SUMMARY KEYWORDS
smearing, martin, child, chinwag, called, poo, year olds, tape cassettes, body, life, memory, bianca, happy, collective, suppose, common, kids, nature, paint, teacher, scatolia, poo art
SPEAKERS
Martin O'Toole, Bianca Raby
Martin O'Toole 00:14
Hello, folks, I hope you've been enjoying the how to die happy podcast so far. Well, we've already covered so many topics, and we've got a lot more to get into. But today I've got a little little news to share. So Christopher has chosen to leave the show, sadly. But as he sets off for greener pastures, I want to acknowledge Him for the wonderful humanoid that is. So thanks, Chris, for helping me kick this off. I wish you bond shots and all the good luck, health and happiness in the world brother. All that said, the show must go on as Freddie Mercury once sang. Actually, I think that phrase originated in the circus in the 19 century. Probably Bianca Hello, Bianca. Hi, Martin. How are you doing?
Bianca Raby 00:58
I'm great.
Martin O'Toole 00:59
Amazing
Bianca Raby 01:00
excited to be here.
Martin O'Toole 01:01
Yeah, I'm excited to have you here. So. So welcome, everyone to Bianca Bianca is a friend of mine over here in Bali. And yeah, she just she agreed to hop in and start chatting with me in the chinwag.
Bianca Raby 01:16
Love it. Good chat, especially, you know, with someone is as colourful as Martin,
Martin O'Toole 01:21
that's very kind of you to saying, Thank you so much. I forgot to play the music at the start of this podcast wrap their mind
Bianca Raby 01:30
into it later.
Martin O'Toole 01:31
Yeah, exactly what we'll do some edits,
Bianca Raby 01:34
on after all of the talking about how great this machine is. Got to press the button.
Martin O'Toole 01:39
It's a very big box with a lot of lights, and sliders and buttons. I'm still getting used to it very pretty. Yeah, thanks. Anyway, I'll try to I'll try to do some wonderful stuff in in post, as they say in the industry. So Bianca is a kindred spirit and a welcome member of the newly formed how to die happy collective.
Bianca Raby 02:00
Wow. That's a nice, welcoming.
Martin O'Toole 02:03
So on shrinky, doesn't it? Yeah,
Bianca Raby 02:04
I didn't realise I was joining collective today. But that's exciting. Well, I've always wanted to be in a collective It's organic. So the collective of three or four of them
Martin O'Toole 02:13
so far, it's just
Bianca Raby 02:17
Well, I guess that's where everything starts, right?
Martin O'Toole 02:19
Yeah, for sure. It's, we're just growing these things. Yeah. Collective Yeah. What but the idea with the with the collective is to, to add a lot more voices, and more of a, I suppose a community to the How to die happy. What I've realised, over doing the first few episodes is interviewing the people that we've been interviewing, who have been truly wonderful, inspiring, super fun, super helpful people to deal with. I've already found myself saying, Ah, I'd love to get you back. So if we're going to start getting all of the same people back at some point, or other than we're kind of building a collective?
Bianca Raby 02:58
Yeah, well, that's the way the future is going round community. I reckon we're really going to move away from the individualistic kind of nature of especially content creation. So that's kind of what we do. Yeah. So collective it up.
Martin O'Toole 03:12
So I'm told, so you're a former teacher?
Bianca Raby 03:17
I am. Yes, I did my time.
Martin O'Toole 03:19
And you saw you talk to what they call K to 12. Is that right?
Bianca Raby 03:24
Yeah, we refer to the school system as K to 12. Sometimes, so yeah. And for our listeners, that means kindergarten, like five year olds through to, you know, 18 year olds. Yeah. I was more around the 13/14 year olds where my were my bag.
Martin O'Toole 03:38
Okay, so you never taught infants?
Bianca Raby 03:42
When I was in London, I got a lot of five year olds. Yeah, yeah. It's like the universe would once a week, just give me I was a supply teacher. So you got sent wherever. So sometimes you ended up in with five year olds, sometimes eight year olds, sometimes 13 year olds, you never knew until smorgasbord of until you turned up, basically. So
Martin O'Toole 04:03
so well, you might you might be able to help me then with with x. I've got a little story for you.
Bianca Raby 04:09
Gosh. course you do? Well, then Martin, how are we going to prepare for it? And don't worry, I've got a story.
Martin O'Toole 04:15
Well, I usually have a little story to share with the chinwag. I'm beginning to a couple of people have asked me recently, how much of your life are you just going to put out on this podcast? And it's a good question. Yeah, I guess it is. And I think I suspect with this share, I'm reaching to new depths of openness about staying about my past. So I don't know if this is either gonna go down well or not. But
Bianca Raby 04:44
wow, we'll see. I mean, I did. I did study some child psychology. So you know, maybe, right. Well, I did have a brief stint as a nanny once.
