A chef in India took us to his family farm | David Chambers

David Chambers  00:00

So for him to ask me to be part of that is-it was like, oh, there's this man of knowledge and experience who sees me.

Holly Newson  00:12

Hey, I'm Holly, and I am so glad you're here. This is Kind, a show about the times people received an act of kindness and how that changed things. In this episode, you'll hear what happens when people who might have very little are ready to give a lot. By the way, I believe in your passion. Right, let me introduce you to someone. You're about to hear from David Chambers, a men's dating, relationships, and intimacy coach. He encourages openness about mental health, and he hosts the Authentic Man podcast. David, welcome to Kind.

David Chambers  00:49

Thank you. Wonderful to be here today.

Holly Newson  00:51

I'm so so so happy to have you. So my first question to you is, what does being kind mean to you?

David Chambers  01:00

I guess kindness-it's not quite always niceness. We think of kind, we think of being nice, and I guess I have connotations of niceness connected to kind of what we've come to call in kind of men's work "nice guy syndrome, which is often self-abandonment and so forth. So I say kindness is an element of being like nice to yourself, kind to yourself, compassionate, empathetic to yourself, and also other people and other people's plights as well, and what they're going through. But I also think there's a kindness in a level of fierceness with yourself, discipline, and honesty with yourself, and also with others. And I think that's the side of kindness that we struggle with because that can be uncomfortable. Kindness isn't always going to feel nice. It's not always going to feel easy. It's not going to feel always feel comfortable with yourself because I think we're thinking of something wider than just what's the nicest thing I can do for you right now, or what's kind to you as a human being and your goals and who you want to, what you want to do in the world, what you want to create. Am I more committed to that? Am I committed to just like avoiding having to potentially hurt your feelings and me be likable and agreeable?

Holly Newson  02:12

I think that's probably the best description I've heard of why I started this podcast. Of course, there are beautiful, kind things that you know also are nice and and that's brilliant and lovely, but there are also kind things which just involve like real honesty and confronting things, whether it's within you or to someone else, and that that is the kind thing to do, not to say something to their face that they're going to think, oh wow, right now, but it's going to not serve them Longer term, so couldn't agree more. So each time a guest comes on the show, I ask them to have a think about three times people have done something kind for them. So your first story of kindness, will you start by telling me where you were at the time?

David Chambers  02:57

I was in a town. It was a 2015 in the center of India called Khajuraho. It's known for having these really beautiful temples scattered around the area where there's carvings of all sorts of a lot of it's like sexual positions with people, gods, deities, half animals plastered all over the all over the temples, so people go there to to see them. So I was in this town; it's quite a tourist town, and went into this Italian restaurant, and it's led me to this belief of like when I'm outside, when I'm in certain countries, I'm never eating Italian food.

Holly Newson  03:43

Okay, okay, yeah.

David Chambers  03:44

The food wasn't exactly wonderful, but the waiters and the staff are really, really, really lovely. I'm. I got talking to the chef. He came out and was like, you know, where you from? Very, very normal question that people ask a black man in India, like, where are you from and why are you here? So he, we got talking. I said, "I'm traveling around India. I've been here for a couple of months already. I'm here with my my then partner. And he was like, "You know, how are you finding the country, the town? We're chatting, chatting. And then his, I think his co chef was like, "You need to come back cook some food. And he was like, "What are you up to tonight? And I was like, "Oh, nothing. We're gonna, you know, we're grabbing a bike now, and we're gonna go and venture around some of the temples. And he was like, "Oh, come, come to my place and hang out. And I go, "Okay, cool. Like, you know, here's my number. Like, give me some sort of address or a pin or something like that.

Holly Newson  04:35

Did you have an image in your head of what you thought his place might be at the time?

David Chambers  04:38

He was like, his place is a farm,

Holly Newson  04:42

okay, right

David Chambers  04:42

It's just a farm, and I was like, okay, there's a lot of what doesn't look like farmland. It just looks like a lot of brown soil in the area. It's very very dry time of year. There wasn't didn't look like much was growing around, and I was like, yeah, cool, perfect. Like, yeah, we'll come round. And we had got this apartment, like a one-bedroom apartment, because we were like, we don't want to stay in hostels anymore. We kind of felt like we're in our own place.

Holly Newson  05:08

Yeah.

David Chambers  05:09

So in this apartment, and we go out and we go to the local market. Actually, we buy. We were like, we get some chicken. We can cook our own food. We go to this local market. We're like, okay, where do we get chicken from? And this kid was like, "No, you can't get chicken here. I'll show you where it is. It's like seven-year-old kid walks us to this place. Okay, we get to the place we're chickening, and it's just chickens-a man with chickens.

