Flourishing together – a positive boost

Alex has a long history working in religious broadcasting for the BBC and has been on an inspiring journey of health and wellbeing for many years. She shares many hints and helpful suggestions in this episode that also includes themes of:

• Being brought up in a mixed-faith home 
• Bringing together the Sunday programme for local radio 
• The power of personal stories to make people stop and listen 
• Journey into fitness 
• Bladder cancer diagnosis 
• The tools for facing such a diagnosis 
• The importance of Judaism in her life
• The importance of community and connection 
• One Year, No Beer community 
• Running a half-marathon 
• The power of writing down your values 
• The benefits of mental health from exercise 
• Running as a spiritual activity 
• Yom Kippur – day of atonement practices in Judaism 
• A healthy perspective on death as a means to flourish 
• Coaching as a way to help people 
• Positive psychology tools and techniques that help change behaviour and achieve potential 
• Actively boosting your positive content  
• Shema prayer practice as liberating 
• Alex’s appreciation of faith’s shared from her many years of religious broadcasting experience.

Links: 

Alex Strangwayes-Booth Coaching

Fly lady

Jonathan Roche

One Year, No Beer

James Clear Atomic Habits

GoHealth Community 

Follow GoHealth on Twitter, Instagram and Facebook @guildofhealth 

I am Gillian Straine, welcome to the GoHealth podcast. It is run by the team at the Guild of Health and St Raphael, which is a charity that’s been around for over 100 years promoting and resourcing the healing ministry of the christian faith. 

[Music] 

We are in season 3 of the podcast, exploring the topic – together we flourish.  

In this season, we are looking at all the positive ways that people combine health and faith and we have a fantastic line up of really interesting people!  

We have chosen this topic, together we flourish, as it is at the heart of the GoHealth Community and indeed all the work of the Guild. Our vision is to see flourishing communities made up of flourishing individuals and the GoHealth community is a place of nurture, sharing, learning and practice where we actively tend to our journey’s towards health and wellbeing, with the faith of Jesus Christ at the centre.  

In this episode we are exploring the theme of together we flourish with Alex Strangewayes booth  

Now Alex is a highly experienced reporter and producer in TV and radio with a long and impressive career with the BBC. Recently, she’s been producing content for all 39 BBC local radio stations, including the Sunday Service and including the Keeping Faith Multi-Faith Reflections. 

On the Sunday Worship show she aims to bring together unheard voices into the airwaves, giving insight into what diverse Christian worship looks like across England. So she has got a super interesting job. She’s a super communicator, she’s got an eye for stories, but she’s also a super interesting person aside from work. Alex is a cancer survivor, a runner, and she’s also had a journey with the One Year, No Beer organisation. So giving up alcohol in her health journey.

Alex is a really positive, interesting and engaging human being, and I am delighted that she agreed to chat on our podcast. We had a great conversation and she offers some great themes, insights about how to live a faith filled, flourishing life, one that’s open to what happens. But with a real, genuine and impressive curiosity about being real about life, finding God and being positive.

I really hope you enjoy this episode and we’d love to know what you think. Do pop over to the Facebook group to chat about it to all our GoHealth community members. Okay, on with the episode. 

[MUSIC]

Gillian: So Alex, welcome to the GoHealth podcast. How are you today?

Alex: Yeah, doing very well. Fit and well, raring to go.

Gillian: Good. Well, that’s great because we’re at the beginning of season three and our topic, our kind of theme for the whole season is flourishing together. Together we flourish. It’s our theme for the GoHealth community. It’s about community, it’s about connection with others and it’s this season about really getting into the positive aspects of how faith and health come together.

And you’re one of the first people in my mind when I thought, who do we need to get on this podcast to tell us about this? Because you’ve been really inspiring person in your work and in some of your postings on social media and things to me. So tell us about yourself. Tell us what’s your day job, Alex, and what’s your background?

Alex: Well, my day job is a producer at the BBC. I’m a producer, but my specialism is religious affairs, so I do faith stories for all the 39 local radio stations around the country so that’s…I work for BBC Local, and I’ve done that for quite a long time. About ten years I’ve been doing this, but I’ve worked for the BBC for 26 years yesterday, couldn’t even believe it. I know I’m a rarity I think. So I started working in local radio. I did the Sunday breakfast show at Radio Cleveland 25 years ago. That’s Radio Tees now. So actually I started doing faith stuff almost straightaway. But I’m a general news journalist. Like by background. So for most of my career I’ve been doing general news stories for local radio.

Gillian: And the faith angle on that. Do you have a background in theology or faith or why, why that angle of journalism?

Alex: It’s easy to tell, looking back, isn’t it? So I come from a mixed faith background. So my dad is Christian and my mum is Jewish, and actually they both practice their faiths. So my mum is South African and my dad is English and we lived in South Africa til I was seven. And then we came over here and my mum had sort of been really thrown out of the Orthodox Jewish faith for marrying my dad.

