Jody Brooks 0:00

What if the thing that seemed to break your life open was actually the thing that brought you back to yourself? In today's episode, author and storyteller Christophe Morrow shares the story of a journey that has taken him through childhood abuse, addiction, sobriety, divorce, autism, and terrestrial. But this isn't a story about labels or limitations. It's a story about what happens when life strips everything back, and you're left asking who you really are, what still matters, and how you begin again. Christoph found his way back through writing, through language and through the power of telling the truth about his own experience. He speaks so beautifully about words, connection, and the strange, painful, powerful path from silence to self-expression. This conversation is honest, moving, and full of the kind of insights that stay with you long after it ends. Welcome, I'm Jody, and this is Messy Midlife. It's not a crisis, it's a calling to connect. Hello,

— Introduction

Jody Brooks 1:03

Messy Midlifers. Today, answering that call to connect is my guest, Christoph Morrow, a US Navy veteran, author, and storyteller. His journey has taken him through childhood abuse, addiction, sobriety, divorce, autism, and Tourette's. He found his way back to himself through writing and self-expression. Christophe says words speak to his soul. They help him make sense of a world he spent much of his life trying to understand. I'm truly honoured to hold this space with him today. Christophe also lives with Tourette's. So there may be pauses, repeats, or verbal ticks during our conversation today, and we'll simply hold that space with care. It's a part of his lived reality and his full story. Christoph, welcome to the show, and I really truly am honoured. I know we're going to have an amazing show today. We've had a chat beforehand, and I know it's going to be one of those that unfolds in front of us. So welcome.

SPEAKER_03 2:05

Thank you, Jody. You're very kind to have me. That was a very handsome introduction.

Jody Brooks 2:11

I'm not sure. Well, I hope it was truly worthy. I always feel bad at this point of the show because I have the insight, having already had a chat and met you, that the listeners don't yet have. So I feel like I've got this extra insight that we're now gonna share. And as a host trying to put together a show that does justice to midlife, and there are occasionally profiles that jump out at you, and yours was one of those. And when we had the conversation earlier today, I just knew that there was so much from your profile to the conversation we had. I know it will be a powerful conversation today, and we'll allow it to unfold as it does. As always on this show, it wouldn't be appropriate if we didn't start in that messy middle moment. I should probably say as well. Now, Christoph is he was relieved when I said this to him when we first met is that he's only just crept into midlife. He's a baby midlifer. He's a baby midlifer. But we were discussing how there are a lot of similarities and quite often the realities of what midlife is, the feeling that people have, has got younger and younger, and internationally now it's recognised that 35 is the age where it's slipping to that this feeling of midlife. So I feel it's only for those listening and not able to see that you're a lot younger. I thought it was only appropriate to point out that you are a baby midlifer, but nonetheless, there was a messy midlife. There was a messy midlife moment. So tell us a little bit about that messy middle.

— Christophe's Midlife Crisis Begins

SPEAKER_03 4:04

Well, uh, it's funny, I I was preparing well, I was also preparing for the interview, and I realized that what a midlife crisis is in the first place is a begging and nagging notion of living a life of happiness and consequence and achieving like seeking the mountain or the mountaintop of these things. Shakespeare. That's a tick, by the way. Shakespeare. So for me, my midlife crisis actually began at 32. I was I was told by the British Columbian government uh in Canada that they couldn't find me work based on because of my condition with Tourette's. I injure myself too often uh and and break things. So uh no one would have me. And they said maybe you should go back to writing. And so because I was a reporter at a newspaper in uh Texas. And so ten minutes after that phone call with Aaron from the BC government, I started writing my first book.

Jody Brooks 5:18

That's a pretty impressive turnaround. Most people take a lot longer in that crisis, but he kind of went, he went, all right, phone call, phone down, crisis over. Okay, I'm gonna I'm gonna start writing again. I'd be interested to know there, because we discussed a little bit beforehand. Oh, yeah. You know, in the second half of the show, we're obviously gonna go back to that journey and you know, your success now as a writer. I can almost sense that you're gonna be uncomfortable when I say that because of how we talked about your writing and different things. But obviously, that stuff that left up to that in the intro, there was an awful lot of things in there that have led up to that point. And I know that you mentioned to me there was a point where you stopped writing for five years, I think it was. So take us back on that journey of those points that maybe led in the in the interim to the messy middle.

SPEAKER_03 6:22

I think it's interesting. I think that our midlife crisis is a culmination of of many years of trauma and of you know a messy life, like living living like like the way we have to live now. So many people are are don't have enough money to to pay for you know basic necessities, and and it's a it's a struggle to like get anywhere these days. And I think that similar to that, we have a we have a problem whenever we start. When I was because I was a teenager, I was 19 when I was first experienced Tourette's symptoms, and uh it didn't really come into play until I was in my in my late 20s, I was 27. Uh and I was working at the paper, and uh a doctor told me that I had Tourette's, and I was shocked because he he said it so casually. Uh, I think the word you used earlier when we spoke was flippantly, which I thought was a great way to describe exactly what that was like. It was he told me, Oh, let's get something to treat that Tourette's. And I was like, I wait a minute. I have Tourette's. What in the hell are you talking about?

