She celebrated my first snog | Jamie Windust

Jamie Windust  00:00

And we just had a snog. We actually didn't really say anything.

Holly Newson  00:03

Wow.

Holly Newson  00:06

Oh, hey, welcome to kind I am so glad you're here. I'm Holly, and I'll be chatting to guests about the times people were kind to them and how that changed things. In this episode, you'll hear how a version of a rom com really can play out in real life. By the way, you make a difference, right? Let's drop you straight in.

Holly Newson  00:30

You're about to hear from Jamie Windust, a writer, social media creator and author of In Their Shoes. Jamie, welcome.

Jamie Windust  00:37

Thank you very much. It is a blessing to be in your presence.

Holly Newson  00:42

That's a, very, very nice thing to say,

Jamie Windust  00:49

You look great.

Holly Newson  00:49

Thank you so much.

Jamie Windust  00:49

The video is capturing- Thank god podcasts have moved to video.

Holly Newson  00:50

The face needed it. That's very kind.

Jamie Windust  00:53

Lovely to be here. Thank you so much.

Holly Newson  00:55

So to start with, what does being kind mean to you?

Jamie Windust  00:59

Great question. I think being kind is something that without being too self detrimental, is not always the first thing that I gravitate towards.

Holly Newson  01:13

 Okay

Jamie Windust  01:13

And that's not because I'm one of those people that loves being like I'm horrible.

Jamie Windust  01:17

But I think what I've learned over the past few years is that I don't actually think kindness is necessarily everyone's initial go to and so I think for me, being kind is a choice, and it's an active choice that I have to make, because- as a result of taking myself out of my brain.

Jamie Windust  01:39

Because if I'm at the forefront, if I'm at the forefront, if I'm thinking about myself too much, if I'm thinking if, like, my ego is too involved, I'm not necessarily going to be as kind, because I'm thinking about, like, How do I look? What do people think of me? All of these things, yeah, I have to take myself out of my own head and then be present for other people. Then I think I'm kind.

Jamie Windust  01:56

So that's what it means to me, is it's an active choice every day. For me, I know there are people that are genuinely kind all the time. Congratulations. Good to them. I think an active choice is a really good way of describing it, yeah, because I don't think it's realistic to say that everybody's always kind.

Holly Newson  02:14

No. And even if you see someone in, you know, say someone's struggling with a suitcase up the stairs on the tube is an active choice to go. Can I help you with that? Versus, well, I'm already running a bit late

Jamie Windust  02:27

Exactly like, if you're in your head, if you're thinking about yourself, if you're like, Oh, I'm going here. I need to get that. You're not necessarily going to be kind and help the person on for example, I helped someone with a primary other day down the stairs. Yeah, they said, I've lived in London for 15 years. No one's ever done that.

Holly Newson  02:41

No one's ever helped?!

Jamie Windust  02:42

I said, that's crazy. Obviously, I did it one handed. Thank you.

Holly Newson  02:46

That all that gym strength coming through. Yes. So each time a guest comes on the show, I ask them to think of three times people have done something kind to them. So I wondered if you'd start by telling me about your first snog. Did you know at the time today was the day?

Jamie Windust  03:05

Absolutely not. This was a very raucous story for me as someone who models themselves on let's say like Wallace and Gromit. I'm very matronly. I'm very set in my ways. So to do something like this was quite was quite crazy for me. Okay, this person had messaged me on Instagram that day and had said, you look really cool. Are you around? Ooh. I said, love it. Is this a scam? Probably we were talking, they ended up saying, Oh, I'm a Liverpool Street Station. Do you want to come and see me before I get my train home. Oh, and I was, what, 2021 Okay, so I, you know, was fully in the London was romantic to me at that, yes, yeah. I was like, oh, it's gonna be the start of something magical. Yeah, let's go Liverpool Street. I know where that is. I literally went from southwest London to Liverpool Street, and then it was just like this weird magnetism in the in Liverpool Street Station, literally in the middle. It couldn't have been more dramatically. Just like, stupid. And we just had a snob. We actually didn't really say anything, wow. We just started kind of making out, which is very kind of,

Holly Newson  04:19

I don't know, I think it's deeply romantic.