Holly Newson  05:29

Oh wow!

David Chambers  05:30

Yeah.

Holly Newson  05:31

Oh,

David Chambers  05:31

so

Holly Newson  05:31

oh, that's a higher level of prep.

David Chambers  05:35

Yeah, my partner was like, "Okay, I'm going to turn around. I don't think I can watch this." So you just say, what chicken do you want to the man, and he prepares the chicken for you.

Holly Newson  05:44

Wow,

David Chambers  05:45

he's been running around. So he gives you the bag with all the chopped up bits of chicken, which are still warm, which is a new experience for us. Now we go back to our apartment, and long story short, the people that own our apartment they follow a particular religion called Jane, and they don't eat any meat at all. They don't eat anything that would kill the plants. They don't eat garlic and a bunch of other stuff, and they don't want it in the house. So suddenly we bought this chicken and these eggs, and we can't have them in the house. So it turns out we're going to this chef's place. We're like, great, we'll bring a gift of chicken,

Holly Newson  06:16

yeah,

David Chambers  06:16

and eggs. So we go around. We we he gives us a pin. We get there, and it's like just a collection of mud huts, really, right? And we go there, and we tell him, "Like, hey, how are you doing? And he's like, "We're great. We're like, "We bought a little gift, like we thought, you know, for you and your family. So we got this bag of warm chicken. Well, it's not warm, but it's fine. It's been in the fridge. It's in the fridge. Recently, unalive chicken, and he looks at the chicken, looks at us, and has this kind of ghastly look in his face, and we're like, "Oh my god, what have we done? And he's like, "Okay, come this way, and then we like shout away from his family, introduced to his grandma, his aunt, mom, and we go into to one of the huts, and he's like, "My family, we don't, we we like we strictly don't eat meat, and we're like okay. So should we just throw this away? He's like, no, no, no. I will call the other chef to come over and cook, and be like, okay, cool. So we're sitting there, and the other chef comes on his bike, takes the chicken. He's like, ah, I'll see you guys in like come in about half an hour, an hour. So sitting there, when you go and speak to his grandma, who's cooking rotis like on the floor. Literally, she's squat on the floor. This woman must be easily in her 70s, 80s years old. Squat on the floor with just like a curved kind of pan and dough next to her that she's pulling, and she's like squatted flat foot, beautiful squat. If I could squat like that, I'd be very, very happy. And she's she's cooking, she's cooking the the the rotis, and then we're talking, talking to him, talking about life, and then he gets a call from his mate, his chef mate, and we go over, and he's basically cooked this chicken curry from from scratch in an hour, and he's only cooking on literally it's a pot. There's wood on the floor, stones round the wood. There's fire. There's no cooker. It's just literally wood that's on fire, and there's a pot on top of it. And he's judging the the temperature and how much to cook and everything from this. And then he's then he goes and gets these freshly made royals, and we sit down and we talk, and we're talking about life, like his life, and how appreciative he is of his life and where he is. He was just like this: I live here, and you come here to visit, and this is where I live.

Holly Newson  08:32

Yeah,

David Chambers  08:33

he's like, I don't have, we don't have much. We have this land where we can, you know, we got goats and we've got cows, and we, you know, we grow what we need, but we're happy, and we have everything we need, and we can be generous to people. And he's like, you know, I meet a lot of people like yourself, a lot of tourists who come here, and you're always running around trying to get somewhere instead of allowing yourself to be where you are. You're always thinking about where you got to go to next. He's like, I just let myself be here and enjoy being here, and where I'm going next will just come and unfold, and I don't need to worry about so much what's coming next. And I think it was just the the kindness of inviting us right over, and then also like organizing the chaos of the the chicken and his family not eating chicken, and then he was like, "I eat chicken, but they don't. They don't know, so don't tell them. I eat, which is quite funny. But yeah, it was just like a really beautiful day. You know, you're in this town where, you know, wealth isn't in its abundance, and someone invites you to their place, gives you a meal that they don't have to give you and cook for you.

Holly Newson  09:40

Yeah,

David Chambers  09:40

yeah. Everyone's chipping in, and everyone's curious and interested, and who I am, where my family's from, which is a very common conversation. My parents from Jamaica. Okay, Jamaica, Bob Marley, Chris Gell. You know, yeah, yeah, exactly. But people like it was just this act of kindness that didn't. He never needed to invite bias, other than. To have a conversation, you know, and he added so much to our our time there.

