Joanne Lockwood: Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood, and I'm your host
Joanne Lockwood: for the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I have interviewed a
Joanne Lockwood: number of amazing people and simply had the conversation around the subject of
Joanne Lockwood: inclusion, belonging, and generally making the world a better place
Joanne Lockwood: for everyone to thrive. If you'd like to join me in the future, then please
Joanne Lockwood: do drop me a line to
Joanne Lockwood: jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk.
Joanne Lockwood: That's S-E-E Change Happen dot co
Joanne Lockwood: dot uk. You can catch up with all of the previous shows on iTunes,
Joanne Lockwood: Spotify and the usual places. So plug in your headphones,
Joanne Lockwood: grab a decaf, and let's get going. Today is
Joanne Lockwood: episode 104 with the title from
Joanne Lockwood: battlefield to wellness, and I have the absolute
Joanne Lockwood: honour and privilege to welcome Jason Archdale. Jason
Joanne Lockwood: describes himself as a wellness coach and speaker.
Joanne Lockwood: When I asked Jason to describe his superpower, he said to
Joanne Lockwood: let people know it's okay to not be
Joanne Lockwood: okay and that there is a light. I should warn any
Joanne Lockwood: listeners that we will be talking about poor mental health and there'll
Joanne Lockwood: be references to suicide. Hello, Jason. Welcome to the show.
Jason Archdale: Jo. Hello, pleasure to be here. So happy for this
Joanne Lockwood: fantastic. Jason, you've had some dark times.
Joanne Lockwood: Tell us a bit about yourself, your story from battlefield to wellness.
Jason Archdale: Wow. I've had some bad. Yeah, some hard bad times.
Jason Archdale: But life wasn't always this way,
Jason Archdale: Jo. I was kind of a carefree, happy going
Jason Archdale: looking lad when growing up in a
Jason Archdale: small mining town in the north of England. I was
Jason Archdale: always adventurous and joining the venture scouts and
Jason Archdale: really didn't want to do much at school. So when I
Jason Archdale: left, I went to one of those career conventions, like
Jason Archdale: the last year at school, and everybody's there and you don't want to be this
Jason Archdale: and you don't want to be that. But right at the back of the room,
Jason Archdale: right at the very back, there was this banner, and the
Jason Archdale: banner had a picture of a tank on it, and this tank was
Jason Archdale: airborne. And I said, that's it. That's where I wanted. I was 16.
Jason Archdale: That's less than 16, just about to leave school. And so that's what I wanted
Jason Archdale: to do. So about three weeks later, I marched myself down, not knowing how to
Jason Archdale: march at that time, but marched myself down to the careers office
Jason Archdale: and signed on the line. And within, I guess, a few months, I
Jason Archdale: was, that's it. The army is now my mother, right? That's what they say. I'm
Jason Archdale: your mother now. So I was in the army and that was it. And
Jason Archdale: lived a fulfilling, happy, and
Jason Archdale: amazing carefree life in the army for
Jason Archdale: around five years. So, yeah,
Jason Archdale: it was an amazing experience, a great stepping stone, but never wanted to stay in
Jason Archdale: for a very long length of time and then came
Jason Archdale: out of the army and wanted to spread my wings into civilian life.
Jason Archdale: Right. But life kind of took hold and took over. And
Jason Archdale: I'm sure we'll talk a lot more about this throughout this
Jason Archdale: conversation, Jo. But I didn't deal with life very well.
Jason Archdale: Life took hold of me and I went down the rabbit hole,
Jason Archdale: spiralling down into poor mental health.
Jason Archdale: It just took a grip and to the point.
Jason Archdale: Unfortunately, I went over the edge to
Jason Archdale: attempting my own life,
Jason Archdale: obviously unsuccessfully. Hence why I'm here now, talking to
Jason Archdale: you right now. Right. But I believe throughout all of this
Jason Archdale: experience, there's many, many lessons, hence why I can stand here now or
Jason Archdale: stand on the stage or speak to people now. This is my passion and my
Jason Archdale: purpose, to be able to do this now and speak to people about
Jason Archdale: my story, my story of darkness, but the story of
Jason Archdale: recovery to wellness. Now, let me just wind the clock back a bit there. So
Joanne Lockwood: you're saying you join the army at the age of probably, what, 16
Joanne Lockwood: and a half or whatever, you do your exams in June, July,
Joanne Lockwood: you have a couple of weeks off while you wait for the next intake, and
Joanne Lockwood: suddenly there you are on the train,
Joanne Lockwood: or however transport you got, and you got off at the station at the other
Joanne Lockwood: end, and there's a load of people milling around waiting for you and
Joanne Lockwood: say what you. Whatever the army equivalent is,
Joanne Lockwood: and you get put on a bus or you get walking around the corner
Joanne Lockwood: and suddenly you're going, oh, what? Life is
Joanne Lockwood: different suddenly? It's a real shock. I joined the
Joanne Lockwood: Royal Air force straight from school, right. So I had a similar
Joanne Lockwood: experience. I got on the train, got off to
Joanne Lockwood: Swindervy. I'm not sure what the railway station was. It's probably Newark. And there was
Joanne Lockwood: a bus there. We all got marched on. And you can sort of figure out
Joanne Lockwood: who's in it and they march you in. And there's no kind of
Joanne Lockwood: honeymoon period, is it? Basically, the discipline starts from sort of almost
Joanne Lockwood: like the first second, I think they march you into the station barbers and
Joanne Lockwood: brand you with a haircut before. You do anything else.
Joanne Lockwood: Tell us about that day. Yeah, absolutely.
Jason Archdale: I remember I was so happy, but my mum was so sad.
Jason Archdale: She had a little boy going. Yes, I was 16. And
Jason Archdale: you're dead, right? Because although I didn't know what I
Jason Archdale: wanted to do with my life at the time, at 16, it was a massive
Jason Archdale: culture shock. And you're so right, you kind of get your
Jason Archdale: army train ticket. They send you a train ticket. And
Jason Archdale: mine was to Surrey per bright in Surrey. The
Jason Archdale: guards training depot in Surrey. And I'd kind of
Jason Archdale: never been out of Yorkshire at that time, right. And so I'd been down there,
Jason Archdale: an amazing adventure trip. But it didn't last long because, yeah, you get off
Jason Archdale: the train and it's almost like you're the only
Jason Archdale: one on the platform and then somebody else gets off a train and, you know
Jason Archdale: it's a squaddy, a potential squaddy, right? And then all of a sudden you're this
Jason Archdale: bellowing out from the entrance of the platform,
Jason Archdale: as you said, right, come on out and you're in this
Jason Archdale: bus with no markings on. It's not a glorious National Express bus, right? There's no
Jason Archdale: markings on. It's plain white army bus. Right.
Jason Archdale: Your life instantly. Instantly changes from
Jason Archdale: stepping off that train. But it's what I wanted to do and I
Jason Archdale: did it. I joined and this is what I wanted to do. So it's like,
Jason Archdale: suck it up, boy. So which regiment, which
Joanne Lockwood: division, which part the army did you join? So I was part of the Household
Jason Archdale: cavalry. Now, the household cavalry is split. For those that are not
Jason Archdale: aware of the household cavalry, when they have ceremonial parades on
Jason Archdale: tv, like when they're doing the jubilees and things, and when the queen
Jason Archdale: or the king are in the carriages and those guys on the horses with the
Jason Archdale: red tunics and the plumes on the head, that's the ceremonial
Jason Archdale: side of the regiment I was in called them lifeguards of the Household
Jason Archdale: Cavalry Regiment. But I actually joined the armoured division, which
Jason Archdale: is the tank. So I joined the tank division of that.
Jason Archdale: So I wanted to be a tank driver. Right. Not a horse rider.
