Hey everyone, welcome back to our purpose. I am so grateful to be your daily, weekly, monthly listen every time you join me, it means the world to me. And today I'm going to let you in on something really special. I'm excited for you to listen to this. This is a really rare, early pre on purpose interview with Russell Brand. And this conversation was when I was just testing out my interview skills. I was just connecting deeper. It's one of those conversations that's going to give you so many insights on some really really fascinating things. If you know Russell, he's funny, he's clever, he's smart, he's got great insight. And we talked about everything from consumerist culture, living in a perception of a perception of ourselves, and how opinions of others affect our self worth and image. This is genuinely one you don't want to miss. Make sure you listen to this. It's one of those rare fines I am so excited for you. Enjoy the episode. Hello everyone, welcome to this very special episode of Follow the Reader, the opportunity where I get to interview the great minds behind life changing books and ideas and today I'm genuinely humbled, grateful, honored to have with me in the studio someone who doesn't really need introduction, but I feel deserves one, and I'd like to give you one, Russell, if that's okay. But you know, award winning actor, comedian, director, presenter, and on top of all of that, one of the most loved and recognized performers on stage and someone that I think is a fellow meditator and a very dear spiritual friend. So Russell, I'm so genuinely, deeply grateful that you took the time out to be here with me. Thanks. I'm really glad that you did the introduction because that's really boosted me up. I'm really charged and positive now. Thanks Jaye good I'm glad where you definitely deserve it. And Russell, I wanted to start on something that you shared with everyone on a video recently, and these were these stats around addiction, yes, and they were quite alarming for me. I hadn't really come across them. I've got some of them here. You said that over twenty million Americans over the age of twelve have an addiction. One hundred and forty two people die every day from drug overdoses, which you rightly pointed out is like having nine to eleven every three weeks. On top of all of that, one million men think that they're addicted to pornography. And that's only the ones that think it. You're right, and then you have over ninety percent of those with an addiction began drinking or smoking before the age of eighteen. But what connected with me most is that with this book that we're talking about today, Recovery Freedom from Our Addictions. I've popped the link into the comment section on Facebook right now so you can order it. While we're having this conversation, is you expanded that definition of addiction out and you said that actually, in some form or another, we're all addicts, whether it's mobiles, whether it's food, whether it's money, whether it's power. Introduced us to that perspective because it really resonated with me. You've completely understood the resondet of the book, the reasoning behind it. Mate. I think it's inevitable in a capitalist consumer culture that addiction is a component because what consumerism is is that we acquire an external commodity in order to make us feel better. I've got these Nike trainers yesterday. These are sand I mean, I also like these, but these Nike ones up well yesterday, there was a moment before I purchased them where I thought I want them, and the guy in the store, Alexis he was called and the other guy I think he was called Mike. When I was getting these trainers, well, yes, these are the ones. These are the ones. Now I'm speaking to you as a recovering crack and heroin addict, so I know what addiction is. All substance addiction is it distills perfectly the phenomena of addiction, because if you withdraw from heroin, you know what it is you need. But I think a lot of us jay suffer from the notion that there is something missing from our lives, that there is something that is not whole about us, that we are in some way inadequate, and we can address this through consuming. Now our culture relies on us feeling like this. Mate. Marx's critique says like that capitalism operates on the basis of the perennial stimulation of desire. If you don't need nothing, you ain't gonna buy no sand Laurents or no Nikes as long as I feel like I need things, I am a good, obedient consumer, and consumerism is delivered some very good things. This is not necessarily an attack on consumerism, is just pointing out that addiction I see as really like the outlier force of consumerism. You know that when there's a tsunami, mate, and like Apocryphale, people tell you that some animals before the tsunami they go to the high lands. I think that the addicts are the people that are on the high lands. They know the storm is coming, they have one less layer of skin. They get addicted to the smack and to the food, and to the sex and to the pawn. But everyone, I believe, on some level, is suffering from this feeling of absence, this feeling of loss. I completely agree with you, and yeah, no, I genuinely agree with you, and I think that's why we're looking through in all these different places. And one of the things that's that to me is that you said your qualification for writing this book is that you're worse than everyone, and you're crazy than everyone. And I felt that that was one of the most refreshing approaches had ever read, because most of the time people are like quoting all their accolades and their achievements to say why they're an expert. How do you someone who's feels that way and reflect on yourself in that way? But then you adopted this system and this structure, and in your own words, you say, when you first heard about it, you thought that's not for me. That program seems too systematic, right, it seems to destructured. How were you able to do that? The reason that it was important to me to express that I'm not coming from a didactic position is because now that even when I come in this room here and now at Facebook, I meet young people that are competent, lucid, brilliant communicators, seemed like they were at ease and comfortable of themselves at ways that I wasn't when I was at that age. And I don't want to be writing a book that comes at you from the perspective of I've sorted myself out, I've been famous, I've had these various experiences conjugally and physically and sexually and anatomically. No, it comes from the position of me saying the reason I know this program works is because it has to work because I'm messed up that I get very attached to things. I get attached to other people's feelings about me. Fame, celebrity, money, those things really matter to me. But this helped me to unstitch it. And this is what I believe Jay Shitty, that we don't choose between working a pro like between having a program and not having a program. Everyone's working a program. You choose between your unconscious program and your conscious program. If you don't deliberately have a program, you are working an unconscious one. You're working the program of your family, you're working the program of your society, you're working the program of your culture, and a lot of that programming is very negative. And it's by this diagnosis that I say that we're all on the scale of addiction. We're all using external things to hold our lives together, and those things ultimately will not work definitely. And one of the biggest ones that stood out to me, and I think it was articulated really well by Charles Cooley. When I read this, I thought you may like it. It was Charles Coolie who said that today I'm not what I think I am. I'm not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am. Wow, And so we live in this that's brilliant. Yeah, and you wrote this in the eighteen hundreds or something like that. And and it's like he's reflecting on the how today we're a perception of a perception of ourselves, perception of a perception. And I really thought that resonated with what you were talking about with how one of the things that the program helps with is dealing help people view us just make so many of us are wrapped up in we need to have this thing because it makes us look good this, so tell us a bit about