Four suicide attempts. A father with schizophrenia. And the avocado that saved his life.

"Stop carrying masks — be comfortable with being naked."

"The only way to get rid of the chatter is to listen to it."

Gareth Stubbs grew up around suicide and mental illness before he had words for either. By eighteen he'd made his first attempt. Two more followed. Today he lives in southern Spain, running retreats and teaching what he calls the Avocado Philosophy — a blunt, often funny look at what's really underneath the mask.

What we explore:

• Growing up around schizophrenia and suicide, and what it did and didn't teach him about mental health
• The masks we wear to survive trauma, and why dropping them feels like being "naked"
• Humour as a coping mechanism — and where it stops working
• The Avocado Philosophy: what's actually underneath when you cut yourself open
• Building a new life and a retreat business in Spain after three suicide attempts

Connect with Gareth:

Facebook Community – Our Space to Talk: facebook.com/groups/ourspacetotalk Instagram: @theavocadophilosophy

Personal Facebook: facebook.com/gareth.stubbs2

Website: theavocadophilosophy.com

A little about Hamish

I spent 25 years building a life that looked successful from the outside, but within, it was the opposite. Everything was falling apart, and I was throwing fuel on that fire. The joy of life had fallen away.

Late November 2018. I had to make a choice: live or die. I chose to live, and everything changed. I had to confront the pain I was carrying, look at the stories, and change. I built The Brave Man Project because there was nothing like this when I needed it.

Podcast website: thebravemanproject.com

Hamish's website: hamishniven.com

YouTube: @TheBraveManProject

LinkedIn: hamishniven

TikTok: @hamish.niven

Instagram: @hamishniven

Facebook: facebook.com/hamishniven

it was a difficult thing to kind of like acknowledge.

I lay there on the bed and I said,

right, if there is a God, if that is who I've just spent the last few days with

and if you are there, if I'm still alive by the time I'm 40,

then I will basically give up what I'm doing or give up my life

to help other people. And that was kind of like the,

you know, the beginning.

the beginning of it and it's I was in hospital after that I was still

Mm-hmm.

in the hospital for another five weeks I had to learn how to live again

Mm-hmm.

because I was just so, so broken.

So hi and welcome to another episode of the Brave Man Project.

Today we're chatting with Gareth.

Now Gareth now lives in southern Spain and he's got an amazing life.

creates the most fantastic food for the people in his retreats.

But getting there has been quite a mission.

So Gareth, thanks so much for turning up this morning.

Thank you for having me.

So tell me a little bit about you and why you agreed to come onto this podcast.

Well, a little bit about me. I was born and in Zimbabwe,

where I grew up and lived through most of my life education.

And then I moved to Spain in 2012 and kind of took what I've been through

in life and thought, if I've been through all this stuff,

what's the point of just having it under your belt if you don't use it?

And I saw your post in a group looking for people that

had kind of like a story to share that was all about rebuilding their life from

scratch basically. And I think that's the core of the message that resonated with

me.

Right, well then let's dive in.

Where did you come from that you had to rebuild your life from scratch?

I think like growing up was challenging,

let's just say I had a ~ father,

I'll call him a father because we all have those,

we wouldn't be here without them.

He was not a very pleasant man,

he was very mentally and physically ~ abusive.

So I grew up with a lot of abuse in my early years and then you know when

I was quite young he left very suddenly and my mom

God bless her. She wasn't very good at choosing men in those days.

So I went from kind of like an abusive father to some more abusive men in my life.

And there was a lot of, like I say,

a lot of physical and sexual and mental abuse,

which kind of like led me down the road of finding ways to deal with it on my own.

So I started doing a lot of drugs,

drinking a lot.

but also self-harming. I have a family history

of schizophrenia. So my dad had schizophrenia and both of

my grandfathers had mental health issues.

And unfortunately, or I don't know,

maybe fortunately now, it was passed along to me.

So mental health challenges combined with a lot of...

Mm.

use and trauma and drugs and alcohol was basically

a recipe for disaster.

Mmm. Yeah. That is, yes, that's a one,

isn't it? And yeah, I can see the disaster.

I can see the melting pot. Everything goes in.

Everything now and again explodes.

And yeah, there must be fallout and chaos all around you.

I do look back and I do feel like really sorry for my mom and my sister because

it must have been a real shit show looking from the outside in because

you know because of all the abuse and all of that sort of stuff I learned

to keep my emotions to myself and to not talk about what was going on

but then you know I believe that we have kind of like these these mental emotions

and feelings that we have going on

But then we also have like emotions and feelings that happen inside the body that

Mm-hmm.

we control. So by that I mean kind of like the chemical imbalances.

So you have the two things combined.

You don't want to talk about things,

but then your body is doing, your body basically has a life of its own.

So one minute you're quiet and reserved and the next minute you're

all over the place. And like I myself didn't know what was going on.

You know, so I didn't know how to express what was happening,

so you know, from the outside looking in,

it must have been quite a circus.

You're laughing though. I mean,

that's, I think that is the biggest takeaway I'm already getting.

You're laughing at not necessarily the memories,

but maybe just the capacity to be able to look back at it.

Why are you laughing at it? Because that is,

to my mind, that is really healing.

think that when we go through trauma and when we live with these demons

and these challenges, life is very dark.

It's not a nice place to be. We don't know how to talk about it.