Martin O'Toole 04:53
This is gonna work perfectly.
Bianca Raby 04:55
It was two weeks of hell. But I was there. I did it. I can say it's My resume two weeks of being a nanny. Okay. Well, I
Martin O'Toole 05:03
wouldn't review. I wonder if whilst you were a nanny or teaching small children or learning about child psychology you came across the concept of scatolia.
Bianca Raby 05:13
Oh gosh, no. You just made that word up.
Martin O'Toole 05:16
I didn't see the actual thing. It's a thing totally us scatolia
Bianca Raby 05:20
sounds like a disease.
Martin O'Toole 05:21
Well, I suppose to many parents is probably just as bad because it's also known as code brown diaper digging paint the town brown rectal digging or faecal smearing.
Bianca Raby 05:35
Now I know where this conversation is going.
Martin O'Toole 05:37
UnFortunately, it's going to when I was a small child, I used to engage in something otherwise known in England as poo art.
Bianca Raby 05:45
Oh, that's a thing. Yeah. Right. Okay. That is a thing.
Martin O'Toole 05:50
Well, I didn't realise it was a thing until I started to research it recently. I suppose I should take it back.
Bianca Raby 05:56
Did your parents not have paint. I mean, like all you need to do to fix that is give kids paint, right?
Martin O'Toole 06:02
Yes.
Bianca Raby 06:03
But no one thought to do that.
Martin O'Toole 06:04
Apparently not. Okay. Right. And my memory of this is somewhat foggy, because I was five. I think I might have even been four. I'm not entirely sure but backtrack. So. So. So, so fake as it transpires, faecal smearing is actually a common problem. Right? With children. When
Bianca Raby 06:28
you say common, do we mean? One in 1000? I want in five
Martin O'Toole 06:33
stats, but I'm gonna go with very common just because it'll make me feel better.
Bianca Raby 06:39
Are you just making the story up because you want it to feel common? I really need it short. Because I mean, in my whole years of a teacher, no one told me about
Martin O'Toole 06:48
the liwonde, you know, faecal smearing or scatolia.
Bianca Raby 06:53
It's okay. I didn't stay as a teacher for that long. So maybe,
Martin O'Toole 06:57
well, this all came about. So you know, we recently interviewed Kartika Alexandra. Yes. And she's a hypnotherapist wonderful, very talented woman, and an a phenomenal healer. And she did a hypnosis. What did you call it? exercise with me? Right, two years ago, where we went back to meet my six year old self. Right, right. And we we did some seriously profound inner child healing? And I don't know, I suppose it's probably quite common when you will. It is common, isn't it? When you find yourself talking about things and really analysing a time in your life, then over the next few days, maybe even weeks? Memories pop up? Don't they? Yeah, totally. Yeah. And that's basically what happens. I mean,
Bianca Raby 07:44
just imagine growing up Martin sitting there, you know, just gazing out the, at his pool with his, you know, a cup of green tea and suddenly a memory flashing before your eyes if you smearing poo over a wall? Is that really what happened?
Martin O'Toole 07:59
Basically what happened. I think I might have been meditating. And it was, because like, when I was five, we're talking about 1979 1980.
Bianca Raby 08:09
Don't give away your age. Martin.
Martin O'Toole 08:11
I'm 46 Next week, actually. Oh, my Buddha. So the wallpaper was that really weird. Long paper papers. Lumpy won't pay for you know, the American wallpaper. I don't know what's in that wall. I I don't know why they did that. I don't know why they did that.
Bianca Raby 08:27
I mean, you're trying to get a 3d effect or something. Yeah, it was awful.
Martin O'Toole 08:30
It's really strange. I wondered if it was maybe sort of semi sound.
Bianca Raby 08:34
Was it the stuff that also had the shine to it? We had a wallpaper that was like golden shiny as well. Yeah.
Martin O'Toole 08:40
And it was it was it was off white. Yeah. Oh, it was a lot less off white by the time I'd finished.
Bianca Raby 08:44
Right. Oh, yeah.
