Leaving society And Chasing Your Dreams instead

Unknown Speaker  0:00  
Hi, I'm your host, the gentle yoga warrior. And please welcome today offer and nomadic sailor Paul Tramel. Paul quit drinking in 2015 and changed his life completely. His first book, alcoholics, not an ominous, a modern way to quit drinking describes the methods he created for himself to get sober. He used the money he saved from not drink to buy a one week sailing class, and soon after, bought a 30 foot sailing boat, where she sailed alone for 1000 miles from the west coast of Florida to the East Coast. That's pretty amazing. Paul has published over five books and is also the host of popular podcast, Offshore Sailing and cruising with Paul tramo. Joining us today from somewhere around the world. Please welcome Paul. Hi, Paul. Welcome to the show.

Unknown Speaker  1:04  
Hi, thanks for having me on.

Unknown Speaker  1:06  
Oh, no, it's an absolute pleasure. So where are you at the moment I'm very interested to know.

Unknown Speaker  1:12  
I am in Bocas del Toro, Panama. Oh, wow. Yeah, and I'm anchored right next to the island of Bastimentos, which is a small, a small town at the base of a hill. I'm surrounded by jungle and water. And I'm in a really nice, easy place to to live on a sailboat to a wonderful place here. I

Unknown Speaker  1:34  
love it sounds absolutely magical and divine. I'm joining you from Glastonbury in the UK. And it is a magical place. But there's no sunshine here today, it's British wherever. So today, we're going to talk about changing one's life around leaving society and living the life one truly wants. It isn't always obvious what route to take in life. Though, through experience. I am a great believer that using one's own inner compass, the song of one soul rather than what we think we ought to do, can provide a good starting point. Still what to do if one's wishes to leave society and pave a path in line with one's values? Well, I'm grateful to have Paul Trammell on the shelf today to help was such a question. In the words of William Shakespeare, it's not in the stars to hold our destiny. But in ourselves. On that note, I thought, Who better to speak to us today on changing one's life around leaving society and living a life one truly wants them pull trauma himself. So Paul, welcome to the show. Hi, I'm what inspired you to talk about this today.

Unknown Speaker  2:49  
All right, well, well, thanks for having me on. And you know, I, I went through a big change in my life in 2015. And it's led to such a wonderful life that I live now it's led literally led to me living out my dreams, which is, you know, kind of a cliche that people often say, but it's the truth I dreamed of being a sailor, a solo sailor, and a writer. And I thought this up while I was a carpenter, and I eventually made it happen. And, you know, it seemed like such a long shot at the time, I didn't even know where to start. But it's happening now. And you know, I'm just I feel like I feel lucky to have the chance to share this with with people that are listening. And that's kind of one of my goals in my life is to share the good things that I've learned with other people because I feel like I've really learned some incredible things lately and some incredibly useful things.

Unknown Speaker  3:57  
Your life is so inspiring. I just think it's amazing you really kind of managed to manifest the life that you that you wanted and and under some it's very free about your life. And also I did stop reading, chasing the nomadic dream. And I must be honest, I know absolutely nothing about sailing whatsoever. But I felt like I got a slice of your your life from what I've read a few books so far, since quite a tough life, but also deeply enriched and magical because you're, you're out in nature be at the sea or what or you're travelling around them, was it always your plan to do that? Well,