And I think that one of the greatest healers is laughter.

And it's finding humor within those situations.

So it's not about...

making a joke for the sake of making a joke.

~ But it's finding the humor and sometimes I think that dark humor

Hmm.

is one of the best ways to express the unexpressed.

you know, mental health gets such a bad rap when you hear of people that have

schizophrenia or when you hear of people that have bipolar or whatever it is.

There's such a societal stereotype.

But when you actually start to say it out and say what actually goes on,

Mm.

it's quite humorous. It may not be nice at the time,

but when you start to deal with humor,

you know, like someone once said to me that therapy without laughter

is like an operation without anesthetic.

But laughter and humor when used at the right time and in the right way

Mm.

is such a great healer. Because there's some

Mm.

of the struggles that we've had that are similar.

people with problems with alcohol that have recovered can laugh about some

of the stupid things that they've done when they've been pipped with other people

who have recovered from dealing with problems with alcohol.

And I find that the same with me.

Like, you know, people who have been through trauma and have recovered

and are working through it are able to laugh at some

Hmm.

of the ridiculousness of it. And that's not to minimize it.

Mmm. Yeah.

I'm not minimizing it in this light.

but I think humor is a great healer.

it's definitely taking the top off the pressure cook isn't and letting

it all explode and come out without the whole thing going bang.

Absolutely.

So let's go back a bit. Let's look at the,

I mean, these coping mechanisms that you've found,

you created to deal with the adult world around you when you were growing up.

What did you, you mentioned you kept yourself to yourself,

but how did you sort of work out ways to...

Deal with everything that you went through,

through the abuse, through the trauma,

through the sexual harassment and all that kind of stuff.

think if I look back at it...

explain it? I think when you go through significant trauma ~ there is a part

Hmm.

of you that almost kind of like it dies but it dies because it doesn't want

to feel the pain if that makes sense so every time that you get into

a situation where you know that trauma is going to happen you kind

of like block yourself off

because you don't know how to deal with it.

As a little kid, you don't know how to deal with getting shouted at,

with getting beaten up, with getting sexually abused.

So the only way that you can deal with it at the time is to almost like shut

off and just allow yourself to go to another place within you,

if that makes sense. Then when that

period of abuse is over, you have to live in the real world again.

So not only are you potentially dealing with physical pain,

because what has happened to you physically hurts,

you've got all this stuff going on inside your head.

It's like, well, you know, what did I do to,

what did I do that deserved that?

You know, am I really bad that I did,

you know, that this is the only way?

So you just completely withdraw ~ and you almost like create a character.

Mm.

That's the easiest way to describe it because then that character can show

Hmm.

up in the world. That character doesn't have to say what's going on.

And it's not that you're acting,

but it's just, it's a survival mechanism.

Mm.

And I guess like all survival mechanisms or crutches,

they start to break after a while.

They start to stop working and things like that.

So what happens then when those brilliant methods that you kept,

you found to keep yourself alive?

mean, segue, I think anyone who has gone through addiction and come

out the other side as a fucking hero like you,

they found a way to survive.

And I think that is remarkable.

know, six, seven, eight year old,

nine year old making sense of horror.

You're a hero. Absolute hero. Yeah.

Chan Chan!

Absolutely. Yeah. And you're still smiling.

You know, you're not, you're not beating people up.

You're not resentful. You're not,

well, maybe you are. don't know.

Is there's another mask, but you're,

you're, you're, making sense of it and living a happy life.

I mean, that's, that is what I find amazing that you can do that.

Absolutely.

The people can do that.

think you know like in the past people for whatever reason they try

to break you whatever it is I don't know fully what was going on for

my father or the people around me but they try to to wear you down

and you can either let them win which

you know, they're almost one with me because things got really bad and really

out of hand. Or you can come out the other side and say,

well, if that's what I've been through,

I'm not gonna let it be in vain.

Hmm

You know, I'm not gonna bury it and say,

okay, well, I went through all that stuff,

nevermind. You know, and I'm not gonna let that be in vain.

I didn't get through that for nothing,

if that makes sense. So I will use it,

Mm-hmm.

you know, what did that teach me?

Who did that push me to become?

And it's like everything, you know,

like we walk around carrying these masks when we go through these things.

And it's like that cliche thing where they say,

okay, let me give you a cup of.

coffee and hold your hand out and see how long you can hold your hand out.

You can only hold the masks up for so long.

Eventually they are going to to come tumbling down and then you have

Mm-mm.

no option but to either fix it and say okay how can I make sense of this

or you can pick up another mask.

your arms are so tight from carrying the previous mask that eventually you're gonna

drop that mask and the periods in between get shorter and shorter.

And I look at my history, know,

were times in my life where like I was exhausted from carrying the masks

and things would be, you know,

the pressure cooker would explode or whatever.

Okay, nevermind, dust myself off,

let's pick up another mask. But I think all of us in our own way,

are eventually going to kind of like hit that rock bottom as they call it,

where we have no option but to say,

okay, fuck the masks. It's not nice being naked,

but I've got to be comfortable with it.

If other people don't like me naked,

that's not my problem.

What a place to get to. mean, I know you've been there.

Would you like to share a little bit about that space that you got

to when you realised you had one or two choices left?

Yeah, I've always been like, no I can say,

I've always been surrounded by suicide,

if that makes sense. So when I was younger,

I was about six or seven years old,

and I remember this after we had our first conversation,

when I was about six or seven years old,

We used to have a family dentist.