Martin O'Toole 08:47
We're a lot more off white. It's all about perspective. Okay,
Bianca Raby 08:50
so memories came back
Martin O'Toole 08:51
memories came back. And I saw myself kneeling on my bed. Sort of resting on the bed head digging in there. Wow. And and I was essentially creating the five year olds version of the Bayeux Tapestry
Bianca Raby 09:10
see where there wasn't just flowers it was like
Martin O'Toole 09:14
a landscape it was Oh dear, it was a full on landscape with little matchstick people. Do you know the seagulls the little just the wow really simple, simplistic illustration. So
Bianca Raby 09:28
to a psychologist as a child,
Martin O'Toole 09:29
no he didn't. And it transpires I probably
Bianca Raby 09:33
should have sounds like it anyway continue. Well,
Martin O'Toole 09:37
so that was the memory and as I as I sat with the memory I realised that I managed to get this well of course when you're small, everything's big isn't. It was a big world to me. I don't I don't think it was that big but I think I managed to, to paint a landscape that was probably three metres long, something like that. Wow. Now when I say paint, I don't I didn't colour it all in it was a line drawing.
Bianca Raby 10:03
Okay, just trying to work out the logistics of this but it's really
Martin O'Toole 10:08
ask away.
Bianca Raby 10:10
Said dig in you just go digging like a paintbrush,
Martin O'Toole 10:17
basically. Yes.
Bianca Raby 10:19
So did that for three metres worth of wall. That's next level disgusting.
Martin O'Toole 10:28
It's also a lot of poo. Right?
Bianca Raby 10:30
It's a lot of poo.
Martin O'Toole 10:31
And I wasn't wearing nappies. So really, which is, which is why they are because apparently, obviously, I've since very recently done a lot of research and a lot of kids quite frequently just get get in the nappy, or diapers.
Bianca Raby 10:45
Well, that's much easier, right?
Martin O'Toole 10:47
Yeah, exactly.
Bianca Raby 10:48
That's an easy head Potter paints. Right, exactly.
Martin O'Toole 10:51
Yeah. And it's fresh paint as well. But no, I had to I had to do what this this other part of this unfortunate psychological condition. It was called rectal digging. Wow, I know. Right,
Bianca Raby 11:04
two stages to it.
Martin O'Toole 11:06
I mean,
Bianca Raby 11:07
assuming there's also an analysis of what you paint.
Martin O'Toole 11:10
Well, actually, I hadn't checked that out. I see a really good question. Perhaps if there are any faecal smearing analysis experts listening to this. Yeah. Please, by all means, get in touch for the next chinwag. Yeah, we can have a chat. But obviously, I don't have any photographic evidence.
Bianca Raby 11:26
I was gonna say did you go back and get some, some anecdotes from the people minding you at the time?
Martin O'Toole 11:31
No. No. Well, mum died in 2014. And, yeah, I'm not really sure how my dad feels about me talking about this stuff on the podcast. You'll find out what your next week eventually. I don't think he's listening. Plus, his dad has Martin's dad loves his cotton socks. High up pops. So but the only thing I can tell you is I remember it was a landscape. Okay. There were hills. Yeah, it was a sun. They were clouds. It was
Bianca Raby 12:01
a it was a happy scene. Yeah, totally, very happy, happy scene full of poo.
Martin O'Toole 12:05
Made of poo
Bianca Raby 12:06
made of poo. Who would have known right?
Martin O'Toole 12:09
More's the pity I didn't have any other colours to add to
Bianca Raby 12:11
Well, that's what I was about to say. Well. I mean, depends what you ate, I guess.
Martin O'Toole 12:19
It was mainly very dark. Yeah. So I started to research it because I thought it'd be quite fun for us to talk about it. But I suppose let's take a moment because looking at our audience figures, whether a high percentage of of listeners in the mid 44th, late late 30s to mid 40s. So I suspect with a fair few parents listening to this. We also have 66%, I think of our audience at the moment is female right now, not to suggest for a moment that that mom has to deal with this all the time. Although, if this were my kid, I gotta tell you, it'd be outsourcing. I would just pretend I didn't see it. And I would go and I would somehow could do jules into into the child's bedroom, interact with with our with our curious child, and then she might happen upon it and hopefully it would all be gone by the time I came back
Bianca Raby 13:21
knows what she's getting into.
Martin O'Toole 13:22
Well, hopefully not hopefully, any child of mine does not have to get involved in any of this, although
Bianca Raby 13:28
do far worse things than that.
Martin O'Toole 13:30
Well, apparently, there are loads and loads of reasons why
Bianca Raby 13:33
Okay, yeah, I'm excited to hear the reasons and I'm also excited to hear what he said when you talk.
Martin O'Toole 13:40
I actually didn't tell Kartika. No, because because I didn't know so I only remember after we'd run interview with TK I'm sure she would offer to do some more hypnosis gonna
Bianca Raby 13:52
say Does she want to go back to that memory with you? Probably not. She might go to somebody else put you on to someone
Martin O'Toole 13:58
else or simply not there's, there's a limit to anyone's abilities or are interested in regression therapy. No worries caretaker if you decide you don't want to go back there enough to the pool art phase of mini mountains life. Excuse me. So let me read you a little, little excerpt from an article by a woman called Karen Wang. The article is called Six facts about faecal smearing that you need to know
Bianca Raby 14:27
wow, there's six. Right? Right. Okay. It's a big deal. No one knew today that we're gonna get educated at this level. Nope.