Unknown Speaker  4:41  
you know, I I kind of had a typical upbringing and I went to college and and then when it you know, when I graduated, I got a bachelor's in biology and then I didn't really know what to do with my life. So I kind of last minute applied to graduate school and went to graduate school. study biology some more best, I never really knew what I wanted to do with my life, I thought in the very beginning, I was going to be a doctor, like my father. But during my first year of school, I realised that wasn't going to be my path. So I kind of went through the early part of my life, sort of searching different things and trying to figure out what made me happy. And what I really wanted to do. One thing I learned right away was, I did not want to have a sort of typical job, what one thing I can't stand is, is the idea of having two weeks off a year or one week of sick days, I just, that just would not make me happy. I understand that some people feel like they have to do that. You know, especially people that have families that depend on them, I don't have any children. And I'm single. So I'm just supporting myself. But I've always kind of looked for what makes me happy. And that's all I'm willing to do. And at one point, I decided I wanted to be a musician. And I spent about 20 years in Florida, being a musician, and playing guitar and writing music and playing gigs, and you're doing live shows, and I really enjoyed that. But I also sort of had a goal either It started about the same time is that when did I want it to be a sailor someday, but the more I drank, the more, you know, alcohol I drank, which kind of crept up on me slowly, I've always sort of struggled with with drinking. But the more I drank, the more I realised that I can't be a sailor, I can't go to sea, and cross the, you know, I wanted to cross the Atlantic Ocean, that was kind of one of my big goals. But you can't do that. If you're drinking 12 beers a day, you can't bring enough beer with you, right? So that that goal sort of faded away, because because of drinking, which is really sad when you think about it, replacing a major goal in your life, or you're replacing what would have been a wonderful experience. Because you want to, you know, sit, sit at home and drink beer every night. Like, it's kind of ridiculous. But that's what alcohol does to you. It creeps up on you, it grabs ahold of you, you become addicted. And, and it runs your life. It runs your everyday decisions. It runs your long term decisions. It's it's it's really insidious like that, I kind of forgot what the original question was, well, I'll just continue on with

Unknown Speaker  7:25  
that. But anyway, 2015, I just sort of all of a sudden quit drinking. And later on that year, I decided that I wanted to chase this dream of sailing again. And, and then I had to figure out how to do it. Because if you want to live on a boat, and sail full time, you've got to make a living, and you can't make a living as a carpenter. While you're doing that. As much as I would have liked to in the beginning thought that was possible. You can't just sail somewhere and start working. First off, you're gonna you're in a foreign country, and you're it's illegal. Secondly, most of the places I want to go carpenters get paid, you know, a very small fraction of what, what I was making before. And you don't have any connections, you show up in a foreign country, you have no connections, you can't just show up and expect to make money, you've got to do something. You've online,

Unknown Speaker  8:21  
that will be tough. Yes.

Unknown Speaker  8:24  
But in today's world, in today's world, you can make a living online, and internet is everywhere. cell phone towers are everywhere now. So if you're if you're near a place where people live, chances are there's a cell phone tower in their little community. And you can get internet, and you can work. And you can write books. Yeah. And you can you can run a podcast and you can there's all sorts of things you can do online, obviously. I mean, we're doing it right now.

Unknown Speaker  8:50  
Exactly. And via technology. It's amazing, isn't it? We wouldn't be able to do this a few years ago. So it's Yeah. We hear a lot of bad things about technology. But there's also a good side as well. It's opened up the world and ways that are quite

Unknown Speaker  9:06  
wonderful and and and technology has allowed us almost free education to and we have access to the all the world's information on our computers now on our cell phones, for that matter. So it's so that's another point I wanted to make. It's easy now to learn anything you want. And to become very good at it simply by reading and you don't have to go and find books at a physical library more. I mean, you can if you live near one of my parents, they'll go to a library and they love it. But you can go right on to the internet and buy any book you want. You can search out any topic you want. And you can learn about it. So when I first decided I wanted to become a sailor, I started reading books. I started reading sail, sailing nonfiction, there's there's, you know, a million, not a million but there's quite a few sailing nonfiction books out there people writing about what they do and what they did. And that's one of the genres that are right now. The book curating, for instance, a good example. And just from reading about people sailing, it sort of becomes more real in your head, that you can do this too, if you want to. And it could be any subject, it could be riding horses or skydiving or rock climbing, you're interested in it, you want to learn about it. You can you can by reading, and you can become very good at it simply by reading books. That's how CLE started. For me, I

