Mind Cake: Wandering Through Wellbeing

WARNING: This episode includes discussion of self-harm, suicide, addiction, and recreational and ceremonial drug use. If any of this affects you, the Samaritans are free to call anytime on 116 123.

Jon Hannan and Lee trained together in construction back in the 90s, back in the day when Jon's idea of a spiritual practice was a Stanley knife and a bottle of gin. Twenty-five years, one police chase, an ayahuasca ceremony in Costa Rica and a shaman in South Africa later, Jon's a very different man.

This one goes to some dark places. Self-harm, addiction, grief ... and comes out the other side somewhere completely unexpected: the Four Agreements, karma, and why your future might actually be your destiny (don't worry, we didn't fully understand it either).

Mind Cake: Not Self-Help. Just Slightly More Helpful Than Doing Nothing.

LINKS

Jon's Facebook Page

Samaritans

The Four Agreements Thingy

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Some conversations can’t be put off forever.

Ahead of Inevitable at Scripts the Thing in Dorchester, Gemma and Anne join me to step inside the world of Brian and Tom.

They perform a 90-second extract from the play while I discover that listening to actors perform something you’ve written, right in front of you, is excruciatingly uncomfortable and apparently best endured by doing a LOT of doodling.

Then we talk about the characters, the comedy, what’s lurking underneath it, and what happens when words you wrote acquire voices of their own.

Tea may be involved. Avoidance definitely is.

LINKS

Script's the Thing - Dorchester⁠

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Paul's back ... Fringe show done, baws deep in awards ... and it's been a hellofa week. Two rejections (Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival, Independent Podcast Awards) landed in the same 72 hours as some genuinely good news elsewhere. It's also six years since Lee was told I had six months to live.

Oh, and Lee's ended up back in A&E with a nasty infection from the cannula site, weeks after the hospital stay.

We talk about all of it: rejection, invisible illness, pacing yourself when fatigue has no rhyme or reason, and why we're building a genuinely stupid Wheel of Well-Being out of a paper plate (send us your ideas for what goes on it).

Not self-help. Just slightly more helpful than doing nothing.

This week it's just me. No guest, no Paul ... just an honest one, on my own, about the week I've had.

I ended up spending four nights in hospital. This isn't a dig at the NHS. They've saved my life more than once, and I genuinely wouldn't be here without them. But there's stuff I went through that I think is worth talking about honestly: what it's actually like being stuck in the system for a few days, the bits that work and the bits that are visibly creaking, and where your head goes at 3am with nothing to do but think.

Mine went to some genuinely dark places, fast. I think that's worth talking about too, how easy it is to catastrophise when you're tired, in pain, and alone with your own thoughts.

Not self-help. Just slightly more helpful than doing nothing.

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Part two of Lee and Paul's conversation with Prince Stash de Rola. This time it gets deeper: witnessing Syd Barrett's psychedelic breakdown in the Black Mountains, meeting Timothy Leary as a fugitive in Switzerland, decades of psychedelic and spiritual practice — and a sharp take on why social media and phone addiction are quietly wrecking people's mental health and attention spans today.

Mind Cake is a comedy wellbeing podcast — not self-help, just slightly more helpful than doing nothing. Honest conversations about mental health, coping with anxiety, and the real stuff nobody tells you, with a laugh along the way.

Missed Part 1? Go back and catch Stash's stories of the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, and life in a 1,300-year-old castle first.

Guest: Prince Stash de Rola
Topics: psychedelics, Timothy Leary, Syd Barrett, social media and mental health, phone addiction, anxiety, spirituality

This week ... Prince Stash de Rola.

Friend of the Rolling Stones, housemate of Paul McCartney, model, musician, and current resident of a 1,300-year-old Italian castle, joins Lee on Mind Cake for the first of a two-part conversation.

From surviving Vince Taylor's public breakdown to being arrested alongside the Stones and taken in by the Beatles, Stash shares stories from the heart of 60s rock stardom most people have never heard first-hand.

Mind Cake is a comedy wellbeing podcast . Not self-help, just slightly more helpful than doing nothing.

Honest conversations about mental health, coping with anxiety, and the real stuff nobody tells you, with a laugh along the way.

Part 2, where the conversation turns to psychedelics, Timothy Leary, and why social media is lying to you, drops next Tuesday.

Guest: Prince Stash de Rola
Topics: rock and roll history, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, fame and mental health, celebrity breakdown, coping with anxiety.

LINKS

The Prince Stash Website

Mind Cake Newsletter

Mind Cake WhatsApp group

This week Lee heads to Drumchapel to meet Martin Melly from Men Matter Scotland ... and gets asked to rate his mental health battery before he's even sat down.

Martin explains how a simple check-in question has become the backbone of a talking group that started as a dads' group in 2019 and has since grown into hubs in Glasgow and Cumbernauld. They get into why social media comparison culture makes everyone feel like they're the only one struggling, why "no advice, just listen" works better than most people expect, and the small, unglamorous habits - gym, meditation, a walk with the dog - that keep Martin's own battery charged.

As Martin puts it: the hardest part is getting through the door. Everything after that gets easier.

Find Men Matter Scotland: open Monday–Friday, 10:30am–8pm at their Drum Chapel hub, plus Fridays 10am–8pm in Cumbernauld. Drop in, phone, message on Facebook/Instagram, or self-refer via their website.

Men Matter Scotland website

Mind Cake Newsletter

Michael Redmond played Father Stone in Father Ted in the 1990s. He's never watched it. When they wheeled out a television at a gig in Glasgow and showed the whole thing without warning, he hated every minute of it.

This is one of the most honest conversations Mind Cake has had. We chat about about burnout, bewilderment, finding contentment and why autistic children around the world see themselves in a deadpan Irish priest who just looks lost.

Michael is 75, lives in Glasgow, posts about aliens on TikTok, and is one of the funniest people Lee has ever sat across from.

Mind Cake is a comedy wellbeing podcast exploring honest mental health conversations and the stuff that actually helps, without the therapy speak.

The economy is a bit like a cake. Everyone keeps saying we need to grow it bigger. Everyone wants a bigger slice. But what if the oven is only so big? Katherine Trebeck is a political economist and advocate for the wellbeing economy, and this is one of the most mind-expanding honest mental health conversations Mind Cake has had. Not about therapy or coping with anxiety, but about the system underneath it all and why so many people feel ground down, burnt out and left behind. If you've ever felt the world isn't working the way it should, this conversation might explain why. Mind Cake is a comedy wellbeing podcast exploring honest mental health conversations and the stuff that actually helps, without the therapy speak.

Tom Radford left a career in corporate communications, got a campervan, and started eating things he found in hedgerows. Now he takes people on walks through the British countryside and teaches them what's food, what's medicine and what might kill you. It turns out foraging isn't really about food at all, it's one of the most honest mental health conversations we've had on Mind Cake, and nobody mentions therapy once. Tom is the founder of Eat The Country and one of the most quietly compelling arguments for getting outside, slowing down and looking down occasionally. If you're looking for a self-help alternative that doesn't feel like self-help, this is it.

Mind Cake is a comedy wellbeing podcast exploring mental health, resilience and the stuff that actually helps, without the therapy speak.

Click here to go to Tom's website or his Instagram here.