Martin O'Toole 14:35
hope no one's listening to this over breakfast. No one likes to talk about it but faecal smearing, also called skatolia in medical literature is surprisingly common among children and adults.
Bianca Raby 14:48
Okay, adults sorry I'm just like
Martin O'Toole 14:50
what what what? Well, I mean, I know
Bianca Raby 14:54
the shop by some pay us the whole other option. You can drive now. Yeah, you can drive you're an adult. You can get in a car. Call a taxi. Seriously water on go, Jack.
Martin O'Toole 15:04
I mean, I've heard of a dirty protest. Oh, so prisoners do this. Oh, right. And obviously and I think it was actually a big deal with IRA prisoners. I think that was certainly when it when it came to the fore for me in the media anyway, I remember being a nipper and seeing some something on the news about, about these prisoners who were being treated very poorly. So they did these dirty protests and apparently is still a thing in incarceration. They just they just basically go to town on the wall.
Bianca Raby 15:39
Well, it gets gets attention, which is what protests are about right?
Martin O'Toole 15:42
Big time anyway, away from the adults and children.
Bianca Raby 15:46
Yeah, that's a whole other podcast.
Martin O'Toole 15:48
I suspect. So.
Bianca Raby 15:50
Stick with kids.
Martin O'Toole 15:51
So both children among children and adults, it occurs most frequently among individuals with developmental delays, okay, or post traumatic stress, which means that the person may not be able to verbalise the reason for the behaviour.
Bianca Raby 16:08
Yeah, five year olds generally don't know why they're doing much at all. Right? Yeah.
Martin O'Toole 16:13
And so there are lots of reasons that Karen digs into and territories. Were there any really two that I just wanted to touch on for this? First one is sent sensory integration. So apparently, some families report that this occurs during periods of under stimulation, okay, which resonated for me, we'll come on to that in a moment. And then there's a list of psychological reasons. And I thought these were quite interesting. And I'm imagining five year old Martin, excuse me, while I do this. So number one provides a sense of control over one's body and environment when other areas of life are out of control.
Bianca Raby 16:53
Yeah, and that one's very related to self harm, right. That's why a lot of people self harm.
Martin O'Toole 16:58
And in later life, I self harmed. There you go, to provide a sense of ownership over one's actions. There's no denying you're
Bianca Raby 17:11
the supplier, the artist, you're the paintbrush. I mean, you're the creative director. You're everything. Yeah. No one's owning any of that.
Martin O'Toole 17:21
You are the creator being okay. So number three expresses feelings of anger, frustration, helplessness, and powerlessness. Okay, I suppose that depends on the artwork, doesn't it?
Bianca Raby 17:34
Well, that's I think that's linked to Yeah, the third part of all this is what did you draw? Now? It seems like you draw a happy scene. So that's nice landscapes and there were a lot of people killing each other that they also another conversation about what you're drawing? I
Martin O'Toole 17:46
think I might have got locked up if I'd have drawn people killing each other on my bedroom warm with my poo. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. For prevents unwanted social interaction.
Bianca Raby 17:58
Well, yeah. You're gonna want to come over. You get to school and they're like, don't go to Martin's house, sometimes, you know, you just paints and all you do is you've got
Martin O'Toole 18:12
nothing doing that. All the jigsaws and missing pieces and all he has to offer is the pools. No batteries
Bianca Raby 18:19
in his remote cars, just pull out
Martin O'Toole 18:21
basically, number five may be associated with other comforting, emotional experiences. I wasn't able to pardon the pun, dig deeper into that. Why, but I'm a bit I'm struggling to understand that.
Bianca Raby 18:37
I mean, look, I guess when you do create art, just take the power out of it. When you're creating art, there is a fulfilment in that expression. Okay. So there's an expression of some kind of feeling emotions, some thought some. So maybe that's it. That makes a lot of sense. You know, if you just take it as art.
Martin O'Toole 18:59
Yeah. Well, it is are you are you are being artistic. I was being Tracey Emin before I pick up points for this school, and suddenly not, didn't do very well at school. Okay. Okay. Number six may be part of a personal ritual that provides comfort. Okay, yeah, I can see that. Yeah, I can see that too, if it was a child who was who was actually experiencing emotional discomfort. And seven may be part of an obsession that is spiralling out of control.
Bianca Raby 19:31
Well, that's yeah. Well, the
Martin O'Toole 19:32
good news is it didn't spiral out of control.