Holly Newson  10:03

Yeah, what what did you learn about India from that experience that you wouldn't have got if you hadn't had that invitation?

David Chambers  10:11

I'm thinking something that came in in in places in India is the generosity of people. What I found very strange, no, not I don't think it's strange. I guess it's counterintuitive. Is in the poorest countries in the world, people can be the most generous. People will stop you for a conversation in somewhere like India, just to be like, "Hi, how are you? You're like, "Oh, I'm good. They're like, "Oh, how comes you in this town? And they'll talk to you, and they'll be generous with their time, and they'll they'll walk you to places that you need to get to if you don't have directions. Whereas in the center of London we can't even look at each other. If someone says hello on the tube, then we're like terrified that there's some sort of terrible disaster that's going to befit us, and we we can't handle it. Whereas you know, like I said, in some of the poorest nations in the world, people have offered me meals, food, places to stay, car rides, like all sorts of things. I even had a taxi driver in Myanmar. You've just flown in from your, you know, some you know first order country. You have no idea about money. They can say a price, and you'll say, "Yeah, this guy got out the taxi, gave him some money. It was the wrong note. It was about two in the morning. He stopped, got out of the car, came round with his phone flashlight, was like, 'Look, you've given me too much money. Let me tell you about all the different notes here in this country because you can work them out by color. So he took us through all the different notes by color and explained. He's like, "Oh, you don't want to make this mistake again. You gave me 1010, times what you should have given me. He went out of his way to to to have that conversation. Yes. So yeah, I find that that truth of where people have the least, they can often be the most generous.

Holly Newson  11:42

Why do you think that is?

David Chambers  11:47

I think when we have a lot, we don't perceive that we have a lot. We see the gap between where we are and where we'd like to be, right? So we see the lack. You know, I see this a lot in my work in relationships where people like, oh, this is how my dating life is. This is where I want it to be. So where I am is terrible, and they're just miserable about it. When they can't see that actually they're only a few steps away from where they want to be, and they've come a really long way, or their things are quite good for them, but they can't see it because all we can see is the gap. And I think for people who don't have much, because they don't have much, they learn to be more appreciative of what they do have, and maybe even if it's a little bit of, they don't expect to have much more. They don't have this kind of idea of like I should be a millionaire.

Holly Newson  12:34

Yeah,

David Chambers  12:35

because what they see in their town and what they feel is important often is things like family connection, time, space. You know those sorts of things. Maybe there's more value placed on that, whereas we place a lot more value on money, and we don't place enough value on maybe of the relationships in our lives.

Holly Newson  12:54

Yeah, the levels of connection that we have. Yeah, I think that's fair. I've also sort of wondered whether there's something about your understanding of how that act of kindness would affect you, and perhaps people in those countries pay more attention to how that conversation would, you know, if someone asked them for a conversation that would make them feel nice, or if someone gave them something that would make them feel nice, and the more attention they pay to that, I sometimes wonder whether in some cultures that then makes them more ready to do it for someone else because they're like, "Oh, I know that feels amazing when people do it for me, so I want to do it for someone else, and then that becomes sort of cyclical. Yeah, I have no way of testing this theory, but I just wonder if some of it is a is that mindset shift as well as the kind of the what's important.

David Chambers  13:45

And I think this is interesting. It's a very good point, right? It's interesting because if you ask most people, you know, what do you want to do in life? Most people say, "I want to do good. I want to do good things. I want to be a good person. Right. But what gets in the way, I find, with a lot of in the Western world, is our fear? You know, our fear trumps the good things we want to do. We know that it could be nice to have a conversation with somebody when we are alone in a restaurant, or you know, I don't know. This morning, I was going up the tube and the stairs, and I saw a woman with a bag, and I was like, I know these stairs at Liverpool Street Station, and I could just see the look on her face. I was like, "She can't carry her bag. That bag's too heavy. So I walk up and I'm like, "Hey, would you like some help with that bag?" And she's like, "I'd love some help with that bag." And I'm like, "Great, come on, let's go. Now, how many people walk past, and what stopped them from asking was the fear of how they might be perceived.

Holly Newson  14:39

Yeah.

David Chambers  14:39

Or you know, I guess there could be a lack of presence, but I think a lot of the time, the good things we want to do, we don't do because we're afraid of how that might look to the person or to the wider world. All the internal fear that we kind of tell ourselves, like if he says no, what that means about me, you know, for example, which I see a lot in my world. How many people want more friends? A better love life or a more connected relationship, but what gets in the way? Fear.

Holly Newson  15:03

Yeah.

David Chambers  15:04

And I think in him offering me a meal to come to his house, he wasn't thinking about being rejected. That wasn't a concern for him.