that. Well, I think what that quote you just used there from Charles Coolly really well illustrates is the idea that we feel like we live in illusions all the time. When it say, oh it's an illusion, it's an illusion. Well, if you're living in what you think other people think of you, that's already an illusion. It's built on conjecture, it's built on speculation. You're not having a truthful and visceral experience of your own life. You're thinking, what does my life look like to other people? Do I belong? Am I good enough? You're living in a projected image of the self. That other great trope of mystical traditions is stay present in the moment, stay connected in the moment. This program is a system that delivers you to that point where you can be present in the moment, and then once you're there, there's a strong moral and effical aspect to it. It's not just like let's bliss out and sit in a cave or sit on the top of some mountain or lose yourself in a loft. Is connect and once you are connected, to be of service to others, because that is where true connection and happiness is found. Amazing. I'm addicted to hearing from you. Yeah, I've been following you for the last week, watching you talk about the book, and I get addicted to your articulation of how you've been through this transformation and this journey. Well possibly, Jay, It's worth pointing out that I always believe that the drive behind addiction isn't itself negative. It's the yearning to come back home. Like I think on some level we all are aware this isn't real. Yeah, I'm defining my life by stuff that doesn't matter. I think of the problems you had five years ago, where are they now? They've all gone. All of the things we cared about all of the cultural artifacts that fascinated us. Where are they gone? Where are even the great leaders that this country produced sixty years ago? Your civil rights geniuses, they too lie dead, but their ethics, their morals, and the things that are permanent and universal live on. So we all have to find our own way to making those kind of connections. If I'm not very careful, if I'm not deliberate, if I'm not focused, this culture, along with my biochemistry, will pull me towards being a passive consumer, possible, a commodifier of all things, looking at human beings, it's just commodities to be consumed. No, I'm going to be thinking some of your questions, and I've seen a great one come through just a moment ago from Kevin, and he says, Russell, can you recall any specific moments in your life that shifted your perspective from the everyday norms to who you are now? Well? Yes, I can't recall many. When it comes to addiction. There are moments where I was brought so low by addiction that it seemed apparent that it couldn't go on. Like I got scars on my body and scars on my mind from getting like arrested and into situations that made me realize that that level of reality won't work for you anymore. I sugget I suspect from the way that that question is positive, that you're talking about my relationship with reality and consciousness. I suppose, mate, because I've been in positions where I've been like a super super face amos and well ensconced in celebrity. There's been these odd eerie they say, the word epiphany means the revelation of essence. Do you know what I mean by that? The revelation of truth? There have been moments where I've been surrounded by a lot of glamor and a lot of power, and I felt sort of oddly brittle and disconnected from it, like it's not real, Like it's not real. So I suppose, like various times around possibly Golly, that when I came home from the MTV VMA Awards the first time after I hosted it, I got back to my house and have been all these celebratory helium balloons put in my bedroom, and they were half full by now and floating at an eerie height, like sub aquatic creatures their way down in the deep deep mind. And I got back to my room and like I was getting all this hate mouth and all these messages of hatred were coming, and I felt, Ah, this is never going to work for you, Russell. Plus I met this swami in India who says, Russell, the material world has got nothing else to give you. It can only take from you. Now made me feel a bit sick. I didn't like it because I want the material world to give me things. I wanted to give me sex. I want it to give me money. I wanted to give me power, but I kind of know now that it can't. The only thing that's useful to me is true connection. But the reason this book is written from the perspective of me say I'm worse than you, is I'm capable of making a mess of this on the way home in the car. Someone can affect me in traffic, someone can say something I don't like, and I'll be affected by it. It's important that we acknowledge that we are flawed, we are not perfect. So awakening is a continual process. We must awaken unto ourselves moment a moment. Try to recognize the patterns we have, Recognize the things that chain is to our habits, bad relationships, bad beliefs, bad eating. Recognize them, and you can slowly become liberated using various systems, one of which I've outlined in that book. Step for it in the book is you take a personal inventory of all the things that have ever messed you up. So it might be things in your childhood. It might be saying that your mum did It could be something serious like maybe you didn't grow up around your dad, or someone died that you needed, or somebody abused you, or it could be something quite trivial. You put it all down in a system. You use these columns to a diagnose and analyze what happened to you. You You do it yourself, but then you share it with another person. It's important you don't do this stuff alone, particularly if you're dealing with deep stuff. Now, it took me five years and two days to do this, five years not to do it, and then two days to do it because I procrastinate and I didn't want to do it, and I avoided it. I avoided it like I owed it money. But once I've done it, it it revealed to me a lot of unconscious patterns. It revealed to me that I get in trouble a lot in the same way, because, as I keep saying to you, you don't choose between having a program and not having a program. You choose to having a conscious program or an unconscious program. That revealed to me that I care too much about what other people think of me, that I let fear govern me, that I don't feel like I'm good enough, I'm looking for other people's approval, I don't trust people, and yet I don't want to be alone. And once you recognize these things in yourself, you can begin a journey of recovery, a journey of healing, and get back on your intended path, become the person you were meant to be. This feeling of frustration you have, it'scause something in you knows that you can be something else, but that your culture and your circumstances are preventing you from real life. Saying, this is what it's meant by transcendence, an opportunity to connect to what is true, what is real, what is trying to be realized in you. You know your culture, you know your life. You know the forces that are in your life that are stopping you being who you are. You have God is not in the constellations of the stars. God is in your belly. God is telling you when you're doing something you didn't want to do. No, does anybody feel good after looking at pornography? I don't. I don't. Immediately afterwards, when I slam that live down or that was a good job, I feel like let myself down? What have I just participated in? So it's not that I'm trying to live my life in accordance with an external morality. It's the morality is innate, inherent, is present within already. And how did you recognize that it was that that it was internal? I suppose because after this, what these steps do, mate is they reveal the truth of who you are, but they also acknowledge that you're a flawed person, and it's very easy to drift back to your own habits. It made me realize that I'm better when I'm in relationship with another person, when I speak openly with people that I can trust, when I accept help from others, and when I offer help to people as well. So I suppose it came like you know, getting rid of heroin crack. That was one level recognizing that promiscuity wasn't working. For me. That was another level acknowledging the fame and materialism weren't working for me. There's another