Bianca Raby 19:34
Willy, I was I was kind of holding my breath then fit like, Martin Jr. Part two check out the wall behind you.
Martin O'Toole 19:45
Know, you've improved that Yeah, so it's like a Van Gogh. It's totally off of you from your
Bianca Raby 19:50
moved to beach scenes.
Martin O'Toole 19:54
So that was really where I wanted to start this conversation. And I suppose it made me It made me think about all of the ways in which we carry trauma. And, and it's so bizarre that this popped into my head.
Bianca Raby 20:11
Yeah. I mean, I mean, what was going on in the actual session with her? I mean, you're having a chat with little Martin.
Martin O'Toole 20:18
Well, yeah, in the session, but this wasn't even related to the session, right. It just came out to the to the How to die happy interview with cardi. So I think because I was remembering, I don't know, maybe I was just putting myself back in that kid's shoes. Right? Well, because what we did in the session, which we've already discussed on an episode is hopped back into six year old Martin, right? Yeah. Well, I gave him a cuddle. Then I hopped into him. Then he gave my mom a cuddle. Then I hopped into my mom. And then she gave six six year old Martin a cuddle, which I think
Bianca Raby 20:48
is called, or family constellation stuff.
Martin O'Toole 20:51
No, I think she called it transverse trans transverse therapy. The noise. That's the dog just having a little Ati. headbutting the glass door behind us. She has to get into every episode. Yeah, she's
Bianca Raby 21:04
like, well, you're not talking about me. Talking about poo instead? I've got to do I can do that. Yeah,
Martin O'Toole 21:11
well, she can do plenty. So right trans personal, trans person's personal. Yep. So transpersonal therapy way she, she, you essentially hop into your former self. It's insanely magical. As a process. Cool. Anyway, if you're interested in that, and you don't listen to all of the episodes of how to die happy that is episode five of the how to die happy podcast. So it reminded me somehow of the of this thing, and this memory popped up. And, of course, as you probably know, when you're when we're doing doing the work, and you're doing meditation, especially actually, when you can do sort of loving kindness meditations, where you can focus on parts of your body to help release pain, or actually releasing trauma as well. Often when you release that trauma, you release a memory. Excuse me. Now, as I recall, I wasn't really doing that kind of meditation. Nevertheless, it popped up. But it just goes to show that these things buried deep, deep, deep inside us.
Bianca Raby 22:15
Absolutely. I mean, the Body Keeps the Score, right. And it's, it's you don't know when it's gonna come up. Sometimes it's just in the middle of the day, sometimes isn't a meditation. Yeah. And there's a memory and that's attached to some kind of, you know, traumatic energy stuck right in the body.
Martin O'Toole 22:33
That's exactly what it is. Yeah. But I suppose this the work of art. Don't mean it was a work of art. I mean, the work that I was doing in the art, but I suppose to me, it was a work of art. Now, obviously, wasn't traumatic, but it was, if it was quite clearly symptomatic. Excuse me. As I've discussed before my mother bless her was an alcoholic. There was a disconnect between those kids and and my mom and my dad was working away a lot. Right. So I suspect the the comment about under stimulation, yeah, may well have been an issue
Bianca Raby 23:12
where you enter sort of a TV house where TV was your babysitter?
Martin O'Toole 23:16
Yes. And no. Oddly, we had a we would watch TV downstairs sometimes. But I seem to recall spending a lot of time in my room. And my mom was in her room drinking. And I guess my little brother was in his room, or maybe he was in I think we maybe shared a room at that age. I don't I really don't recall if he was in the room while I was creating my
Bianca Raby 23:39
I could imagine not.
Martin O'Toole 23:41
He's two years younger or younger.
Bianca Raby 23:43
I have another blow it could have been then.
Martin O'Toole 23:45
He might have been you might just be watching sitting there. age four or three going? Cool.
Bianca Raby 23:51
Yeah. Why not? I mean, I mean, back to like, we don't at that age, you don't have discussed, the human body is not disgusting. We create disgust around it. So if he was three, he was just like, Oh, cool. That's a good way to find some material to create some art. Yeah, yeah.
Martin O'Toole 24:07
Yeah. For all disgusting you maybe got involved could have got remember? I don't know he'd be willing to admit it on a podcast. But so. So you never came across anything like this?
Bianca Raby 24:20
No. I mean, you know, kids, kids do all sorts of weird things in the classroom. haven't had any didn't have much many poor stories in my time. And a lot of touching. We had to do a lot of hands in laps when they're when they're five years old. Yeah. Because everybody's they're all excited about
Martin O'Toole 24:41
themselves, I suppose.