Unknown Speaker  10:21  
feel like books are a free education. Well, obviously have to buy the book, but a cheap education and I totally agree, you can learn so much. And I guess buy for yourself when you first started out by reading nonfiction on sale, and you learned about other people's experiences and that guests gave you the go ahead to try it yourself or inspired you rather to try it yourself. Know that you select the money you save from when you gave up drinking you bought you bought a boat? And were you an experienced sailor before or was it through the books that you learned. And during the sailing course that you were able to do that

Unknown Speaker  10:57  
I was not an experienced sailor in 2015. While I had been, I had been sailing with my father when I was very young, and I had experienced of sailing from Florida to the Bahamas. So I had experienced seeing the ocean and not land. I remember coming up out of the cabin of the sailboat and looking around and seeing nothing but water all the way around the entire horizon is just water. And I remember thinking this is absolutely amazing. You know, I was 12 or 13 at the time, but But that moment is still in my head. And that's and that's one of the questions people have about sailing like, is that going to be terrifying? Or is that going to be wonderful? Because it's probably going to be one of the two. That's gonna be something in the middle. It's not going to be like oh hum. It's and you know, and almost everybody says it's just it's a wonderful experience. So I had experienced sailing offshore and sailing a boat to the Bahamas, when I was young. And I had sailed a little sunfish around on a lake when I was a kid. So I kind of knew, you know how to point the boat and pull in or lead out the sail until you start going. That's really about all I knew. But I took a sailing class. Yeah, so I had this dream that, you know, maybe, maybe I'll get back to the stream I had before I started drinking. Because one of the ways to quit drinking, one of the techniques I developed for myself, which I wrote about in my book you mentioned earlier, is you need to one reward yourself for not drinking, that's why I saved money and then decided to spend it on something fun. And then you need to also do things that drinking prevented you from doing. So you need to if you're trying to quit drinking, you need to think up okay, what would I do if I was sober? What would I love to do that I can't do as a drunk. And for me, it was sailing, sailing long distances. With that in mind, I bought a one week sailing class with the American sailing Association. And I loved it. I mean, I absolutely loved it, they got us out right away on 36 foot cruising boat. We took it right out the inlet into the ocean on a windy day. And the boats healing over and I'm at the wheel and the other two students are working the sheets and the winches and, and the instructor is like standing there like having us do everything. It's just amazing. I mean, it is so amazing to be behind the wheel of a big boat for the first time out on the ocean, the winds blow and there's waves and the boats, you can feel the power of the wind and all those big sales. Well, it's just an amazing, wonderful experience.

Unknown Speaker  13:29  
It sounds fantastic. It's so inspiring that you use that money. In your book you mentioned earlier you wrote a book about alcohols not anomalous. And one way to quit drinking and that was your award to actually fulfil your fulfil your dream which would have been paused or stopped through drinking. And I think that's an amazing any tips that you can give people that are struggling with alcoholism for any of our listeners at all. And how you overcame overcame that spiral aim story?