Holly Newson  15:12

Yeah. It was like, oh, he says yes or he says no.

David Chambers  15:14

Yeah.

Holly Newson  15:15

That's fine.

David Chambers  15:15

Yeah.

Holly Newson  15:16

Yeah. Like if we're too busy protecting ourselves, then then we block that connection and kindness.

David Chambers  15:22

100%

Emily  15:27

Hi, Holly. I'm Emily, and my story of kindness is all about a man who makes jewelry in Cardiff. And I bought the most beautiful sort of beaded set from him a couple of years ago, and it's sort of gold with sort of pearls on it, and it's just stunning. And I'm pretty sure this mine doesn't have Indian heritage, but I do. And when I wear this necklace and earrings, people seem to see my Indian heritage in me, which is something that feels really precious because it's not something that you know is super visible, and it almost looks kind of like Bollywood inspired. And I just feel so glamorous when I wear it, and it just means a lot to me for that reason. And I was so gutted when I sort of accidentally pulled on the string of the necklace, and it broke. And without hesitation, he just told me to send it over to him, and he remade it like new. And then I was on a night out, and I wore my earrings because they are my favorite, and one of them sort of flung off whilst I was dancing, and again I was just absolutely devastated. And I told him about it, and I said, you know, can I pay you to to make another one? And he said, no, I'll do it free of charge as a little gift. So he made me a brand new set of earrings, and even though he's just some like random man, and I'm just a random customer, he is just so warm and kind, and we have this really lovely kind of friendship. Even though I don't even live in Parliament anymore, I live in London. But the way that he creates jewelry that makes me feel a certain way that he probably would never have intentioned is just really special to me, so yeah, that's my story of kindness. A man that will always repair my jewelry and make me feel beautiful when I wear it.

Holly Newson  17:35

So moving on to your second story of kindness, also in a way food related. Will you introduce me to the restaurant owner that you met in Myanmar? What were they like? Describe them to me.

David Chambers  17:47

God, he's a man, glasses. He was of Indian descent, as Myanmar has this this interesting state where the British went over to Myanmar and they brought a lot of Indians over for labor and work and so forth, so the restaurant wasn't particularly busy. It was a few people in there, and it wasn't particularly posh place or anything like that. Like you know, we were looking for some food, and someone had said it was recommended it, and we came in and we sat down. We started talking again. I was with my ex partner, and I think he overheard us say something, and then he kind of started a conversation with us. And he's just like talking about the town, this place called Duway, which is like in the south, quite far south in the country. At the time, wasn't particularly popular with tourists, really. So he's like talking, and you know, English wasn't necessarily that well spoken in the town, for example. So he's having this full-on conversation. I think he's he's quite enjoying using his old language skills, and I think he's probably what in his 60s, yeah, probably late 50s, 60s, and he's just telling us about some of the history of the town, talking about there used to be a big port city many moons ago, and how his dad worked on the ships or worked at the port. I can't remember which one it was, and that's how he learned English because he was often with his dad, and his dad would be learn to speak English, so he would be speaking to the the guys that come in to the port and and so forth, and he do translation. He learned that through his dad, and he was, you know, talking about the town and what he what he does. He was a judge, so he was talking about the cases that come before him. And we're like, what sort of cases are there as a judge here in the town? And he's like, ah, it could be anything from like people stealing things to like divorce issues, like marital problems, even and stuff like that. So he was telling us about that, and he was like, "Oh, if you if you're free tomorrow, you can come down to the court and sit with me. And we're like, "We're leaving tomorrow. I was even leaving tomorrow. We were going to this beach that was like two hours away, and we're talking and eating and talking and eating. And then when the we kind of finished up, we probably were there for like two, two and a. Hours, it was time to go, and we're like, "Can we have the bill? And then the the waiter comes like, "No, no bill. We're like, "What do you mean, no bill? We've just had a load of food. He's like, "No, no, no bill. And then the man comes back. He's like, "No, no, no, you don't pay. You know, I took so much of your time. Like, you're visiting here. No, you don't need to pay. And like, just pull into context, like this meal would have cost no more than about three pound 50.

Holly Newson  20:27

Okay. Yeah. Okay.

