore You To Sleep videos rather, on YouTube won't have background music.

But we'll still be overnight. Yeah, so I'll only do one video per recording, and only two podcasts per recording. From now on, which means it is something already said to me, it's easier to find stuff.

If you go onto the website, you have to keep scrolling down. If you want to find something from two weeks ago, or a week ago, you can't like, where is it? It's disappeared. I can't find the thing.

So now, it's just easier to recordings, one with music, one without. I'm moving my fingers like I'm scrolling, but yeah, just easier. And I figured that because everything I do is aimed at sleep, there might as well be overnight, there might as well be something to listen to overnight.

So what I've also done is put together a different background. So you know, when the recording, when the when the thing finishes, like today, this will finish after like an hour or something. And then you got me talking.

I've got a different I've got a bunch of hypnosis recordings are more up to date. I'm going to put on there. And I put that together over the last few days.

And that lasts for 10 hours. So it's still it. I'm hoping that it will be me, it'll be a better experience, actually, I hope.

It's all still slow and soft, and everything like that. It's just updated, it's just there's more up to date stuff should be better quality sound. And yeah, hopefully, and today's recording will be the first one.

So when you watch this or listen to this recording, the all what I talk about the hypnosis recordings after the actual session will be new. But the music will still be the same. For the ones that have music after it.

So yeah, it'll take me a little while to do the editing for that. Because the other stuff's all prepared, this is going to be like, okay, changing it and making it so it goes a little bit quieter as the recording goes. And yeah, so it's going to take a little bit of editing, editing, but we find, I think it's pretty much ready, to be honest.

And then then someone at the door, it's not someone at the door, is it? No, it's still someone at the door, Vinnie will be screaming. I really thought it was someone at the door. I heard knocking but it must be coming from downstairs.

Downstairs. Oh, it was me, me and Vinnie. That's my door camera, you see.

Well, if someone is knocking, they can just phone me. And to be, if they knock on the door and Vinnie doesn't hear it, then they can't be knocking on the door. It must be coming from somewhere else because he hears, you could rub a feather over that front door and he would hear it.

He would feel it in his bones. Not the ones he's chewing on, but you know, his bones. He's always on the lookout and the hear out for any kind of pressure on the front door.

Always. So, oh man, I had a funny experience today. So last night, one of my neighbours, who lives around the corner, phoned me up.

So I had a missed call, so I called him back. I said, are you all right? She said, yeah, you? I said, yes, thanks. I said, you called me? She said, yeah, no, I did, yeah.

Well, you asked, you left a message saying, can I call back? She said, yeah, I know. I said, well, what is it you want? She said, what do you mean, what do I want? You phoned me. I was like, okay.

And she started laughing. So obviously it was a joke, but it's like, blimey. And it was too late in the evening for that.

It was like half past seven. Can't handle that at my age. You're going to do that.

It's got to be before half two in the afternoon. And she said, oh, can you help out another neighbour with some documents, sending documents by email and whatever. So really? Oh, I don't know.

I didn't really know what I was wanting to do. She didn't seem to know herself. It was what it was, but she didn't know how to do it.

And like, I don't know how to do it either. Why do you think I know how to do stuff like that? And she said, because you've done it before. And I thought, yeah, it's true.

I've done it for a few people around here. I was like, okay, fair enough. But I didn't really know what it was that was needed.

And I probably mentioned there's a dog over the fence that is barking quite a bit. Well, that's her that lives there. And Vinnie and them, they talk to each other, never met, but they're having these conversations between each other and gets a little bit annoying.

Although Vinnie stopped reacting so much. So I'm thinking maybe the dog over there is singing to him. Or maybe they've fallen out.

I don't know. It's just ignoring him. Anyway, so for this was last night, and I was also a bit stressy thinking, oh, god, I could do that tomorrow when I get up.

Oh, what if I can't do it? What if it's going to be hard work? What if it's going to be complicated with, you know, just it is, you know, almost didn't want to get out of bed. But I went anyway, you know, I went around about nine o'clock. I waited till well, actually, this is like a three pronged story.

Yesterday, I went and saw my dad. He visited so we went met up and had some food at dinner. And that was all right.

It was no, it's always nice to see him. And it does. I mean, it's it's probably just me.

It's probably my own, you know, it's my own stuff. But it did feel like three hours of being judged. It did.

That's how it felt. Also, I feel when I'm around, I feel like I'm just being between the two of them. I feel like I'm just being judged.

I might not be. But it's just how I feel. It's not nothing I can do about that, really.

It's just I don't, I've never felt accepted, really, by the people in my life. By people that I know as friends, they kind of accept me and I can be myself, but I can't. If I try and be myself around those some other people, I can't, I don't.

It almost feels like I'm being false. So, yeah. And, but we get on.

I know he cares and stuff, but just, it's just, yeah. He's a good, he's a good bloke. He's a nice bloke.

He's, he's a great grandfather and stuff. Although he doesn't want to know his grandson called Vinnie. But hey, he's not, he's not, he's the opposite to being a dog person.

He's like on the complete opposite. You know what I mean? Flip, flip it over, add some ice cream on top. You know what I mean? It's completely different.

He's not, he does not like dogs. Yet every member of his family has dogs. All his grandchildren has dogs.

All his stepchildren have dogs. Well, to be fair, well, that's, they live with their, they all live together. So yeah, they have dogs.

And even my little brother's girlfriend had, had a dog. And he'd go into their houses, but he won't come into mine. So hey, and Vinnie's such a lovely dog.

Most dogs are lovely. Generally, I've only met a couple of dogs that were absolutely horrific when anyone new came into the house. But that was, that's like, literally, it was my friend.

I ended up living there with the dog. And it was my friend that made it happen. He loved it.

He loved the fact that the dog would just be chained to the, not chained, but like he'd be held back by the radiator. And they'd be trying to get to me for the, for like three, four hours solid. And eventually get used to you and be fine.

But like, he loved that. It made his day to have a vicious dog. Yet once you get to know the dog, it wasn't vicious at all.

Apart from to other dogs, but it was vicious to people as well. Like if you did, if they didn't know it, it's weird. It's very strange, strange old dog.

And I remember once my friend went away because I was living with him. He went away for, I think about a week and I was babysitting the dog. And I trained him for a week, took him out all the time.

Constantly. It's in the summer. We had a park opposite.

So I took him around the park. He used to walk around very slowly, get him to stop at pavements, crossover. He didn't try and, he didn't bark at anybody.

He didn't try and get to other dogs or nothing like that. And then my friend came back from his holiday and the dog reverted back to the same behavior as before instantly. Here's me saying, look, look what he's like.

I've got him doing this stuff and he wouldn't instantly wouldn't like, he just, he went back like barking at everyone and well, you know what barking sounds like. Okay. All right.

And strange. So I saw my dad. That was difficult to get rid of.

And I was ready for that because I was going into this public place with lots of people there, hundreds, a hundred, 200 people or whatever it was in there, which meant I had to have a shower. Oh yeah. By the way, you might've noticed if you're not, if you want to have a laugh, watch the video, even if it's just for a second, I'm bald.

I'm bald again. Yes. So the evening before I shaved my beard down just to make it all goatee, but yesterday morning I woke up quite early as I did today as well, actually.