Jody Brooks 7:32

Well, it was when you said, like when we were chatting before, and you said it, like sometimes you have a conversation with someone, and something almost slaps you in the face, and and it was the way you told the story, and you know, you'd gone in with you know, this I think you said like this clenching thing that you know, like you had a clench in the stomach, and I think you said you you grunted and you'd just said that to the doctor, and you know, like almost without any other diagnosis, he just turned around and went, Well, you've got Tourette's and and I was kind of struck by like you know, it's such a that's a huge diagnosis, and it was you know, I think I made the joke of like it was almost like yeah, I'll write you up some antibiotics off you like you did, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 8:14

It was it was very similar to that. It was also it was it was very it's it was shocking, and it took me a while to realize the gravity of it because it it Shakespeare. Um so for five years I didn't write after I quit the newspaper and moved to Canada. I didn't write for those five years because Tourette's became uh it escalated in its seriousness and in its manifest, and it's manifest. And um uh I was working like a like Starbucks, I think. That was my last job before I had to quit uh because of Tourette's. And yeah, so the the the midlife crisis is a for me was a culmination of so many years of of of breakdown, of k a very steady breakdown into uh to a point where I I was given no choice. I was backed into a corner.

Jody Brooks 9:09

I think um and I think that's very, very uh similar for a lot of people, and I think that I almost sometimes feel like, and I don't know whether you'd agree, there's kind of there's two journeys almost. Um and for some people the journey essentially isn't is an external world that essentially looks successful, but the inside is still not okay. And then there are people I think we talked a little bit about some similarities in our story from childhood and and different things, and how that sets you up. So I kind of went on a different journey where mine was like this succession of poor coping strategies that then led to me having to go, okay, I really need to think another way of doing this. But some people do also get there essentially with that external pressure great job, house, car, all of these things, but they lack this inner fulfillment. And we talked about how you know finding your place in the world, I think that's what we started talking about is you know, trying to fit in as opposed to finding your place in the world. And what were essentially some of those strategies that you say, that succession of those things that led you up to that? Because there was something that you said really interestingly earlier on about how you learn to read a room or to read human behavior.

— Childhood and Reading People

SPEAKER_03 10:48

Well, I think that when you're in poverty of self-worth, that's one thing. Uh, that these strategies uh become necessary. Uh when I was a kid, uh my dad was a very violent alcoholic. And um the way that I describe it to help I to helpfully uh describe what what it was like, it he would hit me so hard he would hurt himself. So and uh um always studying his face and these micro expressions, you know, like looking for any sign that I had wronged him or in some way trespassed and was going to be uh you know beaten for it for it, just it could have been anything, honestly. It just it and so uh reading a room uh became a very necessary part of my childhood and reading people and uh it rendered me also an outsider, uh I think it made me feel like I was always on the outside of uh society and always trying to understand how everyone seems to be integrating themselves so efficiently and effectively to the point where like they have we have they have friendships, meaningful friendships, meaningful jobs, and um just meaningful success. I don't know, and um it it that's what it did to me. It it um it taught me a great deal that I regret that I had to learn.

Jody Brooks 12:37

It's interesting that you say do you do you regret the situation in which you learned it as opposed to the skill that you gained from it? One of the things that I talk about when I coach, and certainly for myself, is for me to be at peace with any of the trauma that I experienced, I had to go back and find how it had shaped me positively. So it because in shaping me positively, I could then almost transform that pain and that trauma into a gift, and sometimes people struggle with that when I try and frame it, is you know, to take that and actually go, you know, that ability to that's a superpower to be able to micro read people to that degree. Right there are courses and workshops you can go on to to go and do that, but so do you are you grateful of that element that you got from it, but just wished it hadn't have been in that circumstance?

SPEAKER_03 13:44

I it's it's like it's like getting paid minimum wage, I think. Do you know what I mean?

Jody Brooks 13:51

Yeah, it's a great it's it's minimum wage, it really is.

SPEAKER_03 13:55

Yeah, it's a comp that's my compensation, you know. I get for the many years, it it did uh offer me a skill set, like you said, that that serves me now and frustrates people, frankly, because they can't hide their feelings, and I can uh my pattern recognition is is pretty good, and so you know, I for example, uh there's a woman I'm dating, um, and without like I said, I had a revelation about you, and she said, What and what is it? And I said, You are very slow to trust people, and she was like, Wow, that's actually completely true, and this is why. And and it was she explained it to me, and it was it's extraordinary because it's little moments like this, these insights that you get based on a a confluence like a of evidence, a bunch of evidence that tells you you know something uh relevant and important and necessary to know about that person to understand their greater nature, I think. Shakespeare.

Jody Brooks 15:06

That is a amazing way. And I think we touched on that when we were discussing before, because you know, people would say that about me. I'm very good at reading people and reading a room, and it's because I got that skill in my childhood. I learned how to read a room, I learned how to see those micro bits, like you're saying, in an adult's response behaviour, and I learned how to be in that room to try and minimize the response. When I had my business and I had a staff team, one of my staff that have been with me a long time, whenever anybody new started, they would turn around and say, Don't even bother trying to lie to Jody because he will know what you're gonna lie about before you even do. So when you were saying it there, there is this thing then when you get very good, because when you're using it in that context, like you did, it's a survival mechanism. But that skill never really leaves you. I think you just learn to apply it in a different way. To go back to first of all, you get that that bombshell of you know, this very instant diagnosis of Tourette's and it then gets much worse.

— The Tourette's Diagnosis

Jody Brooks 16:26

Did it impact your sense of self and your identity almost? In the I didn't go into that room thinking that's what you were gonna come out with, and then you come out with this diagnosis, and then over the next few years, you know, Tourette's how it shows up in your world gets a lot more significant and impacts your world, like you mentioned there, um your employment, all of those things. How did that leave you kind of trying to find you know this understanding of the world?