Jason Archdale: So I wanted to be a real soldier. So I used to play with action
Jason Archdale: men, right. And so I wanted to be an action man. So I
Jason Archdale: joined the tank division of the household cavalry. Jo. Yeah,
Jason Archdale: it was great. I've seen loads of
Joanne Lockwood: tv documentaries of following the early stage
Joanne Lockwood: career of squadies going through basic training.
Joanne Lockwood: Obviously, I was RAF. We used to live in hotels and have five star service
Joanne Lockwood: and breakfast service every day. That's what the other two services say about
Joanne Lockwood: us. We have it easy, don't we? Your basic training must have
Joanne Lockwood: been significantly harder than our couple of weekends here and there. Wow.
Jason Archdale: Right? Yeah. Yes, absolutely. No, we never had any
Jason Archdale: hotels. So my training was around nine months.
Jason Archdale: It was about nine months. It was proper
Jason Archdale: infantry training. We're talking
Jason Archdale: everything from crawling through tunnels where
Jason Archdale: you have to go underneath it, climbing obstacle courses and firing
Jason Archdale: weapons and things. Right. And you grow up very quickly.
Jason Archdale: Right. Although you're 16, you grow up very quickly because of the
Jason Archdale: discipline that's in it. And, yes, you're right, there's very
Jason Archdale: many tv programmes that show the early stages of the army
Jason Archdale: career, but they only show the training aspect of it. They don't show it when
Jason Archdale: you get to the regiment because it's not all like it shows on tv.
Jason Archdale: Right. Yes, it is a lot of beasting, it's a lot of discipline, it's a
Jason Archdale: lot of training, but there's a purpose behind that. But when you get to your
Jason Archdale: regiment and you pass out, basically, it's like
Jason Archdale: going to work every morning. Right. I mean, I was a tank driver, so
Jason Archdale: I turned up to work when I passed out. By the way, when I did
Jason Archdale: pass out, my first posting was in Germany. So, like, 17, I
Jason Archdale: was flown across to Germany for three years based over there on the
Jason Archdale: tanks. So it was almost like
Jason Archdale: a guy waking up here in Leeds. That's where I am waking
Jason Archdale: up, putting his overalls on and going to work at Halfords or quick fit on
Jason Archdale: the morning to fix vehicles. Right. So we woke up in the morning,
Jason Archdale: went to the vehicle park and fixed our tank just a bit bigger.
Jason Archdale: Right. But
Jason Archdale: it is very different because there are rules. It's an establishment, isn't it?
Jason Archdale: It's an establishment, but an amazing stepping stone.
Jason Archdale: And I did quite a lot. I travelled the world with it.
Jason Archdale: At 18, we went to war. We went to
Jason Archdale: the first Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm, if you remember. Storm in
Jason Archdale: Norman. Right, so Operation Desert Storm went there with our tanks.
Jason Archdale: I was a tank driver at 18 in the first Gulf War.
Jason Archdale: And then when I came back from there very shortly afterwards, got selected
Jason Archdale: to go on an
Jason Archdale: expedition, a civilian type expedition to Venezuela.
Jason Archdale: Sky TV went with us and filmed it on sky one quite a way
Jason Archdale: back. Now we're talking 1991, Sky
Jason Archdale: TV went. Yeah. So we were going down the
Jason Archdale: Oranoco river and camping out next to the Oranoco
Jason Archdale: and just doing all sorts of amazing things. I actually got arrested there because
Jason Archdale: people thought we were mercenaries, because we were stuck out like a sore thumb. Nobody
Jason Archdale: dresses like Rambo in the desert, in the jungle, apart from us. Right.
Jason Archdale: We thought that's how you dressed. So,
Jason Archdale: yeah, amazing experiences, Jo. In the army, there's
Joanne Lockwood: a kinship and fellowship and a real bond between your
Joanne Lockwood: mates, isn't it? And it becomes your family. And you talked
Joanne Lockwood: about the arm is your mother, but your mates are your brothers, aren't
Joanne Lockwood: they? Yeah, 100%. And
Jason Archdale: it really was that because you live with them, you sleep
Jason Archdale: with them, you go out on the town with them, they're
Jason Archdale: there. Twenty four, seven. You really don't have
Jason Archdale: that time apart. And of course you don't get like
Jason Archdale: normal life, you don't get on with everybody. But
Jason Archdale: there's a part where you have tolerate that, but
Jason Archdale: it really is that kinship. But you would still do anything for
Jason Archdale: anybody in the army, right? Because that's the mentality of
Jason Archdale: it. That's what it breeds into you and it's what it did.
Jason Archdale: But as I said, you grow up very quickly. And I think
Jason Archdale: I joined at 16, but by the time I got to my regiment, I was
Jason Archdale: 17 and a bit, if you like. But you kind of felt 20
Jason Archdale: or something. So if you're 20 in there, you'd feel 22. So there's always
Jason Archdale: years ahead of you in the army because of what you have to grow up
Jason Archdale: very quick and come on, how many people
Jason Archdale: at 18 years old said that their company vehicle was a tank?
Jason Archdale: Right? So
Joanne Lockwood: you were that tank driver running around, running over
Joanne Lockwood: things in
Joanne Lockwood: Kuwait. I actually did, but yeah, I mean, Kuwait was a bit different when we
Jason Archdale: went over there because obviously it was all very much different. But we did do
Jason Archdale: know we went out for two or three weeks with the vehicles in Germany. We'd
Jason Archdale: have to drive them off the planes, off the prairies and drive them down civilian
Jason Archdale: streets. So actually I did clip a few cars and put my trucks over a
Jason Archdale: few volkswagen beetles and squashed them a little bit.
Jason Archdale: I'm sure the army is insured, right. But yeah, it is
Jason Archdale: what it is. It's all part of the tank driving game. Is it running over
Joanne Lockwood: something? Sorry, didn't notice that. Of course it is
Jason Archdale: and you can't. But it is what it is. But yeah, we got a bit
Jason Archdale: of a tongue in off for that one. Yeah. At the age of 16, in
Joanne Lockwood: a bit you're basically given. I was given when I was in the
Joanne Lockwood: RAF, an SLR seven six two SLR.
Joanne Lockwood: We were stripping it down, reassembling it in 10 seconds
Joanne Lockwood: or something, racing to load the magazines up with, I don't know, 20
Joanne Lockwood: rounds, whatever they take. And then we're on the firing range shooting these
Joanne Lockwood: things. And then we have the submachine guns and we had the
Joanne Lockwood: lay down one. I can't remember what it was now or something. GPMG, probably
Joanne Lockwood: a GPMG trying to fire as many rounds
Joanne Lockwood: as you can into the target at the end of the. Watching little splats of
Joanne Lockwood: dirt coming up. And we're doing that 60 and a half.
Joanne Lockwood: We could do this, we could do that, we could do the other. But
Joanne Lockwood: we couldn't get married without our parents permission. But we could go and kill
Joanne Lockwood: somebody or couldn't even vote. Crazy. Exactly.
Jason Archdale: Right. And that takes me back a bit when you say the SMR, because we'd
Jason Archdale: obviously, at that point, when I was in, we transitioned to the SA 80. Right.
Jason Archdale: Which is obviously a fantastic piece of kit. But
Jason Archdale: you're dead right. It's almost like you're given this responsibility at a very young
Jason Archdale: age. As soon as you walk in, this is your weapon.
Jason Archdale: This is your weapon. This is a rifle, these are
Jason Archdale: live ammunition. And then, obviously, when I've passed out, you then go
Jason Archdale: to Germany and this is your
Jason Archdale: tank. Right. So I've levelled up from a rifle
Jason Archdale: to a tank, right. This thing is
Jason Archdale: like 70 tonne, 2 million pound piece of kit. And I've
Jason Archdale: got my foot on the pedal, so there's
Jason Archdale: a huge responsibility in there. Obviously,
Joanne Lockwood: the official secrets out of what you can and can't say. I don't know. What's
Joanne Lockwood: it like inside a tank? Presumably there's no windows.