And I guess I was in like, again, having to do something. If I don't have to go anywhere or be on my best behavior, makes me sound like I'm like a real bad behaved little puppy, doesn't it? But I'm not. It's just preparing to be around people for me personally, just a personal thing.

And without having, I guess Vinnie is my comfort blanket and Andre was my comfort blanket. You know, when I got Vinnie, I can talk to people. I wouldn't do that without Vinnie.

I wouldn't. Well, I'd have no reason, would I? And I talk to people that have dogs. I don't talk to people that don't have dogs.

I might say hello to people, but I mean, there's some neighbors that I wave to and I've never talked to. I just see them and say, hi, because they're local and I see them every day. And it almost seems rude.

If you see the same person, the same face, literally every day, sometimes twice a day, but every day for years and years, it seems almost rude not to acknowledge them. Really? I mean, I've got to the point where I said hello to people on the bus, because they just happen to be on the bus every time I got on the bus on that particular day. So I used to go to counseling.

This isn't. When I was doing my university course in counseling, we had to have, I think it was 12 sessions of personal counseling, might have been six, but I think it might be 12, where we had to go to a professional counselor and experience what it's like to be a client, or you may call it a patient, you know, we, we, that's, you know, it's basically the thing.

I jumped at the chance because I'd had counseling before and it, it'd been, some of it had been okay, some hadn't been okay.

And I mean, my very first counselor fell asleep when I was talking, that was in 1997. Another counselor I had, yeah, I had a counselor. So when I was working in, in a call center, I was having, I started having the panic stuff happen again.

And I had some time off work and part of the HR thing, they offered me counseling for probably six weeks. So I did it. And I was allowed to have time off work to go there and stuff.

So I did that every, yeah, for six weeks. It was a long way away from where I lived. It was a proper, proper walk.

But anyway, I got, I went to Soro and there was kind of a breakthrough. This was in, when was it? 90, 2006. And it was during a really, I mean, part of the thing was during a really, really huge news item in the country based in that town.

Like huge, like one of the biggest news events in my lifetime was, it was a manhunt for someone and an ongoing thing. So it was massive. So I'm kind of a little bit nervous walking around as well, just a little bit I think everyone was a bit, and there was hundreds of police cars everywhere from all over the country.

Maybe thousands. I'm not even exaggerating. They were everywhere, everywhere.

Stopping traffic. That's a story for another day. It turned out the person they were looking for lived opposite me the year before.

Well, I lived opposite him the year before. Weird, weird how that works. It's like, literally, if he came at my house, and just looked over to your right across the road, that's where he lived.

And I went in there one day, before I moved into my place looking for somewhere to live. And I think he might be the one to show me around. And it was very, I felt got a little bit uneasy.

But I might just be I might just be adding that to make the story more exciting for myself. But I definitely had a look at one of those houses in that area. Like because they just it was just rooms, people were renting rooms over there, as he was.

So basically, all the police needed to do in that situation was go into every house in that road. There was only two roads where they needed to search, which was as connected to what was going on. Okay, if there is and there wasn't many houses in one of those roads, because that's where the football football stadium is.

So just one road, it's a long road, but it would have took them a couple of days. Just to go into every house, do forensics. In every house just, you know, go through.

It would have took probably the amount of police I had would have took probably a couple of days. Instead of what, how many 56, how many weeks it was. So yeah, but they didn't think of doing that for some reason.

So I, it's easy after the event isn't it? I suppose. But and it was weird. Yeah, it's very strange, very strange situation.

So I'm walking to the counsellors. And I remember looking around like, what's that? What's that? What's that just thinking? Is that is it? You know, but it wasn't. I'm missing out content purposely because it was, it's not a relaxing subject.

So I won't go into it. But and then I started skipping doing handstands. It was so I've brightened the story up now.

And I tripped over two monkeys kissing. See, I've really brightened the story up. It's more surreal.

And they said, Oi, did you see us kissing? I said, obviously not. I didn't. How would I, if I'd seen you, I would just walked around you, wouldn't I? I wouldn't purposely bump into you.

And they said, why not? I said, because you're monkeys and you can be quite aggressive. And he said, one of the female monkeys. No, like they got offended.

Like, I said, yeah, but I've heard that. Because they're chimpanzees. It's not any real story.

They escaped from the zoo. I don't know. But you got to be careful.

They're like three or four times stronger than a strong man. A strong man, a man, proper strong chimpanzees are. A gorilla.

Wow. That's like really weird for a gorilla against the strongest human ever wouldn't. It's like the strongest human ever would not stand a chance because that gorilla was just like laughing, laughing.

Well, technically, they'd be about the same size, wouldn't they? So I tripped over these zebras and I said, oh, what are you doing? They said, we're kissing. I said, all right. And I said, sorry.

And they said, but why didn't you, why didn't you watch where you're going? I said, are you angry? Why are you being so angry? He said, he said, I'm not angry. I'm just passionate. I said, okay, fair enough.

So I don't like being called angry. It's not my fault. You're kissing in the middle of the pavement.

And the female, she said, why don't you call it sidewalk so that people in America can understand what you're talking about? And I said, yeah, but I'm talking about zebras kissing. She said, you were talking about monkeys a minute ago. I said, I know.

And the male monkey, because he's returned as well, said, why are you even talking about animals kissing on the pavement when you're talking about, like, you're basically on the way to see a counselor? And I said, I'm not sure. If I'm honest, the story got away from me and it wasn't supposed to be like this. And the female zebra said, well, do you plan these recordings? And I said, no, I'll be honest.

I don't. And she said, well, mate, if you thought about maybe doing that, because perhaps you'd have a larger audience if, if they were actually a bit more professional. And the female monkey came to my defense and she said, oi, you, Doris, what's your problem? And Doris said, listen, Magna, Magma, not Magna, Magma, apparently that was her name, Magma.

I've heard someone called Magma once. I don't know who that was on a TV show. She said, oi, Magma, keep your beak out of it.

What's it got to do with you? And Magma said, I haven't got a beak, I'm a monkey. And they rolled around a little bit, laughing at that. Not the zebras, but the monkeys did.

Didn't take much to set them off, to be honest. They were always quite jovial. Zebras, very stern, very, took them very, very seriously, took themselves seriously.

I don't quite know why, very solemn. Is that the right word? Solemn? Very like, oh, like that. The monkey was happy to have fun.

I mean, I didn't realize that zoos gave animals the day release to just go and play. I didn't know that. Well, that's what they told me.

But then I found out later that wasn't true. That's the thing. Like you might say, oh, all animals are different.

They've got one thing in common. They're all liars. They lie to your face.

Honestly. You know, the amount of times I've put a bit of some food on a table, for me, I decided to go wash my hands before I eat, because, you know, I'm quite a conscientious young lady. And I say to Vinnie, don't go near my food.

He says, yes, of course I won't. He said, he said, you're nodding your head. Yes.

No, I mean, no, I won't. I won't go near your food. All right.

I'll go and wash my hands and I'll come in and he's got his nose right, right next to the food. It's like, OK, now how many bits of food have you stuck your nose in? Because I don't want to eat that part of the food, to be honest. I mean, without being graphic, I know where your nose has been.