SPEAKER_03 17:03

Well, being a person with a disability has definitely uh shaped the way that I perceive people, and I think that that is returned to me in that sense. They that most people uh don't fully understand Tourette's for the first in the first place. And most people don't understand the consequences of chronic illness and disability because you know something like you know, oh my shoulder hurts every what every time I do this or every time I do that, is very different when someone has the same injury, but like it's so much more severe to the point where they can't even lift like a milk jug, you know. It is so it did it Shakespeare. When I'm out in public, I'm often very apologetic because of my condition, and I and I like for example, the most recently a guy was at the convenience store, he couldn't afford his food that he was trying to buy. He was trying to buy beer, actually. And I'm an alcoholic, so like I was I wasn't gonna I couldn't buy it for him out of principle. But he he didn't he didn't have the money for it, and and him that secondhand embarrassment caused me to triggered me to have a bunch of ticks. And I had to I started having them and they both turned around the the red the the cashier and the guy and they stared at me for a minute and I was like I have sir I have Tourette's I'm sorry and they're like oh you're good you're fine and they you know but they were they were confused but it's but it that that's the most benign uh encounter kind of encounter that I have I've I've I've I've had I've had worse and the the thing is that it's the way that it's shaped my identity I don't know if it it's like an ugly tattoo to be honest with you one that you got on a stack one that you got on a stack weekend drunk and you're just like damn it you know you gotta apologize for this this ugly ass tattoo every time you go anywhere Shakespeare and it you shouldn't have to if it's uh if it but it that's the case, you know, that's the case. Um Shakespeare.

Jody Brooks 19:29

Yeah you were a journalist, and then you say you stopped for five years. Was it stopping the journalism, or was there something else that you just stopped writing? What what led to that of point where you just put the pen down and didn't write anymore?

SPEAKER_03 19:48

I think that a large part of our daily routine helps us manage our lives. I was taken out of my routine by moving to Canada. Moving to Canada meant that I also quit smoking cigarettes, which is an important and healthy choice to make. But it also took me out of my other routines, which was writing. Uh I didn't have a job for like the first two years that I was in Canada because I wasn't allowed to work, wasn't legally allowed to. Um Shakespeare. Uh so the writing ended up just not happening at all. And it was it was a very depressing, it was a very dark five years. Shakespeare.

Jody Brooks 20:34

The other bits in there as well that you know there's obviously quite a journey you've been on. You know, I touched on it in the intro, and you say a minute ago you said I'm an alcoholic, so I couldn't buy him drink. So again, there's obviously been lots of bits where you've made major changes, sobriety being one of them.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Yeah.

Jody Brooks 20:53

Um you've gone from Texas to Canada. So you've done some major life changes. Was the move to Canada about making a fresh start and moving away and creating a new life? And was the sobriety a part of that?

— Sobriety and Moving to Canada

SPEAKER_03 21:10

Sobriety happened before that. It it happened two weeks before Trump was inaugurated. So January 6th, 2016 or something. I don't remember. It's been about it's been about a decade. I quit drinking permanently because I thought if I kept this up, I'm gonna die. Um or in some way destroy my life. Uh so uh I stopped before like long about a year before I moved to Canada. I moved to Canada about 11 I I moved to Canada that year, later that year. In December. Um Yeah, so I think it was about I think it was about establishing a new life somewhere. I was married at the time. I just Gotten married. So, um, and we wanted to do something adventurous, and so that's what we decided to do was move to Canada for adventure.

Jody Brooks 22:11

And how long's that adventure been now?

SPEAKER_03 22:15

Well, I'm I left Canada two years ago. About two years ago. And I it lasted for about seven years.

Jody Brooks 22:26

Your return to writing that was actually in Canada, um where you basically put the phone down and and decid and decided okay, I'll write again then. And that's how many years now?

SPEAKER_03 22:44

Shakespeare. So I started writing again October 16th, 2021. So it's been almost five years.

Jody Brooks 22:52

Like know it to the day.

SPEAKER_03 22:55

It was my re rebirth day.

Jody Brooks 22:58

Your rebirth day, it was the end of the messy middle and your rebirth day. And I really wanna obviously if you were to surmise the bits that almost at that messy middle moment before we go to the second half of the show and talk about you now as a writer and that healing process what were the major bits in that messy middle? I always think when I work with clients, there are realizations of things that we're carrying, identities, labels, etc. That actually, when you were saying before about this disconnect, that we almost have to let go of and give up in order to move forward. What would you say it was that you let go of and gave up in that point in order to move forward and go back to writing?

SPEAKER_03 24:02

Oh I want to say something like that that's easy, you know, like self-pity. I start pitying myself because that was that was a large part of it, sure. But realizing I think that no one was coming to save me anymore, there was gonna be there was no uh there was no liberation coming. And I had to fight that war myself uh for my for my happiness. Uh Shakespeare. And so I went to battle Shakespeare.

Jody Brooks 24:44

Listen

— Surrendering to Reality

Jody Brooks 24:45

to the show will probably know, and just as we were about to start recording, I was joking about how I'd had a day that's been all over the place, and one of the things I do today is I work in a I volunteer with people post-addiction, I run a men's group. And you said something there that's really interesting, and I want to ask you a question, you can totally disagree with me, but it was something that came up today, and there's a word that's quite often used around addiction and sobriety and those kind of things, about surrender. And someone said it today, and they said, Well, I just I surrendered. And I said, I find that a really odd word to use because actually, isn't that the moment you decided not to surrender? Isn't that the moment that you actually decided, like you said there prior to that, you were surrendering to the alcohol, you were you know in that poor me mindset, and actually this weird thing about surrendering and being powerless that really is it not truly, and I'm asking that actually what really happens is you almost stop surrendering and you fight, like you say just there.