He was a close family friend, but he was also our dentist.

And we went to have a checkup the one day,

Hmm.

and it was a day after some shit had happened.

And I was quite emotional. And he said to me,

what's wrong? What's going on?

And I just like, as a six or seven year old,

I just said, well, this is what's happening.

But then I was like, no, please don't tell mum,

please don't tell mum, I shouldn't have said that.

And he's like, no, no, don't worry.

And like two weeks later, the dentist,

God bless him, committed suicide.

He was a close family friend and I remember at the time thinking,

well, I just told this man my problems and two weeks later

he committed suicide.

It sounds really silly, but it was one of those things that said to me,

don't talk about your problems because something bad will happen.

When I tried to talk about my problems,

Hmm?

you know, in the home front,

I would get in trouble because I was making things up or you know you're being

silly. then fast forward a few a couple of years like I said my dad left when

I was younger and when I was 16 or 17 you know I was

my own person I wanted to get back in touch with him to find out you know

I wanted to know you're a Yeah I made contact with him.

Hmm?

And then three weeks before I was meant to meet him,

he committed suicide.

And it kind of like reinforced that,

well, when you want to do something to they commit suicide.

Mmm.

And six weeks after my dad committed suicide,

my closest friend committed suicide.

And him and I had been through very similar things.

He had had lot of abuse in his past.

We did a lot of drugs together.

And we knew about each other's story.

So then I just thought, well, maybe that's how people deal with these problems.

Mmm.

I

was 18 when I first attempted suicide and clearly I failed.

But because of everything that had happened I lied and I said no

it was food poisoning and you know the ambulance just had to pump my stomach

and it was something that I ate and blah blah blah blah blah.

But I kind of like kept this stuff inside of me.

And it was almost like, you know,

I can try and fight all this stuff,

or there's another way out, if that makes sense.

Mm.

And then as the years went by,

because I kind of like was keeping so much inside,

I guess you could say I was a very,

was a very high functioning addict and a very high functioning schizophrenic

and bipolar person, because that

was part of my character. People,

Hmm.

when they think about schizophrenia,

they think about the movies and how people with schizophrenia are dangerous

and all that sort of stuff. it's,

in severe cases, yes, it can be like that,

but 9 % of the cases, it's not.

Mm.

It's just, we have a very different reality and we deal with a lot of things.

We can't switch the voices off in our heads no matter how hard we try

and when we try it just makes them even worse.

And I kind of like just eventually got to the point,

it was just before my 30th birthday,

where everything was just too much.

I was doing way too many drugs,

I was drinking too much, was pretending too much,

I was working too much. And on the surface everything looked fine.

And...

you

I think over the course of 18 months I was in hospital for 10.

I had three serious suicide attempts.

The last one left me on life support with the doctors and my family not knowing

if I would survive or not. And I suppose that was the end of that chapter,

if that makes sense.

So that's how I got here.

Wow,

I think we'll go to intermission.

Let's have Donald Duck and some fun.

Welcome back everybody. We are still here in that short intermission.

We survive.

Thank you Gareth. I can follow aspects of that story.

The excess of alcohol, that was my thing.

Do you know why you were using,

do you know why you were drinking and the drugs and the overworking?

Why were they so prevalent in your life?

think Zimbabwe, like growing up in Zimbabwe it's a very big drinking culture.

So you see adults drinking and you see them all happy and all that sort of stuff.

Obviously you see them all happy before everything gets out of hand.

And I just thought, you know,

Hmm.

like it's not something that you...

I can't remember the conscious decision that I made to,

~ no, just try and have a drink if that makes sense.

I also remember that we had a gardener who took care of

the garden and he always smoked and I thought it was cigarettes

but clearly it wasn't. And he was always so happy and so laid back.

So the one day I just tried it and it was like,

Mm.

wow.

doesn't make everything go away,

but it makes it feel okay. And it's not something that,

when you start drinking and when you start taking drugs,

it's not something that you go from A to Z overnight.

It's something that you do every day,

Mm.

if that makes sense. So you'll do it once and there might be a period

in between of how it ever, ever long.

So it wasn't...

something that almost like just started happening.

But when things got too much, it started to become the first thing that

I thought of.

Yeah.

~ So when everything, when I was physically in pain,

I would smoke. I would smoke weed because that numbed the pain.

Mm.

When I had too much going on in my head,

I would drink. Because that just,

Hmm.

you know, so it this constant,

it started to become this like constant pinball sort of thing.

And then as I got older and you were now allowed to drink because...

Mm.

were of age then it's like yeah you you start looking forward to

the weekends and things like that and going out and you know as you

Mm-hmm.

go to the nightclubs you can take drugs and all that sort of stuff so it

was kind of like these baby baby steps ~ and from a work point

Mmm.

of view I was bullied I was bullied a lot in school because

I was very reserved and very quiet because of everything that was going on.

~ I would just work. And I found that studying and working would just

Mm-hmm.

give me an escape into another world.

You know,

Hmm.

I would get the right kind of attention from teachers,

if that makes sense. I would get my sense of approval from teachers.

But then I would get bullied by my peers because it didn't look like

Mm.

I studied because I enjoyed it so much.

So that kind of like was almost like what got me addicted to work.

