Welcome to the Explorers Mind podcast,
Where we will inspire and empower you through conscious conversations with explorers of the inner and outer worlds that have ventured into uncharted territory,
Pursued bold challenges,
Found their purpose,
And expanded their consciousness.
We will journey through the insights and experiences of adventurers,
Scientists,
Conscious leaders,
Founders,
Activists,
And artists,
And provide you with the practical tools you need to get out of your comfort zone,
Expand your mind,
Find deep fulfillment,
And create an inspiring vision for your life.
It's time to find your inspiration and open up new possibilities for a meaningful life with your host,
Alma Michel.
Welcome to the Explorers Mind.
Today's guest is Jill Hicks.
Jill is one of the most powerful and thought-provoking advocates on the value of each individual,
How we are all responsible for the evolution of humanity and the sustainability of the world around us.
Her vital work,
Particularly encountering violent extremism,
Became her focus after she was left severely and permanently injured from the actions of a suicide bomber in the coordinated attack on London's transport network in July 2005.
Prior to the bombings,
Jill was a respected figure within the fields of architecture and design in London,
From publisher of Blueprint to director of Dangerous Minds Design,
And then head curator at the Design Council.
Jill was and has continued to be recognized and awarded for her many contributions to the arts,
Healthcare,
And peace building.
Combining her passion for design and her devotion to communicating the importance of the individual,
She formed both Mad Minds,
A think and do agency,
And Mad Music Art Discussion,
An arts-based social enterprise,
A published author,
Musician,
Artist,
And mother to a wonderful girl.
Jill's appreciation and gratitude for life is prevalent and inspiring and infectious.
She's certainly a living testament to what can be achieved through courage,
Belief,
And absolute determination.
I have recently met Jill when I spoke on a panel about fear and her comments around compassion and respecting each individual and how to work with fear were deeply inspiring to me.
So I was really keen to get Jill on this show and have this conversation today.
Jill,
Welcome to the show.
It's so great to have you here with us today.
Thank you.
It's an absolute honor and privilege to be here with you.
Jill,
What I always do when I invite someone to my show,
I listen to,
I basically immerse myself in my guest's world.
And so I've listened to a lot of your talks and interviews that are really inspiring.
And what I found really interesting that you basically say you had two lives.
There was a life before the bombings.
And then there was one after.
There was probably many reiterations,
I imagine.
But I'm really curious to hear,
Particularly for the benefit of our listeners who may not all be as familiar with you,
Who were you before the bombings?
It's interesting to think about the who I was,
Because I'd like to think that there is a continuing idea of the spirit and soul and I guess the celebration almost of that I've retained this Jill that I knew despite and in spite of any adversity being thrown my way.
But I do look at the moment of the bombing as a demarcation line.
And I think about the Jill in life number one of everything before July 7,
2005.
And in many ways,
I would love to talk to her.
Because even though I had such brilliant reminders of the fragility of life,
Of the value and importance of life,
I'd lost both of my parents a year apart when I was still quite young.
And that was the catalyst initially for me leaving Australia and going to live in London.
How old were you?
I was 17,
Turning 18,
And then 18,
Turning 19.
And I was with my mum when she died.
And the power of that moment.
So I almost look at her death being the catalyst for a very different and unimagined life for me and giving me,
I guess,
I won't even say the courage,
I would say giving me the curiosity to get on a plane and just completely want to court the unknown with absolutely no fear,
Because the curiosity was the driver.
And so having that as a very core to my first life of the death of both parents,
Which I see parents as almost like an anchor in our lives.
That we can sail off and do all these crazy things,
But that there's always this idea of home.
And there's always mum.
And I think the mum figure is.
And I'm not saying that dads aren't important.
Of course they are.
But there's something about the mum and the mothering.
And so having her gone sort of spun me into a whole new existence.
And I landed in London.
And I remember feeling this is going to be the make or the break of me.
Because I knew no one.
So not a single soul.
And coming for any of your listeners that know London well,
I mean,
It's kind of an extraordinary place because particularly commuting,
Because no one's really allowed to talk to anyone and not allowed to look at anyone.
So there's this sort of silent masses of people all hovering around in the underground.
And I didn't get that memo.
So there I was,
This fresh Australian going up to strangers.
Oh,
Hi,
How are you?
What do you do?
I'm looking for a job.
So I blush at my naivety of that time.
But given that also,
I set myself up for a rather tough path.
And I went into a profession where it was particularly male dominated.
And I self-imposed ideas of very much feeling like I was inadequate.
I was young.
I was female.
And I wasn't British.
I was Australian.
So I thought I had a lot to prove.
And all of those things enabled me to believe that I had to become a workaholic.
And I would be the person that would never go on holiday,
Particularly now I look at the moments that I would escape into mainland Europe.
And I would feel guilty that I,
You know,
And I'd rush back to London because I needed to finish a project.
And it's very easy,
Actually,
Because before you know it,
10 years can evaporate.
And you think,
Well,
Oh,
I've got some fancy business cards.
And I've got some great titles on my business cards.
But apart from that,
I'm not living.
But I didn't know that then.
Exactly.
I was just about to ask,
Like in hindsight,
One knows that.
And I can certainly say that about my life.
And I see this with discussions with people at the end of their lives.