level. Now. I still participate in the world to still eat food and wear trainers and stuff, but what I no longer have is the expectation that these things are going to fill me up or make me better. Yeah, And I think I love that balance because I think sometimes it's really easy for people to go totally the other way and say, actually, I don't need any of it, and none of it has any purpose, and it's all false, it's all fake, and it's not going to do anything. But you're coming out from the point of view of I get it. I like these trainers. I bought them. Yeah, I know that they're not going to meet eternal transcendental happiness, but I know that they're going to make me feel good for a day. So it's almost like a realistic expectation. I believe. So, Jay, I mean, we know people who have a stronger path than us. Some people's path is they're not going to participate at all in that thing, and I think our culture needs that. Traditionally, in smaller societies, on the periphery of the village would be the shaman, the wild man, the priest, the people that were not quite in keeping the society. So I think it's just it's difficult because we live in an economic culture that's based upon productivity that if you're not a productive member of that society, and I mean economically productive, then you aren't given a role. We need people that can't wear trainers, that can't look at TV, that just want to spend all time meditating, blissing out, bringing down radiant new dreams, imagining new realms for us. There's a place in a utopia for those people. It's just it's difficult to find a role for them in a system of capitalist consumerism. You've touched it a few times where so you've talked about not doing this on your own, having people around that you trust. To talk about in the book needing mentors. How useful is that for you in the process of having worked with people who've been through this steps and these program with before you. It's absolutely vital for me, Jay to have mentors because I'm still crazy. I still have bad ideas every single day. Now I have the opportunity if I'm thinking of doing something crazy, I ring some up before I do it. That's the keep it before I do it, and go, hey, I'm thinking of doing this crazy thing. Shall I do it? Don't do the crazy thing? And then I have a moment and I don't do the crazy thing. Because when you're emotional, you were emotionally involved in your own life, and your emotions stop you being rational and clear headed. But other people you know this. But when I give advice to other people, I give good advice. If Jay, you were to ask me, oh, listen, this is happening in my life, I go, oh no, don't do that. Moment life, I'm like an idiot. I'm making stupid mistakes, I'm knocking stuff over, I'm being sick down my own top. I'm a fool. Then Jay's life, I'm very wise. So it's important to have the counsel of other people. Collectively and in community, we are powerful. It's only as individuals we're very, very stupid. And how long did it take you to go from calling someone after you messed up to before? That's a key part of the journey, because like it's very easy to bring someone when you're smacked up off your head, or if you're drunk, or if you've just made yourself puke up in a toilet, or you've bought some dumb stuff, or we've looked at some pornography, we've spent too much time staring at your phone. Go oh, I've done it. I feel filthy, I don't feel good anymore. If you bring them in advance of it, then get an opportunity to do something else. Here are the simple things you do. You speak with someone who's further down the path than you are, You speak to someone who's not so far down the path, and you help them, and you just think about what they're doing for a change. And then also in addition to this, you seek the collective company, so that you recognize your identity as a member of a community however you identify and importantly prayer and meditation for me, a recognition of the transcendence and people that can help you in those areas that are further down that particular path. Now, how much of you seen that help other people that were on the journey with you. Has that been a strong part of their journey? Is that very unique to yours? Or I think it is universal. I think it's for all of us. But how we conceive of a higher power changes. You know, there's nine or whatever people in this room, and we all have a different idea of what God or higher power might be. Some of us will be atheist. We don't. We believe that everything has come from material. My sense is that there must have been consciousness prior to material, that material cannot produce consciousness. But other people think that no, no material can produce consciousness. It's a big debate. It's been going on forever, it'll probably go on forever. The important thing is that we recognize that, however it got here, his spirit is a part of who we are now. So I know people that are atheists that stay clean and improve their lives. I know people that are sick or Buddhist or Christian or Muslim that get clean. The important thing is that we have a sense of connection to one another and a connection to a higher self, rather than just thinking I'm just me and what I want is important because if I think like that, I'm going to spend all my time hitting up the pipe, watching porn, making bad choices. Yeah, definitely, And how incredible would it be if we had a planet where everyone was thinking about everyone else, because then everyone would have seven people thinking about them as opposed to one, which is quite an incredible thing to think about. I just want to comment on how much I love the book, at how step orientated it and how structured it is. So when you flick through this book, there's loads of little activities that you can actually do, and I love that because I love being able to put your thoughts down on paper. Just getting out of your head. It's such an important thing. And I think if you don't have frameworks and structures to get them down, we just kind of live up, going around and around around, which I'm sure you've experienced a lot of I love. Yeah, Jay, it's funny you bring that up because I heard a thing from a neurologist the other day. It was on a podcast. I'm not hanging out with neurologists, right, And there goes that when you engage your rational mind, it takes you out of your emotion. It's very curious if the Step ten thing in this program is if something's bothering you say, like like if Jay, when we're outside when Russell, who look terribly overweight, which Jay would never say because he's too enlightened, as I've already mentioned, and I'm like, instead of thinking about that and worrying about it. I'd go Jay, because he said that thing about me being overweight. This affects my pride, It affects my self esteem, It affects my personal relations. That's not the script i'd give Jay. I want Jay to say the other stuff. Does it affect my sexual relations? No? Jay and I both married. And then my ambitions, yem, my ambition to be like in control of my own life. There's a whole system now when you go into the fourth column, and you should check this stuff out on my website, Russell brand dot com. You can see it. Who's that lovely guy? Like? It asks you various questions. Did I make any mistakes? Yeah? I care too much about what other people think of me. What are your fears? My fears are that if other people don't love me, I'm not good enough. Now when so, it puts you in a national part of your mind, and it also starts to help you to understand what patterns are at play when you feel bad about yourself. What are the patterns you know? Like, why is it so if people let me down? I'm really strongly affected by it because it reaches back into my past at times when I was let down, when I was small and fragile, I guess, and I think everybody's got their own version of that. This helps you to unpick the tapestry of your broken consciousness and restore to you a screen of pure mind through which a new radiant light can emerge and self realization can take place. I wanted to read a bit of a bout. If you don't mind, I'm sure your audio version is is far better that this married lady. There's this beautiful, beautiful piece in the book which you call here is a postcard from the other side. Here is a postcard from the other