Mm.

All my addictions were not necessarily looking for approval,

but were more to do something anyhow.

Yeah. mean, alcohol works. It takes away the pain.

Smoking weed takes away the pain.

And I can relate with the school thing as well.

Just keeping under the radar, head down,

working hard. Good enough. Well done.

Yep.

Well done. Well done. I mean, that is that pat on the back that you really need when

there is no support around. mean...

It's survival, it's survival 101 isn't it?

And as a kid sometimes that's all you've got.

But it don't work forever. We've both come to that.

No! ~

We both got to that point where it was,

have two choices.

But then that one year there was,

you said 10 months in hospital,

there were numerous attempts on your life just because it was all too much.

Why do you think you didn't succeed?

thought about that often. It's

Mm-hmm. I thought we'll go in for a nice gentle question there.

like, why? What did you do wrong?

Mm.

I honestly don't know. If

I look at

my last suicide attempt

by doctors statements

or whatever I should not be here.

Hmm.

So I believe that I didn't succeed not because I didn't do enough because clearly

according to the doctors I did but because there was a better person there

Mm-hmm.

was something more for me to do.

I kind of like, I remember waking up

and I was tied to the whole tide or whatever you call it.

What's the word for tied in medical restraints?

Yeah.

I would have enjoyed being tied up.

That's next week's.

I was restrained to the hospital bed.

I was completely naked under the sheet and I had like these tubes in

my nose and down my throat that if you moved like it was really painful

and I remember waking up and I was like looked around and I could see

my family and I could see the nurses and all that.

the other machines and everything I was so flippin' angry.

I was like, not only was I like angry that I had done it again,

I was angry with myself because my family was hurting,

but I was so angry that like, it's like,

Hmm.

can't even fucking do this.

What ~ a useless twat are you if you can't even do this?

Hmm.

Hmm.

And there was stuff that I went through like when I wasn't here and

I remember lying there thinking my god I must be so awful that even

the devil doesn't want me. You know that was kind of like the level

of respect that I had for myself.

just...

I don't use the word hate very often because I think that it is a very strong word.

But I absolutely detested my...

I just... I felt worse than I did before I did it,

that makes sense. And I just remember lying there and thinking,

Mm-hmm.

well, you you've tried so hard to do this.

You know, you've done everything that you can in however many different ways that

you've tried to do it. And you're still here.

So why can't you start putting...

the same amount of effort into being alive.

And it was a difficult thing to kind of like acknowledge.

I lay there on the bed and I said,

right, if there is a God, if that is who I've just spent the last few days with

and if you are there, if I'm still alive by the time I'm 40,

then I will basically give up what I'm doing or give up my life

to help other people. And that was kind of like the,

you know, the beginning.

the beginning of it and it's I was in hospital after that I was still

Mm-hmm.

in the hospital for another five weeks I had to learn how to live again

Mm-hmm.

because I was just so, so broken.

You know, you hear people talk about suicide survivors and lot

of times suicide survivors are people that are left behind when someone...

I'm sorry I'm getting emotional.

I'm just... When I talk about it,

it just makes me realize how fucking lucky I am.

And... It makes me so sad that I really didn't like myself that much,

that makes sense. So when they talk about suicide survivors,

you often think of people who are left behind.

But there's not many suicide survivors,

you know, who speak about it because...

99 % of the time people don't survive suicide and when they do they carry

so much internalised shame and internalised guilt that they don't know

Mm.

how to talk about it and it's taken me like a long time

Yeah.

to be comfortable talking about it and yet I'm emotional and I'm not emotional

in a bad way like I said I'm emotional because I'm so lucky

Mm-hmm.

I have this opportunity to talk to you about this.

It's a journey, you know. Some people don't reach that point where they actually

follow through on their ideas.

But a lot of people get to that point where they're so terrified of the ideas,

but they don't know what to do.

So they continue with the mob.

And my aim, you know, like I reached the age of 40 and I was alive

and happy and healthy. And it's like,

yeah, I gave up everything. I opened my retreat with my business partner.

And since then, you know, it's what I do every day.

Mm.

because I was given not just a second chance,

I didn't just attempt to take my life on one occasion.

In my life I had four serious attempts.

I haven't been given a second chance or a third chance.

But it is, it's taught me to have such a massive appreciation for life.

And that's also why we spoke about it earlier.

Mm.

That's why I always look for the light side of things.

I always look for the human side.

Hmm.

because there was a period in my life when there was no fun.

It may have looked like it to the world,

but inside it wasn't.

you

Thank you for sharing that. I should have put a PS.

Warning. Hamish holds safe spaces.

You ~

People often cry on my show. No,

brilliant. It's real gift that you can share that because anyone listening

who is going through what you've been through is going to see that.

Yeah, it's okay to tell people.

It's okay to feel all those things.

And I had never considered a suicide survivor as the person

who didn't kill themselves. Never thought about it like that.

I always thought it was the family,

the friends, those that were left behind.

Yes. Mm-hmm. There are,

are some of us out here.

yeah. No, absolutely.

But I think,

you know, the reason why I am like that,

why I want to share my story more is.

~

People are afraid to talk about it.

Suicide is such a dirty word.

and people are afraid to talk about it.

Even, you know, I've met so many people that have lost loved ones to suicide.

They're terrified to tell people how their loved ones passed away.