Joanne Lockwood: It's all computer controlled and tv cameras. Is
Joanne Lockwood: it? It is now. It's all very technical now. I mean, I left in
Jason Archdale: 1994 and the tanks have evolved massively now, so everything's
Jason Archdale: very much automated.
Jason Archdale: No, there are no windows, there are periscopes,
Jason Archdale: but obviously you get in through holes. So if
Jason Archdale: you imagine the top of the tank, the commander, the gunner and the
Jason Archdale: loader, the operator, get in through the top of the tank, the driver gets in
Jason Archdale: through the front and he's got a hole at the bottom and then it closes
Jason Archdale: his hatch and then that's it. You look through a metal periscope. If you want
Jason Archdale: to drive tactically, if you drive opened up, you've just got your head sticking out
Jason Archdale: of this piece of metal. Right. Which looks a bit weird, but
Jason Archdale: even so. No, actually,
Jason Archdale: it can be claustrophobic. It's very snug, put it that way.
Jason Archdale: Everything's made to fit. It's not made for comfort, put it that way.
Joanne Lockwood: No, a tank is pretty
Joanne Lockwood: solid, it's pretty armoured and it moves quite quickly.
Joanne Lockwood: 40 miles an hour, saying when it's going to go, isn't it? It really does
Joanne Lockwood: motor. But say you're safe in one side, but you're also quite
Joanne Lockwood: vulnerable in another. Antitank weapons, helicopter
Joanne Lockwood: launch, whatever it may be, you are potentially a sitting duck, as well as being
Joanne Lockwood: safe in air, but sitting duck here. And it must be quite scary to be
Joanne Lockwood: on a battlefield. Yeah. But do you know what,
Jason Archdale: and I say this in my talk, that I was
Jason Archdale: living my best life. I didn't have a care in the world.
Jason Archdale: That's not to be blase about things. It's just how I felt at the time.
Jason Archdale: Because when I was in the Gulf, of
Jason Archdale: course, we were in the tanks, we were in the theatre of war, right,
Jason Archdale: and anything could happen. And there were B 52s going over, there
Jason Archdale: were Scud missiles every now and again with the siren, and the
Jason Archdale: sirens would go, Scud missiles.
Jason Archdale: But it still never kind of really affected me. I was inside
Jason Archdale: this tank. We weren't always inside it, but I kind of felt
Jason Archdale: a lot safer inside that than the infantry guy running alongside of us.
Jason Archdale: Right.
Jason Archdale: But, yeah, of course there are still threats from the antitank
Jason Archdale: and whatever, and it only takes a grenade to throw a
Jason Archdale: track off a tank. Then you've got to get out and put the track back
Jason Archdale: on and that leaves you vulnerable. So there are still vulnerabilities to being a tank
Jason Archdale: driver, but I think we are one of the safest ones. But like I
Jason Archdale: said, I didn't think about that at the time. We just do it. Right?
Joanne Lockwood: What's the crew? It's like four or five people. So there's a
Jason Archdale: driver, obviously, who sits right at the very front in his own separate cab. And
Jason Archdale: then you've got the gunner that sits right at the very bottom and
Jason Archdale: he has no way out. He can't get out until everybody else does. And
Jason Archdale: then the loader is the one who loads the big
Jason Archdale: gun. He's the Lord who puts all the big bullets in. He
Jason Archdale: puts the big bullets in the gun. And then the commander. The commander sits on
Jason Archdale: the top, on the top seat. So there's four of us working as a team
Jason Archdale: in there. So you're living your best life, you're travelling around the
Joanne Lockwood: world, you're with your mates, having a fantastic time, working hard,
Joanne Lockwood: playing hard, drinking hard, no doubt, really enjoying
Joanne Lockwood: yourself. And then life changes. What happens
Joanne Lockwood: next? It kind of didn't change
Jason Archdale: straight away. And with many things, things happen
Jason Archdale: gradually over time, don't they? But then
Jason Archdale: we ignore red flags, don't we, in life? And then all of a sudden, the
Jason Archdale: universe, if you like, then just goes, oh, there you go. I told you this
Jason Archdale: was coming. And we ignore it. But the thing is, with things
Jason Archdale: like this, if you're not aware of red flags, how do you deal with
Jason Archdale: them? If your mind is not open to spotting red flags,
Jason Archdale: you can't do it. And my mindset wasn't in
Jason Archdale: observation mode. If you like two things like this.
Jason Archdale: When I came out, I won't say I rebelled against the army,
Jason Archdale: but I didn't want to be in an establishment anymore
Jason Archdale: or like the prison service or the fire service or whatever. I just wanted to
Jason Archdale: kind of be free and do what I wanted to do. And I'd recently
Jason Archdale: just got together with somebody at the time
Jason Archdale: and so I kind of wanted to come out and start enjoying that life and
Jason Archdale: see what that life was all about. We ended up being together for 17
Jason Archdale: years, actually. We
Jason Archdale: then got engaged and got a house, got married and did all the
Jason Archdale: white picket fence stuff as you would normally do. But I kind of
Jason Archdale: never really had any aspirations.
Jason Archdale: I was this different person to where I was in the army. Didn't
Jason Archdale: have the dreams or the goals. I was just kind of like living well. We're
Jason Archdale: supposed to get engaged, aren't we? Or we're supposed to get married, aren't we? Or
Jason Archdale: let's get a house now. And this is the order we do it and let's
Jason Archdale: do that. And you'd save up for twelve months and go on that holiday that
Jason Archdale: you'd booked twelve months earlier and that kind of stuff. Pretty normal.
Jason Archdale: So, yeah, nothing really groundbreaking in that sense.
Jason Archdale: So just pretty average life, if I'm honest, Jo, at that time.
Joanne Lockwood: I tend to refer to that as the conveyor
Joanne Lockwood: belt of responsibility and expectations because
Joanne Lockwood: you just get into this zone of
Joanne Lockwood: conformity of doing what you do. You pick up
Joanne Lockwood: responsibilities, partner, wife, house,
Joanne Lockwood: children, job. And suddenly you find your life
Joanne Lockwood: is very procedural, isn't it? You have a routine,
Joanne Lockwood: you have to just get up and do stuff. And sometimes, as you say, that
Joanne Lockwood: kind of masks sometimes what's going on underneath or the
Joanne Lockwood: miscommunication or the happiness or lack of happiness or whatever it
Joanne Lockwood: may be. You just kind of do what you do and it sounds like you've
Joanne Lockwood: picked up those responsibilities. Absolutely. And you know what I
Jason Archdale: think part and parcel of it was that
Jason Archdale: in the army, how can I say it, that it's really
Jason Archdale: easy to understand. Everything's done for you, it's done for you. The
Jason Archdale: decisions are made for you. You've just got to do. You just got to do
Jason Archdale: it. And that's what I did. So I came out
Jason Archdale: and, hey, I've got to make my own choices, but I
Jason Archdale: kind of like made the choices based on what
Jason Archdale: society and peers told you or the
Jason Archdale: social expectations were. This is what we're supposed to do,
Jason Archdale: right? My family is great and I love my
Jason Archdale: family, but never pushed into anything to be great
Jason Archdale: or have these big dreams or whatever. So I just fell
Jason Archdale: into that normality of life, if you like, and just
Jason Archdale: plodding away. And it really was just plodding away.
