Trigger warning - this episode contains information, statistics and conversation about suicide, suicide ideations and self-harm.

Today's episode topic was influenced by the publication of suicide statistics in Scotland for 2022 (link at the end). Suicide rates worldwide are on the rise; however, it is essential to remember that the statistics include only death by suicide, not suicide attempts. That would change a lot, like really A LOT.

Listen to learn about current stats and our experiences with suicide and self-harm. Throughout the episode, we constantly remind each other about positive and correct language around suicide, which should aim at destigmatising it and allow more people to reach out for help.

As always, we love you!

Klaudia & Niko

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Mentioned in the podcast

Suicide rates in Scotland

Suicide rates by country

If you're struggling with your mental health, please get in touch with your loved ones, GP or mental health professionals.

Call 116 123 to talk to Samaritans, or email: [email protected]

You can call the National Suicide Prevention Helpline UK on 0800 689 5652

If you would prefer not to speak but want some mental health support, you could text SHOUT to 85258

Books, books and more books. Those written and those read.

In this episode, instead of asking each other the usual question, "How was your week?" we switched the routine and went for "What are you looking forward to?" to focus on the positive aspects of life. If you focus on what's good ahead of you, you're more likely to survive what's currently making your life slightly more complicated than you would like.

So what are we looking forward? The holidays, of course! It's that time of year again when the days get shorter and our bodies run on empty. There comes sleep. If you had said to Niko years ago that he would be looking forward to going to bed and falling asleep, he would have laughed in your face. He struggled with insomnia, often waking up at night unable to fall back asleep. Today, listen to how he talks about sleeping.

What comes next? There's regaining confidence, a self-believe, and socialising with friends mentioned by Klaudia. We love spending time with the people we love. It's just the adult life, calendars, time slots, and getting here and there, which always makes us "blah" when arranging social outings. That's why we started to make it easier, more spontaneous, less ambitious. We really wanna go back to the "Are you home? Can I pop in for tea and a chat?" thing, which we remember from childhood.

There are other things there, too. However, you'll have to listen to it all to find out ;)

And from the next episode, we'll give you more of the smart, sciency, knowledgeable stuff. That's what Klaudia said... Niko is not bothered!

As always, we love you!

Niko & Klaudia

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Mentioned in the podcast

Jack Kornfield — How to Reduce Anxiety and Polish the Lens of Consciousness by Tim Ferris

If you're interested about the origins of consciousness we recommend listening to:

Philip Goff on consciousness as the nature of reality by Rich Roll

If you're struggling with your mental health, please get in touch with your loved ones, GP or mental health professionals.

Call 116 123 to talk to Samaritans, or email: [email protected]

You can call the National Suicide Prevention Helpline UK on 0800 689 5652

If you would prefer not to speak but want some mental health support, you could text SHOUT to 85258

Here we go with the ambitious task of discussing the topic of consciousness. Throughout the episode, you will hear us switching between awareness and consciousness as, using Jack Kornfield's words, consciousness is a loving awareness.

Consciousness is such an abstract, airy and mystic concept that anyone rarely wonders what it is and what does it mean for you and us. We hear people saying, "I'm a conscious being". Are you? How could you know that you're a conscious being if we all can't find the words and way to describe consciousness when asked what consciousness is?

Let's think about the opposite word to conscious - unconscious to make it easier for you. What is happening to you when you're unconscious is that you're still alive, but you have no awareness of what is happening with your body, your mind. You don't feel any emotions, and your senses are switched off.

If you add all those things you don't feel when you're out, you'll get a simple, easy-to-understand definition of consciousness. It is the awareness of being. Bear in mind that consciousness is not your feelings, emotions, thoughts, or ideas. It is independent of your daily thinking, doing and acting, but if we switch it on and start using the abilities 'loving awareness gives us, it can completely change everything we've mentioned.

Practising consciousness through meditation, mindfulness, mindful walking, cooking, or any of your daily routines will allow you to see things in a different light and react differently to things happening around you and within you.

And we know it sounds trivial, like loads of BS, but if you're suffering from anxiety, panic attacks, you're easily distracted, you feel like you have no impact on your life and what is going on around you, or you're simply looking for a way to be more in-tune with yourself, practising loving awareness will be a game changer! And if not, at least you'll have a cool thing to tell your friends during dinner and look a little bit more like a nerd or weirdo ;)

Oh and at the end we ask a "what was first, the chicken or the egg" question, which makes things even more difficult to understand!