But when someone has dementia or when someone has cancer or when someone

is killed in a car accident or whatever it is,

they don't have any problem talking about it.

Mm.

And I think, you a lot of people think that,

if we talk about suicide, it's going to make it more accessible.

No, it's not going to make it more accessible.

It's going to make it less emotionally charged so that people don't feel

so afraid for feeling suicidal and saying,

okay, I can't do something about it.

And I don't ever bond. And this is where I get like really passionate.

I don't ever want anybody to feel the way that I felt back then.

So if me sharing my story and saying,

Mm-hmm.

okay, yeah, it sucks and it's

horrible and it's scary but just fucking make a joke about

it and carry on you know what I mean

Yeah.

And there is, mean, that stigma is very harsh.

I mean, I was chatting to somebody a few weeks ago and she watched her husband die.

He was drinking and she was perfectly aware.

So there's none of this, if only I had known.

It wasn't that she was with him.

He just didn't want to be there.

So there is no, from her perspective,

none of that shame. God, I wish I knew I could have done something

if only I'd known.

Yeah.

But she had to watch it. She had to be present as this man for whatever reason just

didn't anymore. And, you know,

that was his end goal was to say goodbye world and he did it.

But I wonder, do you know stats?

Do you know how many people will,

during their life, actually consider or think about suicide?

Or think about, have that ideation,

have those ideas, thinking I'm not worth it.

There's no point me being here anymore.

have them somewhere on my computer,

I don't know them off the top of my head,

but the percentage is quite high.

It's not necessarily that people will follow through on it,

but the majority of people will reach a point in their life where they're

I don't want to do this anymore.

Hmm.

But then because of their journey,

they're like, okay, no, they catch themselves and it's like,

you know, I don't wanna go there.

Then you have people who struggle with,

you know, suicidal ideation, who are constantly mulling over it.

They don't consciously choose to,

you know, in my experience, we don't consciously choose to have those thoughts,

but they're there and it's like,

Hmm.

well, you know, it's...

I explain it. I don't know, we can just be open and honest.

Mm.

It's like, know, if I'm riding,

I'm just creating an example from the past.

If I'm riding to work on my bicycle and I see a lorry coming towards me,

it'll be like, just do it. You know,

and then it's like, no, no, don't be silly.

there are people that kind of live with that day in and day out.

Mm.

And I lived with that in the past and it gets tiring.

Hmm.

where eventually it's like, is that my only option?

And then like I say, you know,

so the statistics are are quite high But because Because the majority

of people don't speak about it that the statistic is too accurate

if that makes sense But I know when I've sat down with people and when I've shared

my story face to face they'll look at me and go whew I I was crazy because

Mm-mm.

I felt like

but they would never publicly admit it.

So you go by the statistics ~ because the statistics are on a very small demographic

Mm.

of people who do feel comfortable admitting it.

Yeah. Which by its very nature will be a very small percentage.

Yeah.

Yeah. Wow.

So you got to 40, you made a promise to the god of your choice and you got to 40.

How did you keep that promise?

Well, look, I'll rewind and I'll go back to like when we were 30 and then

we started working that way. my job hasn't always been doing what I do now.

My first job and job that I had for most of my life was in construction.

So I was a quantity surveyor, which is all the financial and legal side of building.

And I absolutely loved it because,

you know, it was a nerdy job and it was numbers and everything.

And that was what I did for most of my life.

So when I was in hospital that last time,

a friend of mine gave me a book to read,

which was by Anthony Robbins, Awaken the Giant Within.

And I remember looking at this book,

it's a big, fat book and the letters are like little.

And I couldn't even write my name at that point in time,

never learned to read a book. So it took me about three or four months

to get to this book and I started reading this book and I'm like,

wow.

Let me try these things. Because,

you know, this was in the days before the internet in Zimbabwe.

There wasn't, you know, much help in Zimbabwe.

Suicide, technically, is illegal.

But because you don't... But because,

obviously, most people that commit suicide don't survive,

they can't really get in trouble,

can they?

Yes.

Don't do it again. Oh, you're dead.

So naturally, you know, like when I was in hospital,

I was in a lot of trouble because of what I had done and all that sort of stuff.

So, you know, the way that they treat mental health was very archaic.

So yeah, you had, you know, traditional psychiatrists and I kind of like,

because of everything leading up to then you kind of like learn to pull

the wool over the eyes of

and say what you know and then afterwards it's like you know well tell

Mm-hmm.

me how you they do the condescending head tilt you know well tell

me how you're feeling and how were you feeling like I'm tired of feeling

the way that I feel so stop asking me how I feel

Yeah.

So,

you know, having access to a book like that,

I kind of like literally applied everything.

If the page said do this, do this,

do that. And I read this book like three or four times and just literally applied

everything. I started attending 12-step meetings and going through

the 12-step program, which was extremely helpful.

Hmm.

because it's all about self-exploration and understanding yourself better

and that sort of stuff. And through the 12-step program,

I kind of like was asked to go and speak to schools because

Mm-hmm.

at the time that I joined AA and NA,

the age gap between me and the next member,

I was like 30 at that point in time and the next member was like around 50,

55.

So they never had anyone young to go into schools.

I just, know, like kids started opening up to me.

And it's like, wow, like me just talking,

I almost felt like I was doing nothing,

if that makes sense. Me just talking about myself helps people.

~ If that makes sense.