Bianca Raby 24:43
So yeah, there's an old saying as a school teacher to sit you never you never tie a little boys shoe laces. Why is that for them? Because they're peed on them. Oh, that Miss. They always miss when a five year old comes out of five, six Seven year old comes up to you and ask you to tie their shoelaces. You get another kid to do it. You don't do it. But it's fine to pee on them. And then you say Go wash your hands. All right, I
Martin O'Toole 25:09
suppose they've already got like ABS anyway.
Bianca Raby 25:11
Yeah, I mean, they will, they will go gems anyways. They will share in it anyway. So as a teacher, you go Oh, that's interesting. What I know that Sarah, she's really good at Tying shoelaces. Helps you and then we can all learn together. Never touch a boy's shoelaces. No up. So thank you to all those parents who do the velcro shoes. Very clever. Yeah. Always saving teachers from those germs. Thank you very much. But yeah, there's a lot of there's a lot of sharing of boogers and, you know, gross things like that. But no poop. I never had any poop. But I mean, I didn't spend a lot of time with the little ones. Yeah. And I'm sure I had the teachers on here that had spent time with the four or five, six year olds, I would have lots of poop stories.
Martin O'Toole 25:54
Well, my mom was actually a nursery reception teacher.
Bianca Raby 25:58
Right? Well, then she would have 30 hours. And she was here. Yeah. It's a
Martin O'Toole 26:03
shame. Shame. She's not around for me to talk to actually about that. Although, I have no recollection of, of how it was resolved.
Bianca Raby 26:11
Well, yeah, that was my next question. I mean, did it just you've got this memory, but you didn't. I mean, obviously, you couldn't speak to your mom about this. No,
Martin O'Toole 26:18
I mean, no. And I haven't spoken to my dad about it. I guess it kind
Bianca Raby 26:20
of came back up. If it is connected to that controlling something, you know, he's come back up in other self harm as an adult.
Martin O'Toole 26:27
Yeah, they do come up later on a lot. Well as a as a child as well. So it's interesting that you say it's connected to self harm. Excuse me. Yeah. I used to you remember tape cassettes? Yes, of course.
Bianca Raby 26:42
I was mixed tape queen. Well, I
Martin O'Toole 26:44
used to have lots of tape cassettes. But whenever I really needed to take out my anger, I would lay out my these plastic cases on the floor and punch them Oh, repeatedly and tear a sharp blood coming out of my fingers and
Bianca Raby 26:57
pieces. And interesting, strange, very creative with your heart. Thanks. Yeah, it
Martin O'Toole 27:02
was It wasn't very
Bianca Raby 27:03
glad you ended up in a creative field in your life. Like you were harnessing none of this mainstream shit. No, I'm not. You know, I'm not I'm not getting a lighter and burning my leg or anything. No, I'm gonna go full on creative just
Martin O'Toole 27:18
gonna smash plastic tape cassette cases, until my hand is a bloody pulp and there's plastic sticking out my knuckles. Yeah, I
Bianca Raby 27:24
mean, the psychology of self harm. It's super interesting. I mean, it's, it's, it's a way to get into the body, you know, we're, we're so programmed to be in the mind, sometimes the mind just plays havoc. And, and when you don't know how to get into your body, in a healthy way, I think people turn to the hurting a piece of that part of their body so that they can feel that and it takes away from the from the mind. But when, you know, I used to work in suicide prevention in schools for a couple of years. And we would talk to teachers about this and, and try and, you know, alleviate the shock, and that it's making it into this huge big deal that it was connected to suicide, because often it's not connected to suicide, it's a different, it can lead to that if it's not addressed. But because somebody was smashing, you know, tapes and hurting their hand doesn't necessarily mean at that time they also thinking of ending their life. It's it's connected to trying to get back to their body and get out of the hell in their head.
Martin O'Toole 28:24
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's funny. It's funny you say that, because I think I have a recollection, being a child doing that of having extreme emotional pain. Yes. And hurting myself physically removed the emotional pain?
Bianca Raby 28:41
Absolutely. Yeah, it's a bandaid. It's a remedy. You're an ex addict, right? That's how you were removing that emotional pain.
Martin O'Toole 28:48
Exactly. An alternative way. Yeah, it didn't involve so much blood and broken,
Bianca Raby 28:53
but I guess when you've exhausted that as an option, and if the pain is still there, because you've numbed and you've got your body's so used to that substances doing the numbing, you have to turn to something else. And it's natural to try and then also pick something that's going to take you from that that anguish into, into your physical and that's why body works so important in the healing space, like really, really tapping in and doing trauma, release therapy, shaking bodywork, getting to understand, you know, when you're in a meditation, how to find that place in your body where that that thing is stuck on and trying to release it in a healthy way.