SPEAKER_03 26:05

Shakespeare, that example actually reminds me of something really important in American history, anyway. That uh Abraham Lincoln. I'm actually reading his the book about him called Team Revivals by Doris Currans Goodwin. She's brilliant. Um the book, I just actually it's funny that you were talking about this because the book talks about how so much of the conversation before the Civil War began before the attack on Fort Sumter. It was it was about trying to keep the union together and to stop the states from seceding that were more ambivalent about the notion of leaving uh the union. Um Shakespeare. And there were so many different attempts. It was a kind of it was a kind of the conciliatory uh remarks and and speeches and all these different things, like trying, trying, trying to keep this war from not happening, and it ultimately it fails. I think it's I think it's a great analogy for what we're discussing, which is you know, you you are trying so hard to avoid you know the war of sobriety that is sobriety. You know, you cho you try different tactics, you do everything you can. The surrender, I think, is the is was similar. Like Lincoln realized at a certain point, he says, it's it's just not gonna it's just not gonna work. It's just not gonna work. We have to go to war. And so it is it is a kind of it's a kind of surrender, it's a surrender to reality, which uh I wrote once that it arrives to you both naked and inevitable, Shakespeare.

Jody Brooks 27:47

That's very, very true. But I think you know, it's great that you kind of then take that to that level of, you know, because there is a certain thing where you have to go to war with addiction if you're someone that like suffers it, you know. That and it is a battle, you hear people say, like, I've battled with it, and all of those things. So I absolutely love that we've kind of got to that point because it's a different type of surrender, but it's not surrender in the way that we might see it as waving a white flag, like you say, it's surrendering to the reality of what I've actually got to do. It's no longer, like you say, waiting to be saved, it's no longer thinking that this can be avoided, it's actually surrendering to the fact no, I'm gonna have to get up off my arse and I'm gonna have to do this because if I don't, like, then there is only one outcome. And you know, so that's kind of pretty powerful. Is there anything in unpacking the messiness essentially, um, of Christoph that we haven't touched on that you feel that we need to discuss before we move to the second half and discuss the creativity and the positivity that has come out of that messiness in your creativity?

SPEAKER_03 29:12

Shakespeare. Well, I have a question for you actually, if it's okay.

Jody Brooks 29:16

Okay. It's fine.

SPEAKER_03 29:18

I'm just I'm I'm so curious about how you manage to do what this on top of doing the addiction counselling. Like that's a that's a do you actually do that like every Monday, you said?

Jody Brooks 29:33

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I actually I volunteer three times a week. Um and I do three different things. So I do three different things, but it's a huge part of me as a coach and who I am as a human being, and in my messy midlife, I realize that the huge dig disconnect in me was that one of my biggest values that I hold dear is to make a difference and to make a difference in the world. And I was so far out of alignment that that need in me wasn't being met. And so I tipped my whole career on its head and created the possibility for me to volunteer and go and do these things. They're incredibly enriching. On a Monday, I run a men's group. I've also qualified as a smart recovery facilitator. If anybody's familiar with smart, it's another avenue of getting help with addiction, but any form of addiction. Um I also cook breakfasts at a substance outreach service on a Wednesday morning for the homeless mental health addiction people that are street homeless. We run a drop-in centre with housing support and addiction support, and I cook bacon and egg sandwiches, about 45 to 50 bacon and egg sandwiches on a Wednesday morning. And on Thursdays, I actually run a well-being coaching for the staff there because compassion, fatigue, and burnout are a reality. Right. They all enrich me and make me a better coach. So to answer your question, I suppose part of the reason that I can show up, do this show, have these conversations is because I'm blessed by that enriching of my world. And so I I always talk about there's a mutuality in it. And I say that altruism doesn't exist because nobody truly nobody turns up and does something for nothing. And it might not be monetary and it might not be that, but we are fulfilling our human need for connection, for compassion, for all of those things. And so and I truly believe that the world is a better place when people are in service to humanity, and and by being in service to humanity, you're ultimately in service to yourself. Yeah. And we did touch on that, which is probably gonna come up in the second part because you said something really beautiful when we met about what you'd discovered in the world. I hope that answers your question.

SPEAKER_03 32:28

It does. I'm really I'm really glad that's that was that was brilliant. Thank you. Yeah. The come I think the I think the important part of it is the is when you do on Thursday. I think that's a very necessary and critical component to your energy reserves for doing all of this. Like you it's uh one of those things that reminds me that you always give the advice to others that you yourself need. I think that that uh that running that group is a way for you to remind yourself, I think, of that of what you do every day.