I've watched you thinking. How? Considering they're supposed to have a really, really, really good sense of smell. You think the last place I'd want to put it is, you know, anywhere near that area.

Yeah. So anyway, so I'm walking towards the council, I'm getting there, to the counselling. And she was, it was like different type of counselling to what I'd, my voice is going, to what I'd been involved in before or since.

And it definitely was not person centred. It was, I don't know, I quite liked it. I didn't particularly like her.

I didn't mind her. But she, there's one point where we kind of, she said something that seemed quite profound, like we'd made a breakthrough and I went there to high five her and she said, no, don't touch me. I don't do that.

Now, I wasn't trying to hug her. You know, I wasn't anything weird. It's like high five and like, nope.

I didn't like her after that. And I think, what would I do in that situation? And I found out later on in life, when I was an actual counsellor, and if someone goes to high five you, you high five them. Unless you want them to dislike you.

Now, if it's long term therapy, and it's all, you know, you're basically trying to figure out, you know, issues with communication and stuff. Let's say it's psychotherapy or Jung Yun or Freud or whatever, you know, maybe something like that would be useful. Right, okay.

Well, I didn't put my hand up to meet your hand and touch flesh to flesh, as you palm to palm, as you probably noticed. How are you feeling now? And let's spend the next eight months discussing it. So we come to the end, that will be 300 pound, please.

Cha-ching! See ya. Yeah, the counselling I did was not really about that. It was very, quite quick.

Trying to help someone to move from where they are, to where they want to be in six sessions, which is not always possible. So it's about focusing on what's happening, what the actual thing is, rather than, you can go back in time and go back to all the stuff that's happened in the past. But when you've only got six sessions, or 50 minutes, there's a certain limit to how much time you can really spend focusing on the past, as opposed to focusing on now.

I can't really give a great, well, I suppose I can give some examples, but yeah, I won't. To be honest, I'm not saying that like, when everyone mentioned the past, I'd shout at them and say, no! I'd blow the trumpet. Or I'd like to have a big gong, the wrong gong.

Wrong! I told you before, we focus on now, now only, now, now, now, now. And I didn't do that, because that would be, which would be rude, wouldn't it? But when she didn't high five me back, because I literally, I was, and she didn't, and I was stuck there. And she just looked at me, she just sat there, didn't move her body one bit.

I think she actually said, no, thanks. Which is quite a funny thing to say, I suppose, but something like that. She said, no, thanks.

No, thank you. I'd rather not. Oh, your hand.

Okay, fair enough. I'm not going to understand it, if it was like during 2000 lockdown, and the counsellors would say, no, you're right. I don't really want to touch you right now.

Fair enough. You know, because that was the world we were living in at that time. And it's not like I wanted to rub marmite all over her face or anything, something weird like that.

She'd previously sort of declined that one, the week before. But I, it was a high five. It wasn't, to me, it wasn't anything.

It's not like I was trying to, I didn't want to touch her. I just just like high five. And I was in that situation a few times as a counsellor.

And I just did a high five. But I was in, I was in a couple of positions where I had only had 123, four really weird situations. Okay, more than that, probably, but four that I remember, that were awkward.

When I was counselling, and I won't, I don't even remember the people. So I do. But I won't give any clues who they were.

I don't remember the names, but three of them I got on really well with. One, I'll talk about the first one first. He came in, or she came in, he or she came in, sat down and said nothing.

Now I've had that a few times. And I always, I always break them down. Oh, you know, he's always managed to, to slowly dismantle those walls.

Even if it takes a couple of sessions, I've had it with other than that person, I had it with two young people, one at school. So I was in the school, and he literally just stared at me for, I think, two sessions. And then after that, it was almost like best friends.

But I just had to go through it, you know, get proper attitude. But after that, it was actually lovely. And the second one was, I think, 16 year old.

And it wasn't that she didn't want to talk, but she didn't want to talk about why she was there. Which made it hard. In the end, she did.

Or he did. I've got to be very careful. That one pulled at my heartstrings, to be fair.

Because very limited to what I could do. But I did speak to my supervisor. And, you know, I had limitations.

But yeah, and that was one of my last ever people that I saw as a counsellor. So that was weird. But I also knocked out, well, gently dismantled the walls of silence there as well.

That took longer. So it went from them not saying anything, to being able to talk about like, stuff, but still not talking about why they were there. To being able to talk about a serious thing that happened, but not tell me what it was.

And I think I got off by about the sixth session or the fifth session, sixth session, she actually told he or she told me what it was. So I got extended to, I think, 12 sessions, might even have had 18 sessions. It was, it wasn't a short time together.

Because it would have been, I personally think it would have been damaging to have done six sessions and left it. So I mean, yeah, I didn't always have the choice. But in sometimes I did get a chance to extend if I needed to.

So that was those two sessions, that was two people that wouldn't talk to me. I just remembered that there was another person that wouldn't talk to me. This person came in, adult, came in, just stared at me.

And I felt like I was like a headmaster or something, waiting for a confession. Like, did you or did you not break the window? I'm just waiting to find out. Did you put cream cheese up the maths teacher's exhaust pipe? Not euphemism.

And you know, that kind of just waiting. And I felt a little bit like that, because this is a matter a man or a woman, probably older than me, actually, because I was maybe same age, 40s, probably, at the time, older than me at the time, I mean. No one's older than me now, I am officially the oldest person in the world.

There's nobody older than me. I am, literally there isn't anyone. I'm older than the Ark, apparently.

40 days and 40 nights, this occasionally in my life, this comes back to me. And I'm thinking, okay, the, they knew that land was near. Because they saw birds.

So where were the birds during the 40 days and 40 nights of the floods? So there was no land anywhere. Anywhere. So 40 days of rain, could 40 days or nights of rain be high enough to cover the Alps, and the higher grounds, you know? Because people live on mountains, don't they? There's still people like people that live on mountains and really high ground, where there's no water, there's no, you know, no rivers or anything for miles and miles, it's so high up, altitude wise.

And what about the people in the space station? You know? And lighthouses, I suppose lighthouses. I mean, if you've got a boat, because that wouldn't be the only boat, would it? Like, build a boat, Noah. Who said that? Oh, I did.

Who are you? I'm gonna go down that road. But yeah, just build a boat. All right, then.

He built a boat. A big, big, big, big, big, big boat. So you're telling me nowhere else on the planet was there a boat? Or did he create a boat? Was he the first person ever to build a boat? No one else had ever done it.

What's the chances of him knowing how to build a boat? So I'm just thinking maybe there's other places with boats. I don't know. I don't know.

But the idea is like, oh, we're going to find land because there's birds. If you see birds in the sky, you're near land. Because birds need to live near land.

I think some birds can sleep while they're flying. And I suppose some birds live on the sea or whatever. But generally, you'd need land.

Birds live on the land, and they fly in the sky, and they swim in the sea. I'm boring myself with these sentences. And it must have been there.

I mean, how long after the 40 days and 40 nights were they waiting to find land? Where did the water go? That's another thing. Because on this planet, my understanding, tell me if I'm wrong, my understanding is that all the liquid on this planet cannot leave the atmosphere. It's here.