Unknown Speaker  13:58  
Yes. I mean, absolutely. I've written two books on the subject. The first was alcoholics not anonymous. And I actually just published one, just just last week that I've been working on for three years now. It's called the joy of living clean and sober. And it's sort of a is that that one is more of like the things I've learned over the past six years of being sober. And and the research I've done and there's a bit more psychology involved in it. The first book, alcoholics not anonymous, I wrote because I was I decided, when I quit drinking not to be anonymous, I don't. I'm calling about you know, I'm here living alone on a sailboat and loving it. So I'm not really a group therapy kind of person. So I didn't go to a although I have been in fact, I was legally bound to go to one meeting at one time in my life because I had a DUI. So I have been to a couple of meetings and I appreciate it and I've learned from it. And it is the way to go for some people but it wasn't for me. So I decided not to be anonymous and to go the absolute opposite route and come right out. on social media and say, Hey everybody, I quit drinking. This is This is my fifth day sober, you know, it's a big deal like, and I was just amazed at the response I got hundreds of people responded positively. Got got tonnes of comments. So I just kept doing it, I got lots of support that way I kept doing it. And eventually, people started asking me for advice. Strangers, asking me for advice, you know, through through messenger. And, and I wrote so much to so many different people that I eventually realised, if I just sort of took all what I've written, and organised it and expanded on it, I could have a short book. And that's what I that's what I did, I wrote my first book. And the fact that it sold gave me the inspiration to write the second book, which is becoming a sailor, but to get back to your original question, and, you know, advice for people who are trying to quit drinking. You know, I spell it out, you know, pretty, pretty directly in both of my books. But the first step is to decide you want to try, you know, you need to make a decision, either make a firm decision, you can't sort of waffle and say, Well, maybe it'll, you know, maybe it will maybe you need to make a firm decision, okay? I'm going to give this a real try. And then and then tell someone, you're going to do it, tell some tell someone who's important to you that you're going to try don't be, don't keep it all to yourself, because then it's too easy to to go back. If you don't tell anyone you're quitting drinking, it's too easy to start again, because there's no penalty. But if you tell a bunch of people, if you come right out on social media and say, Hey, everybody, I quit drinking yesterday. Well, now now you've got all those people that, that, that know and, and that you're sort of beholden to them to, to at least at least stick to it, or you're gonna feel like a fool. Yeah. And on top of that, go ahead and tell someone that's important to you. Someone You Love Someone who cares about you and asks them. And you might have to do this to more than one person to find someone who actually does it. But you need to ask somebody to check up on you daily. It could be with a simple text, ask someone to text you once today, are you still sober, you really honestly need to find someone to do that. And that way, every day, you know, that your brother or your sister or your mom or your dad, whoever someone that you care about is going to be asking you. And that gives you that extra motivation to go ahead and stay sober for one more day. Because it is a daily struggle. It is a minute, two minutes for whole sometimes. Yeah, another thing. Another thing is to, you're going to feel cravings to drink often and you need to tell yourself, I'm just not going to drink right now. You know, I mean, one of one of the things he says is we'll take day by day I'm not going to drink today. We'll break that down a little further. I'm not going to drink right now right this very second. I'm not going to go to the beer store in the liquor, the liquor store, I'm not going to go right now you know, and and, and then sit with that like in Go Go 10 seconds without going to the liquor store. And then then 10 seconds later if this desire is still there, say Well, that's okay. I'm just not going to go right now. And just keep saying that and after a couple of minutes that that that craving is going to be gone and you and you resisted it and you won an important battle and recognise that you won that battle and feel and feel the strength it's like going to the gym when you do that. It's like one of the gym and lifting weights you you just lifted a weight and now you're stronger and you're mentally a little bit stronger now.