Jody Brooks 33:02

There was a lot of addiction in my family. I grew up with addiction around me. I have siblings that have addiction problems still to this day. And one of my friends said to me, It's almost like you can't cope if addiction's not in your world, and it really made me reflect on it because they were like, How have you ended up there? But I think there is an element in there again of there is positive and negative ways in which it can be in your world, and catch 22, you know, I lost a parent to addiction, and that human contact matters. And thank you for asking the question. It was a great moment in there, and it brings us nicely to the end of the first half of the show. There's a lot in there, and I think the standout bits for me is that bit about that surrender and those bits that we just discussed there, and about how your realisations around all of those things and how you so beautifully frame it of there are lots of little bits that add up to one messy middle moment, the huge bits about identity and how that played into it, and about how you left your writing and you described it as becoming a very, very dark place. And so we're gonna pause and catch our breath, take a short break, and then when you come back, when Christoph comes back, we're gonna talk about that beauty and that creative process and how he sees words. We'll see you after the break. Before we keep going, I want to invite you into something a little more personal. If Messy Midlife is speaking to you, if you're feeling lost, stuck, overwhelmed, or quietly wondering what comes next, you don't have to walk through this season alone. Inside the Messy Midlife community, you'll find the podcast, the blogs, and practical tools to help you find your way forward. It's a gentle, honest space to explore the nine principles of authentic living with real support, reflection and human connection from me and from other messy midlifers who truly get it. It's a place for honest conversations, gentle support, and absolutely no judgment. Just a space to reconnect with yourself and with others who understand. If that sounds like what you need right now, head to the Messy Midlife homepage. The link is in the show notes and click join the community. Or click connect with Jody at the top of the show notes, send me a message that just says community, and I will send you the link personally. Okay, let's get back to today's episode. Welcome

— Second Half: The Power of Words

Jody Brooks 35:45

back, Messy Midlifers. You join me here with Christoph again after that beautiful first half where we discussed an awful lot and we've just been giggling about how Christoph managed to interview me on my own show, which was a very beautiful moment and I absolutely loved, and in that short time, that is evident in who you are as a person, this inquisitiveness and this inquiry about the world around you, and and a thirst to understand and a thirst to ask those questions. When we chatted before and you said that you gave up writing and didn't do it for five years, and then someone told you you couldn't go to work and you put the phone down and picked up your pen again. And what I loved earlier in that is when you explained to me really about the stuff that we discussed in the first half of the show is how you didn't understand how you fitted in the world, you felt like an outsider and it it felt very confusing. And you said that words were your way to make that understanding and to relate to how you saw the world because you didn't feel like you saw the world the same as everybody else. So that's the starting point for this journey of your creativity and the power of the words that you use.

SPEAKER_03 37:10

Yeah, Shakespeare. Um, I adore uh words um and language. I think that our greatest virtue as a species is the want to understand others and the want to be understood ourselves. And the fact that words facilitate that, language facilitates that, is to me the most beautiful thing. Like we try, we take these events in history, these moments of valor, of honor, of of great report. And we what we do is we try to describe them as best we can. And we use we use words to do that. We don't we don't do that with anything else. You have to do it with words, it has to be done with words, so that the it can be as as completely and as competently understood as possible because it's so it the the event was so momentous. I I think that it's I think that it's incredible that that words are that necessary. And I I just adore them.

Jody Brooks 38:29

I feel every single episode that I do, and every guest that I meet, and again, you know, like it goes back to the question you asked me before the break, is I'm a better human being for our conversation today, and I'm enriched by our conversation today, and I have a new appreciation having spoken to you for words and see that I've taken it for granted a little bit because of that beauty of them in allowing us to connect as human beings. What I love there, and not only that, but in your story, they don't just allow you to connect to others, but listening to what you say, the words help you connect to yourself.

SPEAKER_03 39:12

Shakespeare, they're um they're a large part of how I communicate my vision and understanding of the world, obviously. I mean that's what uh that's what you know words and ideas do. Uh but uh for me, I think that they're the most necessary part of me. Uh Shakespeare. I think that here's it's interesting because as well as I was growing up, um and I would try to communicate to all the adults in my life like what was happening to me at home, the abuse that was happening at my home. It it was like I was telling a story every time. And I had to and I and I tried to find the best, most compelling way to tell the story so that someone would do something about it. No one ever did. But the necess the most most necessary part of me, the storyteller part of me, uh, especially coming from the deep south, that's part of our tradition in the south of the United States, is is uh storytelling. But um it's um outside of that cultural um um touchstone for me uh it became so important. Uh and I I just I know that it it's interesting. I don't know if I failed or if I succeeded in any meaningful sense, uh but it developed my skills later for storytelling and for finding words knowing that they had the power that they do. I don't know. Shakespeare.

Jody Brooks 41:02

It's interesting you say that then, so it would be easy to think because it's almost sounds like there when in your childhood the words didn't have the power you wished they had, but you never lost faith in them. And then would you say it would be fair to say that after putting the phone down to the man in Canada from the employment people that said you can't work and you went, Okay, I'll write. Did you then find the power in the words from that moment?

SPEAKER_03 41:36

For me, I think the power of words was became at least partially realized whenever I was a kid and I was in the seventh grade, we had to write letters. We were tasked with writing a letter to soldiers serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. So they said, write a letter, you know, just to cheer, we're gonna cheer the soldiers up with letters from the kids. So I wrote, I put all of myself into writing this letter. For some reason, it felt like a very solemn thing. And so I remember all I remember, I don't remember the content of the letter whatsoever. I had no idea what I wrote, but I know that I wrote directly from my philosophical, my understanding of of what liberty was, like the ideals that were espoused, even though they weren't necessarily part of the agenda by the adults. I understood the mission to be very different and uh very virtuous. And so I wrote this letter and um I handed it to my teacher and I and we left class. Later that day I was I was confronted by a bunch of kids, and kids that did not like me at all were telling me that I wrote a really beautiful letter because my teacher had been reading my letter to every class. Shakespeare. And um I remember feeling when I was writing the letter that there was a music that awoke in me that I that it where the words words just made sense. It's it's the it's the strangest thing, but it was it was like I could compose music the first time sitting down at a piano and truly and and do something beautiful with it. Um I don't know. I I just I loved it. I loved that moment, and then uh it was whenever um I re I well as a journalist I didn't really have much experience doing that, even though I did win an award for that for feature writing, but um in terms of writing prose and and poetry of my like the work I do now. Uh yeah, the the the the notion that they have authority over our souls. Is the most uh impressive and and necessary part of uh language. Shakespeare, Shakespeare. I lost my train of thought, honestly. Okay.