So there can be no more liquid than there already is. No more, no less. It can't leave.

So yeah, it can move around. So if part of the bits was frozen, raised to sea and stuff to other parts and stuff like that. But when it comes to rain, it rains and then evaporates and it rains again and evaporates somewhere else to let clouds blow around the world and all that stuff.

So the amount of water is the same amount of water now as it would have been billions of years ago. It might be in the form of ice, but it was still, you know. And I partly made that up by partly remember reading that somewhere.

Maybe on the back of a cereal packet or something. Maybe it was one of those kids encyclopedias that I read. Maybe.

Maybe he's still not eating his dinner. I gave him a treat earlier. Mind you, he did eat his treats that he got given.

See yesterday, just as I was leaving, because I saw my dad, he said, we've got some presents for you from Christmas. I said, really? He said, yeah. Christmas.

I mean, it's like the end of February, nearly. He said, yeah, I know what day it is. What day is it? 25th of February.

Can you believe it? 25th of February. Wow. I want to say thank you to Mary for your PayPal gift.

Thank you. It's very kind of you. And I haven't replied to your email because my email is full and I have to delete some stuff in order to send messages, which caused me a lot of problems this morning, actually.

But I will respond because Mary's not on Facebook. So I can't send a text there. But I will put a thank you on Facebook as well.

So my dad said, oh, we've got a Christmas gift. And I said, look, can you just wait a minute? He said, what? Why? And my stepmom said, listen, dad, he was telling a story about the counseling. And my dad said, oh, yeah, but we've got to go.

We can't hang around. We've got things to do. I said, all right.

And so I was like, I'll go and, oh, well, I'll take the presents then. He said, good. So I took the presents.

They were in a carrier bag. And as I was leaving, they did offer me a lift. I said, no, it's fine.

I'm just going to go to the petrol station. But the traffic was so busy. I probably would have been good to have got in the car because I went past the petrol station.

They could have just driven through and dropped me off. But I couldn't get across the road because the traffic was so bad. And there's only pavement on one side of the road.

It's blocked off on one part. You can't even walk this. And they want to build another two and a half thousand houses locally right in this little area that I'm living.

We don't even have proper sized pavements. Get clipped by cars and lorries sometimes. Literally, you've got to carry a bag.

I've had a bag split open and all the grocery went everywhere when someone drove past. And that didn't happen. But it could have.

You know, I've definitely had stuff nudged. And my friend, Luke, he actually got his shoulder clipped. But luckily, it was from a like a lorry light, you know, not a lorry.

What's it? Mirror. But it clipped him and it hit his bag. Luckily, it didn't catch onto his bag because that would have been terrible.

But so it didn't hurt him. But I know someone who did get clipped and it did hurt him. But not here.

But this is like it's not enough room for two people to walk side by side, which there is on a normal pavement here because it's a countryside. There's just one small little, it's not a dirt track because I'd be lying. But then you wouldn't know because you've not been here.

So unless you have been here and you live local and you're listening to me, and you're one of my dog walking friends. Hi. Hi, Beach Babe.

And there's only one person I know that might listen to this. Or maybe two that live local. Although my dad said something yesterday, which makes me think he might have listened to one of my recordings.

So I have to be careful from now on. I don't want him to know all the weird things I get up to. My tummy's grumbling.

It means it's food time. But I don't know what. What could I eat? Chicken sandwich? Yes, I could, couldn't I? The thing is, even though all this, so much has happened since I last spoke to you.

Or has it? So I did do one of these on Saturday. So I might have talked about my grocery shopping from Sainsbury's and how much more stuff I got than I normally get with Uber Eats for the price. But then I did go to Uber Eats this morning because I couldn't, didn't want to go out, really.

So I got all Uber Eats delivery by about half eight in the morning. Or was it half seven? Yeah, I think it might be before eight in the morning, which is weird. I don't normally get them that early.

Another thing is like before by half past six, it's light outside now. Half past six in the morning, it's light outside. It wasn't even light by eight o'clock in the beginning of the year.

So six weeks in and now it's like half past six. It's, I mean, it's not bright. You wouldn't be out, you don't like look out the window and see people sunbathing.

It's not not quite that level of light. But it's light enough to go out. Or is it 730? No, 630.

I'm pretty sure it's 630. Yeah. So yeah, I Oh, yeah, this count did the manager sat there.

And he seemed very angry at me or the woman that sat there looked very angry at me. And I hadn't done anything. I was just like, being a counsellor.

Said nothing for 50 minutes, then left. I asked a few questions, got a few like yes, no answers, but didn't really kind of talk at all. And came back the next week, did the same for about 20 minutes and just got up and walked out.

Which is a bit of a weird experience. Probably for him as well. I just, the way my my attitude at the time when I was a counsellor was, it's still the same now.

I'm not counsellor anymore. But when I was counselling, simple, it's really simple. Not everybody gets on with each other.

So if he didn't like me, which is purposely is within his rights to not like me, then if he did kind of let me know, I suppose it's hard as a I guess it's hard for on his side to do that. But he could have just phoned up the counselling service and said, I'd like to see a different counsellor. And he was within his rights to do that.

Because not everybody clicks and we clearly didn't click. At least he didn't. He didn't click with me.

I thought he was my best friend. But you know, it was a bit embarrassing, actually, because I knew it was his birthday. So I took a cake in the second time.

And you got it. Sometimes we misjudge situations. Wow.

And here's all your family that you haven't seen for 10 years. I said something on your thing about family issues, but hey, you can talk to them now. And here's your previous wife or husband.

So I felt a bit of a failure on that one. Because I think I did try and say to him or her, you can see someone else, you know, you don't have to just see me. Because sometimes it could be something simple as simple.

My words are not working today. Sometimes it can be something just basic, like seeing someone that reminds you of another person, or just the vibe not being right. Or the sex not being right.

You know, I generally get on better with women than I do with men. Like in most situations, I've been counselled by men and by women. And I I probably say that I prefer female counsellors.

There's no major reason, but just it's just how I Yeah, I think I just felt a bit more comfortable and in that situation. But and also age wise, you know, if you've got if you've got a counsellor, that's maybe you think is too young. So you might be in your 50s.

And you've got counsellors in their 20s. And you wrongly misopinion, but you might think, Oh, what do they know about life? And I would say wrongly. Because everyone knows about life of any age, we've all you know, everyone of any age, we've all experienced stuff.

And you don't have to experience the same thing as the as what the person is coming into the room to get help with. Because if that was the case, then no one would ever be able to be a counsellor. Because you imagine if every counsellor had to have gone through every single possible trauma that a human can go through, they wouldn't be they wouldn't be able to be a counsellor.

They'd be almost impossible. And I saw my argue say, Oh, I've been through everything. Every single thing.

Well, no one has, I would say, not everything. No. There's different things, just like if I there's certain things I know nothing about certain things I know quite a bit about.

Some things I know quite a bit about that I've had no experience of. And some things that I don't know much about that I have had experience of. Because it's just personal to me.

And so my the way I addressed clients, when they came into the room was I'm not going to be the expert. Some people love being the expert. You know, in all walks of society.

I'm the expert. I know everything. I'm going to tell you what to do.