But while you're in it,
Most often we don't take that perspective.
It's just go,
Go,
Go,
Go,
Go.
And the only way is up,
Really.
Yes.
And I think particularly when it's laced with these ideas of not being good enough.
And there's no evidence for that.
There was everything pointed to me having the most incredible fast track career.
And yet it was my own ideas of inadequacy.
And I don't know where and how deep lying they perhaps were.
But as I said,
The only wish I could ever want would be to go and talk to that general.
And I think of myself then as always a very loving,
Caring person.
But I wasn't present in that life.
And even though my parents had,
My mother died of cancer,
There I was smoking 40 cigarettes a day.
And then I thought,
Oh,
I'll try and give up smoking.
So I'll start smoking a pipe.
And then I thought,
Oh,
I'll start smoking cigars,
Actually.
So it's like,
I don't know,
15 cigars a day.
It was crazy.
Out of control.
And I now look at that as like,
How could have I abused this amazing body?
How would I know that it would go on to do so much for me?
So again,
It was this blase attitude where I wasn't present with myself.
And I looked at my urgent folder was perhaps the equivalent of a Bible of the most important book in my life and the highlighter pen and the tick boxes and being at my desk at 730 most mornings and leaving at half 10 most evenings.
And the irony being that the only day that I was ever late for work was the morning of the bomb blast.
The only day.
Have you in your mind initially when that happened,
Did you go back to that idea like,
Why was I late?
I shouldn't have been late.
Or did you even saw it as a synchronicity in some way because it was so out of character and the ordinary?
You know,
It's 15 years this year.
I still think about the increments of time and how a minute could make such an impact.
And particularly when we look at commuting in the underground in London,
That the tube trains are sometimes just four minutes apart,
Three minutes apart.
So a minute has an impact.
And that morning,
How I didn't have my travel card with me.
So I changed bags,
Didn't put it in.
So I'm lining up to get a ticket.
And then I didn't have the right money for the machine.
So I had to go to the window.
All of these little tiny nuances of moments that are then spliced together to create the perfect storm.
And I found it fascinating.
It's made me really look at time in a wholly different way of the preciousness and the value of a single minute of our lives and how a single minute can have such an impact.
Both ways,
In a positive way and in a tragic way.
Indeed,
Both ways.
And that what we do and don't do at each moment does matter.
And there is a significance to everything,
Single thing that happens.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That to me.
So if I look at it in a different way,
I guess I've tried to explore why are we here?
What's our meaning?
Is there a purpose to it all?
And I guess what I'm sitting with at the moment is,
Are our lives just a quest to discover our capability or the hidden measures of all that we do?
So exactly as you've just said,
That every single action,
Every thought that leads to an action has an implication.
Good,
Bad,
Indifferent,
Everything has an implication.
And is that our quest to discover that by the end of our lives?
I don't know.
But it's certainly,
It's made me reflect on the depths and the breadth of all that we are in as a universe and ourselves.
And that there is so much more than what we,
When we're in a rush and we're rushing and we're workaholics,
We don't see.
Yeah.
Could we return to that morning in 2005?
And could you walk us through your internal experience because I'm aware of it and I've heard you share it numerous times,
But always slightly differently.
So it would be amazing if you could share what has happened inside of you during this attack.
So on the morning,
So I used to be very,
Very short and that used to always fill me with so much frustration because trying to board a train and be so much smaller than the general population meant that I'd have to have to place myself in right in the center of a queue to get in.
And I remember a train went by and I didn't get managed to get in.
And so in my mind that morning,
I made a decision,
Which was,
I will get on this next train.
And I was determined that I would fight my way in regardless of who I pushed back.
And I'm not normally like that,
But I think because I was running late and it was,
I felt so out of character,
So at odds with myself because I was never late.
And I remember pushing myself onto this train.
And now to know that in fact,
Boarding with me at exactly the same time was a 19 year old suicide bomber is extraordinary to contemplate because my mind and my thoughts,
Everything in those moments getting into the tube carriage were about wanting the train doors to close so the train could take off and I could get to my office and I could get on with my day because I was so late.
So I was filled with frustration from the whole moment.
And I remember that there was a rather large built man between me and whom I now know to be the suicide bomber.
And I remember his breath on my head and how,
Again,
How annoyed I was that,
Oh,
And I was annoyed at so many things.
I was annoyed that I was short.
I was annoyed that I was late and I was annoyed that I was wedged into this carriage.
Of course,
I would never be able to appreciate that that person essentially saved my life by purely where he was standing.
And we were just seconds,
Just seconds out from the station and everything just went into a dark blackness.
There was no sound.
There was no there was no sound of thinking I'm in a bomb.
It was just one minute the lights were on and everything was what you would perceive as normal.
And within a breath,
Everything was black and not just black.
It was a thick thickness to the air that that I felt that I was flying,
That I was still.
I had no idea.
And I remember vividly that my initial thoughts were,
Oh,
My gosh,
I've just died.
I've died.
I must have had a heart attack and I'm dead because we don't know what dead is.
And I thought,
This is what's just happened to me.
I've just died.
And it wasn't until I heard the screams of others that I felt so comforted by that because I realized that I'm not dead.
I'm here.
Something's happened.
I have no idea what's happened.