— The Discipline of Daily Writing

Jody Brooks 44:16

I just was sitting back here watching this beautifully unfold. What stood out for me there was in talking to you, obviously, with your Tourette's autism, and struggling in essence to connect, what stood out for me there was you wrote this letter, which was words. You'd spoken before, tried to communicate a story, which was the trauma you were enduring. But what's really powerful in that is you wrote this letter and it provided you with human connection. This these people that hated you, etc., suddenly turned up and were compassionate and provided you with connection. And so it's like you ultimately found this way to connect that you couldn't find before, but it was in written word rather than spoken, and in all of those things, and it sounds like it stayed with you. So now you're a very successful author. You've written, and your book is also on the syllabus in universities. It's fair to me.

SPEAKER_03 45:27

That was that was a surprise. Shakespeare, for so many reasons. That was a that and the thing is again, it was someone that just told me that very casually on Instagram. You know, like someone said, Oh yeah, my professor, uh my Victorian literature intro to Victorian literature professor uses your book as recommendedly reading for our Dickens portion of the class.

Jody Brooks 45:49

And I was like, wait, what so I think if you're gonna put writing on a scale and being an author on a scale, I'd call that moderately successful. And I know that you have quite a large following on TikTok and have gone viral on there. What stands out for me here is in this early part of your life, this need that we all have as human beings is to connect and to feel a part of the world, and you didn't have it, and it feels very much like the first part is you reconnected with writing yourself, and so formed almost self-compassion in writing, in again learning to turn up for you and to write, and then that compassion has then gone on to allow you to connect through the work that you do with unlimited

— Writing as Self-Connection

Jody Brooks 46:42

people.

SPEAKER_03 46:42

Yeah, it's uh realization when you have someone that finally messages you or writes you in some way and uh communicates that like your book made a difference in their life is probably the best thing on earth that I can think of. I like to say that I love writing more than the sum of my love for all other things. Uh and that comes that's a very close second to realizing that uh to realizing that you you can make a difference. Um and it's just through words and storytelling. You have you create characters that people connect with, they sympathize with, that uh they feel like the author understands them to an extent that is intimate and enduring, I think is the most profound connection and that you can have uh with someone that you don't know. Words facilitate that more than anything else. Uh I think it's also interesting that as in in terms of art forms, writing is the only art form that exposes your intellect so readily. It exposes everything about what the way you think and uh what you're capable of, what you're not capable of. It's it's it's extraordinary. Uh everything else has like some sub a lot of subject subjectivity to it. Art like music and and um and every other art form has room, you know, for for deliberation, but with writing the meaning is already ancient. It the the words uh often these words are ancient and uh and lived in and have fixed meanings. And so your ideas are presented and that's that's what you have. The evidence of your intellect, the evidence of your virtues, of your philosophies, all of it is right there, apparent for everybody.

Jody Brooks 49:11

I'm just pausing because the like so many sparks going off in my head right now in that last bit of listening to you talk there. And I can't help but think that you know we live in this world that is supposedly so connected. And I think it would be fair to say that many of us now understand that this connected world we live in is in fact really disconnected. And I wonder how much of that you would relate to maybe the the loss of the importance of the written word and the reliance more so now on social media, on image, on AI, on all of those things. And is there almost in your answering your call to connect was you connected back to yourself through writing? And is there something in that that for every listener there's a power in doing that that makes you know, you did it in a way to understand the world and reconnect. And so I'm just sat here now listening to you and thinking, is this what's missing in all our lives actually? Is that craft of like you say the written word?

SPEAKER_03 50:41

I think so. I think I think that I read I it's interesting because I'm reading the the like I said, I'm reading Team of Rivals, and so many of the letters were written between people that are not famous for their writing at all, but they're very beautifully crafted. And they have interesting turns of phrase, interesting structures, interesting ideas that they relay. All of these things, these these very necessary components to what makes great writing, uh was just evident in so many people's words. I've I've I it is a lost, it is almost a lost art form at this point because it becomes something like uh I I think the word is an aphorism, but everyone is is trying to find some kind of the most revealing truth, the most the most enduring, the most uh uh they're trying to find a truth that that that can repair the damage in their life. They're like they're trying to say, I I live by this quilt right here, I live by this quilt right here, and they do this over and over and over again, seeking out as social media facilitates that sometimes, and I think that's where its power comes from. But um I think that the want to connect again ties back to the purpose of language, which is to understand others and for ourselves to be understood. Social media can facilitate that. The pr the problem is that there's a lot of bad actors, a lot of nations trying to undermine one another's like public accord, you know, it's just it's it's a very nasty business now. Yeah, so I think that I think that writing is is lost somewhat. It's it's at a point where it's it's been reduced.