I'm going to give you advice. I'm going to be the adult in this relationship, you know. And I'm not saying everyone does that.

But some people do. I mean, there are millions of people that think that they're experts on stuff. Some people seem to genuinely believe that they know everything.

I've realized that I don't really know much at all. I know a little bit about lots of things, but I'm no expert on anything. I never will be.

And I'm fine with that. Because once you become an expert, no, I'm just not. I'm not an expert in anything.

Me, I suppose I'm kind of an expert in me. But even then I've got loads of blind spots that I can't see. Other people can see faults that I don't see.

And it's really hard to change, to change those things, isn't it really? It's, it's hard. It's just like if you know someone that's got really, really bad breath, like really halitosis, almost like you can't be anywhere near them. It's hard to tell someone that.

Even though it will change their life potentially and get them to maybe they've got a rotten tooth that they're not aware of, you know, a dead tooth, which is making that smell. And they just need to go to a dentist and get that tooth removed. They might not be aware of it, you know.

And, and that would transform their life. But no one wants to say anything because it's, it's such a personal thing. And I think generally human beings don't want to be, we don't want to upset other people.

So I remember someone telling me about my breath like, really? That's rude. No, see, I remember when during lockdown and I had the mask on. I used to go into the petrol station because that's, that was the only shop I could go to.

We weren't allowed to travel out to get to other shops. So it's the only place where I could buy stuff that was anywhere near where I lived, unless I got deliveries. And that was hard back then as well, to get deliveries.

So at times, so I go to the petrol station probably every day, every two days to get stuff stocked, you know, things I couldn't get in Amazon. And I see the same lady called Sue, she was behind the counter. She's not there anymore.

She left, everyone's left. Not everyone, I mean, you know, not the people that are working there now. Obviously, I suppose.

And when the whole kind of mask covering finished, she first of all, she said, I'm so glad you shaved that beard off. That's what she said to me. Because there's a video somewhere, there's a picture of me and my beard is like that.

I didn't shave for probably the whole year. It was like proper, big old Uncle Albert style beard from Only Fools and Horses. And she said, Oh, yes, she said, Oh, yeah.

I'm glad you shaved your beard off. That was awful. I was like, okay.

And she said, you know something else I won't miss? I said, What's that? She did those masks. I said, I won't miss I won't miss having to like stand six feet apart from everyone. And she said something else I won't miss.

I said, What's that? She said, I won't miss not being I won't miss not being able to smell your breath. Something like that. I don't know if I've got that right.

I'm trying to insult myself. But did I get that right? I won't miss not being able to I will miss not being Oh, yeah. I don't know.

I was trying to do a funny didn't miss someone saying that to me back in 2013. And I was in my last call center that I worked in, in training. And I said something that was around all these young people.

And I was what was I 42 something like that. And everyone in there was I think the oldest person was about 30. And everyone else was in their 20s.

There's only like five or six of us. And I said something and one of the female said, Oh, Jason did a funny. I don't know she wobbled her head.

As I that's how they see me. They see me as like a parent trying to be funny. And that that kind of natural disrespect that they have for older people.

And I'd like no being young doesn't mean that that's you're the only ones that can say funny stuff. It doesn't work like that. You know, it's like, it's almost like stay in your lane, granddad.

Over there. You're not allowed to have a personality now. You're just supposed to be just be quiet now and let us young people flourish and be seen and be heard.

Like, no, no. So yeah, we didn't. It was weird, though, because everyone got off of each other at the Christmas party, except one girl and me.

And she was moaning about it. We said they got off they got off. Why didn't you want to get off with me? I said, Well, you got a boyfriend who's in the army.

Yeah, but she didn't want to get up. He's like, No, the fact that she was left out or something. She said, Did you want someone to get off? No, no, but just like, I feel the odd one out.

And I said, What about me? She said, What about you? She said, Well, I didn't get off with anyone. And she started laughing. What do you mean you did get off with anyone? I said, Well, you're saying you didn't get off with anyone.

They both of those pairs got off of each other from the training. I didn't get off with anyone. She said, Yeah, but why would you? It's like, Well, I'm not allowed to be happy.

Is that what you're saying? I'm not. It's almost like I was no longer a human being. Very weird.

I've never quite got that. And it's got it's increased as I got older. With some young people, some younger people almost like I saw something someone on TikTok moaning because and this person's in their 30s or whatever, 40s.

Like, you know, so some bloke 20 years older than me was trying to chat me up on TikTok. He's old enough to be me dead. It's like, Yeah, but you're not young yourself anymore.

Like, you're not old, but you're not like, young, young, young, young, young. You know, you're 41. He's 58.

It's like, it's not that much difference anymore. I don't know if she made that sound. I didn't talk to her just I was just listening to the I'm going to use the word conversation, but it was more just 20 years.

Oh, not to be dead. He doesn't stand a chance for me. How dare he be nice and kind to me.

It turned out he didn't ask her out. He was just messenger messenger and just being nice. I mean, maybe he wanted to have a relationship.

Maybe he just wanted to have a new friend. I don't know. I've got no idea.

And I sent her a new message saying that, you know, it was just friendship I was after. And she said, Oh, yeah, but you're 20 years older than me. So first of all, I'm not 58.

I changed that to pretend it was me that was sending messages, but it wasn't. So I'm not going to I'm not going to proceed with that one. But I haven't sent messages to anybody on TikTok.

Apart from a couple. But just to think if someone sends me a message, I will reply. So I did.

What was I talking about? Yeah. I got this. I took the bag of presents home with me.

And there's a few things I could jump on, like Pringles and stuff. Did I tell this story at the beginning? I don't know. But anyway, I had some a bag of TR ETS, which my dad gave me as well for him.

So I gave him a couple and we got back. I put the packet down on the side on the table. So it's like a long unit table thing next to the settee on the on the other side of the room.

And so I put my cup of tea and dishes and stuff when I finished with them a bottle of water, talcum powder, pictures of giraffes, you know, just normal stuff. And I I'm going weird today. I lipstick on I. So I just put the packet down on the table.

Forgot all about it because I was stuffing myself with. I can tell you some of it. There you go.

Cheese crispies. Some original. Original Pringles.

This is weird psychological thing. So these are just original Pringles. Dressed up as Father Christmas.

I thought it was Christmas dinner flavor because I'm sure they used to do a special Christmasy flavor. Right. And I was tasting them and they tasted different.

And I was trying to like wonder what kind of flavor that is. Just original, no normal flavor Pringles. I was adding the different flavors psychologically with my brain thinking that there was something that they weren't.

Wow. And there's some other cheesy biscuit things as well. And there was also some reindeer Maltesers.

I scoffed them down. And there was also a miniature Christmas cake, which I stuffed stuff down as well. And I literally stuffed that into my cake hole.

And yeah, so I put his treats and there was lots of wrappers and stuff, not M&M. I'm talking like, you know, empty stuff packaging. And I just got this image of M&M and 50 Cent and Snoopy Dog Dog just like sitting there.

Doing whatever they do. And being massaged by Puff Daddy. I don't know.

So, so there's all the baby oil. I have to move that out of the way. And I, I was completely forgot about them being there.