David Chambers  20:28

Like, but that gets you a lot of food in Myanmar, right? Myanmar is one of the poorest countries in Asia. Wealth wasn't abundant, and I guess you know he's a judge. He probably he owns a restaurant. I imagine he owns some other bits and pieces, right? Yeah. But he didn't need to give us a free meal. It was it was nothing to us to pay for. You know, the meal was like I said, there was nothing. In the end, what we did was we we hid money underneath. There was a candle on the table under a doily. There was a there was a candle candle doily. So we hid the money underneath the doily before we left because I was like, no, look, this we're just going to pay, we can accept this gift. That's very nice. Yeah. But actually, I would have holly wanted to tip him because the food was really good. He was really nice. Yeah, nice to talk to him. It was also really nice to hear about the country and his life. Actually, as someone who's lived in the town most of his life, and you know what it what it was like, how they did feel about becoming a democracy, and the fears that they had. He was quite openly speaking about that stuff, which was actually at the time very hard to find anyone that would really talk about that stuff to you in an open place. Like maybe if they were indoors in their home, he would have conversations with you, but in a restaurant, people were very mindful of the sort of conversations they would have.

Holly Newson  21:43

Yeah, how did it feel that he had valued the conversation and with you so much that he was like, the food is the food is a gift.

David Chambers  21:56

It's a good question. I guess when I look back at it now, it's interesting how we gain value from things, right? Because for me, my experience was the conversation was very valuable to me.

Holly Newson  22:09

Yeah,

David Chambers  22:10

and but then when I think about it now, and this might sound arrogant, I understand that people enjoy speaking to me, you know. Yeah, and it does, and I think I guess this is this is something I have to teach to men quite a lot. Is is like, oh, I can see where conversating with me and me talking about my life experiences is interesting. I'm talking to this man who's in Myanmar, who, as far as I know, had never left, and I'm telling him about going to like the London Olympics, what London is like you know what it looks like showing him pictures showing pictures my family like showing him Jamaica what Jamaica looks like I can see where the conversation added to his experience of life and what he knew about the world so I can get that but it also felt like it felt like a bit much like it felt I'm not in any rude way but if that hence why one of the reasons I guess why I was intent on playing,

Holly Newson  23:03

yeah,

David Chambers  23:04

because it was unnecessary. He didn't need to do that, but I also really accept that kindness. Yeah, I mean leaving the money less so for, say, the restaurant. Like if the waiter takes that money and gets that money, then I'm really happy. Yeah, you know because the service was wonderful. The food was really good. The chef and so forth, but it it it's an interesting dynamic to be in where people enjoy talking to you so much that they're willing to give you something just for a conversation. And I think that exchange of value, or just adding value through conversation, is something that can be really powerful. And it kind of goes back to what we were talking about before that, you know, just being you and speaking and sharing can add value to people. It doesn't necessarily mean you're taking away from someone if you have a conversation with them. You're taking their time because I think sometimes we can think that, like, oh, if I'm talking to a stranger, I'm taking time away from them.

Holly Newson  24:00

Yeah,

David Chambers  24:01

I'm not adding value to the day by being myself and talking about the things I'm talking about, and I think we get that's piling into the fear. One of the fears I see around a lot of people in when it comes to you know dating, they're like, or even meeting new people, their fear is like I'm going to be a burden. I'm taking away something from this person by being in conversation with them.

Holly Newson  24:21

Yeah. Well, even when you told the story, you said that that this restaurant owner essentially said, "I've taken so much of your time, and it is a really good thing to remember that just talking to someone, you're not necessarily, you know, there's a sense if you're taking time, you're draining something, taking a resource away versus like adding to a joyful part of their life of their day something different, something interesting, something human. Yeah, that's so true. And obviously, this is an act of kindness that you've brought onto this podcast. So, what was it about that moment that stuck with you?

David Chambers  25:06

Yeah, I guess it was. I guess it's part of a larger kindness of the whole country. People often ask me what one of my favorite countries to to visit when I because I spent almost two years traveling, and I say Myanmar because the people everywhere you went, everybody was incredibly kind. Everybody, but this kind of stuck out because of it. Just was so it it was quite throwaway for him. Like he was like, no, no, no, no, insist. But it was it was just like, oh, and it was towards the end of our trip. We had been there for almost a month, and this was coming up to like the last three days that we could be in the country on our visa, and it was just like such a lovely thing for this man to do, even though it was such a small amount for us, especially, you know. So I guess it just stuck with me as like this representation of how this this whole country of people are. People would regularly say, and he said this too. He's like, I just want you to leave this country and tell people how amazing it is here, and like that was such a heartwarming experience to have. Like you know, the day we had to leave Myanmar because it was the like 27th day of a 28 day visa, and we sat on this beach, on this rocks, on this empty beach. It was just us there, looking out as the sun set into the sea, and we cried because we were like, "This has been so beautiful here. Like, if we could stay here another three, four weeks easily, like I'd happily stay in this place because people were just everywhere you went, genuinely kind and generous, happy, offering themselves in whatever way they could, like curious, like all the way through, and it made it such a such an absolute blessing.