Jody Brooks 52:55

When we talked before, and I said, you know, as a coach, interestingly, I have one non-negotiable when I work with clients, and that is that they journal because of making that connection to themselves. And we discussed this and you made me smile because you went, I don't journal. And I was like, But Christoph, you write a thousand words a day, you're essentially journaling in. No, and it was quite funny because it was almost like you were just like a client sat in front of me that you know that word journal strikes fear into the hearts of people. And we had that conversation there, and we unpacked that a little bit. But as a coach, I want to lean into what you said there is it's a way of understanding yourself and connecting with yourself that enables you to connect better with the world around you. And you said something in the pre-conversation about how words are given multiple meanings and context, and slightly how that changes. And so, to give this context, when you talked about a certain person in power, I've kind of like given it away now, but yeah. So you just basically gave off all of this stuff, and you were like, you know, and no one needs to know who I'm referencing. You all know what I'm referencing. That's the power of what those words have now become.

SPEAKER_03 54:21

Yeah, and right now, do you already know who we're talking about? Everyone knows. Yeah, everyone knows it's extraordinary. It's extraordinary. I don't we don't even need to go into detail, we know exactly who you're talking about. Just it's so yeah, that's the that is the power of it already. Like, see, you you are able to sum it up even more effectively, like that that phenomenon. Uh the problem with journaling that I think most people are afraid of, the reason why people are afraid of journaling is the is is it's discovery, really, because there are most intimate moments in our lives, and they are they reflect like what we feel about those things and about those events, and you know that that that ranges from you know failed romantic endeavors, you know, to failed jobs, be feeling like a failed parent. You know, it there's so many reasons why uh, you know, like there's so many different things that we don't want to have ever made public, Shakespeare. I think that's one of those things. I honestly, I honestly think that most people are afraid to journal because they don't want people reading it. Because it's just so it's it's also so scary because it it you want to get it right also. That's the other part. If you are to journal, if you are going to journal, then you want to get it right, which means that you use just the right words that you don't that that that communicates exactly what you mean in a way that's not only like effective, but meaningful to you. And yeah, journal so journaling is scary for a lot of people because sitting down and doing that is that it requires introspection, and most people are very afraid to do that kind of work uh because they're afraid of what they might find, or like I that I said once that uh I'm afraid of journal because I'm afraid of what might manifest or not. So Shakespeare listening to you there.

Jody Brooks 56:41

There are a couple of bits in that that I want to pick up on, and one of them is that element of the fear bit that you touch on there, and I couldn't help but think, you know, and we talked about it earlier on as well about this external thing, and it's kind of interesting, isn't it? Is that we would read a book about someone's divorce, someone's addiction, someone's worst trauma and find ourselves in that story rather than find ourselves in our own story.

SPEAKER_03 57:14

Right. There's a degree of separation, yeah.

Jody Brooks 57:18

So it's like I can read that and relate to it, but I I can also choose to not have that as my truth.

SPEAKER_03 57:25

Right. Yeah, it becomes very real when you write it down.

Jody Brooks 57:30

Yeah, and so there's almost you know, back to I always think sometimes these conversation themes appear, but it's almost back to there's an element of surrender in writing a journal. There's an element of that surrender that we spoke about in writing a journal, is in order to be at peace with that reality when you truly know what it is. And I love the fact there that you say that you're it's not just about what might happen on the paper, it's about what might not happen as well. In that, you know, I think there's the same bit in there is closely related to journaling, is writing goals, and that's another self-commitment thing that people struggle with. And I think in the conversation with you there, this you've helped me see it in a different light with this fear of what might go on the paper. I often say to clients that it's not about the quality or the quantity, it's just about the act, and I forget her name. There's a British artist who actually writes about when you are a creative and when you are an artist and you have a writer's block or you have that, is what you said there is that thing about wanting to get it right, and what she says is stop worrying about getting it right, just go and do some shitty art because sometimes your shitty art is your best art because it's not edited, it's not curated, and it really is the truth of the matter, right?

SPEAKER_03 59:08

Yeah.

Jody Brooks 59:09

How do you show up every day, Christoph? This is your bit that you told me. How do you show up and write a thousand words every day?

SPEAKER_03 59:18

Well, doing a thousand words a day, every single day, is requires an extraordinary amount of discipline. And also, but the the I I I honestly I do it because I can't I this sounds in this sounds insane and it's not very helpful. I feel like, but I I can't not do it. I feel like when I'm right, when I'm not writing, when I'm not in some way doing a service to my work that I'm failing. I think it's an OCD thing. Um but uh it happens to m produce something of value. Uh I can't not do it. It's the it is the chance also that you're gonna write something that is a a true revelation, that is a that is uh a great, you're gonna write a great and immovable truth. And it's and it's and it feels like discovery when you do write something that is that feels like it's always been known, but no one's ever said it before. That's that's the the uh those are the greatest moments of of of writing or producing art is doing something that should have been done a long time ago, but it took you to get there. I think that I think that everyone needs to have that attitude about themselves is that you're a very unique set of circumstances. There are there is never been a person like you before, and there'll never be another person like you again, and so whatever wisdom you've accumulated, whether you think it's anemic and unqualified, you must apply it to better the lives of the people around you. Like that's there's there's nothing that's gonna be more fulfilling, I think, than doing that. I don't I don't I I just can't imagine not doing it. Shakespeare.

Jody Brooks 1:01:24

We throughout the show and we touched on how you'd had some of your identity forced on you, some of your identity taken away from you. But your identity, you know, what's sort of r really shouted at me through this through the conversation there was that your identity very much now is you are an author. And so when you said I just can't not write, well, to me that makes sense because your identity is you're an author, and an author writes, so it's almost like drinking water, like sustaining yourself. And I think that's a beautiful thing about when I work with clients, and when you find a purpose and you find your identity in that purpose, then I don't know that it really takes willpower. I think it takes a certain amount of discipline, but essentially it is a part of who you are.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:18

Shakespeare.