side. Fame, luxury items, and glamor are not real and cannot solve you. Whether it's a pair of shoes, a stream of orgies, a movie career, or global adulation, they're all just passing clouds of imagine every pleasure. It's true, you know, although I've still got those shoes. There's very well read that Jay, and it is no. You did it more than justice. You brought it to life. It's wonderful. But like so, I suppose, yeah, I like that. You know, it's a very common metaphor, the idea of passing clouds. We all recognize that clouds are impermanent and the result of precipitation, and similarly, the vapors of consciousness form into clouds, but they will pass. What we attached to is what's important, particularly if you want to create a sort of a positive ecology in our own consciousness. So I'm going to touch on this before we're gonna go. We're gonna do a quick fire round with Russell, which, as you know, is the on the spot questions. Nice rapid fire you're so, But before we do that, I did want to touch on something which I thought was pretty incredible you say in the book. I believe it's in the seventh step where you say that you're careful not to judge your parents, and I when I was reading that bit, I was just thinking, even judging or shifting blame is an addiction in our lives. We always trying to find to fob it off onto someone else. So yeah, it's actually that person's fault that I never got there, or it's because of that person that I have these difficulties. And I'm thinking, how did you stop yourself or grow to the point where you didn't want to judge your parents? Or judge anyone who'd yes, mate, Well, what it is is. Of course people make mistakes, but I've learned to recognize as I've got older. The older I get, the more easy my childhood was, the more I recognize that my parents just ordinary people like me making their way through life. By justifying your pain and by blaming, we recommit to the pain. Well, of course I feel like this, this happened to me, That happened to me. You're signing another contract to continue with the pain. If you say, Okay, those things happened, but I want to let go of them now, and I want to move forward. You have an opportunity to reimagine your world and reimagine your place within it. So I'm sure terrible things happened to people. People are abused, people are let down, people don't do what they should do as parents. People make all sorts of mistakes, But by holding onto that pain, you recommit to reliving it. Of course, it's wrong that you're abused, if you were abused, but what's even more wrong than that is that you continue to allow it to affect your consciousness now, in this moment when you could be free. Definitely, So, guys, if you're ready for the quick player on the spot around with Russell Brand pressor likes, I'm gonna press that share button. I'm going to ask him these questions. They're going to evolve from what may seem quite inferior and insignificant, but then walking into depth, deeper depths of yourself. A right, So we can start in very shallow, yeah, like a paddle in a stream, and then we're leaping into the deep blue exactly. I'll follow you there with or without trunks. Thank you us. So here we go. Are you a morning person or a night Sometimes I wake up in the morning for an pretty depressed actually, but I can't go to bed late no more because I've got a baby. So you have to become a morning person because that baby determines it. So has that been becoming a father obviously very recently? Congratulations? Thanks man, and a lot of love. I've beautiful child you have and yeah, how's that be? Well, what it's done is it's unraveled my narcissism and puked and spat on it and done a pool on it because I now know I'm not the most important person in the world. Because there's a little baby who just thinks I'm an absolute idiot and punches me in the face pretty regularly, and she just thinks I'm the guy that holds the screen that in the night gardens on. So that's put me really in my place. You know. It really funny. Someone said to me recently that when they had a child, that was the first time they realized that life was about service. And I was thinking that often we wait so long to figure that out. It's like what you're saying in this book is just like get on with it. Like wherever you are, whatever stage you're out, whatever challenges you've had, it's like the quicker you can get to that, Like why wait that long? Yeah, it was just someone shared that with me. So favorite word or quote, okay, quote a lot of great people. All right, here's this Herman Melville quote that I like all of humans science are but passing fables. I like this because when we think of how advanced we are scientifically, here we sit in this great hub of technology. One day it's hard to think, isn't it that we will look back at this and it will be like some whirring steampunk, daft old engine of silly old pistons and buckles and cogs. Similarly, with our understanding of quantum physics and entanglement ideas that are so baffling. Now it will be revealed to us new, true, deeper truths. So what we understand as reality on the physical and mechanical level is constantly evolving. Therefore, we have to find a transcendent perennial truth, and this I believe is available to you in some of the ancient scriptures, possibly all of them. It's usually to do with oneness and love. As you can tell, this is not going very rapid fire. But it's good. Oh yeah, it's fine, it's good. It's good. Last book you read, I'm reading maybe Dick at the moment. I like that book by Herman Melville. Awesome. If you could have a superpower, what would it be? Oh no, okay, I want to have to subdivide myself into loads of people like clone Mesa, be inside people I not think like they are. But oh now that's quite a good one. What I leap into other people's conscious Yes, I didn't know that was available. Yeah, having your okay, if you are not what you are today, what would you be? God knows? Man? I mean, like like I probably want to work with children, because the only thing other than like shoving off is hanging out with kids. What job would you be terrible at? Like anything where I had to be involved in rational for and organizing stuff. I'd be like when I used to be a male man. For example, I stole the letters and didn't deliver them. Because that's quite bad, isn't it. Why do you meditate? Because none of this is real and I need to attach to truth. Best thing about being a dad That kid has opened new continents of love in my heart, like Columbus. Best thing about being a husband, constancy, permanent love. The best thing about knowing you're more than the body and the mind. Freedom, amazing. Best lesson from Hollywood. Don't determine your self worth on what other people think of you. Best advice you've ever received? Oh no, like from our shared friend and teacher, rather Naswami. He goes, goes, what if I become a monk? He laughed in my face, said, I do not think it's your dama to become a monk. The monks don't want me, so not becoming a monk. Good advice and best advice you've ever given. M. I don't know really because I don't know the effects of it, but like hopefully it's something like you have everything you need, you are enough, You are enough, you are beautiful. That's amazing. Guys. That's it. You've been watching Recovery with Russell Brand, follow the Reader. I hope that you're going to go and click and order this book today. It's there in the comments. If anything we said connected with you resonated with you, please please please go through. I know that reading this for me has made me find new ways of reflecting on flaws that I thought had overcome. Wow, And I thought that was really quite incredible. There were things that I thought maybe I've overcome this, maybe and maybe this is done now, and then when I read this, I was like, no, it's not. I've not made that list and gone through every single part of it. So I've got loads from this, and I really hope you will too. But thank you, Russell Way, thank you, thank you so much, Harry Chrishna, Chrishna, thank you very good. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Please leave a review. It means the world to me, and I can't wait to see you next week. I am so excited. I've got some big announcements coming up. You'll hear about them soon. Thank you so much for listening.