But the comfort being we're all in this together.
Whatever's happened,
We're all in it.
It's not just me alone.
And so there was this sort of wave of calm that went through me to say it's OK.
We're all we're all here.
And it's funny to think that life can just change like that in a breath.
And then how quickly we readjust.
So how quickly I felt that I was readjusting to this surreal environment that maybe once was a tube carriage,
But certainly didn't resemble anything to do with a tube carriage now.
And I was on the ground or what I thought was the ground.
And I remember looking around and I looked down to where my legs had been and the blackness had lifted to a sort of a gray.
And I was trying to work out what are my eyes seeing.
And this fantastic relationship between my eyes and my brain that my eyes were taking in information that my brain could not decipher,
But doing its best job to report back to me to say this looks worse than it is.
Keep calm.
Don't worry.
Keep calm.
And I remember being so puzzled as to think,
Well,
My legs aren't there.
Where are my legs?
And and my brain telling me,
Look,
It's all right.
Don't overreact.
It will be fine.
They will come.
And there was always a sense of they,
Whoever they are,
Whoever the rescuers will be,
They will come have faith and they will come.
And we were in that situation for an hour,
Which is a very,
Very long time.
Did it feel that long?
It felt like an eternity.
And my panic was,
Does anyone know we're down here?
You know,
It's that's the only time I panicked.
Again,
I reassured myself to say,
This is London.
The tubes are running every few minutes.
They're going to know the tube didn't come.
Someone will come.
I had,
Of course,
Not ever thinking for a moment that it was something so sinister as a deliberate attack.
And the thing that's sort of got to me a lot,
Actually,
And it's shaped a lot of my life is those moments in that hour of,
You know,
We were anonymous,
Silent commuters,
Completely dedicated to the etiquette of travelling in London.
And then here we were absolutely reaching out for each other to make sure we were OK.
And that to me was extraordinary that someone was holding my hand and that I was holding someone else's hand all in the dark.
But we were there keeping each other up and buoyant and awake.
And there was this sort of a natural roll call that was happening in the carriage.
And we would call out our first names and just say,
I'm still here.
I'm still here.
And I remember those who were fading away.
We would all concentrate on that person and say,
Come on,
Come on,
Come on,
Stay with us.
And that really got to me.
I understood how incredible it was in that moment because of how dedicated we were to being anonymous just minutes beforehand.
And now it mattered.
You know,
We really mattered to each other.
And that kept me alive for that hour.
And I'm again,
We talked about all of this idea of time and minutes.
I don't know how I managed to be able to stay awake.
I remember the harrowing recollection from my rescuers.
And we shared the story of how I said for me,
It was seeing their torch light.
And it was that moment of just seeing a torch and feeling that I could calm myself and surrender.
That I had done everything I could do.
And now I could just give my body to those who knew what they were doing.
And I'll never forget that feeling of lightness,
Of giving myself.
And we've spoken extensively.
I made a point of meeting every single person involved in my rescue.
And I asked them a lot about how did I stay alive?
Because the records show that I lost anywhere between 75 to 80% of my blood.
So there was very little that kept my heart going.
And it just seemed that there were the right people in the right moments that did the right things.
Even if it was against protocol that kept me alive.
And that's actions of even someone saying,
I want some ice to put around my head.
You know,
Things like that.
Extraordinary,
Extraordinary actions by people that enabled me to be alive.
To be the Jill thread that still exists to this day.
And listening to you and you just pointing this out right now.
That again,
It was not just one incident,
One person,
But all these little tiny things that came together.
Like you shared before,
It's just like all these moments.
I forgot my card.
I went down the wrong turn.
I was one minute late.
Everything matters.
Yes,
That's it.
Everything matters.
And then I heard you describe before that you had this internal dialogue between the voice of life as you describe it and the voice of death.
And also then I think your heart stopped beating for about 28 minutes or so.
Was that all in the carriage or did that happen later?
No.
So my,
It's so difficult to ever articulate the absolute experience and feeling to speak to death.
I reckon because it's a bit similar,
Like with near death experiences or when you have a meditative experience,
A transcendent experience,
That part that has to explain it later wasn't present and it tries to then explain it to someone else.
What just happened?
So,
So part of,
Part of understanding that my legs had gone,
I remembered that there was this,
This female voice and it was beautiful.
It was very soft.
And it was saying to me,
Jill,
You don't want to live like this.
Come,
Come,
Come with me.
And I remembered that this idea that I knew exactly what this voice was asking of me,
Which was,
If I go,
There is no coming back.
And it was,
But it was a beauty that,
That is indescribable in itself.
And it again,
Made me,
Made me question the,
The idea of,
Is this a parallel existence?
Is this something else?
Is it because it feels so good?
I want to go with this voice.
And as I was contemplating this and trying to understand that this voice was saying,
You've lost your legs.
This is not,
You don't want to live like this.
I was trying to understand what that meant and interrupting this beauty was this other voice and it was angry at me.
And I,
And I remember feeling like,
Oh no,
I'm in a lot of trouble for wanting to go.
Like,
How dare you?
And it was saying,
How dare you,
There is so much that you need to do,
Whether you've got legs,
It doesn't matter.
There is a lot that you need to do,
But it almost felt like this voice was throwing its hands up to say,
But it's your choice.