Jason Archdale: I had a painting decorating business and
Jason Archdale: I would be happy just earning 90 quid a day just painting an old
Jason Archdale: lady's bathroom or something
Jason Archdale: today. I kind of, like, laugh at that.
Jason Archdale: I don't know, in a way that, wow, I won't even do that
Jason Archdale: today, right. Because of my learnings.
Jason Archdale: But that's who I was. But I knew there was something
Jason Archdale: more. I knew there was something more, but I couldn't pinpoint
Jason Archdale: it. And what I meant by that is from me.
Jason Archdale: I knew there's something more to come from me. Yeah. I'm just thinking, as you're
Joanne Lockwood: saying, that in the army, you don't drive the tank
Joanne Lockwood: every day. There are days when you'll be cleaning the toilets, there'd be days when
Joanne Lockwood: you're shovelling snow, days when you're picking up stuff off an air, off an air
Joanne Lockwood: Runway, air for Runway. There'd be days when you're doing all these other things.
Joanne Lockwood: In a way, you get so ingrained into doing whatever the
Joanne Lockwood: task is you're assigned without questioning it or
Joanne Lockwood: expecting different. That's what it is. You say you paid for a decorating
Joanne Lockwood: job. Mine probably said to you, this is what I do, I've got to get
Joanne Lockwood: on with it. And you don't question it, because the army, the services
Joanne Lockwood: institutionalise you and your choices are limited as to
Joanne Lockwood: what you want for dinner. You've got a choice of three main courses, and that's
Joanne Lockwood: probably the biggest choice you have in the day. Yeah,
Jason Archdale: absolutely. And you're right, you are funnelled down this. You either do
Jason Archdale: that, that or that, and you do it.
Jason Archdale: But I think when it came to making my own choices,
Jason Archdale: and it's like I was just clodding away with the
Jason Archdale: decorating business and sometimes not even working for weeks. I
Jason Archdale: didn't know how to do marketing. I didn't know any of. There were no social
Jason Archdale: media back then and whatever it was on referral
Jason Archdale: from word of mouth and things. Right.
Jason Archdale: But I wasn't even good at that. Don't get me wrong, I'm a
Jason Archdale: fantastic painter decorator, by the way, but just. You might have the best business
Jason Archdale: in the world, but if you shop windows down, nobody will see what you're
Jason Archdale: selling. Right? Nobody could see
Jason Archdale: what I was selling because I wasn't putting myself out there,
Jason Archdale: because I didn't know how to. And did I want to, really? Did
Jason Archdale: I just want the norm. Did I want the comfortable? Because I'd been in this
Jason Archdale: establishment for five years, flying around the world and doing this kind of stuff,
Jason Archdale: right? But I soon got very bored of it and kind
Jason Archdale: of knew there was something kind of like just more to happen.
Jason Archdale: But the big question mark was, was what
Jason Archdale: was that? What was. See, you'd lost
Joanne Lockwood: the army mother, you'd lost your brother,
Joanne Lockwood: mates where you lived and did everything together. And you had a similar humour
Joanne Lockwood: banter and everything else going on, and the rigidity of you, like,
Joanne Lockwood: all the conformity of doing kind of a framework of what you're told.
Joanne Lockwood: And now you're there trying to figure your life out with
Joanne Lockwood: choices that you hadn't necessarily been brought up
Joanne Lockwood: to understand because you left school at 16 and you
Joanne Lockwood: don't have a lot of free will at 16 either, do you? You're kind of
Joanne Lockwood: living with your parents and again, you're fitting into school, whatever it is. So
Joanne Lockwood: there you are, early 20s, not knowing how to make decisions
Joanne Lockwood: for yourself, and no one's coaching or mentoring you. You're now going,
Joanne Lockwood: Jason, go figure.
Jason Archdale: And I didn't. Go figure. Yeah.
Jason Archdale: Like I said, I was still in this relationship
Jason Archdale: where I was about to come out of the army. So I was serving
Jason Archdale: my last year in the army where we kind of, like, just decided to get
Jason Archdale: together. So as soon as we came out, I had the excitement of
Jason Archdale: wanting to be in a relationship then. And that's all I wanted to put my.
Jason Archdale: That was my biggest dream and goal, was to build a relationship
Jason Archdale: and be in that. But over time, like
Jason Archdale: I said, we were in this relationship 17 years
Jason Archdale: and it kind of probably due to me,
Jason Archdale: became stagnant because I felt there was more to come, or I
Jason Archdale: wanted more, rather, from what was happening or
Jason Archdale: how the relationship. It wasn't all about the relationship, by the way. There's a lot
Jason Archdale: more going on, but more just from life, because I would see and
Jason Archdale: I would watch these programmes like Dragons Den or watch these
Jason Archdale: exclusive holiday programmes and think, I want to do that.
Jason Archdale: Not go on Dragons den particularly, but seeing people making money
Jason Archdale: and having dreams and hearing the word dream and goal.
Jason Archdale: And I used to love and I put myself into that while I was watching
Jason Archdale: the programme. But then instantly you're back into
Jason Archdale: reality and this stuff doesn't happen to me. So,
Jason Archdale: Jace, get back into your painting world or get back
Jason Archdale: into your life. And that's what I accepted. So you say
Joanne Lockwood: you were in a relationship for 17 years. That's 17 years effectively after you left
Joanne Lockwood: the army. So you've been doing this kind of painting and decorating,
Joanne Lockwood: bumbling along for a good period of time.
Joanne Lockwood: So obviously things started turning darker at that point.
Joanne Lockwood: So what things were going wrong? What's the first signs of
Joanne Lockwood: it? That's a question that I always get asked, and
Jason Archdale: I can never put a date in the diary to it or to what
Jason Archdale: exactly kicked it off. And it was one of those we
Jason Archdale: highlighted earlier in the conversation, is that these things start to creep up on you,
Jason Archdale: but if you're not aware of them in mind,
Jason Archdale: I think it was because I was starting to feel there was more to life,
Jason Archdale: there was more to experience out there, but didn't know
Jason Archdale: how to do it. And I was starting to feel
Jason Archdale: a lot of resentment for my life, although.
Jason Archdale: And some people listening to this could go, well, look at what you've just done
Jason Archdale: in the army, right? I mean, this kid driving a tank at 18 and flying
Jason Archdale: to Venezuela, and now you've got resentment for your
Jason Archdale: life. Well, not for that part of my life, but for the part of my
Jason Archdale: life I was in now. I was starting to resent it
Jason Archdale: and taught me really starting to get anxious.
Jason Archdale: And it was the anxiety that was starting to creep in first. The
Jason Archdale: anxiety was because I kept saying to
Jason Archdale: myself, when I was watching these programmes like the Dragons Den or these
Jason Archdale: exclusive programmes about going on exclusive holidays and
Jason Archdale: things I really wanted to do, and I stopped watching that stuff because it started
Jason Archdale: to get me down, because I knew people like me don't have this kind
Jason Archdale: of stuff, right. And so the anxiety, I think, would be the
Jason Archdale: first thing that started to kick this off. And you know what happens, Jo,
Jason Archdale: when you're not in control of your mind, or rather when you can't
Jason Archdale: control your thoughts, the anxiety takes over. And it did.
Jason Archdale: It skyrocketed. The anxiety started to kick in. So did
Joanne Lockwood: you have feelings of not being good enough or feelings of
Joanne Lockwood: inadequacy or feelings of not lost about where you go
Joanne Lockwood: next? It was all that kind of, in a nutshell, absolutely. Was
Jason Archdale: that
Jason Archdale: I actually sat down with my head in my
Jason Archdale: hands. The house was empty. I imagined
Jason Archdale: myself at that time. I was 30 something, mid thirty
Jason Archdale: s. My daughter was coming up to five year
Jason Archdale: old. She's 18 now. Beautiful relationship
Jason Archdale: that we have. And she was coming up to five at that
Jason Archdale: time. And as I said, I was starting to resent my life, where it was.