Jamie Windust  04:21

It is quite romantic. And I had a full face of makeup. Watch this was back in when I was doing, like, quite club kid esque makeup. So if, like nowadays, for example, if I smudge my makeup, fine, you can't really tell, because it's skin colored. Back in the day, I was obviously wearing white foundation. Was it a red lip? Red lip, white foundation, like blush up to the temples. Yeah. So we had a snob, and it looked like the lower half of their face was made of maybe, like micelle water, and it had just wiped the bottom half my face off and, like transplanted onto their face. Gorgeous. It's a look great thing to get on. You know, a. Thameslink with and so I, I said, bye, see you later. That was funny. And how was the snog? By the way, just before we move on, snog was great. Oh, good. So actually, whenever I walk through Liverpool Street, yeah, I try and walk through the point where it happened. Oh, still have a life, still romanticized, yeah, yeah. Still a smidge of romanticism in me. And then they left, and I was like, my first thought is, I need to look in the mirror, because I know I'm gonna look a bit insane. So I did. I looked absolutely insane. The kindness comes in because I then saw boots over the way, yeah, boots off of makeup. And I said, let's head to boots. Yeah, we need to do a patch up job. Yeah, somehow I'd not brought anything with me. The woman I explained everything to the woman on the beauty counter, was she on a just on a general beauty counter? She was actually, I went high brow. She was on the Chanel counter. Oh, love that. Didn't know they had Chanel and boots. Shout out to boots for doing Chanel. And I explained it, she loved her. She said, like to patch it together. She said, We, I was gabbing with her, talking about it. And it was actually, although it is scandalous, it was actually one of those very formative moments where I was like, this is a very like community centric experience where, you know, because it could have gone dodgy. Yeah, I could have somewhat, I could have done that. And someone could have been like, homophobic, or someone could have been like, Absolutely not like you widow, and it was really nice for her to be like, love that. Let's Gab, let's put your face back on. Obviously, they didn't have any white foundation, so I ended up looking a bit like a Neapolitan, because it was, like, white and then kind of beige.

Holly Newson  06:47

Yes, you tempted to just tell her to just go wild and just redo the whole lot?

Jamie Windust  06:52

Yeah, I was, you know, I should have said, you know, get your trowel out, scrape the two thirds on and get back on. But it was so fun. And like, like, I say, I still think about it. What? Nearly six, seven years later, it's such a funny kind moment, because, like, I said, she could have just been like,

Holly Newson  07:09

So was her initial reaction. Love this.

Jamie Windust  07:12

Love it. She Yeah. She was like, very hun vibes. She was like, down. Love that. As someone who used to work on a makeup counter, that is kind of, it's like being a hairdresser. Yeah, you have to be able to be like, Okay, sit down. Tell me why you going on holiday, talking about all of your life. And it was also like, as someone who hadn't dated before that and just had no, like, real dating experience, the whole thing was very wild for me. So to have that kindness, kind of almost like sisterly vibe of like, yeah, come on, tell me. Like, love that crazy, wow, you know. And it was just super silly. Was really affirming in that moment. And like, I say, Thank God it happened, because otherwise, what would I have said today? Yeah, and that's why it's important, because I've mined it for material. I think it's just fine. It's just such a cool like London, one of those London memories that I'm like, That's the kindness that people talk about here.

Holly Newson  08:08

Yeah, so did it change anything for you in terms of how you, like moved about London, or thought about the people you were interacting with?

Jamie Windust  08:16

I think what it changed is it changed my level of spontaneity, for example, the whole experience, like, I would never have done something like that before, and to know that there was, like, people out there, like the lady on the counter and like this person that I ended up having a little snog with, that there is ways to have, like, harmless fun in London. And I think before that, I'd been like, this is a really scary place, or, you know, I navigated and felt a little bit fearful. I was like, this is actually, you know, there are pockets of London and people in London that are genuinely kind and also appreciate a little bit of crazy, yeah, like, because that's not an everyday occurrence. And I kind of love that. It was a bit like, Yeah, this is wild, but I'm going to support you in this, because, like, I say, I'm basically Wallace. So to do that was very, very rogue.