And I felt this absolute sense that I was being given a choice of whether I wanted to stay or go.
But I absolutely knew that if I was choosing to live,
That I was signing a new contract and that my life would never be the same.
And it wasn't about my physical injuries that I had no understanding in that moment of what I would go on to do.
But I absolutely understood that it was a whole new vow of devotion to something else.
And it was that in itself was a little bit terrifying to think.
So what am I signing up for?
What is this strange place I'm in right now?
But the moment I decided that I do want to stay and that I will sign this metaphorical contract,
A whole new calm washed over my body.
And I found that a lot of our clothing had all been blown off,
But I still had a scarf on.
And I never wear scarves.
This is the only day that I had a scarf on.
And I took my scarf off and I ripped it in two and I tied tourniquets up to the tops of my legs,
Not knowing where I would get the presence of mine to do that.
And everything was almost telling me step by step,
This is what you need to do.
You need to lower your heart rate.
You need to lower your breathing.
I said to the group,
I won't be calling out my name because I've got to conserve every ounce of energy,
But please know I'm still here.
I just won't be speaking.
And I lifted my body up as much as I could and I just held on and held on and I waited and I had my watch on and I couldn't read my watch face,
But I pretended that what I was doing was focusing my energy and my thoughts on my watch and that they will come.
And I just kept saying to myself,
They will come.
And that's what I did.
And I've got no idea how long I did that for,
But I would say that would probably have been a half an hour of the hours experience just in my own lowered state of absolute raw survival.
And then the paramedics told me later that I'd had three cardiac arrests as they were rescuing me.
And then when I arrived in the hospital,
I'd been gone,
So clinically gone for a period of just under 30 minutes.
And did you experience that or have any recollection of that?
At all.
30 minutes.
Wow.
Yeah.
It's a long time.
And I met the head of resuscitation who wanted to call the time of death then because he said,
This is futile.
We can't be bringing back someone who's been gone for this long.
And what I didn't know is that it takes a team to all agree.
And the team didn't agree.
They said,
We want to keep going.
So they agreed on a specific time to keep resuscitating.
And that was three minutes,
30 seconds.
And there it is again,
This idea that everyone matters.
Everyone matters.
And there was a heartbeat that came back just as three minutes passed.
So I had 30 seconds to front up.
Otherwise they would have all agreed and said,
No,
It's time to call time of death.
Wow.
Yeah.
And have you ever contemplated the what ifs?
I mean,
30 seconds.
All the time.
All the time.
It is to the point,
I'm trying not to let it drive me crazy.
But it like,
I often put a stopwatch on and think,
Wow,
That was just 30 seconds.
That's what I had.
I had just that now,
Just that amount of time.
So I've always set myself these little project goals of what could I do to change somebody positively if I just have 30 seconds with them?
Amazing.
And what came up for you?
30 seconds of change.
That's the quest.
You know,
To me,
It's keeping the channels.
So I've got to keep looking at all the frequencies and all the channels of how do people really hear?
And when they're hearing,
What are they hearing?
And hence why I look at everything from speaking to music to art to anything to silence.
I've done with global groups,
Two hours of silence.
And that in itself is almost a mind changing,
Shifting process because two hours of absolute silence is actually for a lot of people very hard to do.
I bet.
I mean,
I often start with my coaching clients with five minutes of silence,
Not even meditating,
But just five minutes,
Not doing anything and just observing your thoughts.
As we're into these kind of things,
We're always keeping ourselves occupied.
That's it.
And also for me,
So I'm very hard of hearing.
I've only got half an ear drum left from the blast and I couldn't speak for a long time.
So even just the ability to speak has been miraculous in itself.
So I talk a lot.
So for me to be quiet for two hours,
It's monumental.
If I would be quiet for two hours,
The world could do amazing things.
Wonderful.
And in getting back to the hospital,
Something else remarkable happened when you were lying in the bed.
Can you tell us about that insight and also led to possibly you writing your book and doing some of the work that you're doing?
Look,
I think for me,
It was trying to search.
So I've signed this contract,
But what is it I'm meant to do?
What is that?
And when I was,
I didn't know that this was a suicide bombing.
And so my very first gesturing was trying to understand what happened.
And I remember someone coming in with a newspaper and they showed me and I looked at this person's photograph and I just thought,
That's what I need to do.
I need to do something about people that are finding that division and the chasm of division and falling through the holes and not being connected and not feeling that we are,
You know,
This extraordinary human collective.
That's what I need to work on.
And that was it.
And I had no idea where to start,
But I knew that that was exactly the work that I had to do.
So you had no idea where to start,
But did you have a vision or an image or just a vague idea?
I had,
I guess,
A sense of,
Yes,
Yes,
That is what you're meant to be doing.
And do you know,
It's been sort of funny for me because as I've traveled down that path,
I've often had police friends and other colleagues just say,
How did you get to meet X and how did you do that?
And I said,
I don't know.
I actually don't.
I'll just get,
You know,
Someone will just come into contact with me and the most extraordinary things will happen.
And even in times when I've said,
I have had enough,
You know,
I want to go back to my old life.
I want to go back to my old salary.
I just want things as they were.
I will get a very sharp reminder of exactly why I need to be on this path.