Hey everyone, welcome back to our purpose. I am so grateful to be your daily, weekly, monthly listen every time you join me, it means the world to me. And today I'm going to let you in on something really special. I'm excited for you to listen to this. This is a really rare, early pre on purpose interview with Russell Brand. And this conversation was when I was just testing out my interview skills. I was just connecting deeper. It's one of those conversations that's going to give you so many insights on some really really fascinating things. If you know Russell, he's funny, he's clever, he's smart, he's got great insight. And we talked about everything from consumerist culture, living in a perception of a perception of ourselves, and how opinions of others affect our self worth and image. This is genuinely one you don't want to miss. Make sure you listen to this. It's one of those rare fines I am so excited for you. Enjoy the episode. Hello everyone, welcome to this very special episode of Follow the Reader, the opportunity where I get to interview the great minds behind life changing books and ideas and today I'm genuinely humbled, grateful, honored to have with me in the studio someone who doesn't really need introduction, but I feel deserves one, and I'd like to give you one, Russell, if that's okay. But you know, award winning actor, comedian, director, presenter, and on top of all of that, one of the most loved and recognized performers on stage and someone that I think is a fellow meditator and a very dear spiritual friend. So Russell, I'm so genuinely, deeply grateful that you took the time out to be here with me. Thanks. I'm really glad that you did the introduction because that's really boosted me up. I'm really charged and positive now. Thanks Jaye good I'm glad where you definitely deserve it. And Russell, I wanted to start on something that you shared with everyone on a video recently, and these were these stats around addiction, yes, and they were quite alarming for me. I hadn't really come across them. I've got some of them here. You said that over twenty million Americans over the age of twelve have an addiction. One hundred and forty two people die every day from drug overdoses, which you rightly pointed out is like having nine to eleven every three weeks. On top of all of that, one million men think that they're addicted to pornography. And that's only the ones that think it. You're right, and then you have over ninety percent of those with an addiction began drinking or smoking before the age of eighteen. But what connected with me most is that with this book that we're talking about today, Recovery Freedom from Our Addictions. I've popped the link into the comment section on Facebook right now so you can order it. While we're having this conversation, is you expanded that definition of addiction out and you said that actually, in some form or another, we're all addicts, whether it's mobiles, whether it's food, whether it's money, whether it's power. Introduced us to that perspective because it really resonated with me. You've completely understood the resondet of the book, the reasoning behind it. Mate. I think it's inevitable in a capitalist consumer culture that addiction is a component because what consumerism is is that we acquire an external commodity in order to make us feel better. I've got these Nike trainers yesterday. These are sand I mean, I also like these, but these Nike ones up well yesterday, there was a moment before I purchased them where I thought I want them, and the guy in the store, Alexis he was called and the other guy I think he was called Mike. When I was getting these trainers, well, yes, these are the ones. These are the ones. Now I'm speaking to you as a recovering crack and heroin addict, so I know what addiction is. All substance addiction is it distills perfectly the phenomena of addiction, because if you withdraw from heroin, you know what it is you need. But I think a lot of us jay suffer from the notion that there is something missing from our lives, that there is something that is not whole about us, that we are in some way inadequate, and we can address this through consuming. Now our culture relies on us feeling like this. Mate. Marx's critique says like that capitalism operates on the basis of the perennial stimulation of desire. If you don't need nothing, you ain't gonna buy no sand Laurents or no Nikes as long as I feel like I need things, I am a good, obedient consumer, and consumerism is delivered some very good things. This is not necessarily an attack on consumerism, is just pointing out that addiction I see as really like the outlier force of consumerism. You know that when there's a tsunami, mate, and like Apocryphale, people tell you that some animals before the tsunami they go to the high lands. I think that the addicts are the people that are on the high lands. They know the storm is coming, they have one less layer of skin. They get addicted to the smack and to the food, and to the sex and to the pawn. But everyone, I believe, on some level, is suffering from this feeling of absence, this feeling of loss. I completely agree with you, and yeah, no, I genuinely agree with you, and I think that's why we're looking through in all these different places. And one of the things that's that to me is that you said your qualification for writing this book is that you're worse than everyone, and you're crazy than everyone. And I felt that that was one of the most refreshing approaches had ever read, because most of the time people are like quoting all their accolades and their achievements to say why they're an expert. How do you someone who's feels that way and reflect on yourself in that way? But then you adopted this system and this structure, and in your own words, you say, when you first heard about it, you thought that's not for me. That program seems too systematic, right, it seems to destructured. How were you able to do that? The reason that it was important to me to express that I'm not coming from a didactic position is because now that even when I come in this room here and now at Facebook, I meet young people that are competent, lucid, brilliant communicators, seemed like they were at ease and comfortable of themselves at ways that I wasn't when I was at that age. And I don't want to be writing a book that comes at you from the perspective of I've sorted myself out, I've been famous, I've had these various experiences conjugally and physically and sexually and anatomically. No, it comes from the position of me saying the reason I know this program works is because it has to work because I'm messed up that I get very attached to things. I get attached to other people's feelings about me. Fame, celebrity, money, those things really matter to me. But this helped me to unstitch it. And this is what I believe Jay Shitty, that we don't choose between working a pro like between having a program and not having a program. Everyone's working a program. You choose between your unconscious program and your conscious program. If you don't deliberately have a program, you are working an unconscious one. You're working the program of your family, you're working the program of your society, you're working the program of your culture, and a lot of that programming is very negative. And it's by this diagnosis that I say that we're all on the scale of addiction. We're all using external things to hold our lives together, and those things ultimately will not work definitely. And one of the biggest ones that stood out to me, and I think it was articulated really well by Charles Cooley. When I read this, I thought you may like it. It was Charles Coolie who said that today I'm not what I think I am. I'm not what you think I am. I am what I think you think I am. Wow, And so we live in this that's brilliant. Yeah, and you wrote this in the eighteen hundreds or something like that. And and it's like he's reflecting on the how today we're a perception of a perception of ourselves, perception of a perception. And I really thought that resonated with what you were talking about with how one of the things that the program helps with is dealing help people view us just make so many of us are wrapped up in we need to have this thing because it makes us look good this, so tell us a bit about