Jason Archdale: I didn't want to be as well in the relationship anymore
Jason Archdale: that I was in, because I felt trapped in it. And I started to picture
Jason Archdale: myself, what would this be like now? Once my
Jason Archdale: daughter's left home in 20 years time, am I still going to
Jason Archdale: be here in this same scenario, 20 years time, when it's
Jason Archdale: too late? And that kicked off my anxiety and
Jason Archdale: it went through the roof because I saw myself. We talk about
Jason Archdale: visualisations and manifestations and things that we create, what we put
Jason Archdale: in our mind, right? And I was creating this scary vision of the
Jason Archdale: future of me sitting there, this loner, sad, not loner as
Jason Archdale: such, but still in the same dull, boring, resentment relationship.
Jason Archdale: And I think that is what started to. That was the tipping
Jason Archdale: point, I think. So. Presumably, at that time, your relationship was at a
Joanne Lockwood: point where both of you were not happy. There was tension
Joanne Lockwood: breakdown, lots of probably arguments and
Joanne Lockwood: shouting and not being happy with each other and no safe
Joanne Lockwood: space, no one to comfort, no one to sort of pour your heart out to,
Joanne Lockwood: no one to say, look, I need help. So again, you're being stoic and
Joanne Lockwood: manly and kind of holding it all in, not having a solution
Joanne Lockwood: of where to go next. That's with the anxiety and not knowing how to fix
Joanne Lockwood: this problem. Yeah, it exactly was that. Because
Jason Archdale: life is really about having the coping strategies to deal
Jason Archdale: with things when they happen, right? And
Jason Archdale: although technically we all do have the coping strategies, but we're
Jason Archdale: just not aware that we have them. And that's why it's great
Jason Archdale: when we can reach out to people who have been through this stuff, right,
Jason Archdale: that can show you this.
Jason Archdale: I absolutely think that if I didn't walk away from that
Jason Archdale: relationship, I'd still be in it today, that my wife would still
Jason Archdale: accept the status quo, still go on as we were,
Jason Archdale: just because of the fear of not knowing what else
Jason Archdale: is out there and having the faith.
Jason Archdale: But things started to
Jason Archdale: talk to me. I don't want to sound all woo woo and all
Jason Archdale: weird, but things started to talk to me. I'm talking about my feelings, my
Jason Archdale: intuition. Although at that point, and by the way,
Jason Archdale: I am on the spiritual side, but at
Jason Archdale: that point, I didn't know what I wouldn't have related to it as been spirit.
Jason Archdale: Spirit guides or universal energies or something. Right. I just knew
Jason Archdale: my feelings were coming through and it got to this
Jason Archdale: overwhelming feeling of, that's
Jason Archdale: it. I made the decision, I don't want to be in it anymore. I don't
Jason Archdale: want to be in this relationship anymore. But it was at that point as well
Jason Archdale: where I'd also started to build up the depression.
Jason Archdale: Obviously, it's the anxiety, the depression. I was living with fear
Jason Archdale: in my life as well. The fear of staying as
Jason Archdale: is the fear of what's next, or I'm just
Jason Archdale: going to go to the end of my life and this is it, right?
Jason Archdale: So they were all escalating and escalating and getting to
Jason Archdale: such a point where just one
Jason Archdale: evening in the little home office that I had,
Jason Archdale: I took up the courage and walked into the bedroom and told my wife that
Jason Archdale: I don't want to be in this relationship anymore. Bang. The volcano
Jason Archdale: erupted immediately. That's it. Life changed from that
Jason Archdale: moment. So that was devastating for her at that point, was
Joanne Lockwood: it? Absolutely it was. Because I don't think she saw it coming. She knew we
Jason Archdale: had the argument, she knew. She knew there was something a bit unsettling about
Jason Archdale: me. Didn't even anticipate this coming. But as soon as that happened, that was
Jason Archdale: it. I mean, she didn't waste time. She up and
Jason Archdale: left and took my daughter with me. So on top of the fear,
Jason Archdale: the anxiety, the depression, she took my daughter away
Jason Archdale: to her mother's, to her grandma's.
Jason Archdale: So I had to live with the fear also of the unknowing
Jason Archdale: of when or if I would ever see my daughter again. Because it was
Jason Archdale: in that time of where. Mother's rules.
Jason Archdale: Mother's rules. You do what I say because I'm her mother type of thing, right?
Jason Archdale: Which, by the way, I can talk to people about this
Jason Archdale: type of stuff because I went through all that procedure, through mediation and stuff, because
Jason Archdale: she did threaten me with not seeing my daughter and stuff behind the scenes
Jason Archdale: quietly worked all out and that never happened. I did see my
Jason Archdale: daughter quite a lot, but if you imagine back then, if you don't know the
Jason Archdale: situation, it's a scary time that I wouldn't ever see my daughter
Jason Archdale: again. And she was the love of my life, so
Jason Archdale: that really was the end for me.
Joanne Lockwood: So you're now living on your own. So you left school, joined
Joanne Lockwood: the army, had your mother, had your mates with somebody virtually all the time.
Joanne Lockwood: You get married virtually as soon as you leave the army, you're living with somebody
Joanne Lockwood: for 17 years. You've probably not spent a lot of time on your own,
Joanne Lockwood: living on your own without someone around you that you can call
Joanne Lockwood: on. So you've got no real support network at this point. You've
Joanne Lockwood: got poor mental health, you've got relationship breakdown, you got threatening
Joanne Lockwood: access to your daughter. All those problems with solicitors and
Joanne Lockwood: negotiation, that's a really tough gig, isn't it?
Jason Archdale: It is a tough gig, and that's not even the half of it, because
Jason Archdale: during this build up towards the decision to not want to be
Jason Archdale: in the relationship, I was starting to get careless and
Jason Archdale: in a sense, I've already hinted to the fact that
Jason Archdale: the business was going nowhere. And so to subsidise that, I
Jason Archdale: was borrowing off credit cards and as you do,
Jason Archdale: not to buy tvs or fancy holidays, but just to live,
Jason Archdale: and then you get to the end of that credit card and then get another
Jason Archdale: one and then transfer the balance and to the point where I had five or
Jason Archdale: six of these and I think the debt got between 25 to 30,000
Jason Archdale: pound. So I had that now hanging above me. We
Jason Archdale: then hit the housing crash that we got,
Jason Archdale: so we had a house repossession
Jason Archdale: also,
Jason Archdale: phone cut off, car taken away,
Jason Archdale: everything. So it kind of all just came. Kind
Jason Archdale: of all just came. And that's when life came crashing
Jason Archdale: down. I heard you tell
Joanne Lockwood: this story at an event a couple of weeks ago. Do you want to
Joanne Lockwood: just walk me and the listeners through
Joanne Lockwood: what happened next? Yeah. So
Jason Archdale: at that point I was running a small
Jason Archdale: little business networking event. And it's something
Jason Archdale: I always feel I love doing. I love being a people person and
Jason Archdale: being around person people and connecting people, and I was connecting people
Jason Archdale: in business, but not really getting myself in a business. So it wasn't really
Jason Archdale: helping my situation. And I'd come back this
Jason Archdale: one evening, I was living on my own now. My wife at the time
Jason Archdale: had taken my daughter out and this was about a month on from
Jason Archdale: this happening, and I'd come back. It was
Jason Archdale: the 30 December in 2010,
Jason Archdale: so just before the hurrah party season, right, New Year's
Jason Archdale: Eve. And
Jason Archdale: I got off the bus and I looked
Jason Archdale: at what I just saw, this icy house on the hill. You
Jason Archdale: know, the image from Psycho, that 60s film psycho, and
Jason Archdale: it almost had that vision of it. It didn't have any life to it
Jason Archdale: anymore, that once had of family birthdays
Jason Archdale: and my daughter in there being born and stuff. And I dreaded going back
Jason Archdale: in and the anxiety walking up the garden path
Jason Archdale: and I just closed the door behind me and I fell to
Jason Archdale: the floor like somebody just dropped a sack of potatoes.