And I don't know if you've got time just for a very quick little example of this,
But I was back in Australia and I've been asked to go out to a place called Caratha,
Which is a town outside of Perth.
I'd never been there and I was put onto a small plane.
And I remember thinking that it's very difficult for me to be sitting in a small plane or a confined space because even though,
You know,
I could just take off my prosthetic legs and I'd be fine.
In air travel,
I can't,
I have to have my prosthetic legs on.
So I was feeling really uncomfortable and I was getting perhaps a little grumpy with my lot,
Which I try to safeguard against.
And I was there and I just thought,
I'm going to change and go back to what I used to do.
This is just ridiculous.
And in that thought moment,
A young person came up to me in the plane and gave me a note.
And this note was,
I couldn't have written it any better myself.
And the idea of the note or the sentiment of the note was basically,
Jill,
Thank you for everything you do and your words and your actions have touched me time and time again.
And I can't believe you're on this plane with me and I feel so honored that I can reach out to you.
The original sits on my desk in a frame because I just thought that person has given me the greatest gift of this pathway.
And that is that even though we might not get anyone that ever says,
Thank you,
You're doing a great job.
She reminded me that there is always someone listening and there's always someone watching.
So everything we do and everything we say really does matter.
Full circle again.
So that's the extraordinary bit of life number two for me of that nothing feels that it's not planned and not meant to be.
But I always find when people slow down and had some transcendental experiences somehow where they just have a bit more of a meta awareness or life slowed down in some way that you see so many synchronicities,
So many things just falling into play.
And it's almost as if it were to teach you to trust in life and that you don't need to know all the answers that you can just take it step by step and almost look for the feedback that you're receiving from the world.
And this can be tiny feedback,
But you just need to be present enough to notice it in some ways.
And within that,
When you're present,
You also get to indulge in the awe of yourself of how amazing we actually are.
I have to talk about myself for the third person because I just think I'm constantly in awe of even just watching my body heal on the burns and being able to walk on prosthetic legs.
And I remember my physiotherapist saying to me,
Jill,
90% of your ability to walk on prosthetic legs and balance and almost go forth without feeling the ground,
90% comes from your mind.
Isn't that incredible?
90% is my thinking that I am able and the other 10% is my body doing it.
And that just,
Wow.
Wow.
It's an amazing insight because to me,
It's always through our thoughts,
We create our reality and I wonder how this insight that you had through this toughest of all teachers of having to learn how to walk,
Learn how to speak and learn the most basic things,
Realizing that your mind plays such an important part in what you're thinking,
How has that influenced your relationship with your thoughts and how you motivate yourself or others?
I think the bad days that I have are the days when I have allowed my thoughts not to be brilliant and not to govern me,
Where I've allowed the narrative of my thoughts to say,
Oh,
You're having a bad day.
You can't walk today.
You're immobile.
It's all doom and gloom.
And particularly around this time of pandemic,
It's very easy to allow outer influences to affect your inner self.
So I have those times where I've got to almost stop and literally stop and say to myself,
Why are you thinking like this?
You know that you can think better than that.
And you know that you can design your way through and out and keep going back into that wonderful motion of designing solutions,
Because I think that's where we are naturally sitting as thinking human beings.
We keep designing solutions.
We've got to just point the direction to say design positive solutions and not negative solutions because a solution may be sit on the couch and watch TV and give up.
It's a solution.
So it's about putting the thoughts in to say,
Well,
But that's not really a quality of a life that you want to say is well-lived.
So start that perpetual motion of seeking positive contributing solutions.
And again,
Look,
I don't think my vow allows me to have too much indulgent downtime.
I keep getting the come on,
Back up.
You've got work to do.
It's interesting that you say that.
To me,
I always feel that indulgent downtime,
It depends what it is.
But to me,
It's this idea that nature is also,
It's chaos and it's logic,
It's rest and it's speeding up.
I mean,
Of course,
Like let's say a week,
Morning to evening,
Just watching Netflix shows might contradict quite a lot with this urgency for living a life.
Well,
Not just for yourself,
But also for others.
But sometimes the mind is just fried and sometimes it doesn't need downtime in order for a new insight to pop up.
How do you dance that dance in your own life?
For me,
And I love that you've brought nature into this because for me,
The ocean is the speaker of all wisdom.
So I'm very,
Very fortunate to be back here now in Australia and not too far from an ocean.
It's omnipresent in our lives.
And I find that if I'm trying to puzzle something out or not,
Just the motion and the tide,
I find absolutely fascinating because I love this idea that I am so insignificant and that this great body of water has heard it all before and that she majestically will come in and go out and almost in that rhythm say to me,
Oh,
Jill,
Jill,
Jill,
Jill,
Jill.
And there's that almost that sense of mother.
And that's how I feel about the ocean,
That sense of mother,
Of wisdom,
And that I'm insignificant.
And yet I can be significant in a moment,
But I am just that moment.
And it helps me,
I guess,
Recalibrate to a degree.
It helps me just feel a bit lighter and ready to say,
Oh,
Well,
We'll see what pops up for tomorrow and I'll find a new direction if I'm stuck in something that doesn't feel quite right,
Then I feel that I can release that and something else will come.
Beautiful.
And it's beautiful that you use the ocean with this.