that. Well, I think what that quote you just used there from Charles Coolly really well illustrates is the idea that we feel like we live in illusions all the time. When it say, oh it's an illusion, it's an illusion. Well, if you're living in what you think other people think of you, that's already an illusion. It's built on conjecture, it's built on speculation. You're not having a truthful and visceral experience of your own life. You're thinking, what does my life look like to other people? Do I belong? Am I good enough? You're living in a projected image of the self. That other great trope of mystical traditions is stay present in the moment, stay connected in the moment. This program is a system that delivers you to that point where you can be present in the moment, and then once you're there, there's a strong moral and effical aspect to it. It's not just like let's bliss out and sit in a cave or sit on the top of some mountain or lose yourself in a loft. Is connect and once you are connected, to be of service to others, because that is where true connection and happiness is found. Amazing. I'm addicted to hearing from you. Yeah, I've been following you for the last week, watching you talk about the book, and I get addicted to your articulation of how you've been through this transformation and this journey. Well possibly, Jay, It's worth pointing out that I always believe that the drive behind addiction isn't itself negative. It's the yearning to come back home. Like I think on some level we all are aware this isn't real. Yeah, I'm defining my life by stuff that doesn't matter. I think of the problems you had five years ago, where are they now? They've all gone. All of the things we cared about all of the cultural artifacts that fascinated us. Where are they gone? Where are even the great leaders that this country produced sixty years ago? Your civil rights geniuses, they too lie dead, but their ethics, their morals, and the things that are permanent and universal live on. So we all have to find our own way to making those kind of connections. If I'm not very careful, if I'm not deliberate, if I'm not focused, this culture, along with my biochemistry, will pull me towards being a passive consumer, possible, a commodifier of all things, looking at human beings, it's just commodities to be consumed. No, I'm going to be thinking some of your questions, and I've seen a great one come through just a moment ago from Kevin, and he says, Russell, can you recall any specific moments in your life that shifted your perspective from the everyday norms to who you are now? Well? Yes, I can't recall many. When it comes to addiction. There are moments where I was brought so low by addiction that it seemed apparent that it couldn't go on. Like I got scars on my body and scars on my mind from getting like arrested and into situations that made me realize that that level of reality won't work for you anymore. I sugget I suspect from the way that that question is positive, that you're talking about my relationship with reality and consciousness. I suppose, mate, because I've been in positions where I've been like a super super face amos and well ensconced in celebrity. There's been these odd eerie they say, the word epiphany means the revelation of essence. Do you know what I mean by that? The revelation of truth? There have been moments where I've been surrounded by a lot of glamor and a lot of power, and I felt sort of oddly brittle and disconnected from it, like it's not real, Like it's not real. So I suppose, like various times around possibly Golly, that when I came home from the MTV VMA Awards the first time after I hosted it, I got back to my house and have been all these celebratory helium balloons put in my bedroom, and they were half full by now and floating at an eerie height, like sub aquatic creatures their way down in the deep deep mind. And I got back to my room and like I was getting all this hate mouth and all these messages of hatred were coming, and I felt, Ah, this is never going to work for you, Russell. Plus I met this swami in India who says, Russell, the material world has got nothing else to give you. It can only take from you. Now made me feel a bit sick. I didn't like it because I want the material world to give me things. I wanted to give me sex. I want it to give me money. I wanted to give me power, but I kind of know now that it can't. The only thing that's useful to me is true connection. But the reason this book is written from the perspective of me say I'm worse than you, is I'm capable of making a mess of this on the way home in the car. Someone can affect me in traffic, someone can say something I don't like, and I'll be affected by it. It's important that we acknowledge that we are flawed, we are not perfect. So awakening is a continual process. We must awaken unto ourselves moment a moment. Try to recognize the patterns we have, Recognize the things that chain is to our habits, bad relationships, bad beliefs, bad eating. Recognize them, and you can slowly become liberated using various systems, one of which I've outlined in that book. Step for it in the book is you take a personal inventory of all the things that have ever messed you up. So it might be things in your childhood. It might be saying that your mum did It could be something serious like maybe you didn't grow up around your dad, or someone died that you needed, or somebody abused you, or it could be something quite trivial. You put it all down in a system. You use these columns to a diagnose and analyze what happened to you. You You do it yourself, but then you share it with another person. It's important you don't do this stuff alone, particularly if you're dealing with deep stuff. Now, it took me five years and two days to do this, five years not to do it, and then two days to do it because I procrastinate and I didn't want to do it, and I avoided it. I avoided it like I owed it money. But once I've done it, it it revealed to me a lot of unconscious patterns. It revealed to me that I get in trouble a lot in the same way, because, as I keep saying to you, you don't choose between having a program and not having a program. You choose to having a conscious program or an unconscious program. That revealed to me that I care too much about what other people think of me, that I let fear govern me, that I don't feel like I'm good enough, I'm looking for other people's approval, I don't trust people, and yet I don't want to be alone. And once you recognize these things in yourself, you can begin a journey of recovery, a journey of healing, and get back on your intended path, become the person you were meant to be. This feeling of frustration you have, it'scause something in you knows that you can be something else, but that your culture and your circumstances are preventing you from real life. Saying, this is what it's meant by transcendence, an opportunity to connect to what is true, what is real, what is trying to be realized in you. You know your culture, you know your life. You know the forces that are in your life that are stopping you being who you are. You have God is not in the constellations of the stars. God is in your belly. God is telling you when you're doing something you didn't want to do. No, does anybody feel good after looking at pornography? I don't. I don't. Immediately afterwards, when I slam that live down or that was a good job, I feel like let myself down? What have I just participated in? So it's not that I'm trying to live my life in accordance with an external morality. It's the morality is innate, inherent, is present within already. And how did you recognize that it was that that it was internal? I suppose because after this, what these steps do, mate is they reveal the truth of who you are, but they also acknowledge that you're a flawed person, and it's very easy to drift back to your own habits. It made me realize that I'm better when I'm in relationship with another person, when I speak openly with people that I can trust, when I accept help from others, and when I offer help to people as well. So I suppose it came like you know, getting rid of heroin crack. That was one level recognizing that promiscuity wasn't working. For me. That was another level acknowledging the fame and materialism weren't working for me. There's another