Jason Archdale: And I instantly just started crying like Niagara
Jason Archdale: Falls. And the house was so cold because
Jason Archdale: of course I had no money and we were on an electric metre and I
Jason Archdale: couldn't afford to put any, even a fibre on or anything. So the house was
Jason Archdale: cold and I just dropped in the phone, felt the instant cold on
Jason Archdale: the tiles and washed with tears. And
Jason Archdale: all I wanted in those first few moments were to hear
Jason Archdale: my daughter's loving words and feel her arms around me.
Jason Archdale: And I knew that wasn't going to happen.
Jason Archdale: And I just said out
Jason Archdale: loud, because I had these three companions that stayed with me for a while and
Jason Archdale: that was fear, depression, anxiety, right. These
Jason Archdale: people that. Not people, these companions that come knocking at your head at
Jason Archdale: 03:00 in the morning, wake you up and then you go back to sleep and
Jason Archdale: then you wake up and they're there. The companions are constantly there. And these
Jason Archdale: companions just instantly said to me in unison, just
Jason Archdale: do it. And I kind of, like, stopped crying just for a second,
Jason Archdale: just looked around, because there's no other voices there. There's no other people in
Jason Archdale: the room, these voices that just told me to just do it.
Jason Archdale: And I walked into the kitchen with
Jason Archdale: a bottle of whiskey and tablets. I just said goodbye to my daughter
Jason Archdale: and I took the tablets, went into the lounge, laid on the sofa
Jason Archdale: with my favourite picture of her on my chest and said, I'm so sorry,
Jason Archdale: darling. I love you so much. Brad let you down. And I just
Jason Archdale: said goodbye and waited to die. Obviously, I didn't right
Jason Archdale: now, but that was basically it. I checked
Jason Archdale: out. I checked out on life. What saved you then? What saved
Joanne Lockwood: you? I can honestly say right now,
Jason Archdale: when I say my team, if people see me on stage doing this, I'll say
Jason Archdale: my team. And I point up basically my spirit team, right?
Jason Archdale: What saved me. But on that night, I wasn't aware of that. But on that
Jason Archdale: night, I didn't have a spirit team because I wasn't open, I
Jason Archdale: wasn't awake, I wasn't whatever then, to all this,
Jason Archdale: but what has actually saved me, if we want to go
Jason Archdale: into the 3d world of this, what saved
Jason Archdale: me was that when I taken the tablets and the whiskey,
Jason Archdale: I heard another voice. And that voice was almost like
Jason Archdale: sergeant major. Like, it was firm,
Jason Archdale: but it was one I could trust. And that voice just said,
Jason Archdale: call the ambulance as soon as I taken the tablets and the whiskey. And
Jason Archdale: I waited five minutes because I was pondering this voice, but I did.
Jason Archdale: So I turned the whiskey, I turned the tablets, heard the voice, called the
Jason Archdale: ambulance, and I called the ambulance. Now, my phone had been
Jason Archdale: cut off, but obviously you can make emergency calls when you can do nine nine
Jason Archdale: nine. I did all the nine nine nine call. She told me to leave the
Jason Archdale: door open, but I was in that mindset of just
Jason Archdale: telling her, well, it's too late, I've done it. Okay, leave your door open. Leave
Jason Archdale: your door open. We'll be there. Ambulance is now on its way and whatever.
Jason Archdale: So I hung up from that call as I walked in and said goodbye
Jason Archdale: to my daughter and laid there with a picture on my chest and closed my
Jason Archdale: eyes, waited to die. But then I cannot put a time on how long it
Jason Archdale: was or how short the time was, but almost opened my eyes very
Jason Archdale: like, just as you peek through, you know, when you first wake up in the
Jason Archdale: morning and it's all blurry, and I saw this fluorescent thing
Jason Archdale: just coming towards me, and I thought, am I dead? Is this what angels wear
Jason Archdale: in heaven? I mean, do they wear fluorescent jackets in heaven?
Jason Archdale: And it was a paramedic,
Jason Archdale: the one that comes on the bike or the car first. And in his true
Jason Archdale: Yorkshire accent, he just said, hey, have you been having a bit of trouble over
Jason Archdale: Christmas? And that instantly woke me up. And I'm like, wow, it
Jason Archdale: didn't make me better, but, whoa, what is going on?
Jason Archdale: But to cut all the
Jason Archdale: other finer bits out, I got taken into hospital,
Jason Archdale: did all the tests and laid there and feeling sorry for myself afterwards.
Jason Archdale: And it was about 03:00 in the morning. And my third and
Jason Archdale: last set of voices that I heard was,
Jason Archdale: you are here to help others, and we are here to help you.
Jason Archdale: And it was at that point from hearing that when
Jason Archdale: I made the decision, and it was the decision
Jason Archdale: I made to change my life. And what was
Joanne Lockwood: the first step on that journey to change? I didn't actually
Jason Archdale: know at that point, because the only thing I was
Jason Archdale: sure about was that I didn't want to die. The other thing I was sure
Jason Archdale: about was my life needed to change.
Joanne Lockwood: Old house at Christmas time, no phone, no money
Joanne Lockwood: debt, repossessions or whatever it was. So you're not
Joanne Lockwood: in an ideal place to change, are you? I mean, okay, you're at the bottom.
Joanne Lockwood: The only way is up, as they say. But somehow you need
Joanne Lockwood: some resources to help you do that, don't you? Yeah, absolutely. And this is
Jason Archdale: why I know I've got the team behind me now, the spirit team, if you
Jason Archdale: like. I just knew I had to change my life.
Jason Archdale: So I woke up in the morning having only a few
Jason Archdale: hours sleep. Nobody knew at this point I was in hospital or done what I
Jason Archdale: did. The nurse came in and I said, can I call my parents? My parents
Jason Archdale: come in, of course. They were so upset about it. They called one of my
Jason Archdale: friends and they came and said. And they looked
Jason Archdale: after me over the new year period, took me out to the
Jason Archdale: cinema. He then brought one of
Jason Archdale: his friends, who I'd never known, who kind of twigged what was happening,
Jason Archdale: because in the cinema, I was throwing up all the time. So I was leaving
Jason Archdale: the film and going to the toilet and throwing up all the time.
Jason Archdale: And then at the end of the film, while we just sat and stood in
Jason Archdale: the foyer area, she then said to me, I think you could benefit from
Jason Archdale: meditation. Now you're talking to a very, like
Jason Archdale: I said, stoic sort of person who's been in the arm and it doesn't
Jason Archdale: listen. I wanted to change my life and I wanted to change my life however
Jason Archdale: it changed. So here's me going, I'm in
Jason Archdale: whatever it is. And it sounded good to me at that point, right? It sounded
Jason Archdale: good because whatever's taken
Jason Archdale: me to the point at that point there in my life
Jason Archdale: hadn't worked. So I was open to it changing.