I'm insignificant,
But I'm also significant as the ocean is so significant,
But each single wave isn't really,
Unless it's a big wave or unless it touches someone somehow.
I would imagine that many people would have expected you to be frustrated and angry.
And I heard you say that there is a way of using anger in a constructive way.
So anger is important and is an absolutely human emotion and it's normal to have it,
But you can use it for yourself or against yourself and for others or against others.
Could you talk to that?
I found it very interesting,
Actually,
This idea of separating out the emotions.
So for me to be able to say,
Sit with a former or a current person who holds extremist beliefs,
To not have hatred or bitterness has been my great asset.
And I don't feel that at all.
And I've had to really explore why do I not feel hatred or bitterness?
And even as the years go on,
My body form and my way of life is completely,
Completely changed by the actions of one person on the morning of Thursday,
The 7th of July,
2005.
And that permanency should be enough for me to say,
Well,
Actually I'm a bit bitter now and it still hasn't crept into my life.
And I'm very grateful for whatever reason that that's not present.
And I've tried to explore,
I think there's something really quite big here that's been the difference for me.
And that is,
And I never ever talk about this lightly.
But I think the difference for me has been this incredible power of love.
And I felt loved the whole time that I was rescued.
I felt someone always holding my hand.
I felt life force coming through someone's hand into my hand.
I felt the gentleness of my face and head being touched.
You know,
Right down to in hospital,
I was only given a wristband that had four words written on it,
Which was one unknown estimated female.
Wow.
So that changed everything for me because I realised that I was loved and it didn't matter who I was,
Essentially what I was,
All that mattered was that I was a human being.
And that has really carried me.
It's carried me all of these years to feel that the power of love is so much greater than hatred and that it is life giving.
And every day I've had since this bombing has been,
It's the honour of having a life.
And for me,
That honour needs to be shown with gratefulness.
And I don't want to be bitter and disregard the honour of having a life.
But you're right.
And when you've talked about being angry,
I then also had to separate out,
But why do I feel so angry?
And I realised that my anger was of a positive balance.
So my anger was the stuff that motivated me to keep getting up every day and to keep saying,
How are you making a difference,
Jill?
How are you going to be involved in this going forth to make sure that you've done everything you possibly could for no one else to know what you know?
And it was that,
That anger and it's still there today,
15 years on,
That keeps me awake,
Alert,
Dedicated,
Committed,
But it's positive.
So I see getting angry as a great motivator because I can't rest in a state of complacency.
And when you say that you have this responsibility to share what you know,
What others don't know,
What exactly is that?
That one insight or these insights that you have that the world needs to know and then almost the anger and frustration.
And this is not something that everyone already knows.
I think the main thing for me is all the destruction that happens from us looking at each other as the other,
As the different,
As the threat and not looking at each other as one species,
As one human being.
Look,
Even things like this pandemic,
I've always then thought,
Okay,
If we,
If we as a world population have,
Have a common enemy,
Then perhaps that's what we all need to bring us together.
Maybe that's what it is.
I don't know.
And then we are given a common enemy and we haven't all come together to help each other.
There are beautiful stories.
There are beautiful highlights,
But I think that they're perhaps those particular human beings and those particular communities that would be doing those things anyway.
So for me,
It's a time of incredible frustration of,
And I guess,
Yes,
Some anger at saying,
Please,
We have this one little tiny bit of life and it is such a tiny little space that we have to be.
And I would just love everyone to be able to know that tiny bit of time on this planet as a time of being able to say,
I lived,
I was here,
And this was my legacy.
And this is what I left behind.
And every time that we leave something behind,
It is for the evolving next generation.
So that as each generation passes,
We have a sense of humanity evolving,
Lifting,
Growing,
That we are thinking human beings and that we have this thing called history that we keep repeating.
And it's just,
To me,
It's so frustrating because I'm desperate to say,
Come on,
It doesn't have to be like this.
And I look,
I'm not being naive.
I understand that some of the hurts within this world are so deep and generational and you can't just wipe them away.
But equally,
My life changed in a breath.
My life changed in 30 seconds.
And I would like to feel that perhaps we are capable of looking at each other very differently than with fear or otherness.
And already that idea normally,
I guess when people speak about self-development or spirituality,
Also there's always this idea that you can only have these deep insights after years and years and years.
And insight can happen in a second.
And one insight can change everything.
That might not change immediately all of your actions,
But it has shaken up your core beliefs in such a fundamental way that it's no longer possible to go back to how you used to be because something fundamentally changed.
Completely,
Completely right.
And to feel such love as an anonymous human being,
To feel such incredible love,
A love that has sustained me 15 years,
That's how powerful that love is.
Imagine that this love and this peace that you experienced in this moment,
But also in these precious minutes or hour between life and death,
Where I feel that this kind of love and peace is really at the core of who we are.
What do you feel is the biggest obstacle for people to show that love or experience that love and that feeling of connectivity with each and every one?
I think there's a few things.
I think for me,
Fear is a very,
Very interesting complex subject.
Fear of if I back down,
Then I'm going to be seen as being weak.
Fear of allowing myself fully to be vulnerable,
To give myself to the world,
To love.
What happens if I take that leap and it's not reciprocated back?