That's 'all' for today. Let us know what you think!

As always, we love you!

Niko & Klaudia

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Mentioned in the podcast

Jack Kornfield — How to Reduce Anxiety and Polish the Lens of Consciousness by Tim Ferris

If you're interested about the origins of consciousness we recommend listening to:

Philip Goff on consciousness as the nature of reality by Rich Roll

If you're struggling with your mental health, please get in touch with your loved ones, GP or mental health professionals.

Call 116 123 to talk to Samaritans, or email: [email protected]

You can call the National Suicide Prevention Helpline UK on 0800 689 5652

If you would prefer not to speak but want some mental health support, you could text SHOUT to 85258

Hello!

Today we start with the intro to Niko's work and our life discoveries. 

You can witness a live discovery of why we're even doing this podcast, and we follow with a bit of promise! You need to listen to hold us accountable ;)

 What else is here? Trust or an epidemic of mistrust? We're going into consciousness. Are trees conscious? 

Next, we move on to the future of the human race. Is the homo sapiens destined to survive, and should it even survive? Is there a different plan for the evolution?

And something we might try to experiment with in the coming weeks/months. The information and knowledge diet! 

As usual, be kind to yourself and others.

We love you! 

Niko & Klaudia 

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Podcasts, titles mentioned:

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If you're struggling with your mental health, please get in touch with your loved ones, GP or mental health professionals.

Call 116 123 to talk to Samaritans, or email: [email protected]

You can call the National Suicide Prevention Helpline UK on 0800 689 5652

If you would prefer not to speak but want some mental health support, you could text SHOUT to 85258

Today's episode is about self-acceptance - one of six elements in Ryff's Scales of Psychological Well-Being. Next to autonomy, environmental mastery, personal growth, positive relations with others and purpose in life, it is a crucial dimension impacting how we feel.

First of all, we encountered some technical difficulties in this episode as we were testing new recording equipment (Klaudia is just talking too loud). However, the conversation was so good and spontaneous that we didn't want to re-record the episode. It would miss the flow... So if you're finding it hard to listen to this episode, give us a shout - we will record you a voice message explaining what the episode is about ;) 

In the past few decades, we have given self-acceptance a very different from the original meaning. Self-acceptance became all about our bodies, how we look, and what we do with our appearance. That made people across generations focus on the wrong part of who we are—completely missing the role of "self' in the equation. 

What means 'self'? 

"the set of someone's characteristics, such as personality and ability, that are not physical and make that person different from other people".

Self-acceptance is all about the negative and positive things about each unique things. Self-acceptance is about respect for your mind, health, and body. Self-acceptance is finally about trusting yourself and your decisions and thoughts. 

So we invite you today to listen to the conversation about our discovery of self-acceptance and how it links with improvement, dealing with things we might not like about ourselves, but we're learning to live with them or try to change them. 

And we leave you with a thought: how can you be yourself if you can accept who you are?

As usual, we love you!

Niko & Klaudia 

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Six Domains of Psychological Wellbeing by Carol Ryff 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/theory-knowledge/201405/six-domains-psychological-well-being

You can also dive into google scholar and read multiple papers by Carol Ryff

https://scholar.google.co.uk/scholar?q=psychology+6+elements+of+wellbeing++Carol+Ryff&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart

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If you're struggling with your mental health, please get in touch with your loved ones, GP or mental health professionals.

Call 116 123 to talk to Samaritans, or email: [email protected]

You can call the National Suicide Prevention Helpline UK on 0800 689 5652

If you would prefer not to speak but want some mental health support, you could text SHOUT to 85258

The topic you wouldn’t expect, and frankly, we didn’t expect to talk about it either - the job market in the UK. 

We’re at an extraordinary point in the history of the modern British job market. The recent events on the political scene of our country, like Brexit and later COVID with furlough, transformed the balance between employers and employees. 

We now have more jobs, especially those less skilled, than employees. Workplaces need to attract prospective employees not with wages (although those could improve in some industries like care and support) but with benefits and working and organisational culture. Yet there are still many industries where the rubbish 0 hours contracts which are not securing employees in case of sick leaves and family emergencies are still a norm! 