Jason Archdale: And that last voice where said, we are here to help you and you are
Jason Archdale: here to help others. Give me a sense of peacefulness, a
Jason Archdale: sense of calm, a sense of
Jason Archdale: reassurance that I've been looked after, that I
Jason Archdale: wasn't meant to cheque out. And I can honestly say
Jason Archdale: now, going back from now to then, I was meant to go down to my
Jason Archdale: dark place. I was meant to take those tablets and feel the pain that I
Jason Archdale: went through so I can relive this story
Jason Archdale: to others and give them the teachings. So I just went with this and
Jason Archdale: did all the meditation. And do you know what? The first session I went to,
Jason Archdale: I loved it. I loved it because it was so
Jason Archdale: different. The smell of the nice sticks in there, them
Jason Archdale: smelly sticks, and the calmness, the chiming of the bells and the
Jason Archdale: calm. Boys, I've not experienced this before. And then one thing leads on to
Jason Archdale: another. Somebody in that group then says, hey, we're going here, and
Jason Archdale: would you like to do that? So what's actually happening is, which is one thing
Jason Archdale: I teach is I was starting to purge my life.
Jason Archdale: I was starting to purge the old person. I was. I was stepping out
Jason Archdale: of that person into a new life and purging away from the
Jason Archdale: toxicity and the negativity and the people and things
Jason Archdale: that no longer served me and stepping into a new life. And I was
Jason Archdale: enjoying what I was seeing. So I went on a journey. And that journey
Jason Archdale: was one of personal growth, development and education.
Joanne Lockwood: So how many years ago was this
Joanne Lockwood: newfound purpose? Was that five, six years ago? A bit
Joanne Lockwood: further. All of the recovery started in
Jason Archdale: 2011, the January of 2011. Moving
Jason Archdale: forward,
Jason Archdale: I found my passion for life again, but found my purpose for what
Jason Archdale: I'm doing now. I would say only around five years
Jason Archdale: ago, because you cannot put a date in the diary as
Jason Archdale: to when you're going to be healed or when you're going to get
Jason Archdale: it right. So you've just got to be open to the
Jason Archdale: developments, the learnings, the growth. When people say, I've not
Jason Archdale: found my passion or my purpose yet, I say, you don't need to. Your purpose
Jason Archdale: will find you, right? Your purpose will find you. You don't need to do
Jason Archdale: any of that work. It'll find you when you've done the healing, you know, the
Jason Archdale: student will find the teacher, and the teacher will be there for the student, that
Jason Archdale: kind of situation. And that's what I did. And so I found my
Jason Archdale: passion for life again, but then found my purpose around
Jason Archdale: five years or so ago. Yeah, it's quite common.
Joanne Lockwood: It certainly happened to me that I was hunting around for a long while, trying
Joanne Lockwood: to find my passion, my purpose. And as you
Joanne Lockwood: say, you just got to be open to the idea and joy will find you.
Joanne Lockwood: Somehow you suddenly realise that this opportunity occurs and you go,
Joanne Lockwood: wow, I never knew this was here. And now it's
Joanne Lockwood: me that you walk into that. I think it's
Joanne Lockwood: being open to that joy, isn't it? Open to that joyful. You're
Jason Archdale: so right, Jo, because I think the problem is we're not
Jason Archdale: awake, right? And what I mean by being awake is that we're
Jason Archdale: so hooked into the busyness of life and our minds are so
Jason Archdale: busy that there's no room to allow anything
Jason Archdale: else in. It's like that filing cabinet. When you're trying to push that last letter
Jason Archdale: in, it's sticking out the drawer. You got to
Jason Archdale: clear the crap out to allow something else in. And so
Jason Archdale: that's why we've got to purge our life, to clear space into our
Jason Archdale: mind, to allow the new stuff to come in
Jason Archdale: and be open to change. So that
Jason Archdale: stuff, what I call stuff, that stuff
Jason Archdale: is already in your life, but we just can't see it
Jason Archdale: because we're closed off to it. But it's already there. Yeah, I talked
Joanne Lockwood: about it earlier and we discussed it. This burden of
Joanne Lockwood: responsibility and expectation. You're carrying all this baggage
Joanne Lockwood: with you, and it's really hard to drop one bag off and
Joanne Lockwood: make a difference. I found that I had to drop every bag off, as you
Joanne Lockwood: say, purge and build again, rather than try and cut back.
Joanne Lockwood: Because if you try and cut back, you never cut deep enough. You never really
Joanne Lockwood: solve the fundamental problems because you got all these little safety nets you hang on
Joanne Lockwood: to, which don't allow you to fully change. I
Joanne Lockwood: think what you're saying there, the purge, they're getting right
Joanne Lockwood: down to your naked soul, effectively, to
Joanne Lockwood: allow you to rebuild, because everything else is just chipping at the edges
Joanne Lockwood: and makes no fundamental change.
Jason Archdale: It really is about that and stripping,
Jason Archdale: if you like, being bare naked back to zero,
Jason Archdale: starting over again. And it's kind of
Jason Archdale: scary at the beginning, right? It really is.
Jason Archdale: And it's easy, as people say, it's easy
Jason Archdale: for you. Well, no, it isn't. Right. But it is a
Jason Archdale: mindset shift. It's about the mindset,
Jason Archdale: right. If you remember when I talked about I decided to change
Jason Archdale: my life, Brad didn't know how. But you've got to set
Jason Archdale: the intention of deciding to do something and
Jason Archdale: then just commit to it. But not being so hooked
Jason Archdale: on the how. It's nothing to do with you. The how.
Jason Archdale: What is to do with you is making the
Jason Archdale: decision but taking
Jason Archdale: intuitive actions. It's like the Taoists call it, the Wu
Jason Archdale: way. The Wu way of life flowing with what is happening with
Jason Archdale: you. Not creating actions and doing them because you think
Jason Archdale: you must do them. But it's going with the flow of what the universe
Jason Archdale: is giving you. What is life giving you? Okay, what does this mean then?
Jason Archdale: Not saying, why me? But what does this mean? How can I deal with it?
Jason Archdale: Yeah, shit, that hurts. But how can I deal with this? And just
Jason Archdale: going with life and flowing with it and taking
Jason Archdale: action steps.
Jason Archdale: I talk about a process, which is the dart process
Jason Archdale: dart. And that is ultimately making
Jason Archdale: the decision for the D, taking the action
Jason Archdale: steps, being relentless and then trusting.
Jason Archdale: There's a hell of a lot we can talk about within those four bullet points,
Jason Archdale: but it really is that process that we have to do. Make
Jason Archdale: the decision, take action, be relentless and trust. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwood: I get that completely. And I think you need to
Joanne Lockwood: open your mind for that kind of mindship change because
Joanne Lockwood: you can, if you're not careful, not let go completely. And that's
Joanne Lockwood: kind of the thing. You got to have that faith. I've done some things in
Joanne Lockwood: my life where the only way forward was forward. There is no
Joanne Lockwood: back, is staying where you are is painful.
Joanne Lockwood: So if. If it's painful, staying where you are and painful going forward, but
Joanne Lockwood: beyond forward is a place of
Joanne Lockwood: calm. You have to go through that pain zone in order to get
Joanne Lockwood: there. But knowing if you stand still, the pain never
Joanne Lockwood: goes. That's the thing. I think I also realised
Joanne Lockwood: I wasn't at nothing. I was actually at minus nothing because I
Joanne Lockwood: had all of this responsibility, debt and other things pulling me
Joanne Lockwood: back. And so when you purge
Joanne Lockwood: stuff, you purge other things that are negative
Joanne Lockwood: anyway. So actually, when you come out of this, you go from being
Joanne Lockwood: minus thousands to zero.
Joanne Lockwood: So you're actually, thousands abound better off because
Joanne Lockwood: you're not carrying the baggage anymore. And I found that very cathartic and
Joanne Lockwood: empowering because I wasn't carrying burdens of debt,
Joanne Lockwood: burdens of responsibility, burdens of things and stuff. And
Joanne Lockwood: responsibility. I was able to do a rebirth. Yeah, exactly.