And someone might be listening to this podcast and saying,
Oh yes,
But Jill has been given all these messages from the universe,
But what happens if I don't get that?
So fear of even being unable to connect,
Of not knowing how to be still to connect.
And then I think there's possibly underneath fear is a sense that we need to feel a lot more confident.
So it's how do we build our confidence as an individual?
Because when you're confident,
And this is only my theory,
That no matter what you think or you believe or religion that you practice,
I don't have to feel in any way,
Shape or form threatened because I can say,
Well,
I feel confident in what I believe and who I am and how wonderful that you feel confident in who you are and what you believe.
And we can beautifully co-exist knowing that we live within our own self idea of confidence and that we don't have to prove that I'm right.
And I think that perhaps is the evolution that I would love to see within us.
That I no longer have to prove that I'm right or that my God is better than your God,
Or that I can elevate myself through wealth,
Financial wealth,
That I can be and I can just be of value by being a contributing human being.
It's basically almost like knowing that you're of value because you are a one unknown just simply because you are.
That's it.
I was worth people risking their own lives to enter a situation where the tunnel may have collapsed,
Where as we saw in Madrid just a few months before London,
There was deliberate secondary devices put under the trains to target the rescue effort.
So I'm worth people actually putting their own lives at risk.
And I was just one unknown estimator female.
Irrespective of how successful you were in that moment,
Irrespective of your skin color,
Your religion,
Your intellect,
Your sexual preferences,
Just simply because you were.
Yeah,
Simply because I was.
You mentioned before,
Very in the beginning of this interview,
That if you were to speak to the Jill before the bombings,
You were to tell her not just to let 10 years just slip by without fully living,
Without actually realizing the magic of being alive and the preciousness of this life and then every life and your life mattered.
Now there's so many people who I feel that live a life almost as if they were to drive a car with a handbrake that's still pulled up and they do all the right things.
And they were told and maybe even were quite successful and achieved what they wanted to achieve.
But they still have this feeling like a small hint either of dissatisfaction or they know that this is not really it.
What would you tell those people?
Because we said before,
It's so difficult when you're in it to see it,
That this is what's happening to you.
It's very hard because I think that this is it.
When you're in it,
You don't see it.
So whatever words that anyone can say,
You don't hear them because you don't feel that they're talking to you.
And I find that most people that are in this situation and I'm terribly generalizing,
But we're thinking able adults who are probably high flying careers,
Doing very successful things,
And it's very easy to say and to see that that's my only strand of life.
And I've found that there was often a pattern of yes,
But I'm working on this now so that I can get that villa in Italy and then I'll retire early and I'll do this.
So a lot of putting things off saying that I realized that I'm not fully living,
But I will fully live later when I've got where I need to be.
And I think for me,
Particularly around losing both legs,
It's an extreme disability to have.
And I think for me,
I did things like I joined a gym before in life one,
But even when I went to the gym at the reception,
When they took the picture to have on your little card,
I said to the lady behind the counter,
I said,
Look,
I probably won't ever come in again,
But I just put this card in my wallet.
So I feel like I belong to a gym and it's an option,
Even though I will never be here,
It's mentally I've ticked the box.
And I think what I would say to myself is whilst you have everything,
Do everything,
Run around,
Take a day off,
Take time off,
Breathe,
Go to the gym,
Do yoga.
Who knew how amazing?
I watch videos that when people do a yoga,
I just think,
I wish I'd done that.
Although I can put my leg over my head,
But it means I've got to take my legs off.
But there is another dimension that I feel that I in my youth gave away to my desk.
And I will share that when I came,
I came back to work and I think it was only two weeks.
I was back at my office and I remember I had an urgent folder and I went to my desk in a wheelchair and I looked at where my folder was and no one had picked my folder up in six months.
And that was the final nail in the coffin for me of understanding that everything that I placed value on didn't actually have any value at all.
So just that alone made me understand that yes,
Whatever I meant to be doing,
I completely give myself to you and I will go off and do whatever I'm being told and shown to do.
But it also was a very,
Very hard lesson to see that everything I'd valued all of my life that I put into something really didn't matter.
And maybe that's hard for anyone to think about who's listening now that maybe is driving their car with their handbrake on of what happens if you get out of the car?
What if you take a bike?
What if you walked?
And what would the experience be that's completely different if you decided not to even drive the car?
And from your experience having now started two organisations,
Not having the plan fully mapped out,
What is just one thing they need to do to,
Let's say,
Get out of the car?
Open the door.
Open the door.
The smallest thing.
The smallest thing.
The smallest thing,
You've just got to start.
And I think that's,
You know,
We can keep thinking,
Thinking through things,
Asking people,
Have you opened a door before?
Have you gotten out of a car before?
And you can get all these wonderful stories and advice,
But you've just got to put your hand on the lever and open the door.
That's it.
One step at a time and no step is ever too small.
That's it.
One step.
You might just wind down the window.
If you're too frightened to open the door,
Wind down the window,
Stick your head out the window,
Feel the air on your face.
Know that there's something else that maybe is enticing you to open the door fully.
And if you had one last piece of advice or one last insight or comment to share with our listeners,
What would that be?
I think it would be to,
And again,
I don't say this lightly.
I would say one of the greatest things we can ever do is be completely in love with ourselves.