Thank

So I started, I trained to become a counselor in Zimbabwe.

and a grief therapist and then eventually kind of like built up

the strength and said okay I need to get out of Zimbabwe if I wanted

to have access to more. So then I moved to London after a lot of like self-work

~ because when I got out of hospitals I was told by the doctors that

I would never live without adult care.

what I've been ~ through, because of my mental health conditions.

Mm-mm.

And I was kind of like in my head like,

well, fuck you. ~ So fortunately in that respect,

Mm-hmm. Yep.

my family were relatively supportive,

even though they were worried,

but I almost like had to, I had to prove to them that I was okay.

Hmm.

So then I moved to London and one of my goals when

I was reading the book back then was that I wanted to attend a Tony Robbins event.

And when I was in London, I managed to attend a Tony Robbins event.

And it was then, you know, that I had started writing down like one day

I want to have my own, I want to have a rehab center with a difference where it's

Mm-hmm.

not all just focused on rehab,

rehab, rehab, but it's focused on a more holistic approach.

because my experience with rehab was it's very addiction directed.

There's no fun if that makes sense.

And then while I lived in London,

I was doing one of my trainings.

I trained to become an NLP practitioner and a hypnotherapist.

And I met my now business partner at one of the events.

Originally approached him you do these like exercises during the courses where

you want to deal with things And I approached this guy because he was

to me the personification of health He was big yeah big muscles and

he looked like you know, the super confident guy and he reminded me

of my father So it's like I'm gonna do this exercise with this

You

guy because I'm never ever gonna fucking see him again so it doesn't matter

I can just

Mm-hmm.

deal with my stuff and he can go on his way and I can go on my way and

we sat down doing this exercise and I was like,

wow this guy has the same problems as me!

So we were working

dear.

on, the exercise was to work on anger.

And you know, for me there was a lot of anger that I hadn't dealt with because

I didn't know how to deal with it.

So I thought, okay, I still have a lot of anger towards my father.

So he has someone that kind of like almost physically represents my father.

He may not know it, but I'm just,

you know. And we sat in this exercise and it's like,

wow.

This guy has the same problems as me.

You know, obviously he hadn't been through as much as I had been through,

me

but there were lot of similarities.

Yeah.

And we had both written down in our own ways that number one,

both of us wanted to live in Spain and we had no idea why.

Me, I wanted a rehab center with a difference and he wanted

a hotel with a difference.

So we had very, very similar, yeah,

we had very, very similar things.

Hmm?

And we both approached life from completely different ways.

For him, you know, if he was physically healthy,

then nobody would ask him what was really going on.

And for me, if I was mentally and emotionally healthy,

people could ask me anything. You know,

so we kind of like had this...

inside out approach. And we decided to start working together.

We had a coaching business while we were in the UK.

And then an opportunity came up for us to visit a health retreat

in Spain who needed some help with doing those sort of things.

And we were invited there. Oh,

just to go back to my business partner.

We also both came from a construction industry background.

But his job was to work on the outside of the buildings.

So to put all the cladding on and a really small,

I know that we're going off tangent,

but that doesn't matter. A really small thing that was really quite amazing

is he's originally from Holland.

I'm originally from Zimbabwe.

On his first project in Zimbabwe,

he had a quantity surveyor whose name was Nigel.

And on my first job in England,

my boss's name was Nigel, and it was the same Nigel.

Wow. Wow. When you start joining

Hahaha

all of those dots, that's just remarkable.

That is remarkable.

And a lot of

people often when they meet us for the first time they think that we

are brothers ~ So that was the long and then we moved to Spain We came

Mm-hmm.

to see this health retreat and while we were at the health retreat to run

who is my business partner said now we're gonna move We

let this health retreat on the 10th of May

and we started working with them on the 11th of June.

Wow.

So we moved back to London, packed up our lives in four weeks and then,

and we wanted to work for them for two reasons.

Number one, obviously was to help them because they needed some help,

but also to see if it was what we really wanted to do.

So rather than kind of like, give up everything and open your own health retreat,

it's what we wanted to do.

Hmm.

and we really enjoyed it and it got to the point where...

The values differed, if that makes sense.

So the values of the retreat were very different to the values of us.

And we just said, OK, you know,

we are going to it's not right for us to compromise on our values.

And then, yeah,

Mm-hmm.

that was it, really. Then we opened up.

So it's kind of like.

If something is really important to you,

you don't have to put a timeline on it,

but you do have to keep working towards it.

Does that make sense?

Hmm,

totally. Yeah.

because there were points in time where it was like,

my god, I don't know how I'm ever going to open a health retreat.

But never gave up on

that's how

I just love all those dots. you were,

you weren't allowed to die. Isn't it?

It's crazy.

It is crazy. You weren't allowed to die.

And it sounds like you tried very fucking hard to do it,

but you weren't allowed to. You met Nigel,

Thank you.

he met Nigel. Your business partner is all about the exterior.

He's butch, he's strong, he's fit,

he's healthy. You're all in the interior.

You're all about the maths, the figures,

the numbers. That's all interior.

I mean...

The whole story when you look back at it is so beautiful,

isn't it?

We're very

Mm.

wow. And so your retreat, what do you do there with it?

when we first started, we used to do 50 weeks a year,

because we thought that that was how it wanted to be done.

We were absolutely crazy looking back in hindsight.