I mean, it was the sixties and those things were kind of quite clear cut at that time. But there was a big movement for reformed Judaism in this country when when we arrived here and my mum realised that it was okay to be Jewish if you were married to a non-Jew. And she’s quite a powerful personality. So we were very much brought up Jewish.

But at the same time, I’m very comfortable with Christianity because I was a guide and I went to the Church of England school. So for me, I don’t think there was ever any tension between the fact that these were different faiths. I sort of, for me, they sat quite comfortably together in my life. I think as a result I’ve always had a real interest.

And then when I grew up, I realised that it was probably a little bit strange and unusual. I mean, even my parents are in the eighties now and they’re still practicing their own faiths. My dad’s on the parish council, my mum belongs to the liberal synagogue. So it’s…I think I’m really I’ve always been really interested in faith communities and and how they work and how they work in this country because we don’t realise it, but we’re quite unusual in this country. Multi-Faith, very tolerant and welcoming attitude to faith that doesn’t necessarily exist elsewhere in the world.

Gillian: And do you see that with your job with the BBC? You’re in charge of the Sunday programmes aren’t you? And how do you put that together and how do you sort of switch on a radar to find out…to into what’s going on in the country in terms of faith and community and what local stations might be interested to listen to?

Alex: Yeah, so so I mean, I produce content for them. I hesitate to say I’m in charge because it’s slightly promoting me, but I produce content. So every local radio station has a Sunday faith program, it’s a three hour programme on a Sunday morning, and its remit is to tell stories about faith communities, the resources are very tight in local radio, especially now, and Sunday Breakfast doesn’t have the biggest audience of the week. And we allocate resources kind of according to where our listeners are. So what happens is I produce a kind of a backbone, if you like, of content for them. I produce about seven stories every week, which they use in amongst the local content that they can set up. It enables them to focus their attention on the best of their local stories rather than having to set up loads and loads and loads of stuff to build a three hour program.

You know, I tend to look at the stories of the week through a faith lens. So politics, COVID, cost of living, faith is not does not exist in a, in a separate box from the rest of life. Faith influences people’s decision making and their attitudes and their connections. And that’s what I try and do. I try and find…and I try and find people with really strong stories to tell about how their faith has helped them make a difference in their community, for example.

So, so I’m not bound by having to tell big stories about church politics, for example. I tend to like – let’s not do church politics – tell you what. And I don’t have to do international stories. My focus is, is England. So I just, I just look at the week’s news and see what people are talking about. And if there’s a faith angle that I can put on that, you know, if there is an obvious massive faith story, I will do that.

So how do I, I don’t know. I talk to people. I get a lot of emails from people. I try really hard not to do kind of days and months because I think you can fall into…like…like apart from Black History Month, which I think is quite an interesting chance for me to talk to a lot of people I don’t necessarily talk to, but I tend to avoid like National Poetry Day or Dyslexia Day or, you know, because I think that I can get a bit lazy as a journalist if I start doing that and I try and avoid too many authors, because you can also like fill a whole program talking to people who’ve written books. So it’s…so I try and always talk to people at the heart of the story, as well, if I can. So not too many experts, bods, bishops, etc..

Gillian: Do you have a sense of some stories that really resonate with the public and is that different from the ones that might resonate to local BBC broadcaster, the journalists as well?

Alex: Well, we have to be very clear about our audience on local radio. All the bits of the BBC that get the big headlines, our audience kind of aren’t really listening or watching. The cost of living is so important to people at the moment, so we do a lot of that, but we try and do it in a way, in a helpful and positive way, not a shouting political way.

The BBC local radio have just done an amazing thing called the Make a Difference awards which have gone right across the whole of BBC Local Radio where people have nominated local people who have done amazing things in the last few years. Who run charities or just do stuff in their community and we had a big awards ceremony and it gave us a chance to actually talk to people about those stories.

So I find that the audience – well I like it so and the audience like it. They like to hear stories about people who are who have overcome something or made their community better in some way. I think, I think you would probably hear more positivity on local radio than you might hear elsewhere on the BBC. You know, we love a bit of Strictly, who doesn’t, but it’s not light and fluffy, but it’s kind of when you get a really strong personal story, people, people just stop and listen and then those are the ones that, that resonate the most.

Gillian: And talking about personal stories and difficult times. You’ve been on a journey yourself, haven’t you, Alex? Through illness and and fitness and health throughout your diagnosis.

Alex:  Do you know it probably even starts before my diagnosis because I was, I was leading quite an unhealthy life because sometimes that happens to you in the media. I had two small children and a full time job and I was traveling. So actually I was going to Rome a lot at some point and doing Pope stuff and I was, so I was kind of really in the depths of this journalistic career. And I was really overweight. And I’d struggled a lot with depression after having both my children, actually. So, so actually, after I had my son, who’s now 17, I did start to look a little bit more at my health and my wellbeing. I was on antidepressants and I didn’t want to be, so I was starting to look at alternatives to being on antidepressants, when I did the mindfulness course, because it put me much more in touch with my own body and my own feelings and where I was at.