level. Now. I still participate in the world to still eat food and wear trainers and stuff, but what I no longer have is the expectation that these things are going to fill me up or make me better. Yeah, And I think I love that balance because I think sometimes it's really easy for people to go totally the other way and say, actually, I don't need any of it, and none of it has any purpose, and it's all false, it's all fake, and it's not going to do anything. But you're coming out from the point of view of I get it. I like these trainers. I bought them. Yeah, I know that they're not going to meet eternal transcendental happiness, but I know that they're going to make me feel good for a day. So it's almost like a realistic expectation. I believe. So, Jay, I mean, we know people who have a stronger path than us. Some people's path is they're not going to participate at all in that thing, and I think our culture needs that. Traditionally, in smaller societies, on the periphery of the village would be the shaman, the wild man, the priest, the people that were not quite in keeping the society. So I think it's just it's difficult because we live in an economic culture that's based upon productivity that if you're not a productive member of that society, and I mean economically productive, then you aren't given a role. We need people that can't wear trainers, that can't look at TV, that just want to spend all time meditating, blissing out, bringing down radiant new dreams, imagining new realms for us. There's a place in a utopia for those people. It's just it's difficult to find a role for them in a system of capitalist consumerism. You've touched it a few times where so you've talked about not doing this on your own, having people around that you trust. To talk about in the book needing mentors. How useful is that for you in the process of having worked with people who've been through this steps and these program with before you. It's absolutely vital for me, Jay to have mentors because I'm still crazy. I still have bad ideas every single day. Now I have the opportunity if I'm thinking of doing something crazy, I ring some up before I do it. That's the keep it before I do it, and go, hey, I'm thinking of doing this crazy thing. Shall I do it? Don't do the crazy thing? And then I have a moment and I don't do the crazy thing. Because when you're emotional, you were emotionally involved in your own life, and your emotions stop you being rational and clear headed. But other people you know this. But when I give advice to other people, I give good advice. If Jay, you were to ask me, oh, listen, this is happening in my life, I go, oh no, don't do that. Moment life, I'm like an idiot. I'm making stupid mistakes, I'm knocking stuff over, I'm being sick down my own top. I'm a fool. Then Jay's life, I'm very wise. So it's important to have the counsel of other people. Collectively and in community, we are powerful. It's only as individuals we're very, very stupid. And how long did it take you to go from calling someone after you messed up to before? That's a key part of the journey, because like it's very easy to bring someone when you're smacked up off your head, or if you're drunk, or if you've just made yourself puke up in a toilet, or you've bought some dumb stuff, or we've looked at some pornography, we've spent too much time staring at your phone. Go oh, I've done it. I feel filthy, I don't feel good anymore. If you bring them in advance of it, then get an opportunity to do something else. Here are the simple things you do. You speak with someone who's further down the path than you are, You speak to someone who's not so far down the path, and you help them, and you just think about what they're doing for a change. And then also in addition to this, you seek the collective company, so that you recognize your identity as a member of a community however you identify and importantly prayer and meditation for me, a recognition of the transcendence and people that can help you in those areas that are further down that particular path. Now, how much of you seen that help other people that were on the journey with you. Has that been a strong part of their journey? Is that very unique to yours? Or I think it is universal. I think it's for all of us. But how we conceive of a higher power changes. You know, there's nine or whatever people in this room, and we all have a different idea of what God or higher power might be. Some of us will be atheist. We don't. We believe that everything has come from material. My sense is that there must have been consciousness prior to material, that material cannot produce consciousness. But other people think that no, no material can produce consciousness. It's a big debate. It's been going on forever, it'll probably go on forever. The important thing is that we recognize that, however it got here, his spirit is a part of who we are now. So I know people that are atheists that stay clean and improve their lives. I know people that are sick or Buddhist or Christian or Muslim that get clean. The important thing is that we have a sense of connection to one another and a connection to a higher self, rather than just thinking I'm just me and what I want is important because if I think like that, I'm going to spend all my time hitting up the pipe, watching porn, making bad choices. Yeah, definitely, And how incredible would it be if we had a planet where everyone was thinking about everyone else, because then everyone would have seven people thinking about them as opposed to one, which is quite an incredible thing to think about. I just want to comment on how much I love the book, at how step orientated it and how structured it is. So when you flick through this book, there's loads of little activities that you can actually do, and I love that because I love being able to put your thoughts down on paper. Just getting out of your head. It's such an important thing. And I think if you don't have frameworks and structures to get them down, we just kind of live up, going around and around around, which I'm sure you've experienced a lot of I love. Yeah, Jay, it's funny you bring that up because I heard a thing from a neurologist the other day. It was on a podcast. I'm not hanging out with neurologists, right, And there goes that when you engage your rational mind, it takes you out of your emotion. It's very curious if the Step ten thing in this program is if something's bothering you say, like like if Jay, when we're outside when Russell, who look terribly overweight, which Jay would never say because he's too enlightened, as I've already mentioned, and I'm like, instead of thinking about that and worrying about it. I'd go Jay, because he said that thing about me being overweight. This affects my pride, It affects my self esteem, It affects my personal relations. That's not the script i'd give Jay. I want Jay to say the other stuff. Does it affect my sexual relations? No? Jay and I both married. And then my ambitions, yem, my ambition to be like in control of my own life. There's a whole system now when you go into the fourth column, and you should check this stuff out on my website, Russell brand dot com. You can see it. Who's that lovely guy? Like? It asks you various questions. Did I make any mistakes? Yeah? I care too much about what other people think of me. What are your fears? My fears are that if other people don't love me, I'm not good enough. Now when so, it puts you in a national part of your mind, and it also starts to help you to understand what patterns are at play when you feel bad about yourself. What are the patterns you know? Like, why is it so if people let me down? I'm really strongly affected by it because it reaches back into my past at times when I was let down, when I was small and fragile, I guess, and I think everybody's got their own version of that. This helps you to unpick the tapestry of your broken consciousness and restore to you a screen of pure mind through which a new radiant light can emerge and self realization can take place. I wanted to read a bit of a bout. If you don't mind, I'm sure your audio version is is far better that this married lady. There's this beautiful, beautiful piece in the book which you call here is a postcard from the other side. Here is a postcard from the other