Unknown Speaker  18:37  
And I can go on I mean that you also need substitutes Yeah, so you also need substitutes both physically and mentally for the alcohol and then this can this could be any drug any addictive drug for instance me I had to quit smoking marijuana to and that was that was harder, believe it or not actually harder to quit than an alcohol but that's a whole different story. You need substitutes for me. Cans of seltzer you know, Lacroix slightly fruit flavoured seltzer water in a can, that you put in the fridge. It's carbonated. It's in a can. I was a beer drinker. Okay, that's a physical substitute. You can hold it your hand, it's cold, you drink it, it's fizzy. If you're around other people that are drinking, you don't feel like such an outsider. You don't make them uncomfortable. Don't you might notice, you know when you're trying to quit if you're at a party, or any any gathering of adults. They're going to be drinking and you're not. And it makes you and them feel more comfortable. If you've got something in your hand you have a drink in your hand. It can be in a you know, it can be a glass of soda water with alignment and they don't know that's not a gin and tonic. Because they're gonna be uncomfortable. They're gonna see you with your hands empty and they're gonna offer you a drink and you're gonna say no, and they're gonna say, Well, what do you what happened? What happened? What did why not? Well, I quit drinking and they're going to be uncomfortable. That's going to put a mirror right in their face. And if they have a drinking problem, like at least half of Americans do, it's going to make them feel very uncomfortable. Hold hold a can of seltzer in your hand, or some sort of non alcoholic drink. That's a physical substitute. You'll also need mental substitutes, you need to figure out this is a very important point, you need to figure out what it is that alcohol did for you. Why did you drink, you know, did you drink because there is something inside of you, that is not fulfilled, you're not doing something, you're not living a certain way, you're not doing a certain activity, you're missing something. And we are we're all missing something. We live in a very unnatural environment, we are animals. We evolved living in nature up until like, just a couple 1000 years ago, which is nothing in evolutionary time, we were we were animals living in the woods living in caves. We were hunting, we were gathering, we were gathering plants eating them, we were killing animals eating them, we were we were gathering firewood and making fires. We lived a very different life. And that's how we evolved for our entire evolution. This little this little bit this past couple 1000 years doesn't hardly matter very much in evolutionary time. So we all live cut off from nature. And and that's what it was to me, I realised that I didn't live an adventurous enough life. When I was a kid, I was out in the woods all the time I was camping. I was I was just hiking around the woods when I don't know what I can hardly remember what I was up to. But I spent all my free time in the woods as a kid. And the older I got, the less I did that. And I eventually came to realise as I'm thinking about why I drank that, that I've missed adventure, and drinking and partying was taking place of that. So that became my substitute, I needed to get outside and do physical things outdoors. And the very first things I started doing were that were different. We already did some outdoor activities and surfing, for instance, but I took up ocean swimming was one of my substitute activities would run to the beach, I live close to the beach. So jog to the beach, and I would take off my shoes and get right in the water and swim as far as I could. And I loved it. And it was exciting. It was thrilling. It was back in nature. I mean, I'm back in the food chain out there, you know, like this, this like this is in Florida, like you can't, you can't see there's no visibility in the water like, and you know, there's sharks out there. There's there's lots of sharks in Florida. So it's, it's thrilling. It's scary. You know, when you first do it, you're scared right away, you swim out a little further than where you can stand up and you start swimming. And it's kind of scary. So that was a substitute. But you got to have quick substitutes, too. You can't, you can't always go swim in the ocean at the drop of a hat. You've got to have something you can do right away. So you've got to pick something. A good example is doing push ups. Most people at any point at any time of the day can stop what they're doing and get down on the floor and and do some push ups. So you got to pick some sort of activity like that you can do that's a healthy outlet for your energy. That is a substitute for drinking you do that when you feel a craving you feel a craving for alcohol you want to go drinking, you've got to have something right there in your pocket ready to go right now. And you know, it could be push ups, it could be any number of things but you've got

Unknown Speaker  23:40  
Yeah, to pick something and you've got to have it ready to go. You're anticipating cravings and you're coming up with a solution and you're putting that solution in your pocket and you can pull it out at any time and do it and that is your substitute for for drinking for right then and there for the craving

Unknown Speaker  23:54  
That's great advice that's absolutely amazing. I think our listeners are should pick up your book and I don't know just because sometimes we take something out of our life don't we and we just think we will like will miss it like with me it was sugar too and kind of taken that out of my life as well kind of just thinking that she I don't need to have this sweet thing but instead I'll have like a cup of licorice tea which has like a sweetness to it but it's not the same as eating like a cupcake or anything like that that because I'd find ways to kind of sneak sugar into my into my diet. And the rest of my day it's very healthy but like go down to the local cafe and have like a tea you have a cake and because I'm kind of always been naturally slim I kind of use finger get away of it but it was actually not so good for my body and it is an addiction and I do think when they look back in in front of future to now and say how addictive sugar was and maize why we sell it so readily everywhere as well. It's Yes, you the whole food industry is kind of geared up for that kind of sugar addiction as well. So finding a substitute is very, very great advice. So how would you find the motivation to write because you're it sounds like you're travelling to some beautiful places and, and also very busy sailing, it takes a lot of work from what I can gather from what I've read, how do you like find the motivation? And time? Do you have a set way of doing it?