Mm-hmm.

But then thanks to COVID and me burning myself out,

we had to kind of like revisit things because,

know,

after COVID, Spain was really strict during that period.

We couldn't do anything with the retreat business for close to two years.

~ So was quite stressful. But then it also forced us to kind of like

Wow.

in our own individual ways to step back and say,

okay, well, you know, how do I see this business running?

Because, you know, if I look back on my own personal life,

You know, since waking up from my suicide attempt,

I never allowed myself to stop,

if that makes sense. It was always go,

go, go, go, go, go, go, go, yeah,

I loved what I was doing, but you can only go,

go, go, go, go for so long. And so just over that,

Hmm.

I did burn myself out because,

you know, everybody needs to stop.

But I have the privilege of having crap that happens in my body that I need

to take extra care of.

And sometimes, you know, I can when things,

especially when things are good,

I can get a little bit complacent and I don't do the little things that

I know that I should be doing.

So then, you know, just before COVID,

I burnt myself out. And then when COVID happened,

you couldn't do anything. You literally couldn't do anything.

So it forced me to go inside and say,

okay, well.

You know, what is it that you really,

really want? Do you still want to do this?

Yes, I do. Do you still want to continue doing it?

How you do it? No. So we made some changes.

now, you know, since COVID after COVID,

we now only do 14 retreats a year because then we can be more present.

When you're working, you know,

seven days a week for 50 weeks of the year,

it's pretty exhausting. You're working.

Mm.

business, you're working on the business,

there's never any stop stop stop.

At that point in my life, you know,

I was alone. Jerome had his family,

his wife and his two kids, so he could go home and switch off almost.

Whereas I would go home and just continue working.

Whereas Harold's like, okay, yeah,

Hmm.

I still need to run a business that fills 14 retreats a year,

but I can be more present. So the retreat runs from a Saturday to a Saturday,

people arrive on Saturday.

on Saturday, it's a seven day program.

And then it's kind of like everything is the inside out approach.

Obviously there's exercise and all that sort of stuff.

So the formula for a retreat is really simple,

make people move, give them a good place to rest and let them have nice food.

That's basically what a retreat is.

And it's the way that it's delivered.

Mm.

we have group sessions during the week which people...

attend if they want to, they don't want to.

So there's stuff on mindset, there's stuff on nutrition,

there's stuff on food. But I think the best way for people to experience change,

or to make changes to experience it,

so we kind of like come and they can see how it can be done.

~ So we take the complicated and make it simple and fun.

Mm-hmm.

It has to be fun with us every day.

All our clients refer to us lovingly as the boys.

they, you know, everything. And 80 % of

Hmm. ~

our clients are returning clients.

So they come at least once. Some of them come twice a year because they know

what they're going to get. And we also constantly change things.

We look for ways to improve things.

I will definitely come and visit you guys sometime this year,

if not early next year, see what it's all about.

I think it's so important.

But you, stopping. mean, that's,

I'm a good one at stopping. No,

I'm a good one at not stopping.

I'm not a good one at stopping.

Hahaha!

Whatever the language is, I don't stop.

I find it very difficult because then it's the chatter,

it's the, you know, the noise.

It is the shame. It is all these things that just come back and just say,

you did this, you did this, you're that.

I mean...

understand the burnout is part of that is avoiding everything,

keeping everything going, far too busy,

not having time to stop all these kind of things.

But how do you deal with that chatter?

Think for me, like, I have a philosophy that I lived my life by and it's called

the Avocado Philosophy. And the thing with the avocado is,

we all know it. It's like Russian fucking roulette.

We go to the shops, we buy an avocado,

we get home, we cut it open and we're like,

my God. And that's what...

kind of like my approach to life is it's like,

you know, we all have this avocado,

how we use it and what we do with it is up to us.

We can sit there and look at it and look at it and hope that it's gonna

be ripe and not know what's on the inside and be afraid to cut it open.

But that's what it is like with life,

you know, like we have these...

these masks on all the time. know,

the avocado looks perfect from the outside,

but we never know what's going on on the inside.

And sometimes kind of like you just have to cut it open.

And for me, that's what stopping is about.

Like it's about cutting my avocado open and then whatever's inside is inside.

But often I don't stop because I'm afraid of what's going to happen.

I'm afraid of the thoughts, I'm afraid of the this,

I'm afraid of the that. But I'll never know until I cut it open.

Mm.

I'll never know what's gonna happen when I stop if I don't stop.

Yep.

But then the joy of it is like if I cut my avocado open and it's shit,

Mm-hmm.

I can throw it away. I don't have to close it up and keep going.

Yeah.

because the only way I'm

gonna get rid of that chatter is by kind of like listening to it and say,

uh-huh, tell me something I don't fucking

Yep.

Because it's not, this is my opinion,

it's not the chatter that I'm afraid of.

It's the conversations that I have with the chatter that make me scared.

Mm.

Okay, yes. Yes. Yep.

So I can have these

thoughts I can have these thoughts But how I engage with them,

Mm.

that's what makes them scary You know if I look at you know,

I'll use my own Experience I live with schizophrenia Sometimes there

is stuff that goes on on in my head that I really don't like and that

is very tiring and very draining I was using the example earlier on like

I'm on my bike and there's a lorry coming

and it says go push it and it's like I'm riding the bike if you want

to fucking do it mate you get on the bike you ride and you ride into

the truck and it's like I can't do that can I?