And I was here last night or this morning. It might have been this morning. I think it was last night on my computer, working on a website, working on the YouTube channel, all that stuff.

And I saw in the corner of my eye, him moving really, really slowly. And he was standing on a table. But moving almost in slow motion.

As he picked up the packet, and it's in a plastic packet. And he picked it up so slowly. It didn't make a sound.

And he turned around, and I'm watching him with my peripheral. And he turns around really slowly. So I kind of watch him when he's looking the other way.

I'm watching him. Then I turn around and I watch him. And he jumps off the settee onto the floor really quietly.

And then he moves into like behind the, he moves away. So I can't see where he is. And he's slowly, quietly taken the things out of the packet.

And then a little while later, I see there's an empty packet over there. Couldn't hear him do it. He did it so slowly, so quietly.

Very sneaky. Now I've never known him to, well okay, I've never known him to do that with food before. Or with those kinds of things.

Like it was a whole packet. But I did when it came to Christmas and I was gonna, no, yes, no. No, the other day I was trying to find some sellotape.

Because I bought some sellotape for Christmas. I was going to wrap some stuff but I didn't in the end. So I was stuck on talking about wrapping at the moment.

So in the end I thought no, I can't bother. It takes too long to get all the words rhymed. The beats, it's ages.

It takes ages. I was busy. So I bought some sellotape and I just left it in the packet.

You know, in the plastic and everything. I didn't even open the thing. And then I wanted to put some paper over the lights so that it's not so much shiny, so lighty.

So it's a bit more, still bright but reduces it a little bit for when I make the videos. Because I've been doing videos pretty much solidly since January really. Before January in fact.

I had the paper. Could I find the sellotape? No. Well I did in the end.

I mean I ended up having to use blue tack and that didn't work. And when I found the sellotape, I think it's still on the floor over there, it was out of the packet, chewed up. Proper chewed up.

I don't know when he did this. Because I'm with him all the time. Does he come in here at night when I'm asleep? Because I've noticed certain things move around.

That wasn't there when I went to bed. And then it's kind of the other side of the room and you know all his toys would be in one pile. He doesn't really play with toys very often.

Because he's not that bothered about toys. But he's got lots of them. And then I see they kind of spread out.

And another thing he does is he puts all his bones in a pile so they're all stacked up. They're all underneath this table. Because that's where he likes to chew on them and lay at my feet while he's doing it and stuff.

Because I spend quite a bit of time at this desk. And sometimes I think, well, how did that get there? Is he getting up halfway through the night and just coming in here and playing around? I don't know. I really don't know.

He spends a lot of time during the day asleep as well. So maybe he has time in the night time when he's fully awake. And occasionally he does wake me up.

You know, he starts pulling the covers and wants to play. It's like Vinnie, it's 1.30 in the morning. No thanks.

I think he did that this morning actually. And I went back to, I did get up. I might have given him some food.

Then I went back to bed. Bless him. Done three poos today.

But that's more you need. You didn't need to know really, I guess. Yeah, so that's the Christmas gifts story.

And I counselling. Oh, so I've gone through most of them. There was two of my clients asked me out.

During the, I think I did, I counselled from, I qualified as a counsellor at the end of 2000. Well, like November, got my diploma 2009. And I got my degree, I think in November 2010.

So as soon as I got, so after the first two years, I was allowed to counsel clients. But I was also counselling all the way through from 2008. So I started my course, September 2007.

And by the time I finished, I hadn't had any clients. A lot of the other, like, after the first term, we started seeing clients, no one turned up for me. So I didn't see anyone.

All the other students had like 20, 30 hours done. And I had nothing. So I had to see my clients and get as many done as possible during 2008.

September onwards, after the holiday and that. And in order to complete my hours, I think it was had to do 100 hours, I think. Was it? Yeah, I think it was 100 hours.

I might be wrong. And yeah, I saw a lot of people. So these were, this was at the college, they had a counselling service to the public.

And all adults. So is. So yeah, for that year, so from 2008, September, that was when I first started seeing clients and part of the counselling service.

And I think I saw 130, 140 clients. No, hours rather not clients. I had about 140 hours completed by the end of term, which would be like probably June 2009.

So I'd completed 140 hours. So way above what I needed to. And some, some people on the course hadn't even got their 100 hours.

It was out of anyone's control. Some people, because you see a client, and if it don't turn up again, or they don't turn up the first time, then you have to wait another couple of weeks for you get another person for that slot. Just because there's a time it takes time to get a new client.

And then some people turn up and they don't come back. Nearly all my clients came back. So I was, I guess I was quite fortunate for that.

And the previous year, all my clients didn't turn up. So that's kind of what happened there. So I kind of, I've already, I'd already gone through that the first year, where I every time I had a client, they just, I was getting like one a week.

And they weren't turning up. And then they have to wake up and wait another two weeks and get another slot and they wouldn't turn up. And they just, I had one person come in.

Yeah, I had one person come in and I think I knew her. Yeah, I think it was someone that I knew. So I couldn't counsel her.

So I knew I decided to send her back. Couldn't counsel people we knew. And I wasn't the cause of her counselling.

I wasn't. Yeah. That would be weird, wouldn't it? But I wasn't.

I hope. And it wasn't like an ex-girlfriend or a future girlfriend. But then it wouldn't be an issue if it was a future girlfriend, because then she wouldn't know me, would she? That wouldn't make sense.

Unless she had a time machine. But then if you had a time machine, you wouldn't keep going back and forward to like previous boyfriends and girlfriends, would you? I would actually thinking about it. It just seems like the best way to use a time machine.

So many missed opportunities and so many opportunities taken, which I wish I hadn't. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay, I'll move on from now. I'm just thinking that through. So I got 140 hours.

There was at least one person on the course. There was actually annoyed with me. Because that person hadn't completed the 100 hours before the diploma was finished, and they weren't going on to the degree.

So they had to come back to do extra hours in order to complete the for the diploma. And I was like, well, why are you angry with me? It wasn't my fault that your clients didn't turn up. Bearing in mind, I'd already been through that process, you know, the year before.

It's not my fault that all my clients came in. That was so good that everyone came back to me. And, you know, no one wanted to leave ever.

That's it my fault. And, yeah, that was weird. So I ended up with more hours than anybody.

But I also got the lowest grade, I think, academically than everybody. So a P and B, you know, I mean, it's like it just goes either way. It's just, I mean, I got a third in my degree.

And I would have got a second. If I did, the only thing I need to do to get a second was turn my assignments in include my dissertation on time. That's the only thing I needed to do to have a second.

Now, if I'd have tried a little bit harder, put a bit of effort into the actual academic side of things, I probably could have got a higher than a second. It wouldn't have been I wouldn't have got a first I don't I mean, maybe I could have done. But I mean, even when I finished the first year, I was told I was not going to be getting a first or when I finished the second year, there was there was a point where a first was impossible.

Because I wasn't I hadn't got enough grades. I think I was at the end of the second year. And he said the highest you can get is a second.

Providing you hand your stuff in on time, because that was something I was known for. So I wasn't getting like high grades, in a sense of I had every piece of work for the last year, and probably half of the work for the second year limited to 40%. Because they handed in too late, capped at 40%.