side. Fame, luxury items, and glamor are not real and cannot solve you. Whether it's a pair of shoes, a stream of orgies, a movie career, or global adulation, they're all just passing clouds of imagine every pleasure. It's true, you know, although I've still got those shoes. There's very well read that Jay, and it is no. You did it more than justice. You brought it to life. It's wonderful. But like so, I suppose, yeah, I like that. You know, it's a very common metaphor, the idea of passing clouds. We all recognize that clouds are impermanent and the result of precipitation, and similarly, the vapors of consciousness form into clouds, but they will pass. What we attached to is what's important, particularly if you want to create a sort of a positive ecology in our own consciousness. So I'm going to touch on this before we're gonna go. We're gonna do a quick fire round with Russell, which, as you know, is the on the spot questions. Nice rapid fire you're so, But before we do that, I did want to touch on something which I thought was pretty incredible you say in the book. I believe it's in the seventh step where you say that you're careful not to judge your parents, and I when I was reading that bit, I was just thinking, even judging or shifting blame is an addiction in our lives. We always trying to find to fob it off onto someone else. So yeah, it's actually that person's fault that I never got there, or it's because of that person that I have these difficulties. And I'm thinking, how did you stop yourself or grow to the point where you didn't want to judge your parents? Or judge anyone who'd yes, mate, Well, what it is is. Of course people make mistakes, but I've learned to recognize as I've got older. The older I get, the more easy my childhood was, the more I recognize that my parents just ordinary people like me making their way through life. By justifying your pain and by blaming, we recommit to the pain. Well, of course I feel like this, this happened to me, That happened to me. You're signing another contract to continue with the pain. If you say, Okay, those things happened, but I want to let go of them now, and I want to move forward. You have an opportunity to reimagine your world and reimagine your place within it. So I'm sure terrible things happened to people. People are abused, people are let down, people don't do what they should do as parents. People make all sorts of mistakes, But by holding onto that pain, you recommit to reliving it. Of course, it's wrong that you're abused, if you were abused, but what's even more wrong than that is that you continue to allow it to affect your consciousness now, in this moment when you could be free. Definitely, So, guys, if you're ready for the quick player on the spot around with Russell Brand pressor likes, I'm gonna press that share button. I'm going to ask him these questions. They're going to evolve from what may seem quite inferior and insignificant, but then walking into depth, deeper depths of yourself. A right, So we can start in very shallow, yeah, like a paddle in a stream, and then we're leaping into the deep blue exactly. I'll follow you there with or without trunks. Thank you us. So here we go. Are you a morning person or a night Sometimes I wake up in the morning for an pretty depressed actually, but I can't go to bed late no more because I've got a baby. So you have to become a morning person because that baby determines it. So has that been becoming a father obviously very recently? Congratulations? Thanks man, and a lot of love. I've beautiful child you have and yeah, how's that be? Well, what it's done is it's unraveled my narcissism and puked and spat on it and done a pool on it because I now know I'm not the most important person in the world. Because there's a little baby who just thinks I'm an absolute idiot and punches me in the face pretty regularly, and she just thinks I'm the guy that holds the screen that in the night gardens on. So that's put me really in my place. You know. It really funny. Someone said to me recently that when they had a child, that was the first time they realized that life was about service. And I was thinking that often we wait so long to figure that out. It's like what you're saying in this book is just like get on with it. Like wherever you are, whatever stage you're out, whatever challenges you've had, it's like the quicker you can get to that, Like why wait that long? Yeah, it was just someone shared that with me. So favorite word or quote, okay, quote a lot of great people. All right, here's this Herman Melville quote that I like all of humans science are but passing fables. I like this because when we think of how advanced we are scientifically, here we sit in this great hub of technology. One day it's hard to think, isn't it that we will look back at this and it will be like some whirring steampunk, daft old engine of silly old pistons and buckles and cogs. Similarly, with our understanding of quantum physics and entanglement ideas that are so baffling. Now it will be revealed to us new, true, deeper truths. So what we understand as reality on the physical and mechanical level is constantly evolving. Therefore, we have to find a transcendent perennial truth, and this I believe is available to you in some of the ancient scriptures, possibly all of them. It's usually to do with oneness and love. As you can tell, this is not going very rapid fire. But it's good. Oh yeah, it's fine, it's good. It's good. Last book you read, I'm reading maybe Dick at the moment. I like that book by Herman Melville. Awesome. If you could have a superpower, what would it be? Oh no, okay, I want to have to subdivide myself into loads of people like clone Mesa, be inside people I not think like they are. But oh now that's quite a good one. What I leap into other people's conscious Yes, I didn't know that was available. Yeah, having your okay, if you are not what you are today, what would you be? God knows? Man? I mean, like like I probably want to work with children, because the only thing other than like shoving off is hanging out with kids. What job would you be terrible at? Like anything where I had to be involved in rational for and organizing stuff. I'd be like when I used to be a male man. For example, I stole the letters and didn't deliver them. Because that's quite bad, isn't it. Why do you meditate? Because none of this is real and I need to attach to truth. Best thing about being a dad That kid has opened new continents of love in my heart, like Columbus. Best thing about being a husband, constancy, permanent love. The best thing about knowing you're more than the body and the mind. Freedom, amazing. Best lesson from Hollywood. Don't determine your self worth on what other people think of you. Best advice you've ever received? Oh no, like from our shared friend and teacher, rather Naswami. He goes, goes, what if I become a monk? He laughed in my face, said, I do not think it's your dama to become a monk. The monks don't want me, so not becoming a monk. Good advice and best advice you've ever given. M. I don't know really because I don't know the effects of it, but like hopefully it's something like you have everything you need, you are enough, You are enough, you are beautiful. That's amazing. Guys. That's it. You've been watching Recovery with Russell Brand, follow the Reader. I hope that you're going to go and click and order this book today. It's there in the comments. If anything we said connected with you resonated with you, please please please go through. I know that reading this for me has made me find new ways of reflecting on flaws that I thought had overcome. Wow, And I thought that was really quite incredible. There were things that I thought maybe I've overcome this, maybe and maybe this is done now, and then when I read this, I was like, no, it's not. I've not made that list and gone through every single part of it. So I've got loads from this, and I really hope you will too. But thank you, Russell Way, thank you, thank you so much, Harry Chrishna, Chrishna, thank you very good. Thank you so much for listening to this episode. Please leave a review. It means the world to me, and I can't wait to see you next week. I am so excited. I've got some big announcements coming up. You'll hear about them soon. Thank you so much for listening.