Where is it leading us? What has to happen so more employers realise that proper contracts, flexible or condensed hours are becoming a norm in many industries? What should we do to make organisation leaders keen on improving the culture in the company to attract people?

The episode ends with an intro to few topics we will talk about in the coming weeks!

As usual, we love you!

Niko & Klaudia 

If you're struggling with your mental health, please get in touch with your loved ones, GP or mental health professionals.

Call 116 123 to talk to Samaritans, or email: [email protected]

You can call the National Suicide Prevention Helpline UK on 0800 689 5652

If you would prefer not to speak but want some mental health support, you could text SHOUT to 85258

At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: "I have to go to work — as a human being. What do I have to complain about if I'm going to do what I was born for — the things I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm? - Marcus Aurelius

This quote leaves you without a doubt about the key focus of this episode. We will be talking about our jobs and the meaning of working.

Is finding a mission and some deep purpose in our job necessary? Do we need to be utterly happy and overjoyed daily when we finish our work? 

Or are the mundane jobs considered boring and without huge career aspirations ok? Being a plumber, security guard, bin man, doorman, or housekeeper should be regarded as just a job like those cool ones, those the young people aim for. 

Stripping yourself from the need to look for a job with a mission to change the world is freeing. Approaching your tasks with the idea that your boss might know better leaves you with the possibility to grow. 

And let us be clear, we're not saying that you should live without a purpose, never develop and never progress. We're saying that your job does not define your self-worth. It is just an addition to who you are, to what sort of human being you are. 

Listen to the full episode to find out more.

As always, we love you! 

Niko & Klaudia 

If you're struggling with your mental health, please get in touch with your loved ones, GP or mental health professionals.

Call 116 123 to talk to Samaritans, or email: [email protected]

You can call the National Suicide Prevention Helpline UK on 0800 689 5652

If you would prefer not to speak but want some mental health support, you could text SHOUT to 85258

In today's episode, we will delve into personal accounts of dealing with addiction, doing things in moderation and explore the path to recovery. Addiction is closely related to how dopamine and memory function in our brains and is exceptionally fascinating.

It always is a multifaceted, complicated problem encompassing various substances such as drugs, alcohol, and nicotine, as well as those sounding harmless but potentially dangerous, like food and shopping. The underlying cause of addiction is frequently linked to previous traumatic experiences, childhood upbringing, and sometimes genetic predispositions.

As always, we love you.

Niko and Klaudia

If you're struggling with your mental health, please get in touch with your loved ones, GP or mental health professionals.

Call 116 123 to talk to Samaritans, or email: [email protected]

You can call the National Suicide Prevention Helpline UK on 0800 689 5652

If you would prefer not to speak but want some mental health support, you could text SHOUT to 85258

We've very much planned this episode to be about trauma and how individual it is in its severity and magnitude for each and every one of us. In the world of psychologists, medical practitioners and researchers, they say "Big T and a little T". As much as the Big T traumas are more serious, research shows that in children, situations of the Little T, such as rejection, loss of a pet or job, and bullying, have the same effects as the Big T!

From there, we moved on to the topic of mental health support in the country and the global mental health situation. Which wasn't really planned. I really recommend this episode for those who have no idea how trauma works and how we can prevent it from happening to the next generations. It's eye-opening, and you can quickly see that we're in a mental health crisis on a global scale. I'll pick up on one fact. The waiting list for some services like psychiatrists or CAMHS is 18 to 40 weeks. Can you all imagine waiting 9 months for an appointment to see a specialist?!

We think that now more than ever, we should focus on mental health when we think about giving money and supporting good causes. There should also be a social movement to force change in the system. You may be physically healthy, wealthy and well-established, but that will do nothing to prevent trauma. And once the trauma has happened, there's no way to live without it.

And if you got to this point, it means we woke up something in you. So next time you leave the house and meet people horrible to you or others, don't think "what is wrong with them". Try to think about "What happened to you?"

As always, we love you.

Be kind to yourself and others!

Niko & Klaudia

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If you're struggling with your mental health, please get in touch with your loved ones, GP or mental health professionals.

Call 116 123 to talk to Samaritans, or email: [email protected]

You can call the National Suicide Prevention Helpline UK on 0800 689 5652

If you would prefer not to speak but want some mental health support, you could text SHOUT to 85258