And I was really unhappy with my weight. I mean, I’ve always been unhappy with my weight, but that’s a whole other story. I started to get much fitter, but about a year after I started to work out a little bit more and look at what I was eating, I, and this was in Rome actually, I started to get this real discomfort in my bladder, like I would suddenly need to go to the loo, like out of nowhere for no reason. And it was really weird and I sort of ignored it for a bit. And then I thought, well, actually I’m not…I’m actually quite healthy and I’m not stressed and it isn’t, you know, isn’t a bladder infection and stuff. And I went to my GP and I said, there’s something wrong, but I don’t know what it is.

And bless her heart, she sent me for a scan almost straight away. I mean, I’m so grateful to my GP. So I went for a scan and the, the radiographer actually said to me, she said, I know I don’t normally do this, but you need to go back to your GP now because there’s something in your bladder. And I had this tumor, I had bladder cancer. I mean I was 40, I think, well, maybe 41 –  I was in my early forties, which is really unusual. I mean, and bladder cancer, I mean like weird? It’s like me and a bunch of old fellas in the waiting room because it’s it generally happens later in life. And I think, I don’t know, men get it more than women, but anyway, that’s what it was looked like to me.

Gillian: I’ve never heard of anyone having bladder cancer before.

Alex:  I count myself as being really lucky because it was, it was diagnosed so well and  then it was dealt with really quickly. And I had the tumour taken out and I had a little bit of chemo. And you don’t have to have much for bladder cancer. I mean, that’s the…you know, I really count myself lucky because I didn’t have to have chemotherapy over a long period of time.

I was, really I wasn’t scared. I was really philosophical about it. I just felt like I was going to get through it and it was okay. And I started to…I’m like, I have the tools in place already, and I just needed to build on them. And I think that after my bladder cancer, I just, I put my health and wellbeing right in the centre of my life.

I thought that if you put your health and wellbeing, I think of it as a circle and your health and wellbeing sits right in the middle and then everything else can work around the edges. And my whole life I have been putting my work in the middle and then my family and then my health and wellbeing and, and it just all shifted and became health and wellbeing, family, work. And when I look back, that is, that is the shift that I made.

Gillian:  And when you said you were diagnosed that you had, you had the tools already, is that what you mean? You had the, you had sort of the, the insight to know how to make the changes at that point in order to support you?

Alex: Yeah, I think I did, actually. And the program that I joined was I mean, I have to give credit, so it started with my house because my house was chaotic and I found ‘fly lady’ who helps you tidy your house, right, and I loved ‘fly lady’ and I still do fly lady stuff, but she introduced me to an American trainer called Jonathan Roche, who is a fitness trainer coach.

And he does – he did online programmes before anyone did online programmes. So I mean every like everyone does fitness online, I don’t know, he does online – he did half hour workouts, he introduced me to interval training, which is also called HIIT I guess, and strength training and, and his whole philosophy about listening to positive content and listening to your positive voice every day and drinking lots of water and eating well.

I credit Jonathan, who has a thing called ‘no excuses’ with a lot of – for introducing me to coaching even, for introducing me to a concept where you could set a goal and work towards it. Like I didn’t really even operate like that. I sort of drifted through my life sort of doing what I had to do and, you know, and what I started to do was I started to set goals every year and sometimes like reset them through the year. I was like, ‘I’m going to make a 1/2 hour radio documentary’ and I did and then you’re like – Oh, look, if you set a goal and like, take steps towards it, you can achieve all sorts of things. So I think that I, I stayed with Jonathan – I’m still with him now. I think, I think coaching is fantastic. I like, I think that sometimes you can’t do it by yourself and you need help. So I’m a big fan of coaching. So yeah, I had the I had the tools and I had the mindfulness, you know. So yeah.

Gillian: So it feels like that sort of a huge journey, right, from unexpected cancer diagnosis with an unusual cancer. It feels like a condensed version of a very…it sounds like a very long and intense and important wellbeing journey. And I just wondered, you haven’t used the word spirituality at all. Is that word you’re comfortable with? Is that part of what was going on there with your really impressive tooling up, right? I’ve got a problem and I need to shift my life and get into the coaching side of it and the goal stuff. What about the other stuff around spirituality or soul or however you, however you are comfortable talking about that?

Alex: Yes, I think spirituality is really important. I don’t talk about it very much because I’m so used to being sort of objective about my faith. But I did go back to synagogue actually, so I joined the liberal synagogue near my home. And I, I just went back myself because I often say to people I have quite a Christian attitude to Judaism because a lot of Jewish communities in this country, a lot of people are culturally Jewish and I come across it quite a lot in my work with people. Jewish culture is very strong and it runs strong through all our families. But I was looking for the spirituality in Judaism, if you like. I wanted to go and really engage with who is God and what does he look like in my life and liberal Judaism is fantastic, because obviously it’s, it’s completely equal. That Rabbi was a woman. We, we engage very closely with the Torah, which people might not do – women don’t historically do in Orthodox Judaism. The Rabbi was amazing. I went to Hebrew classes, I started, I did my, I had a Bat Mitzvah when I was 13 back in the eighties with the wonderful Jonathan, Rabbi Jonathan Romain, who is also a big you know, he’s been an influence in my life and still is actually to this day.