Julie  26:57

Hi, Holly. This is Julie from Yongsan Cats. Rescue doesn't begin with a cage or a clinic. It begins with the quiet, persistent kindness of ordinary people who simply refuse to look away. When high construction fencing suddenly went up and erased a familiar feeding corner overnight, one neighborhood caregiver didn't just give up. She began arriving before dawn, walking the dark, adjoining alleyways with flashlight in hand. She wasn't seeking recognition. She simply knew the cat's routine and couldn't bear the thought of them losing their only safe haven. This is how we found Ada. Ada was a young mother cat trapped within the demolition area. Because someone noticed her in time, we were able to rush her to the hospital. But saving her life meant she was separated from her fragile newborn. That was when another neighbor, a foster caregiver, stepped into the gap without hesitation, hand rearing and bottle feeding that fragile baby around the clock, so Ada could focus on surviving her surgery and healing. Gestures like this completely change what is possible for frontline rescue. People often leave quiet tips, alter their morning commute just to check a fence line, or wait patiently in the cold long enough to spot a hidden limp or an infected wound. None of it looks grand from the outside, but piece by piece, these small acts weave a vital safety net in a landscape that disappears overnight. It transforms the fate of castes like Ada and her baby. It keeps frontline rescuer like me from breaking, and most of all, it reminds a fractured community that none of us are carrying this grief alone.

Holly Newson  29:03

So, moving on to your third story of kindness. For this one, will you set the scene of where you were and describe to me what Men Without Masks is?

David Chambers  29:12

Men Without Masks is or was a men's retreat, really a men's work retreat. We commonly call men's work, which is centered around kind of men's emotional work or emotional expansion, purpose, connection-all the things we see that most men acknowledge that are they there's a lack of in their lives. And I'd gone on this retreat, and the guy who was the kind of lead trainer teacher guy called Craig White. Spoke to him recently for my podcast myself. When I did the retreat myself, he was saying, "You know, you seem pretty well versed in this sort of stuff. And I was like, "Yeah, this is what I'm doing. At the time, I was like really into tantra and teaching tantra, and he was like, "Call sounds really interesting." And then I kind of kept in contact with him and a couple of guys on on on there, and I think he just kind of reached out and was like, "Can I have a chat? He always reaches out in a funny way, and what it triggers in me is like, "Oh, I've done something wrong. I had this whole internal mechanism of life. Someone's like, "Oh, can we talk? I'm like, "Oh my god, I've done something wrong. What have I done? And I know I'm not alone in that. So he reached out, and I remember being like, "Yeah, yeah, let's have a chat. And then he kind of said, "He's like, I love you. Like one of the guys isn't ready to be there because he's got some other stuff going on. Like, would you fill in as a as a trainer for him on the retreat?

Holly Newson  30:36

Yeah.

David Chambers  30:37

And I think I was really just like blown away to be asked. And I think there's a few levels to this. In that, you know, Craig is a man who you look at, and he has a very fatherly energy to him. You know, he's give a little context of him. He he's a rugby coach. He's been like a rugby coach since his early 20s, like coaching rugby, coaching performance. You know this coaching leadership. Yeah, that's what he does. So for him to ask me to be part of that is it was like ah, there's this man of knowledge and experience who sees me. Yeah, right. And to give some more context to that, it's like my dad has been. I always say my dad's semi absent in my life. When I grew up, he lived five miles away, but I would only see him maybe two to three times a year. At times, we didn't. I didn't get along with him particularly much. I didn't. I didn't like him for a long period of time. I was angry at him for a long period of time. Not that I acknowledged I was angry at him. I just would have said I didn't care. So he took my dad took very little interest in the person that I was, the things I was interested in, the fact that I played football, that I played cricket, I was really good at sport. He never comes to any of those sorts of things. So for a man who I looked up to to look at me and see something in me to bring me into his organization really felt quite moving, to be honest. So it was this this act because he could have, you know, he's connected with a lot of people in the in the men's world. But to ask me to come in of all the people, it felt really, you know, it felt like someone seeing you and being like, "I see who you are. I can, I see who you could be, and I want to bring you into the fold of of this. So, yeah, that was a really like it felt like such a beautiful moment of kindness, and I was super grateful. And yeah, still speak to him now.

Holly Newson  32:25

Yeah,

David Chambers  32:26

but just to experience that,

Holly Newson  32:27

what goes on at a men's retreat? Yeah, what what happens?