Love ourselves so much that we love our body,
That we want to do everything that's nurturing for ourselves.
And that's the biggest step in opening that metaphoric car door.
Because if we love and value ourselves,
Then we want for ourselves a far grander idea of living than just being stuck in the one lens of life.
So I think the moment we make that shift to say,
I'm amazing.
I am amazing.
I have this incredible digestive system.
I'm amazing.
I had this thought the other day and I fulfilled it.
And I just thought,
I'm going to walk to a fridge and I'm going to pour some orange juice.
And I did it.
I'm amazing.
We are exceptional,
Exceptional.
So it's spending a little bit of time and particularly now if we're faced with different types of living because of the pandemic,
This is the best time to get to know yourself,
To look in yourself,
To look at all these incredible systems within your own body and just be in awe and say,
Wow,
What would you like for dinner tonight?
And you give yourself the most amazing,
Nourishing treat because you know that too much alcohol,
Too much sugar,
Smoking,
Whatever,
You know that that's not great for your beautiful self.
So you would make those choices easily because everything's based on love.
And even when you have the seeping narratives of thoughts that are destructive or,
Or lead down a path that's dark,
Loving yourself will say,
No,
No,
No,
No,
No,
No,
No.
I don't want to spend my time here on this earth being that thinking that I love myself too much.
I'm going to think amazing things and I'm going to allow my body to fulfill those thoughts and do amazing things because I'm incredible.
Imagine that and to really believe it,
To really know it and see it and look at yourself,
No matter how big we are,
How small we are,
Whatever,
Imperfection,
We are the only unique people of our type right now.
There is no one else that's exactly me and there's no one else that's exactly you.
And that is amazing and that we all happen to be here in this time on the planet together.
Wow.
That's exactly that.
Just contemplating for one moment what a gift it is and how rare it is and how many things had to come together to allow you to experience this moment right here,
Right now in this body.
And if you can just really allow the gravity of this to settle in,
You cannot help but be in awe and wonder of the magic that life is.
That's it.
Jill,
Thank you so much.
This was amazing.
The time has passed way too fast.
There's so many things I would love to explore with you.
How can our listeners best keep in touch with you and your work?
Because we haven't even gone down into exploring that you are a singer,
An artist.
How can people follow your work?
So anyone can come and visit me on my website,
Send me an email.
And my website is musicartdiscussion.
Com.
And it would be wonderful to connect with other human beings who are on this planet at the same time.
Wonderful.
I will include that in the show notes as well.
Listening to Jill Gave Me Goosebumps.
Wow,
What an amazing story.
I hope you enjoyed this week's episode.
And as always,
I'd like to ask you,
Is there anything that you see fresh on you after listening to my conversation with Jill?
And this week,
I'd like to invite you to reflect on the notion of timings,
That no moment is ever too short,
And that your life could also change in 30 seconds.
I love Jill's challenge where she asks herself to change someone's life in 30 seconds.
If you had 30 seconds to change someone's life,
What would you do?
What could you do in 30 seconds?
And very often we think we don't have time,
But change really doesn't take that much.
One of my teacher's teachers says small glimpses many times when he speaks about mindfulness practice.
So it's not necessarily about doing something an hour each day,
But in short increments,
Short moments of practice every day can make a massive difference.
And short moments of practicing a new habit can go a long way.
And then the other thing I'd like to invite you to reflect upon is this idea that everyone and everything matters.
No action is ever too small.
No contribution is ever too small.
Very often when we think about the challenges in the world,
We feel that we are too small and we cannot do it all alone.
But what if this idea was true that every action matters and that you are just part of a bigger puzzle?
When I was listening to Jill speak about being late that morning and she was never late and that every moment mattered and every minute mattered.
If you would have waited for the next train,
She would never have experienced what she experienced.
Very often I think if I go down one road vis-a-vis another road,
Would I have met the person that I bumped into and just contemplate for a moment all these little puzzle pieces that need to fall into place that we even bump into someone or that we even receive food on our table,
How everything is interconnected and how everything plays into each other.
And maybe you've even noticed synchronicities in your life,
Things just falling into place in a perfect way,
Almost as if they are orchestrated.
And if you haven't noticed that,
I'd invite you to observe in your own life if there's something like synchronicities,
Things coming together,
Falling into place.
And that notion that if you go down a different path,
You meet different people.
I even asked one of my clients once who wished that they would have done something differently in their past,
That they would have gone to university or to a different university to contemplate the notion if they wouldn't have gone to that specific university,
That they would also not have that specific family that they're having right now and that they're loving and they're holding dear.
So everything we do or don't do matters and has consequences for everything else in our lives.
Everyone and everything matters.
No action is ever too small.
No moment is ever too short.
And what if this moment was all that we ever had?
What would you do?
Thank you so much for listening and for all your support with this show.
If you'd like to get in touch and let me know what you like or don't like about the show,
Then I would love to hear from you.
I look forward to receiving your comments and wish you a wonderful week.
Thank you for joining us on this journey of the Explorer's Mind podcast.
Now it is time to find your own unique path.
We can help you to connect with your innate wisdom and create an inspiring vision for a deeply fulfilling and meaningful life.
Until next time,
We look forward to continuing this journey together.