I mean, I always laugh, because he’s quite a big broadcaster, I do laugh because, he comes on the radio and stuff and he’s known me since I was nine. So I think, you know, I re did my Bat Mitzvah when I was 40, and then I started to lead services at the synagogue. And, and I get like a real, I mean, it’s such a privilege, apart from anything, to lead a service.

And I really love to give people just that, that space I think we all need, I think it’s so important. We need that space every week to like hold a space where we can just connect with something outside ourselves, you know? I mean, you know, pray. And I say that to people. It’s like, I need a good pray. I’m off, I’m going synagogue, I just have to pray. So what’s interesting to me is that I don’t – my children have both had Bar and Bat Mitzvah’s, interestingly they have drifted away in their teens – but I don’t really, like it doesn’t, that’s not important to me because I do believe that spirituality is a, is a personal choice.

Like and that’s a very British attitude. I think, you know, I’m very comfortable with people with whatever spirit…where people find that space and that peace to pray. I think you can find it in, in a tradition that you are comfortable with. So, yes, it did. I mean, so just to say, now that you mention it, I suppose it did run parallel to my health and wellbeing journey when I went back to synagogue on my…for myself, for my own journey.

Gillian: And it’s interesting because in the Old Testament or the Torah that’s hugely influenced a Christian understanding of health and healing –  in that we’re…especially in the, in the Genesis creation narratives, that we are created in a holistic fashion. We’re not just sort of bodies with a battery stuck in and that’s your soul, and that’s the important bit – never mind the bodies.

But we have a very earthly beginning according to the creation narratives, that we are created as people with bodies and spirits sort of inter-tangled together and then also created with, to be in community, you know, with another in a garden and with God in Eden. These strong Jewish understandings of what it is to be human have massively influenced a Christian understanding of what’s been human, obviously, as well.

Alex: Yes, connection, connection is so important, isn’t it? And I think it’s really interesting that you mentioned connection, because I think that, you know, that’s what I found through  the synagogue, but I could have found it through a church or you know…it’s that’s, it’s, it’s the sense of community, like I evaluate it really highly that I belong to this community. There are people there who will help each other. We journey together. We, we hang out together. We have meals together. And I think that, that in a world where we’re increasingly losing connection with other human beings, you know, it’s been shown to be one of the most important parts of health and wellbeing, that connection with other people in a community.

Gillian: Absolutely, I mean, they’ve measured the immune, the positive immune system impacts of doing stuff like we might do in synagogue or church. You know, getting together, doing stuff together – it almost doesn’t matter what it is. You get this great boost of happy hormones or immune system boost as well. And I think this word connection is really important because it also suggests that previous to whatever happened to begin that journey, there was a disconnection, a disconnection from our bodies perhaps, or our true purpose as well. So when talking about healing, the word connection comes up all the time and we’ve seen it as well in the response of faith communities in the pandemic. There’s a great report came out, the ‘Keeping the Faith’ report, which I’d almost…you could almost write parody of it, really, because it was commissioned by Stephen Timms, MP ‘go and ask local councils their experience of working with faith groups during the pandemic’.

And the report, it’s a huge report, very technical, and it says ‘we found them to be very well connected and they’re very responsive and they’ve got these huge networks in communities and they’ve just got all these volunteers who can do stuff.’ So if you’re in any kind of faith community, like, yeah, we know, we know that’s us, you’ve just discovered this is what we do and it can make a massive impact on health.

But you’re right, I think connection is, is is so vital as well because there’s something about the way we’ve constructed modern society that disconnects us in lots of different ways. Like all these little wires getting pulled out of circuits we disconnect from the power source, don’t we.

Alex: For sure, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. It’s it’s vital. I can rant on some more about connection.

Gillian: So tell us…because you’ve been part of other communities as well haven’t you. With One Year No Beer, and how did you find? And about your connection with alcohol and, and things like that, how this is improved your health?

Alex:  Well, I would say that for, the thing about being on a health and wellbeing journey and being fit is that you begin to realise that drinking alcohol kind of gets in the way. I would get very bad hangovers. I mean, actually when I look back…because I’ve now been alcohol free for nearly three years, so I’ve not had any alcohol for three years.

I mean, nearly three years. About five years ago, s o I’m three years in, I would say I tried so hard, I was moderating – I’ll have one, I’ll only have one, tonight I’ll only have one drink and then I’ll have a glass of water between each drink and and I was a big drinker like I was a big drinker, there’s no doubt that in my adult life, alcohol played a big part in my socialising. My socialising was all around alcohol. I didn’t tend to drink during the week, but when I drank, I drank a lot. And I would, sometimes I would blackout and not remember things, you know, I would get sick. And it suddenly started to dawn on me that this is like this is not good. This is not how I should be living.