And apart from one bit of work, which I got 46, they also give them a tell you what it would have been if it hadn't been capped. So I got 47% on one, which was not very good grade by the past. I didn't fail any of my stuff.

Didn't fail anything on that course. But I had most of my stuff was at least nearly 60 between 60 and 70%. So I wasn't getting the 80 90 100% which would have given me a first, but I was getting enough altogether to got me probably a second.

I think yeah, or maybe, maybe there's a maybe the middle between two and a third, second and third, but I think I might have got a second. A first wasn't going to happen unless I completely worked hard. So I did hardly any coursework work.

I'd read a lot. But I was into the practical side of things. I wanted to learn how to be a counsellor, not how to talk about being a counsellor.

I wanted to learn how to do it. And because what I was saying before is I didn't go in as an expert. Thinking that I was an expert.

I went in with the attitude is I don't I don't know. I'm not going to assume assume anything. I'm not going to assume that I know what you're going through or I know what you've been through.

I'm not going to assume any of that stuff. I'm just going to try and get you to explain it to me so that I understand. And in that process, maybe you'll understand better what what it is we can talk from that perspective.

So you can explain it to me, describe it to me and describe how it feels and all that stuff. Instead of me just listening and adding my own picture. What we actually do is you paint the picture or write the story with me.

And all I'll do is hold the paper for you to write on or hold the canvas. I'll be the tripod or whatever it is. And you can paint on that.

And I can watch what you paint. We can talk while it happens, you know. So instead of you talking to me, and I'm painting my own picture, which might be, let's face it, if you both did, if these two people were standing next to each other, both got easels, that's what I was looking for easel, I'll be your easel.

And you're describing exactly the same emotion, exactly the same scenario, the exact same feeling, and you painted it, or you wrote a poem, or you wrote down the words about that. It's going to be different from the other person. One might have flowers in the field with maybe a gravestone and a baby deer eating, drinking out of a lake.

And the other person might have a tramp doing a poo down a chimney. I don't know, it's, can't use the word chimney anymore, can we? But you know what I mean. It's like it could be a completely different scenario going on.

I should have said Santa Claus, a tramp doing a Santa Claus down the chimney, but, or a tramp doing a poo down the chimney. Anyway, so my way of looking at it was, I'm going to ask, and I'm going to try to understand, and in that process I'm going to have more chance of understanding. Because I think sometimes that in itself, to have a person get as close to understanding what we're trying to, how we feel.

Yeah, instead of like assuming I know how you feel, because I'm empathic, I'm an empath, I know how you're feeling. Yeah, okay. You've got feelings, and I think empaths, people who call themselves empaths are very sensitive.

But the idea that they know how another person's feeling. I mean, if you test it, maybe it's true. You could say, okay, are you feeling this way? The person might say yes, but they might not be telling the truth.

And they might be perceiving it differently. But the idea like, I know exactly how someone's feeling, never ever going to assume that ever. But I want to, I want to understand it.

I don't want to feel it, but I want to understand it. And I think, I don't know, it seemed to work for me. Seemed to work for my clients anyway, that's what I mean.

And, but you know, if you're in a room with someone, the whole the empath thing, I think you do feel something. It's like, I'm not mocking people that say they can feel however other people feel. I was but I'm not really because actually, we can feel stuff from other people.

You know, it's obvious, isn't it? Energy and stuff and you sit in a room with someone that's miserable. It's you know, if you literally if you sit in in a chair opposite someone else and you're sitting in a chair, and they're talking about some really horrible stuff. It's really, really difficult for you to concentrate on the YouTube video we're watching.

Especially if it's a funny one. It's and they're still babbling on about their problems like, you know, you're just trying to eat some popcorn watching a nice episode of Benny Hill or whatever. So the energy is there.

I don't use the word negative because I don't think if someone's unwell or whatever, it's not about negativity. I had that once when I was in the Buddhist community and I was just talking about this thing where we used to talk about what's going on. And I was just talking about how I was feeling and stuff.

And one of the other people said, well, now something more positive. And I'm like, why would you have to say that? You just basically said that I've been talking negatively. Now, I'm not saying that I wasn't, but it didn't need a judgment, if I'm honest.

I let it go. And the fact I'm talking about it 20 years later, maybe I haven't, but 19 years. So this person, I had two women, two ladies asked me out.

The first one when I was college. And so I was seeing people, and there was no protection for me. I didn't like that at all.

When I worked privately, there was always other counselors in the building. We didn't do soul work. We was in a room with people on their own.

But there's always someone in a different office like it or with the children's charity. There was people working in the office. There was never soul workers ever.

And but with the college there was, I mean, there's still hundreds of people probably in the college, but no one on that floor. I mean, anyway, this lady, she came a few times and she asked me if I wanted to go out of her, like for a coffee, like then, dead in there. And initially I was in the college and I tried to say, I'm not allowed to.

I'm not allowed to sort of see clients outside, especially as I'm training. I won't even get past the, I won't even get my diploma if I start dating clients. And she said, oh, okay then.

She left and I saw two more clients. I think I was seeing three. I think three was about the maximum I've seen in a row, maybe four.

And it's about five o'clock, half five in the evening. And cause they, they also had evening courses and stuff. So it was still open.

Everything was open, but there was no one on that floor that I could hear cause they had the, the beauty therapy on one part of the floor and the counselor on another part. Um, comment or else some toilets. So, so I'm going, I'm getting ready.

And I hear like a knock at the door and I'm thinking, Oh, cause you know, I thought, I know maybe someone's they've forgotten their wallet or something, which is annoying. Cause like firstly, um, well annoying for them, but annoying for me, because that would be quite nice to have a bit of extra money. Cause if it had dropped their wallet, I could go in there, do what everyone does, you know, look for the ID, see who it is, phone them up.

And as you're speaking to them, they say, is there any money left? I said, no, you're taking the cash out. Credit cards are still there though. And, uh, say George, what do you want me to do? Do you want me to drop it off? I'll put up what I'll do.

I'll give it to the counseling service, the lost property or whatever. And, um, obviously go down the canteen and cause you got the click and switch, you know, you could just press and pay for stuff. So maybe get a few little bits on the way.

None of that happened. I don't know why I'm saying this. So there's knock at the door.

I'm literally ready to go. I've got my coat on, I've got everything in me. I used to have a, not a suitcase, a briefcase.

I used to have a brief still got it actually. Um, I think it's got all my diplomas and stuff in there. So I've got that still got that suitcase.

I loved having a suitcase. It was brilliant, but we had to have stuff locked like documents of people, people's files, their personal information had to have it locked. So, um, just having it in a bag wasn't enough.

It had to be in a locked container. So I had a suitcase anyway, a briefcase. So I'm already, it's not really relevant to the story.

And I open the door and this, the lady that asked me, I was standing there and I didn't know what to do. Now I'm not going to say anything negative about her at all. Cause there was nothing negative to say other than I was a little bit scared because not to do with her just like, I don't know what to do.

There was no training for it. There's certain things there was no training for in the counselling. So if someone turns up, you know, other things like what if you saw yourself, you know, during the session, there's certain things that you'd not prepared for that you don't cover.