Holly Newson  09:05

I like, I like that. Good things came of a rogue situation,

Jamie Windust  09:08

yeah, and then we, I, the next time I saw this person, I went back to Liverpool Street and got the train to their house. I would never do that nowadays. GDPR, who knows who they are? I mean, no, I was like, yeah, it was, it was definitely like a push to be like, let yourself go a bit. Yeah, and people will support you, because there are kind people out there who will have got you crack on. Love it.

Holly Newson  09:38

So the question is, can you think of a time that someone did something kind for you?

Speaker 1  09:45

Actually, I was checking for the Greenwich Park, and the train stuck in my wheel, and it fell off and so on, so I wasn't able to get back home. And one of the cycles actually took, like, 15 minutes to help me with the chain, which was really nice. I. It helps a lot, because otherwise I would have to drag the bike. It was the middle of the winter as well. To make it a bit more dramatic,

Holly Newson  10:09

We're going to move on to your second act of kindness. So to start off with this one, would you tell me what you'd been sharing on social media at the time?

Jamie Windust  10:36

Sure, yeah. So the second act of kindness was something that in 2020 you know, we all had kind of space where our lives kind of were slightly upended. And in the June of 2020 I experienced sexual violence and rape and had that process of like reporting that with the police and the criminal justice system, and kind of spent the summer and early autumn in that process. And I then decided, you know, on my social media, it's always, always, always, always been a place where there's a level of honesty with with my experience. When I want to share something, I will share something. And, you know, it's not necessarily like super reactive, but it's just like, once I've contained my thoughts, and once I feel like it's there's an appropriate way to share that I would so I shared my experiences with what had happened to me, as well as the kind of experiences with the criminal justice system, and like navigating that as a queer person and as a non binary person, and kind of the questioning that came with that, and the kind of confusion that came from that, from the powers that be, and I had one person reach out to me, who I think we all have these type of people on social media where we're like, it's almost like what I would refer to as, like a digital colleague. Okay, yeah, to start Yeah. So it's like, you'll engage. I feel like we kind of are a bit but we're also very friendly.

Holly Newson  12:09

Yeah, I think that's a very good description.

Jamie Windust  12:11

We crossed over, because we made a good impression when we first met, so the bond was there. But like, you'll like each other's stories. There's a lot like you're on each other's close friends you might not have actually physically met. So I'd not ever met this person, but there's a level of like you know about each other's lives. And so when I shared about this experience, he basically reached out to me pretty instantaneously, and was like, if there's anything you need, just let me know. And we didn't live close to each other, but it was very much like if you just need space, or if you need support, or if you need, like, just daily conversation, like whatever it may be. And he sent me his number, and even to this day, I'd not really had any instances of male friendship in that way, that was just from someone who was actively saying, I want to look out for you. And he basically was there for me every day, messaging, just really generously sharing his time during the criminal justice system, so he had experience with down of the inner workings, of how that process worked, so he knew, like, how to support and what to support. And it was just like saying it now it feels really human, because when you think about something like that to happen, you obviously would share, you'd be there for someone. But I think the very act of like doing it and saying, I'm going to be, I'm going to hold space for you, was, yeah, at the time, just really like necessary and like, I've not had not had that before, and we've we've not gone a day since without speaking.

Holly Newson  14:05

So to start with, did what sort of things was he saying in those kind of early conversations?