And I tried all sorts of things to cut down. And it doesn’t work, because alcohol is addictive. I mean, really, the really simple fact of the matter here is alcohol is addictive. And when you have a drink, you want to have another drink. That’s just how alcohol works. I decided…I kept thinking, I want to give up. I wanted to give up drinking so much. But it was completely countercultural. 

Like I didn’t know anyone who doesn’t drink in my real life, apart from, there’s my friends who come from Muslim communities or The Salvation Army. So I always kind of thought it was like a religious thing not to drink. So… and and observant Sikhs. I wanted it so badly and I kept seeing and you know how… I must have done searches…’how do I…’ so Facebook kept throwing things up and it threw up One Year No Beer quite a lot, which was an organisation that was started by this guy Andy Ramage and his friend Ruari Fairbairns. And they just did it because, because Andy had given up alcohol and was completely evangelical about it.

So I joined One Year No Beer – and went ‘yeah, I’ll do it’. I’ll give up drinking for a year and I’ll see, I’ll see what it’s like. And I and having decided to do it, I did it for December 2019. I gave up drinking in December because I thought I’d give it a go in December. It’s my birthday, it’s Christmas, it’s all those big things. And I really enjoyed it. I had a lovely December. I felt fine. It’s a really stressful month normally, it wasn’t as stressful – go figure. So January. So I had my last drink on New Year’s Eve and actually I was just like, oh, kind of didn’t want it. And then I gave up and through One Year No Beer I joined, there’s a big Facebook community. It’s kind of too big. That’s connection on a difficult scale. But they did a coaching program within One Year No Beer which they called the One Year, No Beer Mastermind, and it was a six week coaching course with a smaller group of people where we met every week on Zoom. And we did a lot of like James Clear’s Atomic Habits. And we looked at kind of, it was identifying, we did a lot of those kind of personality…we did 16 personality surveys, lots of coaching techniques, I am learning now. I didn’t realise at the time. And that group of people, so it’s COVID – we’re in the pandemic. Like we’re not going …all these people all over the world and we’re all in lockdown. So we would meet every week on Zoom and we still meet. It’s like three years, I mean, it’s like over two years later. Those, that group of people are such good friends to me and I value them so much. And like one of our number was in Kiev, so we like, followed his whole crazy time through the war.

And, you know, it was it’s just been an amazing time and I think giving up alcohol is still counter-cultural and I still get given a bit of a hard time by some people about it because they don’t understand why I’m doing it. And, you know, people, which is odd because like, if you’d given up like cocaine or something, no one would give you a hard time. It’s so strange – ‘Just have one’.

Gillian: But why do you think people do that and how do you cope with that?

Alex: I think people do it because alcohol is absolutely ingrained in our culture, tangled around the DNA of our existence. I think…I’ve heard people say, I don’t trust people who don’t drink, which is a really odd thing to say. I may have said it myself in the past, you know, ‘Oh God, you must – you’re no fun’. I think my social life has probably changed and maybe dwindled a little bit and I’m less inclined to go to parties unless there’s really good food.

So I think, how do I cope with it? I, I, I do talk about it. So some people just kind of don’t talk about it, will say they’re on medication or something. For me, I think it’s…I want to talk about it because it’s been a really interesting journey. So I tell people I don’t drink and I don’t, I don’t know why do people? I don’t know, we all, we all wrestle with it in the alcohol free space.

We all wrestle with the fact that, you know, in British culture it’s regarded as deeply suspicious if you don’t drink. I struggle with it, Gillian. I struggle with it. I don’t, I don’t know why. I’m so much happier for not drinking. I’m just happier. I’m never anxious really. I’m having a very stressful time at the moment. My mum is very unwell, you know, I couldn’t be doing it if I was waking up laggy with a bit of a hangover. I just, I couldn’t, I couldn’t cope with the, with the rollercoaster of emotions really. So Yeah. And, and you know, it’s just made me fitter than I’ve ever been. I’m really fit.

Gillian: So you’ve just completed your first half marathon. Tell us about that moment where you crossed the finish line.

Alex: Oh my gosh. I have never been happier in my whole life than when I saw that finish line. I was practically on my knees. But what was interesting, well, where do I start? With the running I actually did a 10K in 2018, so this is like before the giving up alcohol. So I’d already started to toy with this idea of running.

It was, you know, and it was great. I really enjoyed it. But in, just at the end of last year, a local gym opened a little gym opened near me, a small group training gym. And I thought, I need to, I need to like, take my fitness to another level. So I joined the small group training and it’s local and again, it’s connections Gillian. Because I know, because the people are all local, it’s lovely, I feel like it’s a little bit of my community that I, you know, I see them in the street, walking the dogs and stuff, it’s really nice. So he’s really tough, Paul our trainer, he’s like ex-military. He’s like, full on. I have never worked out like that before in my life.

There’s a lot of running up and down the road and carrying kettlebells and things you know, and swinging them, lots of kettlebell swings and lots of endurance training and obviously he’s done ultramarathons and he’s very keen on the whole running thing. So I said to him, I’ll quite like to start running again and maybe I’ll do a 10K. And he said to me, why don’t you do a half marathon?