Martin O'Toole 29:28
And breath work and yoga, Qigong, all of those things are obviously they have their own individual benefits. But I think there are so many people doing yoga, for example, you don't, you don't necessarily practice yoga, for reasons other than stretching, for example, but still, you would receive some some benefit from doing that just by stretching and releasing blocked energy from your
Bianca Raby 29:54
body. And it's the grounding like when you started to tell the story. I kept thinking like go grounding kept coming up for me like there's something grounding and earthy and it's very primal. Right? And maybe there was something a sense, you know, of you trying to ground yourself in a crazy world or something by I don't know, being in touch with nature. I mean, that's what it is. It's a natural thing we all poo, you know, it's not. It's not doesn't discriminate.
Martin O'Toole 30:22
No, no, that's one thing I know, we all share in common.
Bianca Raby 30:25
It's, it's something that we've made, you know, funny and disgusting and natural, and all that kind of stuff. But it's a natural part of every day if you're healthy, and your bowels work a couple times a day, according to
Martin O'Toole 30:38
experts on poo. returns if you drink too much coffee.
Bianca Raby 30:42
Yep. Or have too much fruit. Which is happens here in the tropics. It does. But parasites help I feel like there was something grounding in it. And I think that that's also like what bodywork does, like whenever I'm feeling a little bit too much in my head, and you know, getting a bit carried away with all the all the noise. The first thing I feel like doing is laying on the ground or doing something in nature or standing on the grass. And that was, you know, technique taught to me by many healers around here in Bali, to stand in the grass. Like I joke to people go hug a tree and I don't, I'm like I'm serious. You know, if you're feeling really out of control, hug a tree, you know, just recently I laid on the grass in the rain with a friend just watching the trees as I was coming down from a little bit of a head fuck can we say? You can say sorry, I said it anyway.
Martin O'Toole 31:32
Don't worry. I'm not gonna edit it
Bianca Raby 31:35
was a bit of a, you know, an afternoon where my mind got a little out of control. And we just laid that under the on the ground. And it was just raining a little bit. We looked up at the frangipani tree and we just talked through it. And within the No 30 minutes I was told by my body. Yeah, in a
Martin O'Toole 31:52
healthy way. Yeah. Well, you know what, the Schumann resonances? Yes. And that's the the Schumann Resonance is the resonance of the earth. And it's a frequency. And it's the frequency of the Earth is is related in fractions to our own frequency, I think to four to four, three to 432 hertz, which is the third eye activation frequency. Yeah, if we take the rubber soles off our feet, connect our hands and feet to the earth, we suddenly reconnect with the calming resonance of the earth.
Bianca Raby 32:27
Absolutely. And that's actually one of the things I noticed when I when I first lived in Bali for the first year, I was back and forth to Australia a lot. So I got to compare my life very easily because I was like, you know, two months in Bali nature, a month back in you no concrete jungle. And the first thing I noticed was that actually in Bali, all my furniture was wood. There were trees everywhere plants in my house everywhere. I was literally covered in nature all day, every day. And then I turned up back in, say, Melbourne. And I'm like, I don't know, where's the grass? I can't see any grass. Yeah. And is it this is trees to grow? Yeah, there's no way to ground and everything is concrete. And then going inside buildings, everything was steel, or Laminex, or, you know, artificial kind of material. And I was like, I forgotten that I'd been sitting on wood, you know, I'd been eating with everything has wood in it. It's all part of nature. And it was very, you could tell straight away that the energy was completely different in those rooms than when it's coming from
Martin O'Toole 33:29
lecture. Totally agree. And I lived in London for three and a half years. And you know, and I think you don't know this stuff until you remove yourself from from that kind of environment from a concrete jungle.
Bianca Raby 33:42
That's why people feel so amazing when they come back from vacation. Well, because they've gone to the beach, right? They've gone to nature. And again, I think the surface around here especially in in this part of Bali, they they are the most happiest. Yeah, can tent stress free people I've ever met. And I'm like, you guys know how to do life. Exactly. They go every day in the water and they get reset. Is it so it's a resetting frequency. I can't remember the frequency of the water.
Martin O'Toole 34:09
I wouldn't be surprised if it was but yeah, exactly the same thing. Same idea and receiving the receiving of water blessing,
Bianca Raby 34:15
basically. And if you spend enough time in there, so they say about an hour a day, it basically resets your entire frequency so you know no wonder why they just like smiling. Drinking coffee chatted, just love it. I mean, they're just so they're just so happy.
Martin O'Toole 34:30
Mellow as they say so happy. Yeah, I wish I could surf. Yeah, me too. Have you tried to?