David Chambers  32:32

Yeah, I guess there's a lot of conversations and questions. A lot of men is this the this particular men's retreat is very much based on kind of embodiment, which is getting you out of the out of the head, out of thinking, and into feeling more, because that's what we are chronically struggling with in this day and age in in our society. Is that people, not just men, we don't feel what's there, and we particularly don't feel what's happened in the past, and we think, okay, I use myself an example. This anger that I had at my dad, for you know the best part of you know when I did remember that must have must have been mid 30s. Some of the anger I had at my dad, although I'd looked at it various times, had been sitting with me for 30 years. Now it's very easy for us to believe that oh that's not I don't care about my dad, and I'm I'm angry with him, but that doesn't make any difference to my life. And then we start to consider like, well, why are you passive aggressive? Are you reactive when people do something? You can be really defensive and cutting sometimes. Do you sometimes blow your lid? Like there's like a well of anger that's sitting that's very easily triggered because it sits, it lives in the body. So there's a lot of like moving through some feelings. There's a lot of joy and play and laughter. There's conversations around relationship, our relationship with the feminine, our relationship in in relationship, sex and intimacy, and and helping men see and shed a lot of shame ultimately, right? Because shame is one of the things that holds us back on stops us in life.

Holly Newson  34:01

What does it look like to have someone move through, say, a feeling of anger? What does it- How do they feel those feelings and and process them?

David Chambers  34:14

I'll give you an example. Someone I worked with earlier this year, he would have said he's not an angry person, though he could be very passive aggressive, and we kind of like acknowledged that. And some of the anger he was experiencing was at his father. And I was like, okay, you're angry at your dad. What would you if your dad was if you could if you felt this confident man who could just say what he wanted to say, and your dad was sitting next to you now. What would you say, Dad? How do you say it? And he started off. He was a little bit meek, you know. He saw at him, told him, you know, some of the ways he treated him. And I said, I get it. You've just given me the sentence with the thoughts. Now I want you to touch the feeling. Like, where does that? What is that feeling that? Under there, and we got to it. There was anger. I was like, right, where do you feel that anger? You might close your eyes, and he was like, okay, I feel that anger like really in in my solar plexus, and I was like, I just don't ask you to drop your awareness down into your solar plexus, breathe with that feeling, and if, and this is my particular way because again, I like to move with the body. It's like, well, if that anger had to move in some way right now, how would it want you to move? Clenched a fist, banged on the table. I'm like, I'm just giving you permission in this space with me now today, that you that doesn't have to be the full expression of it. If you'd like to go a little bit further, so he, you know, he leant on me. I lent on him to push himself a little bit, and over a little bit of time, there was like shouting, swearing, saying what he really wanted to say, what he was angry about, he's frustrated about, and then there's usually a moment where like it's kind of expressed it, it's come out, and underneath anger, often not always, underneath anger is sadness, sorrow, anguish, because there's usually some sort of thing we didn't get that we really needed and wanted. You know, my case it was that I wanted my dad to just actually see me, pay attention, care, feel like he loved me. So the sadness there is a yearning,

Holly Newson  36:20

yeah, yeah,

David Chambers  36:21

a yearning to be seen as a boy who is something who's worth time and a value, and I guess what comes after that is a wider sense of self-expression and a lowering. Often, when done regularly or in certain ways, is a lowering of reactivity. And when I say reactivity. That is like getting angry, annoyed, pissed off at the small things that occur around us in the world. So I see this kind of embodiment and this emotional expression as almost like sticking a faucet on the side and opening up to the bucket regularly is is left at this quite a low level.

Holly Newson  36:58

Yeah.

David Chambers  36:59

So when someone someone can pour a load of emotion, load of stuff on you. Your partner can come to you, and she's angry and upset because you forgot to do something. Someone who is full, he's reacting. He's gonna react. He's gonna get defensive. He might even shut down. A man who has a lot of emotional capacity, he'll hear it and go, ah, okay, I hear you're upset and you're angry. Like you know, tell me more. Like what what was it in particular? Or can be curious because a he has the skill of emotional capacity, and obviously there's communication aspect in there. But like, what else does that make possible in our lives? You know, maybe the things that we were afraid of before start to feel smaller. Maybe we start better communicating with people. We're able to be more present with the people we love in our lives, because you know before we're worrying, we're fearful, we're anxious with them. Is now we're able to be more present, so our connections have more more quality, more depth to them.

Holly Newson  37:52

And so, at this retreat, you're attending one year and you're facilitating the next year. How did that change feel to you?