So he’s been – you know, help again, big fan of coaching. Paul has been a really good person to do that training with. One of the other women at the gym, 

we decided to do it together. Well she decided to do it too. And Paul said, why don’t you run together? So it was the first time I’d run with someone else – so much fun, like running on the Downs on Saturday mornings, building up our mileage, like, you know, the feeling of doing eight miles, then nine and ten. And then we did 12, you know, like, wow, you know, I love the feel. I love the feeling when you get in the flow of running and it’s like it’s a fairly unbeatable feeling and like, I’m 50 and I’m not an athlete. Like there is no athleticism in my past. So a lot of people are like, yeah, I used to run at school, students I used to do this -like that there’s not me. 

So, so the half marathon was in Sussex and it was, it was a beautiful day and I was absolutely on it. I think Nina, Nina’s an amazing companion, she stayed the whole way around with me. I think she could have done it faster than me to be fair to her. The last mile, I just found it so hard. And Paul was there, he came down to the last mile and he said to me, Alex, you looked defeated. He said to me, You, you, your body bowed forward. And I thought back and I thought, gosh, he’s right.

And he said, All you need to do is stand up straight and run straight. And, you know, because he’s very big on the whole, it’s a mental game. Like, this is not a physical game. It’s a mental game. I loved it, but the last two miles really was just so difficult. But next time I will stand straight.

But it’s a metaphor for life, isn’t it? It’s so easy to just, you know, let it defeat you and you’ve just got to stand tall – walk tall.

Gillian: I think that”s right. I think so much of it is in our heads as well. And that’s around almost anything we want to achieve, not just any kind of physical sports as well. It’s about how you deal with problems. I find that certainly with having kids and having to parent them through. When they’re babies, you don’t think it’s easy, but it is, because you’ve just got to feed them and keep them alive and then they get bigger and they’ve got to go out into big bad world and you’re responsible for welcoming them home and making things okay in the end. And as a parent, I’ve sort of accepted, you know, it’s helped me solidify kind of thinking around resilience and and bouncing back from problems and how problems are actually just an opportunity to learn more, ask more questions, be better next time, and do all of that while keeping something at your core that keeps you aware of your own value. This sort of balance, isn’t it, about seeing problems or challenges, but keeping your own value at the centre, which is so important?

Alex: Yeah, it’s really important to know what your own values are. And I mean, I don’t talk much about my children, but actually I have brought up two children. That’s been quite a big part of the last 20 years of my life. My daughter is 21 next week. So I think, you know, you have to know what your values are. And I recommend getting a notepad out and writing them down because, you know, sometimes we just don’t think about our values and what they are. But when you see them written down, it’s really powerful and then it helps you make decisions about what you’re going to do in any given set of circumstances. So, you know, when you do have a difficult decision to make, you can you make it according to your values?

Because you can’t, you cannot live a happy and productive life if you’re going against your own values.

Gillian: And so what’s next with your running?

Alex: Well, now then, it’s two, it’s nearly two weeks since the half marathon. I look at the marathon, I just, the half marathon was so hard. I’m not sure what I’m going to do with my running, but I need to do something because I don’t…what I thought was I might try and get a bit faster and there is like there is, there’s a guy who does like some training, according to my trainer, Paul.

And I think what I’d like to do is because I have very self-limiting beliefs, I think I’m slow, but I, I don’t think I necessarily am. So I would like to explore that, I think and then see and then maybe do another half and then then then see what happens. I’m going to keep my running twice a week for sure. I love it. I love it.

Gillian: Yeah. Do you think’s important for your mental health as well as physical health?

Alex: Absolutely. I think, I think, that’s…I think all exercise. You know, you don’t have to run. You can walk, you know, just do half hour workouts every day. I think it’s, it’s vital. I think my mental health would not be good without exercise. I think with the running it’s just so…it gives you an, it gives you more of a mental boost than than doing a workout in a gym because you can hardly believe you’re doing it.

You know, when you get home after six miles and you’re like, yeah, around six, six before breakfast. Now what? So I think it makes yeah, I think it’s a huge mental boost. Once you start running.

Gillian:  Do you consider it a spiritual activity – running?

Alex: I think I probably do, actually. Yeah. I think that my preference is to run in the countryside and I like running on the Downs because I feel, I just feel that it can…I think connection with nature is so…it sounds cheesy doesn’t it, when people say that.

Gillian: But I think it is true. And so you can be cheesy. It’s okay.

Alex:  Okay. I think when you get out and into the green and the blue and the clouds and the wheat and the fields and, you know, I think it’s just a reminder of how blessed we actually are. I think, I think you…it helps you. It helps your brain expand because you’re not in the streets and you’re not in your house and you’re it’s almost as if your eyesight widens.

When I first went on anti-depressants I had this really weird experience where I felt like I could see out of the corners of my eyes. It was really, really surreal. And I, I’m quite a big fan of antidepressants, actually, because, I do think they help fix me, but I think that’s how I feel when I’m out in nature. I just feel as if my whole vision expands and I can see more of the world and feel more of the world. So yeah, I think it is spiritual.