Jody Brooks 1:02:20

That continues that connection there. Um and there was the other bit that you touched on, which I think has resonated in this second half of the show, and you gently touched on it there, but I'm gonna draw it out now, is that one of your realizations was the other way that you'd learnt to connect other than words was through kindness.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:44

Ah. Hmm. Shakespeare.

— Kindness and Connection

SPEAKER_03 1:02:49

I realized actually it it took it took medication to be honest, to have this kind of revelation. I realized though that kindness was the way. Uh, I think I think that it was a it I think that enough wisdom had accumulated until I got to the point where I I had that moment of discovery. But um, like my for example, my ex-wife is a very lovely person. She's like one of the best human beings on the planet. And she um she taught me about kindness, and she was she was infinitely kind and always um trying to do the right thing for people and working at that every single day. Uh I follow in that example, I try to follow that example. Um and uh you can you can in a sense you can in a sense weaponize kindness. You just have to you just have to realize that what what kind of weapon it is, and that is that it's no weapon at all. It's it's um it is allowing compassion to determine how you interact with people. Um Shakespeare. I uh I realized that kindness was gonna earn me more friends than being clever was, than being like funny. I I have so many close friends now because I try to be not cheerful necessarily, I just try to be supportive and optimistic on people's behalf. Like whenever they're suffering, I say, you are an extraordinary person, you're gonna do great things, you're gonna be okay. You just gotta make it through this one thing, and it just works. It just works. People love it. People love it when you're nice. It's weird, but it it works more than anything else. I've tried everything else, believe me.

Jody Brooks 1:04:58

Every iteration of my yeah, I think you're very right, and not far from where I live on a wall during COVID, someone spray painted a beautiful mural, and it just said kindness is contagious too. And and I think it's very, very true, and you know it it really is, and it's something that we need a lot more of in the world right now. It is our best defense in a world that sometimes feels so full of hatred, so full of division, and so full of all of those things, and so we are rapidly running out of time. I just looked at my clock, and I know this is going to be one of my longer episodes, but I knew that before we started today, Christoph. So, and there isn't any element of the conversation that I would cut short before we head to the final moments of the show. Is there anything that you haven't shared that hasn't come out in the conversation that you want to share before we head to the final? Few questions of the show.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:01

I think that it's important to note that I was in despair a lot. And before I achieved any kind of happiness, I was it was soul-crushing despair to the point where I was thinking like this has to end somehow. And eventually it did. I don't know.

Jody Brooks 1:06:29

That's was that dissolving partly due to finding kindness for yourself?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:38

I think so. I think that yeah there's a quote, I think, I think it was Kafka that said it. I think it was Kafka that said it. It says, I was told to love my enemy. So I did, and I loved myself. Something like that. And it was, I just think it's profound and and helpful to know that you're you you might feel like your own worst enemy, but you even have to you have to love your enemies too, Shakespeare.

Jody Brooks 1:07:03

That's an amazing place to bring my final question before I sum up today's conversation. It's this same question I give to all of my guests. Christoph, if you could plant one seed in the mind of our listeners today that would slowly grow over time and bear fruit, what would that seed be?

— Final Question: Seeds of Wisdom

SPEAKER_03 1:07:29

Well I thought I was going to change my answer. When we we Shakespeare. But it I I really feel like it's it's such an important flo m m moral and ethical philosophy for me. It's that justice and redemption. The notions of justice and redemption are folly. You will never achieve them. You will never fe see true redemption, you will never experience true justice. So justice and redemption are folly, but to seek them is not.

Jody Brooks 1:08:09

I love that and how they're more about a way of being rather than a destination, is essentially what you're saying in that is to live your life always seeking justice and to always seek redemption. Today's conversation has been amazing. I'm like, it's gonna take me a long time to like stop processing over the conversation when we finish today. Before I sum up, Christopher, I just want to say thank you to you for connecting today, for bringing all of you to the show to be so willing to discuss things that other people wouldn't be willing to discuss. Um so thank you very much um for turning up today and turning up as you in your whole self. Um it has been a phenomenal episode.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:10

It's it's a privilege to be here.

— Closing Thoughts

Jody Brooks 1:09:16

There are so many parts of today's show, if I try and sum it up, but I think I would have to say that for me what shines out is that word surrender, and that sometimes that surrender is actually accepting the truth of the work that we need to do. It's not avoiding it and it's not feeling powerless, but it is about choosing to go to war on the things that we need to go to war on to bring about the change that we need to bring about in our lives. That sometimes it's about finding your place in the world and not trying to fit in, and the hugely healing and powerful ability of words to allow us not to just connect with others but to firstly connect with ourselves and how they are a living legacy. They tell our story and they enable us to tell our story to others, and finally, that in all of that somewhere was the ability of self-compassion first to fuel that healing journey, and then how that self-compassion then becomes compassion that we use out in the world. Today's conversation has really touched my heart and my soul. As Christoph says, words touch his soul, and today's conversation really has touched mine. Messy Midlifers, as always, remember you're not broken, you're becoming, and I'll see you on the next episode. Thank you for spending this time with me on Messy Midlife. If this episode resonated, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who might need to hear it today. You can find the show notes below and more resources at authenticcoaching.me. And just a little gentle reminder: Messy Midlife is here for information, reflection, and personal growth. It is a substitute for medical advice, diagnosis, treatment, therapy, or any other professional healthcare support. If you have concerns about your physical or mental health, please reach out to a qualified professional. Until next time, take good care of yourself. And remember, midlife might be messy, but it's not a crisis, it's a calling to connect.