Jamie Windust  14:10

So it was very much like because he had, because he had experience, not personal experience, but just like he knew people who worked supporting survivors of sexual abuse and sexual violence, and he had a knowledge of that, that space, he was essentially, kind of initially asking me, you know, like, what's how's it going with the police? Like, do you need extra support with the police? But also just that kind of questioning, where, which I think everyone has, when someone something bad happens to someone, either you know or you don't know, and you want to check in on them, there's that kind of fork in the road where you're like, do I directly ask them about the situation, or do I just try and have conversations with them about what's on the telly? Have you watched traitors? Know that kind of like, where you're like, I want to distract, but I also don't want to ignore, yes, what's going on. And he perfectly married that by just being really honest and upfront and kind at the start and saying, you can talk to me about whatever you want if you don't want to talk about anything and you just want to talk about the weather, we can do that, and he we would ring each other. So like, for example, the day that I went to the police station to kind of have the final explanation as to why they weren't continuing the case. They decided that there wasn't kind of anything they could do. He was there for me to ring him afterwards and beforehand. And it was actually, I would say, about three, three and a half years before we even met. Wow. But we would speak kind of every day, and that kindness that he showed really helped change my relationship with men in a completely, yeah, a completely transformative way.

Holly Newson  16:07

Yeah, you must be, like, pretty good friends. Now, if you've spoken to each other that often over those many years, like, like, basically best friends. I mean, who speak like people don't speak to people that often on a regular basis, right?

Jamie Windust  16:19

No, exactly. There's I speak to, speak to my mom, him every day. That's about it, no, exactly. And, you know, we I acknowledged in my experience, that I did have a couple of fit, quite a lot of fears and couple of hang ups about meeting him, because there's something about and I think a lot of people have this where online, there's a way and digital communication, you can share a lot more with someone than you would necessarily face to face. And so there was a level of fear in that of being like, I've been really vulnerable with this person, and now I have to sit opposite them and just go for coffee, and they know so much about me, and at this point, I knew so much about him, and we did eventually go for coffee, and it was, yeah, it was really great. It was amazing. And what my favorite thing is, it's like, we'll message each other every day, but it's not like, hey, essentially a continuation of that very, very first conversation we got, wow. And it's like, 1415, messages each day replying to each other. And I have my like, message time in my head where I'm like, right? It's the evening. I'm going to sit down and reply to all of his messages, yeah, and check in. And then the next day we'll go, we'll go like, 12 hours, and he'll have done the same, and I wake up and he's and we just keep the conversation going, Yeah, we're gonna go for Christmas, Christmas coffee. Great. That's great. It's lovely. It's kind, it's, yeah, it's, it's transformed my relationship with men 100%

Holly Newson  17:59

I think that is such a great act of of kindness. I think it's so easy for us to see those things and and even, and this is even a kindness, but, you know, to check in once or twice, or to like be there occasionally, but the fact that you've kept this conversation going for so long, I just think it's like such a beautiful act of kindness, because you've got a great friend out of something bad. Like, yeah,

Jamie Windust  18:26

Absolutely, yeah. And I know people, a lot of the time say things like that. They're like, Oh, you know, Are you glad that that things have come out of this that are positive? Of course, you know, I don't think that's necessarily always the goal. No, I don't think that should be the goal. But if anything, you know, a situation where my relationship with men was kind of destroyed, in a sense, and that this has come out of it is, yeah, a beautiful silver lining. So very happy for that. Yeah, I love it. He's cute. I like it. He's a good egg. I

Danni  18:58

Oh, hello. Love Danny from lift studio London here. This was the kindest thing I think anyone's ever done to me, and quite extravagant. I was late to the airport, and I needed to get home to see my son, and if I didn't get that flight, the next flight that was on, I was gonna basically miss a whole night with him. So I was really upset, and the Internet wouldn't work. I went to the desk at BA and she was like, No, I'm really sorry. You have to book a ticket for the next flight, like, online, but I had, like, 10 minutes before the gate was going to close or whatever, so I'm trying, but my internet's not working. I'm flustered. I'm crying. This guy came over, it comes over, and he's like, do you want me to help? Like, let me, let me help. And I was like, Oh my God, thank you so much. He's basically on the VA website. He said, What's your details? Blah, blah, blah. He's like, okay, okay. And I'm like, I need to be able to, like, put in, you know, my my bank details, but I can't. Find my thing. And I was just so flustered. Anyway, he's like, he's like, okay. He's like, let me get all the details up. Took all my, like, my name and stuff, and then he went, Okay, that's done. I was like, Great, okay. Like, now let me try and get, like, my bank stuff. And he went, No, no, it's all done. Don't worry. And I was like, Sorry, what? And he was like, and then he'd gave his phone to the lady behind the desk, and was like, all done, and she was like, here's your boarding pass. And I was like, sorry. He was like, Don't worry about it. And he paid for my flight back from I can't wear it, or somewhere in Europe, it was a 400 pound ticket to get on the next flight. And I never saw him again. I looked for him at the gate. I was like, no, wait, stop. Oh my god. Like, thank you so much. He just had just walked off. It was like he didn't actually exist. I did wonder whether he was an angel. I just thought that was honestly I was, I was crying for, like, the whole flight home, because just so kind you.