Gillian: It’s interesting and I have the same…I’m, I’m not very well at the moment. I’m just getting over COVID and I had the same experience when…not running but actually going to Choral Evensong the other day because I’d be stuck in my house all day. I was worried about work, then worried about the washing, you know, that kind of universe I was living in. And then, I’m lucky to live next to a Cathedral. I went to Choral Evensong and I just like, ahhhh, I’m surrounded by thousands of years of history, of people being stressed about their washing and their work, and it’s all going to be okay. And it just sort of lifts your eyes up above, above what you’re doing and connection, connects you into the story, the story of our faiths or the story of our history, our place and connection with other people. Because we don’t worship alone in churches.

Alex: Yesterday, I mean, yesterday was Yom Kippur, which is a Jewish day of atonement. My mum’s not very mobile so we, thank goodness for Zoomi, we were just saying that, can you imagine like all the services were on Zoom and, you know, such a powerful day. You know, you’re supposed to fast. I wasn’t…I didn’t fast totally because I didn’t want my mum to fast. You know, it’s a powerful thing to sit for a day and think about death and think about life and think about, you know, to pray all day. It’s just like I love day of atonement, you know, because when do you get to do that? Just to pray all day and not worry about, as you say, not worry about the washing or food or anything? You know, it’s a it’s a very powerful and restorative…and I feel much and I feel great today. I feel, I can feel the extra energy from, from the day. So, yeah, it’s amazing

Gillian: And it does also sound countercultural – a day of thinking about death, you know, and it doesn’t sound like the most energising thing, but it is because it’s the elephant in the room, isn’t it? We have in this Christian tradition, the closest would probably…but doesn’t quite carry…but if you think about all souls, all saints at the end of November, that kind of period in our lives, both in autumn in the Western Hemisphere as well.

It is really important because, you know, it doesn’t matter if you’re buying…if you’re in the gym or buying a health magazine or at Holland and Barratt buying some more supplements. You know, actually, the thing our faith can do is help us understand death. And that’s and that can help us to flourish in life. It is weird, but it’s, it’s true. We’ve got thousands of years of history to show that haven’t we.

Alex: Yeah, I think it’s you know, it’s always been in my life like it it’s, it’s something that I’ve always done Yom Kippur. So it’s a day where you descend to the gates, you know, you you descend into death. It’s there. It’s the structure of the day is that you descend and then the last service is the memorial service, and then and then literally the dawn is coming. I mean, that’s the language, the language is all like that. You know, ‘evening has come’. You know, ‘the doors are opening’, we’re in, ‘we’re emerging, we’re merging back into life’. And I think it’s it’s always been very powerful to me that you can do that in a day.

Gillian: And emerging back into life. So what’s next for you? You mentioned coaching quite a few times. Is this something you’re exploring in terms of your own wellbeing and flourishing?

Alex: Yes, I love coaching, so I’m actually doing a diploma in in positive coaching, which is positive, like using positive psychology, which is a great strand of psychology and one that I feel very comfortable with. So I’m actually doing it with Andy Ramage, who founded One Year No Beer, You know, he’s got a coaching company now and yeah, I just oh, I just absolutely love it.

So I decided at age 50 that I what I want to do now is I want to help. But it came to me in a sort of flash. I want to help people. I love it, in my broadcasting, I love it when I do something that I think is going to give people hope and happiness. I actually like, you know, I don’t want to do hard news anymore really, I like it when a piece of radio that’s really uplifting. I like that. I want to help people. So yeah, I’m I’m doing this coaching and hopefully come February I’ll be starting to to offer coaching to people. I’m really excited about it.

Gillian: So can you summarise positive psychology for people who don’t know?

Alex: I don’t know how well I can do it, but it’s the idea really that you don’t need to be. It’s kind of not fixing an illness, if you like. So it’s kind of operating from the point of view that and from a lot of science and a lot of data, that when you when you take a positive step or you consume something that makes you feel positive or you just alter your brain to think positively, it has a dramatic..it actually affect your brain. I mean, it has a big effect on your life. So it’s simple things like writing down what you’re grateful for, writing down three things that you…went well that day. I’m doing that at the moment for a month, just for my own practice. So every day I write down three things that were, three good things that happened. So it’s, it is positive psychology is using positive tools and techniques to help change your behaviour and and achieve your potential.

Gillian: But it’s also it’s celebrating is important, isn’t it? So if you do something and you do it, you’ve got to do a little kind of mantra or almost a physical to celebrate your moment, don’t you?

Alex: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. And you know, even if it’s just I used to laugh and say, you know, we make a big deal out of people who run marathons and half marathons and stuff in our culture. But sometimes I would just be amazed if I did the washing up in the evening. I can remember when the kids were small and things were tough, and if I did the washing up in the evening, it was a massive achievement and I would always give myself a big pat on the back for it.

I think that you should look at the small things in your life and not, not worry too much about you know…Although I do think having a big scary goal makes a big difference too. And I believe everyone should set a big scary goal.