Bianca Raby 34:36
Oh gosh, no, I'm got water trauma.
Martin O'Toole 34:41
Why water trauma? how?
Bianca Raby 34:43
Oh, I don't know is English in me. I don't know scared of water. I really Yeah, I must have had a past life with got drowned or something. I mean, I just I never was a big fan even as a kid of being in the water. No, it always kind of terrified me a little bit, especially the ocean, just the unknown of the notion. Well especially in Australia, I mean we're told like sharks can eat us jellyfish are gonna kill us. Yes, it's not
Martin O'Toole 35:05
but everything in Australia is everything's designed to kill you. Yeah,
Bianca Raby 35:08
I mean pretty spy replace we got told that you know spiders sitting on the plastic chairs can bite us and kill us through the plastic through the plastic. Wow you know like yeah, suns gonna kill us we were told yeah monger everything was going to kill us so and I don't have a particularly strong work set of lungs for the ocean and yeah if I feel like my skills are not quite there I think I learned more about how to kind of stay alive in the water. Well I'd be more clean to do it funny
Martin O'Toole 35:38
should say that because the guys that drifters, drifters surf shop and cafe for those of you that don't know until Yeah,
Bianca Raby 35:45
you got me addicted to that chocolate drink that seriously Martin I love drifters and then
Martin O'Toole 35:51
the food and drinking there is amazing. Yeah, I'm hoping to get sorry for all those
Bianca Raby 35:54
people who are not in Bali he can't understand this but they do this chocolate maca thingy like a vegans paradise,
Martin O'Toole 36:00
like a smoothie with caffeine in it, which often is yes, brilliant. Yeah. I'm hoping to get J Khan who found it on the show. Anyway, sorry for anyone who doesn't know what drifters is. But what the heck was I saying then? Oh, yeah, so that's they do obviously it's a surf shop and they do from time to time courses. I think they call them up near courses but essentially they do courses to teach people how to be calm. And do breath work practice when
Bianca Raby 36:28
planning by a way Yeah, and that's the horrific the horrifying part for me
Martin O'Toole 36:32
shocking to me. And it's Yeah, is you you you're just rolling rolling around on the seabed.
Bianca Raby 36:37
There's something beautiful about the idea of letting nature just take you and trusting in that like it's something that that surface have they have a trust in their own body and trust in nature that I'm very envious of
Martin O'Toole 36:47
you do? And it's quite beautiful. Yeah. Well, it's something I want to get back to. But I just need to fix these lungs first. Once Once my lungs
Bianca Raby 36:55
they're pretty important. You need them. Yeah, but most things in life, but specially water
Martin O'Toole 36:59
thing turns out you need them for exercise and lifeforce energy. Yes. So one thing at a time. Well, I
Bianca Raby 37:09
mean from food or surfing to
Martin O'Toole 37:13
some ground is that I think is the they're all the hallmarks of a typical how to die. Happy chinwag.
Bianca Raby 37:20
Yeah, I mean, I think I mean, the takeaway for me is that, you know, when we're when we're little, we don't know how to express ourselves. And little mountain chose to chase poo. Yeah, a little Bianca probably chose something else. She had a lot of crying little Bianca. But I had a lot of words for my feelings. So I was good. I had words. But a lot of people don't have words for their feelings. So then comes out in other ways. But I was quite lucky. I had I had a vocabulary, and I had a mother who supported the vocabulary. So I probably was a little bit less inclined to create proof. I probably did some other weird shit, but
Martin O'Toole 38:00
I told you apparently is common Bianca
Bianca Raby 38:03
Of course. Of course. I think it's common to to have. Yeah, I guess different ways of expressing ourselves. I think that's, and I think as parents, you know, just just embracing it all as an expression to be fearful. It's an expression.
Martin O'Toole 38:17
Well, I think that's good advice. As you know, the the theme or the common thread, holds the how to die happy concept together is the top 10 Common deathbed regrets. And of course, one of them is a wish I'd had the courage to express myself.
Bianca Raby 38:34
Right. Well, you did. You were very courageous. He got that creativity out pretty early.
Martin O'Toole 38:40
Yeah. Although let's be honest, it was linked to to some trauma. So yeah. Well, I hope you enjoyed the chinwag today. I certainly did. I hope you enjoyed it. Yes.
Bianca Raby 38:50
Let's do it again.
Martin O'Toole 38:52
Yeah. Thanks for coming. Thank you.
Bianca Raby 38:54
No worries. Time. We'll see what else we can talk about.
Martin O'Toole 38:58
Who knows? I just never know what's coming out.
Bianca Raby 39:01
That's the whole point is the whole points. Brilliant. Right. See you soon. Okay, bye.