Jason Archdale: And you know what
Jason Archdale: I can and do talk about the dark night of the soul and that's bit
Jason Archdale: of what it is. It's a rebirth, it's an awakening
Jason Archdale: and whatever. But
Jason Archdale: one of the toughest things is letting go of people and
Jason Archdale: situations. And we talked about
Jason Archdale: superpower right at the very beginning. But I've got this innate superpower just
Jason Archdale: to let go of people. Anybody that
Jason Archdale: doesn't resonate with my energy or my vibration or I think it's toxic
Jason Archdale: or is going to pull me back. It's like you're not in my life. It's
Jason Archdale: like I don't need that if it's not going
Jason Archdale: to take me forward to where I want to go.
Jason Archdale: But it's a journey. But you've first got to start
Jason Archdale: by making the decision to whatever,
Jason Archdale: everything in life. And I can challenge anybody listening to this podcast
Jason Archdale: or any talk that will anybody listening to my talks.
Jason Archdale: Everything we do in life, everything always starts with a
Jason Archdale: decision. Everything, right? But
Jason Archdale: everything's always started in the mind first.
Jason Archdale: It gets created in the mind first. So if we can
Jason Archdale: create that vision and hook in to the big y
Jason Archdale: in our mind, then we can bring it into reality because
Jason Archdale: we can very easily create negative situations, right? We've created those
Jason Archdale: in our mind. So why not flip that into empowering thoughts
Jason Archdale: and say, well, wow, what would this look like? What if, what
Jason Archdale: if I did achieve my goals and dreams? What if I did
Jason Archdale: really make it? What would that look like? And flip that into
Jason Archdale: our mind. So start the thought in our mind and then
Jason Archdale: it will retrain our brain. Yeah. Visualisation,
Joanne Lockwood: destination, planning, painting a picture. What does fantastic
Joanne Lockwood: look like, what does awesome look like and what are the steps to achieve that?
Joanne Lockwood: A very standard coaching model, isn't it? How do we get
Joanne Lockwood: from a five to a ten? What do I have to do to be a
Joanne Lockwood: six little step? Isn't it here and there? And it's a momentum
Joanne Lockwood: and a direction. So, yeah, I get that it is
Jason Archdale: the two most powerful words in the english dictionary for me are the
Jason Archdale: words I am. Because whatever sentence we add
Jason Archdale: at the end of I am is what we'll embody and what we will become.
Jason Archdale: Right? So if I am always in
Jason Archdale: debt or I am always attracting these relationships. Well, flip that
Jason Archdale: around and say, well, put all the positives after
Jason Archdale: that. No, your life will not change instantly overnight just
Jason Archdale: because you're doing this. But bit by bit, you'll start to
Jason Archdale: retrain the neural pathways in your brain and
Jason Archdale: it'll start bringing into your reality. It really
Jason Archdale: does work. This is the science, not the woo woo. This does
Jason Archdale: work. Yeah. And I'm a great
Joanne Lockwood: believer in I am. It's kind of a mantra
Joanne Lockwood: I've had for a long time. Where I am helped me
Joanne Lockwood: understand my own life and what was going on with me
Joanne Lockwood: and trying to understand it. Sometimes you could search too
Joanne Lockwood: much for the why. And what I learned was there was no answer, there was
Joanne Lockwood: no equation, there was no fixing, there's no nothing. Once you say, I am,
Joanne Lockwood: full stop, it doesn't have to say anything more than that. Just, I
Joanne Lockwood: am. I don't need to explain that. Once you can say I am, and then
Joanne Lockwood: you can add other words like, I'm good enough, or I can be
Joanne Lockwood: successful. I am this and I am that, and I think that's the empowerment.
Joanne Lockwood: But I think when you try and search for meaning where there isn't meaning, you
Joanne Lockwood: just go, I am. I can stop searching now. I can get on with life.
Joanne Lockwood: And I think that's what got me out of a dark place was literally just
Joanne Lockwood: that affirmation and being me and not having to
Joanne Lockwood: question it. So I completely resonate what you're saying there.
Joanne Lockwood: It's letting go, believing
Joanne Lockwood: truly that the next step is better than where you are
Joanne Lockwood: today and that it can get better. Then you have power and
Joanne Lockwood: you can take your own responsibility for how you develop your life from that point
Joanne Lockwood: forward. And not everybody has the luxury or privilege
Joanne Lockwood: of a reboot to start again. It's immensely
Joanne Lockwood: empowering, and it sounds like you've had an immensely empowering experience
Joanne Lockwood: by a life reboot where you find new purpose.
Jason Archdale: Absolutely. I am really feeling privileged to be
Jason Archdale: in a position that I am now to have gone through what I went through,
Jason Archdale: to be able to be able to talk about my story
Jason Archdale: to people that are going through it right now. And
Jason Archdale: I can pass on my learnings because our wounds are somebody
Jason Archdale: else's healing. Right? So we can pass on our stories to help
Jason Archdale: those people and also the wisdom and the coping strategies, because
Jason Archdale: that's what we need. Right. We need the tools. So we pass on our tools
Jason Archdale: to people. Yeah. So, Jason, it's been a fascinating. We chat
Joanne Lockwood: for over an hour, and I could carry on talking. I've got so many more
Joanne Lockwood: questions, but I'll let our listeners connect with
Joanne Lockwood: you and have a conversation with you directly. So how can people get hold of
Joanne Lockwood: you? What's your passion? What do you do now? How can you help people?
Joanne Lockwood: So what's your website? What's your LinkedIn? So as many
Jason Archdale: people's websites are, they're always upgrading. So
Jason Archdale: mine's on there. So if you go on there, you might go on a week
Jason Archdale: after, it'll be changed again. So my website's Jasonarcdale. Co.
Jason Archdale: Uk. You can find me on Facebook as well as
Jason Archdale: Jason Archdale. I'm on Instagram as Jason
Jason Archdale: Archdale. I'm on LinkedIn.
Jason Archdale: Also on there, I'm
Jason Archdale: sharing my Lego post of inspiration motivation.
Jason Archdale: And I'm also a
Jason Archdale: member and regional president of the professional
Jason Archdale: speaking association for the Yorkshire region as well, which
Jason Archdale: has been a fantastic turbo
Jason Archdale: ride this year. Stage to tell my
Jason Archdale: yep, so that's me. That's where you can find me. And happy to connect
Jason Archdale: and talk to anybody, as you can tell. So for anyone
Joanne Lockwood: listening, that was Jason Artsdale. From battlefield
Joanne Lockwood: to wellness. What a story. What a story. One moment he's driving
Joanne Lockwood: over beetles in his tank, and the next minute
Joanne Lockwood: he's struggling. But now he's out of it and he's found the
Joanne Lockwood: light. As I say, his superpower is knowing you don't have to be
Joanne Lockwood: okay. And there is a light. So thank you, Jason. Absolutely
Joanne Lockwood: fantastic. And a huge thank you to you, the listener, for
Joanne Lockwood: staying to the end, for tuning in. If you're not already, please subscribe.
Joanne Lockwood: Please keep updated on future episodes of the Inclusion Bytes
Joanne Lockwood: podcast. That's B-I-T-E-S. Share the love, tell your friends, tell your colleagues.
Joanne Lockwood: I've got a number of other exciting guests lined up over next few weeks and
Joanne Lockwood: months. This is episode 104, and I plan to keep this going
Joanne Lockwood: for as long as I can. As long as I can. So if you'd like
Joanne Lockwood: to be a guest, if you've heard some inspiration, listen to some of the back
Joanne Lockwood: episodes. You'd like to be a guest, then please email me,
Joanne Lockwood: jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. Finally,
Joanne Lockwood: my name is Joanne Lockwood and it's been an absolute pleasure to host this
Joanne Lockwood: podcast for you today. Catch you next time. Bye.