Hmm

And then you can take it further.

This is my example. I can take it further.

It's like, well, if you want me to top myself,

you're not going to be around.

So what's that going to achieve?

So we can have these thoughts,

but it's how we engage with them when we stop.

I find, this goes back to what we were saying at the beginning,

Hmm.

joking with them gives them a place.

Because I don't have to be afraid of my thoughts.

Mm-hmm.

What I am afraid of is my thoughts about the thought.

So if my thoughts come to me and say,

~ Garreth, you're a dick, tell me something I don't fucking know.

Is that

Yeah.

the best that you can come up with?

Because then what happens is, know,

like I call part of the, you know,

working with things like schizophrenia and that they talk about dissociation

so that you are not your thoughts and all that.

It's like, well, if your thoughts are there,

give them a character.

You know, take the power away from them.

Don't give them power by engaging in contention with them.

Give them a character, give them a time,

give them a place and know that they're there for a reason.

Because then when we do that, then we can give ourselves permission to stop

and know that it's safe to stop.

Yep.

And if stopping is something

new to us, you don't have to stop for an hour.

Just stop for a minute.

I can do that. I can stop for a minute.

I like the idea of giving this a name and just said,

yeah, it's like the best. Is that really the best?

You you've told me that 100 million times.

I know nothing new there. Yeah.

Because another way that

I look at thoughts, this is like,

you know, sometimes when I talk with people that have similar challenges with me,

is if you imagine your thoughts,

like they are kids in a playground,

right? And when kids are in a playground,

it's la la la la la la la la la la la la.

And you're walking past the playground,

and there's this one little kid,

and he's found something in the playground.

and he comes running up to the fence and he says to you,

look at this, look at this. And you're like,

that's really nice. Then all the other kids see that kid showing you their stuff.

Then what do they do? They come running,

look at my stuff, look at my stuff,

look at my stuff. And then we retreat.

We start looking at them one by one.

Hmm.

Then you know what happens? The kids start forming a line and they wait their turn.

And then you'll see a kid that's number five in,

in.

Or you'll see a kid that's showing you a broken Coke can and then kid number five

in the queue has also got a broken Coke can and he's like,

oh, I don't need to show him that and goes back to play.

But that's what happens with our thoughts.

Mm.

When we start engaging with our thoughts or when we start listening

to our thoughts or acknowledging them,

at first they're like, oh, thoughts,

yes, we're being listened to, we're being listened to,

da, da, da, da, da.

If you, if you the guy looking into the playground says,

uh-uh, one at a time, then they're like,

okay, I'll wait my turn. You know,

so then you have this one like,

Gareth's a Yeah, tell me something that I already know.

~ You have number six in the queue.

Mm-hmm.

I was gonna tell Gareth he was a dick.

So he goes away.

So whenever, you know, I always use that,

that's one of my helpful things.

It's like when I have too much,

it's like, okay, playground, queue.

You've got to make things fun.

I love that. It makes it fun,

doesn't it? Yeah, then you can just

say, I wanted to say that. I wanted to say that,

yeah.

And it's the same with the metaphor of the avocado.

Brilliant.

When you cut your avocado open,

there's so many different ingredients that you can add.

~ You can add salt, can add this,

Mm-hmm.

you can add that. It's everything,

all the ingredients represent something.

It's the long and the short of the avocado philosophy.

do like your avocado analogy, I think that is a really good one.

And if you open it up a bit hard,

well it can go on the pizza. If it's a bit squishy,

you can make guacamole with it.

I mean, it's a no-lose, isn't it?

Yeah. Or just throw it away. Because

Or throw it away, yeah.

people get so precious with their rotten avocados and I know I was guilty

of that in the past. It's like,

this is my rotten stuff. I want to keep it and make it all rotten.

You

Sorry.

I love it. just think this episode is going to be called,

What do I do with my avocado?

Yeah.

I go, no, okay, what the hell is Hamish on about today?

What do I do with my avocado? Yeah,

you

well, listen and see, you will be inspired.

But that's my life tagline. Fuck suicide,

let's make guacamole.

Right, that's the title, even better.

Yep.

Gareth, I'm very, very glad you are shit at trying to kill yourself.

That's all I could say.

~ yeah, seriously, I'm really glad of that.

And I just think it's, it's just lovely to chat and just see that smile,

hear that smile, feel it and just your whole story.

And then, you know, Nigel and Nigel and Jerome,

it wasn't your time to go. All these things have just brought you to where

you are and what you're doing now.

And I think that's, that is really precious.

and the fact that you're smiling is even better.

I just think that's, that is you shared.

colourful life where decisions haven't always been easy,

but you've made the ones that,

you know, you've, you've chewed the right avocado and thrown away the odd one.

Yeah.

Now this has been fabulous. I'm sure some of my listeners will want to have

a chat with you about things because your outlook really,

it brings hope, brings hope and joy and a bit of dark humour.

But thank you.

That's all I

Thank you very much. Thank you.

lovely. It's been really fun to chat Well,

you.

that was Gareth. He has got a fantastic story.

If you like this episode, please follow,

please like. There will be some information in the show notes about suicide,

about where you can get extra help,

professional help and things like that.

Thank

Life goes on, but Gareth, thank you ever so much for being with us today.

I really appreciate it.