Holly Newson  20:54

So we're going to move on to your third act of kindness. Yes. So would you tell me an everyday act of kindness that means a lot to you?

Jamie Windust  21:12

I think an everyday act of kindness for me as a non binary person, listen, I'm like the most British non binary person you've ever met. That's saying a lot, because I'm very I think there's a perception that that that queer people, non binary people, trans people. There's like, we're always on, on the defense, or we're always like, ready to be like, you said something crazy there. And to be honest, I am nearly 30, so I have been out as non binary for 10 years. I've heard everything under the sun. So you can call me whatever you like, if you slip up on pronouns, if you slip up on things I genuinely dependent on the situation. Obviously, it goes over my head is I describe it as the same thing, of like, if someone accidentally called me James, yeah, I'd be like, funny, but I hate that. It doesn't bother me. But the kind the everyday act of kindness that I think I did have to acknowledge to myself, that actually is an emotional kind of pull, and it does take its toll. Is when I have to correct people, because, like, I say, I don't think about my gender identity really at all, until it's kind of shown to me that I don't fit in, or that there's something people have a problem. So if somebody's like misgendering me, and then they refuse, or they just don't understand, that's kind of then when I'm I would struggle. So the act of kindness is when people take it upon themselves to either physically and kind of like verbally correct people without me having to step in, or when people do it on emails, my agent is amazing, because she'll just say all these things, and I'm like, yeah, love it. Or if I don't want to say things, I'll have a pretend agent, but it's just me, or I'll just email because I'm British, yeah, I don't love saying things like that. And also, genuinely, you don't know the person's reaction in the climate that we're in. People are people are wild. So you don't, actually, I don't fully know what the reaction could be. It could be really hostile. It could be with the client. It could be work related. And then they see that and they're like, I don't want to work with it anymore. So you have, I do have to be careful with how I navigate these things. So the everyday act of kindness of someone coming in and saying, oh, Jamie uses these pronouns, it takes two seconds, yeah, nobody ever actually cares. For example, I started a new job recently, and people have been amazing at implementing that, if there's any like having that conversation in the workplace, for me, was really important, and being able to know that there's no fear around that nothing bad is happening around that there's no animosity, I feel supported in that, it means I can just kind of crack on And like I said, I'm not thinking about it. Yeah, I'm just doing my job. So yeah, please do I mean I scream. I scream. They energy, so it surprises me. And also, can I just say I love, I love a non binary pronoun joke. We have more of that, please, because it is silly. Yeah, I take, I don't take things too seriously. So when people kind of get really serious about how they don't agree, or I sometimes have to just laugh and let someone else take the reins.

Holly Newson  24:52

Yeah, so you're open to just kind of not taking yourself too seriously.

Jamie Windust  24:56

I really don't take myself too seriously at all. No, and it's fine. Only when people again, they presume that you do, because they're like, oh, you know your identity, and that's all you talk about. And it's like, Well, I actually, and I wrote a whole book about it, but of course, I do just like whole people, you know, I talk about it because it's my life, but yeah, I'm also just really chill, yeah, just I don't go, don't tell anyone, but I don't.

Holly Newson  25:24

So to finish off, what is the kindest thing you've ever done for yourself?

Jamie Windust  25:29

Come here today.

Holly Newson  25:32

Can you imagine - like meeting me is just always such a spiritual experience?

Jamie Windust  25:37

Fully. I don't want to cross pollinate, because I don't know if we can talk about those who begin with 'a'

Holly Newson  25:43

Oh, we can talk about it.