What if, uh, there's an air display and you're going through a client session. I said that to one, to my, my, uh, teacher because it actually happened once. And I said, what if there's an air display? What are we supposed to do then if we're in a session and it's like the planes are traveling.

Cause I live, I lived in Essex and the planes would travel from all the way to London because I lived in a, in a, an army barracks town. So there'd be like 20, 30 jets going over for about half an hour, really shaking the building and everything. And she said, well, you could move your chair closer so you could hear the client.

And I said, no, I'm talking about, I want to look out the window and watch the air display. What am I supposed to do? How am I supposed to get rid of the client? And she said, you're not supposed to get rid of the client. You're supposed to still stay there and give your attention to the client because that's what they're there for.

That's what's most important. And I said, but what about the air display? What about all the planes? Am I supposed to ignore the fact that there's these two massive helicopters, both probably bigger than this building going past? How am I supposed to ignore that? I mean, it's exciting. Plus I'm quite high up in the building.

So I get a really good view. No, no, nothing in the way to stop, you know, the view and that. And she said, I understood when you said we can get a really good view, you didn't have to add anything to it.

I said, all right, a bit pedantic. She said, you're pedantic. A little cuddle after that, but obviously that has to keep, that got to be kept quiet.

And that was between me and the teacher. And I think she was younger than me. I was older than the teacher.

That's wrong, isn't it? If you go to, you go to college and you're older than the tutors, that's, that's, I felt old. I think I was the oldest person in the class. No, there's one person older than me.

He was a gardener. Not really relevant what he did for a living. So to him, it was, but I mean, for the story, it's very funny.

It's just weird. The teachers didn't like me, but they liked him. They laughed at everything he said.

And he was a, he was a really nice bloke and he was funny, but they didn't laugh at anything I said. And it was almost like it was that, do you ever see someone talking to someone that they really, really fancy and they laugh at everything that the person says, even though nothing they say is funny or, you know, and they say, oh, they'll do some cliche, like, oh, it's, it's raining cats and dogs out there.

And because the person fancied them, they're like rolling around screaming with laughter.

Like it's the funniest thing they've ever heard. Even though, I mean, in this country, raining cats and dogs is just an old, really old expression. Although it is a weird expression, to be fair.

It's quite funny. In fact, raining cats and dogs. But you know, just it could be something that's like mildly amusing and like really exaggerated laughter because their hormones are overactive with giddiness of being around this person that they're super attracted to, which explains why people weren't laughing at me because no one had those feelings towards me.

The teachers clearly didn't fancy me, but they fancied him and they were just laughing at everything. They'd say good morning. They'd laugh.

It's a good evening. I'll see you. See you in a week.

See you next week. They'd laugh like it was a joke. I remember once he said, I've got to leave.

I got, I don't, I hope you don't mind. I'm going to be, I might have to keep leaving during the session because I've got a bit, or during the class, I've got a bout of They were laughing. Oh, he's so lovely.

He's talking about his bowel problems and you're laughing. It's like he came once. He said, oh, I'm going to have to have next Thursday off because I've got to go to a family funeral.

They were laughing like, oh, he's so funny. Weird. Just because they fancied him.

Maybe. I don't know. Well, they liked him.

They just didn't like me. It's not fair. Actually, one person liked me.

One person did. And she ended up being my supervisor, actually. One of my supervisors, when I was in private, not private, but when I sort of left college.

So I had a supervisor. I had two supervisors. I had a supervisor because that basically you have to go to them with a record recordings.

They listen and you talk through the sessions and if you've got problems or whatever, it's like once a week or once every two weeks. And it's an hour or 50 minutes or whatever. And it's just like, it's not a therapy session for you, but it's a way that you can kind of ask questions and to gain some kind of insight into what's going on.

So one of those liked me a lot. One of them didn't like me. But the one that didn't like me in some ways helped me the most because she was also a teacher and she just really looked at me like I remember looking at and she was looking at me.

We're looking at each other, I suppose. And I felt like I was the cause of all her problems throughout her entire life. It's like she's blaming me for everything.

It's like, okay, I know I'm a bit annoying. I wonder if that packet is actually empty or as he couldn't open it. That's interesting because I'm just looking and he pushed the packet and maybe he couldn't.

That's why I didn't hear him because he didn't actually get to open it. I'm not over there because it doesn't look like it's been opened like ripped open. I mean, so, yeah, my first one, the one that didn't like me.

She we did. I had to do a 15 minute recording and I had to transcribe it, which now, so I had to record it and then transcribe it, which took hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and hours and six, seven, eight hours to do a really long process. It took ages.

And now we're taking about two minutes using like a transcriber online would have just like been like so quick now. But I spent hours doing it because there was no didn't have AI didn't have computer things that could do that back then. So I went in there and I remember the teeth that her being my supervisor saying.

Telling me it wasn't very good. I said, OK. And she's and because what I was doing was just being a very listening therapist, but not asking anything, just sitting there like a wobbly head, like, you know, almost like a cliche.

How does that make you feel? Tell me more. And I guess I was doing that to start with. And then she she said, now you can talk, you know, you're allowed to have a personality.

And from that, I progressed. She still didn't like me after that, even asked Fankta. And so that's it.

I can't remember what I was going to tell you, but I got to go because the battery is about to run out. What was I going to tell you? That's very strange, because there was something, but I don't remember what. Well, the different stories, the counselling, the treats, Christmas treats.

Oh, the dog over the fence. I went over there to help out with doing the documents. The dog loves me.

Loves me. I'm talking loves me and was humping my leg for about an hour. Love me that dog.

I've never known a dog to like me more than that dog over there. He wouldn't leave me alone for a second. He was pulling at my trousers, playing, everything.

Honestly, he likes me more than I get more love from him in an hour than I got from Vinnie probably the last three years. Well, maybe not. That's an exaggeration, but he absolutely adores me.

Vinnie almost like, oh, it's you again. Weird. And I'm trying, I want to get them together, but she said that he doesn't like other dogs.

So it's going to be a weird one. But it was so funny. I'm trying to talk to her and he's like, literally going at my leg continuously.

And it was just, she kept telling him off and I'm just laughing because I just find it hilarious. I've never, I've never had my leg humped before by a dog. I've seen it in movies and comedy shows.

You know, I've never, never had it happen in real life. And it's very funny. I just, I just found it hilarious.

And maybe I'm, I was like, maybe I'm immature. I mean, we all know I'm immature, but wow, it really made my day. It really did.

And it was the closest thing to a relationship I've had for a long time. And on that note, that rather disturbing note, I'm going to go. So thank you for listening.

Remember to be kind to yourself because you do deserve to be happy and be gentle with yourself. You deserve to feel safe. And remember also that you are going to be okay, but it's also okay to not feel okay.

That might sound strange, but it's all right to not feel okay. But also remember that you will eventually be okay. Sounds like a puzzle, doesn't it? But there is some meaning in that.

So ultimately, don't give yourself a hard time. And it's all right to accept how you're feeling. Because I know sometimes other people won't, or they can't.

It's not their fault. But it's okay to accept the way you're feeling now, but also realize that it's not how you're always going to feel. Things will improve, if they need to.

So thank you for listening, and take care. Lots of love. And thanks for watching, if you're watching.

Bye. And subscribe. See ya.