Unknown Speaker  25:25  
Yeah, that's a great question. Because you know, to be self employed, you have to be a self starter. And to be a self starter, you need discipline, it's, it's easier to have a regular job, and that you have to show up every day, you know, it's easier to find the motivation to go to work when you're going to get fired if you don't show up. But when you're self employed, you don't have that. So you have to develop your own discipline. And you have sort of got a two part answer to that question. Every day, if I don't feel like writing, I say to myself, Okay, if you don't write if you don't, and it's not just writing I do, I also have to design book covers and market my work. And so there's quite a bit to it. But if I don't do that, the alternative is to sail back to Florida by a van by a bunch and back to work as a carpenter. Now, this real strong motivation for me not to do that I spent a lot of my life doing that already. And it's, you know, being a carpenter is a good job gives you a lot of freedom, but it's not freedom compared to what I'm doing now. So that's, that's like, number one. I can do that every you know, every day, I think you're going to be a carpenter again, if you don't sell more books. So that's strong motivation. But another is I had a, you know, this is this is ironic, because I recently listened to your interview with us, I think, Scott McDermott. Yes. crashed his bicycle. I used to be a road biker as well. But um, anyway, I also had a near death experience. And, and that's part of my motivation to write so so when I was in the Bahamas in 2018, on my first sailboat, I was actually writing a book called Journey to the ragged islands. And the story is in that book, I was one of one of my goals during that trip was to free dive in blue holes. So blue holes are basically like sinkholes in the ocean. When the Bahamas when the sea level, you know, 1000s of years ago, the sea level was much lower during one of the ice ages. And the Bahamas is made of limestone. And are the bedrock is limestone. So freshwater was percolating through it and making caves. And eventually cave, sometimes the roofs collapse, and they and this reform a sinkhole. And now in the Bahamas, there are lots of these sinkholes that are underwater. It's basically a vertical cave, that you can see it from the surface, you know, and in this case, I was sailing across water about 15 feet deep. And I saw a blue hole labelled on my chart, and I thought I'm gonna go take a look at this. And I found it, it's a dark blue circle and otherwise light blue water. Anyway, I was free diving in this hole, it was a it was between 50 and 80 feet deep, the bottom slope towards the cave. So at the very bottom, on the 80 feet side was a cave entrance was like looking into the dark, you know, bowels of the earth. I swam down to it and sat on the bottom of my knees just for a couple of seconds. And I saw big fish swim out of it and was like this was like this subterranean creature coming out to look at me. And so anyway, I dove in that cave in that blue hole four different times. But on the fourth dive. And mind you, I was being very careful I was doing I think four minutes surface intervals. So staying on the surface for four minutes between dives, which I thought was proper, and I thought it was breathing properly. I was definitely making the big. The big, big mistake of doing this alone. You're not supposed to pre dive alone, but as a solo sailor have to break that rule sometimes. So dive number four. I felt wonderful at what I do. But the shallower side of the hole I was like 55 feet down and swimming around. And there's the light the sunlight is coming through the surface and making these beams of light. And there's little there's a school of little silvery fish and the light is reflecting off of them. And I have such a vivid memory of all this. And I felt wonderful. I didn't feel out of breath. I remember having this this feeling like I am a fish. I feel just as comfortable here more comfortable here than I do above the surface. And then at some point, I started I started swinging back to the surface and everything was fine. I was not out of breath. I felt wonderful. It was a magical experience. And then all of a sudden I realised I was falling asleep.