David Chambers  38:01

Yeah, I guess there's a little bit for me of like imposter syndrome. You know, like I said, that's not an uncommon feeling for me to have, and being like, "Oh my god, you know, should I really be in this position? So there's like a lot goes on with that, like this pride and joy, and like seeing the inner workings and the fun that they have behind the scenes, but there's also a sense of you know, do I deserve to be here? Am I good enough?

Holly Newson  38:28

And what impact did it then have to show yourself that not only is this guy that you admire and you know that you trust believed in you, but then also to show yourself that you could do it and had done it.

David Chambers  38:43

Yeah, I guess at that point, I would have only really just started my business, really kind of because I worked in tech for 16 years, so I made this switch. So it would have only been not long after, maybe a year after, that I made that switch full time that this happened.

Holly Newson  39:00

Yeah.

David Chambers  39:00

So I guess it was this real moment of like, oh wow! Like if he believes I can do it, and he sees me, then can I take some of that belief for myself?

Holly Newson  39:09

Yeah.

David Chambers  39:10

Right. Can I add that to the the well of belief that I have for me and bring that into my own life and my own kind of practice and facilitation?

Holly Newson  39:18

Yeah. Well, that leads us very nicely onto my last question to you, which is, what is the kindest thing you've ever done for yourself?

David Chambers  39:32

The first thing that comes to me is the kindest thing I've ever done for myself is probably to do the work so that my relationships stop being like car crashes, you know. Because I spent many years where my relationships they wouldn't look like car crash on the outside necessarily to other people, but when I look back at them, you know, it was conflict. Like lies, avoidance of what's going on, not really loving deeply, not really expressing how I felt. Like there's a lot of that feeling, like I want to avoid hurting somebody else. That seem like noble things, but actually they cause all sorts of like disconnection, confusion, conflict, arguments inside of relationship, and you know, partly this is just like what I saw growing up. You know, men they don't talk, they don't express how they feel, they don't love their partners openly. So you know, the little me gets a little imprint of like, oh, that's how it is. You know, we unconsciously absorb that like a little sponge. So I took that into relationship, but I also took this idea of like, this is who I am, and take it or leave it, and and I know this is a very common thing that a lot of men have said to me, like, "Oh, this is who I am, and I'm like, "Well, you know, I challenge that because there's always examples they can give me where that's not necessarily true. So I guess it was, and I think it's been a long road for me, many different stops because I never consciously started with relationship to start with. I wanted to look at my relationship with my parents to start with, but doing that work to allow myself to have a healthy, loving, connected relationship, I say is the the biggest act of kindness to myself because it gave me it shifted out of like this pessimism around relationship, or this like limited experience. I believe they would always be, they'd always be full of conflict. They'd always be really stressful. It'd always be really difficult. Like all these things, or I'd be alone because I chose to be single because relationships were too much and too overwhelming, and I can't get them right. To like now, you know, been my partner for seven years, we've been together

Holly Newson  41:42

Yeah,

David Chambers  41:42

Seven years, we got a two-year-old boy, which again, at times in my life, I never thought would be possible. Um, and like we're happy.

Holly Newson  41:52

Yeah,

David Chambers  41:52

you know, we can talk about things. Like things go wrong, we have sit down, have a conversation about it. Like it doesn't necessarily the conversation is easy, but we can sit down and have the conversation. It doesn't turn into this like me walking out, her crying endlessly. So like as an act of kindness to myself and to open up more aspects of my relationality and what could be possible for me, like I feel that that's probably probably the one that comes to mind.

Holly Newson  42:18

Yeah, I feel like working on something that can help you have relationships with other people, given that ultimately that's what so much of our lives are about. That's what we draw so much joy from, so much safety from, so much happiness experience. I feel like massively kind act to yourself to do that. Well, David, thank you so much for coming in. Thank you so much for sharing your stories. I massively appreciate it.

David Chambers  42:49

You're welcome. Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.

Holly Newson  42:59

Thank you so much for listening. You being here and your support means a lot to me. David is the sort of person I just want to sit and interrogate the ins and outs of life with. I find his ability to reflect and reconsider the world around us to be so contagious. This episode is dedicated to anyone who has shared their food and culture with you. Maybe share the episode with one of those people in your life, or with someone else who might enjoy it. I would also love to hear a story from you about a time someone was kind to you. So send that in at kindpodcast.com, or you can email me holly@kindpodcast.com, and I will feature some voice notes on the show. If you like the show, hit subscribe, hit follow, give it a rating, a review-all of that stuff helps me so much. It was great to spend time with you. Speak soon.

Music  44:00

Dream on, and let your heart unfold.