Gillian:  We’ve got a very big, scary goal at the Guild of Health and St. Raphael because we want to help everyone access the positivity, the health and the flourishing that can be found through faith. And our angle is through faith in Jesus Christ and it is huge and it is overwhelming. But the only ways we can do it is through connecting with other people.

I’m one of a few team members who are amazing, but it’s all about enabling and empowering other people to do that as well. And it’s the small stories, Alex, that’s why I’m just so pleased to chat with you because your work with BBC Local Radio, we started this interview. You chatted about the small positive stories, I mean, and the trickle down effect of that if somebody is having a bad day and hear something on the radio. It’s stories that it’s human, small human stories, small human acts of kindness that can genuinely change the world and change our communities one step at a time and it’s connecting it all together. I think the tricky thing is believing in the scale of that, isn’t it? You know, we’ve been chatting now for maybe half an hour and my phone’s on silent and I’ve had two devastating bits of news come in on my phone, just, you know, something in Ukraine, something in Thailand, and you just think, oh, you know, I’m hit by this.

I’m trying not to look at my phone because I am listening to you. But I was like, man, that is really tough just to have that impact in a day to day life and also worrying about the washing up. How do you keep the scale of it? There’s a tension in that isn’t there – in living in an interconnected complex, uncertain, unstable world, but only being an individual. That that’s a tricky thing. But I think that’s what we’re talking about, isn’t it?

Alex: It is. It is. And I think that, I think that for somebody who works in the news, I limit my access to news, so I make sure I know what’s going on. But I don’t watch rolling news. I just don’t watch rolling news. I don’t watch the 10 o’clock news now anymore because I just need to go to bed and have a good night’s sleep and then I’ll find out in the morning, is my view.

And I think, I think, boost – I think you have to actively boost your positive content. I mean, you have to actually go and find TEDTalks or podcasts or something so that in your day you are actively consuming something that is positive.

Gillian: Yes, a proactive, proactive take away, make sure it’s first thing on the to do list before the washing up and everything, is to find, is to inject that.

Alex: Yeah, yeah.

Gillian: Yeah. And that’s that is positive psychology, that is coaching techniques which I think is fascinating. I think it’s really important to engage with, but it’s also our faith inheritance. You know love the Lord your God with all your strength, your heart, your mind and you know, that is your number one as well to start this day – it’s in the Jewish heritage, is that, you know, we’ve got it in the Christian heritage, too, because we’re linked as well. You know, it is, you know, ground zero for positive psychology, isn’t it?

Alex: I mean, it is, you know, and the Shema is a prayer that you are supposed to say, like when you go out, when you come in, when you lie down, when you rise up, you know, you are supposed to say it all the time. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your might. You know, that’s that’s simple but hard, because, you know, even like, sometimes I’m like, really, love God?  But what does that mean? 

Gillian:  It’s also deeply liberating, I find as well, because we have a need in our society to control everything and to think we’re sort of demigods, mini gods in charge of everything, which is fine when things are going well, but when things go badly, that can have a huge impact on our self identity and worth and the faith flip way to deal with it is says actually everything’s all God’s. And if things don’t work out, it’s of God. God’s here anyway no matter and full of forgiveness and love and mercy as well, as well. So it’s, it’s almost a deeply liberating position to take. And we don’t have to think that we’ve got control over everything. This is God’s world that we just get to hang out in for a while or join in with as well.

Alex: My job has given me access to so many people of faith, you know, and sometimes faith organisations drive me nuts and I disagree with them and I don’t like what they’re saying. And, you know, church politics always drives me nuts. But I think that it has given me…so I may follow a Jewish tradition, but actually I feel very connected to all the faith traditions that I meet.

I sort of feel as if we’re all on the same path, actually, and we’re all connected to a very similar power, whatever we call it. You know, I don’t know how fashionable or acceptable that is as a viewpoint, but that is very much the position I’ve come to after ten years of religious broadcasting.

Gillian: Alex, thank you so much for coming on the GoHealth podcast. I think it’s a really positive vision to end on. Thank you for sharing your story. Thank you for sharing so many tips. We’ll try to get as many as possible in the notes from this episode as well. So thank you, Alex. God bless you and everything you’re doing and I look forward to hearing about the faster next half marathon.

Alex: Thank you so much, Gillian.

[MUSIC]

Gillian: So, that was my conversation with Alex – thank you so much for listening – what did you think? 

And we’d love to know what you thought of the podcast – This Podcast is freely available to all but we pick up the conversation in the GoHealth community.  

If the themes in today’s conversation resonated with you, we’d love to invite you to join our GoHealth Commnity. This is where we get together, get resourced, and get connected so that we try to live up to our tagline – together we flourish.  

Thank you to wendy for production of this podcast.  

Please rate and subscribe the podcast – why not share it on your social media streams – we want as many people as possible to experience these conversations and to connect into to us. That would be amazing.  So, in the meantime, God bless, let connect and chat, please join our vision to help flourishing in the world, because together we flourish.