Jamie Windust  25:49

But that is one of my favorite- sometimes I just go and watch it

Holly Newson  25:52

For the listener, Jamie first met me when I worked at Audible,

Jamie Windust  25:53

Yeah, sorry, we did some video content and interview for my first book.

Holly Newson  25:57

We did.

Jamie Windust  25:58

Hilarious video content. That's me talking about looking like an egg. It's great. And I think the okay to the question, what's the kindest thing I've ever done for myself? I think again, I know I said I don't take myself too seriously, but I think the kindest thing I've ever done for myself is to ignore acknowledge that the person like how we have all these old photos of us when we're younger, I've always had like, a not a disconnect, but I just find it baffling that that is me, and I think that's a universal thing that's not necessarily just because I've changed a lot since then, but the kindest thing I've done Is been able to put those two pieces together and compassionately say, like, yeah, that was you. You were a little, you know, little gay. You're flouncing around, and that was great, and you had no cares, and the world hadn't kind of told you that you shouldn't do that yet. And now to be like, Oh yeah, that you can still be the same person, you are the same person. So to kind of put those two pieces together and provide myself with the same compassion that I'm retroactively giving my younger self, I think is very kind, and I know it's quite it's very now, isn't it, my younger self, but I think that is really important, because so much has happened for people of all walks of life when we were younger, that if we don't put the pieces together, we can't be kind, we can't understand who we are now and the actions that we take or why we are and aren't kind on the streets. Because so much has happened to us in our lives that we have to acknowledge the good and the bad, to make sense of how we act. Now, you know, if I'm scowling at someone on the tube because they're scowling at me, it's probably because, deep down, something's happened, or I'm feeling upset, or I'm kind of feel like I'm being prejudged because of past trauma or whatever it is, and so to be able to say it's fine, you aren't the problem. You crack on, give a smile, give a nod, sign an autograph, you know, take a selfie. Yeah, it's been really great. So sometimes, if things are scary, I'll just be like, it's fine. You're fine. Just be kind to yourself. Yeah, move on. Get a cup of tea,

Holly Newson  28:21

A gorgeous hot drink solves many an ill.

Jamie Windust  28:24

Although I will say Yeah, and this is the genuine rule of mine, okay? And I will judge you if you do this, okay, we don't, we can't be having hot chocolate before 11am

Holly Newson  28:33

Oh, interesting.

Jamie Windust  28:34

I was somewhere the other day, and it was like rush hour in the morning, and I'm getting a black americano - fuel.

Holly Newson  28:41

Yeah,

Jamie Windust  28:43

People buying- "Hi, can I get a hot chocolate", at nine o'clock!

Holly Newson  28:46

If you're not a coffee or a tea drinker, though that's your go to warm up drink.

Jamie Windust  28:51

Have a hot Ribena.

Holly Newson  28:52

Genuinely, I think if the shops did hot Ribena, they'd do quite well.

Jamie Windust  28:57

Have a Bovril. Have some gravy, like

Holly Newson  29:00

Have some gravy?! On that note, Jamie, have some gravy.

Jamie Windust  29:04

Thank you.

Holly Newson  29:04

Thank you so much for joining me. This has been such a joy and so good to see you.

Jamie Windust  29:08

You are a superstar.

Holly Newson  29:09

Thank you. You too.

Music  29:10

Hey, hold on. I'll stay here till it goes.

Holly Newson  29:19

Thank you so much for listening. You being here, and your support means so much to me. Jamie is such good energy. I will be the lady Campanella Tottington to his Wallace any day. Please feel free to ignore that reference if it doesn't resonate. This episode is dedicated to anyone who's met you exactly where you were on bad days and good maybe you share the episode with one of those people in your life or 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 in a voice note@kindpodcast.com or email me holly@kindpodcast.com and. I will feature some of the stories on the show. If you like the show, hit, subscribe, hit, follow, give it a comment, a rating, a review, all of that helps me a lot. It was great to spend time with you. Speak soon.

Music  30:22

Dream on and let your heart unfold.