Unknown Speaker  29:52  
Now it wasn't to the surface yet. And that could feel it. You know when you're on when you're falling asleep you kind of Feel the dream state coming in, like you're kind of in between, you know, there's a little story running in your head, that's going to be your dream, but you're not really in it yet. You're still kind of awake. I was there for a matter of seconds. I knew I was falling asleep. This had never happened to me before. And, and I remember thinking to myself, hang on, Paul, hang on, don't you know, focus, focus focused, don't fall asleep. Don't let this happen. Bam, all of a sudden, I'm out. And I'm not I'm approximately 15 feet from the surface. Still underwater, you know, unconscious, nobody's there. There's probably two miles from shore. There's no one around. I've been very lucky to survive. But anyway, the next thing that happened is I woke up on the surface. Luckily, I was I was buoyant at that point. You know, because the deeper as you as you descend, you become less buoyant the air in your lungs compresses and your body becomes negatively buoyant. And at some point on the way up, I became positively buoyant. And luckily, I was there because I floated to the surface, I woke up. I had, I was coughing, I woke up because there was water on my trachea. And I was I was a water on my epiglottis, or whatever I was, I was coughing. And I didn't know where I was. I didn't know what it happened. And I couldn't see I was blind. All I saw was white. And remember, I remember all I saw was white. Everything was just a big white screen. And in any way I eventually woke up. I can't I first I thought I'd fallen off my boat while sailing, just one of the biggest fear of a solo sailors to fall off your boat while you're on Route. That's what I thought it happened. And then I realised, oh, I've got I've got a camera. Why do I have a camera in my hand? I've got fins on I've got a mask on it. And then it hit me on your freediving. Your freediving you passed out. And from that point on, it became scary. So the beginning, passing out underwater wasn't scary. It was just like falling asleep. It was nothing uncomfortable about it. Which really now I look, I look at that and think yeah, Drowning is, if it ever happens, it's not going to be bad. Because I essentially drowned. There was nothing negative about it, it was but anyway, I remember the dream I had. And that's significant. I was talking to somebody. Somebody was off screen, I saw, I saw a profile of myself. And I was talking to someone and they were telling me something. I don't know what they were saying. But I was listening to them and nodding my head and taking you then. And you know, when I look back on this and analyse it, of course, I don't know for sure. And I'm just guessing, and this is just sort of my own interpretation. But I was on the other side, you know, I was I was on the other side, and someone was telling me something, you know, this is kind of like God, or an angel or whatever, someone who's on the other side was giving me information. So would they do that? And then and then wake me back up. Because by all rights, I should have been dead. It's because I have, because I still have work to do. Yes, that's what I think that's how I interpret it, you know, be it right or wrong, I could be I could be miles off, you know that. But that's how I interpret it. I still have work to do. And that and that was the message. Because believe me, I thought about this a lot the rest of that day and the next day. And I still do because it was it was a huge, life changing experience. It was it was absolutely terrifying. You know, the next couple hours were scary. Like, because that wasn't all back yet. My head wasn't straight yet. I got out of there, immediately pull the anchor and left and immediately started making mistakes on the boat. And at one point, I was forward on deck of sailing. And one of the sheets got wrapped around my head and my neck there was a sheet that's attached to a sail like like oh my goodness, Paul, just take the sails down and start the motor go to the closest place and drop anchor. So anyway, it was it really made a deep impression on me. And the point is, I have a mission whoever was on the other side that was talking to me was telling me that I've got I have work to do. It's not my this is not yet my time to die. He was probably also saying you gotta be more careful. You know, what did you do? What are you doing freediving by yourself? And we hold like, come on. Come on, Paul. We can't be saving you like this over and over again.

Unknown Speaker  34:26  
Yeah, I'm deaf. That's definitely a message that you've got, you've got more work to

Unknown Speaker  34:30  
do. And it's obvious what the work is. It's writing. Yeah. Is is to write books that change people's lives in a positive way.

Unknown Speaker  34:40  
And you're living that change, you're being that change and you're you're showing that change and you can't fake that you know, it's and people will pick up on that and, and your writing is then a gift to the world and people will learn learn from your work with regards to your books or I have just launched my new website and the gentle yoga warrior calm and I do have a bizarre on that so I am going to put some links to your books there so our listeners can can pick up your books is there any other way that they can reach out to you learn about what you're doing and what's the best way?

Unknown Speaker  35:14  
Yeah there's certainly is I mean I have a website Paul Trammell calm and I have a podcast and I have links on my website to my Amazon Author Page where, where all my books are, I've got a six books published now. I'll have a seventh out soon I've written a novel my second novel, but a time this podcast airs that book will probably be out it's called the gold box. gold box.

Unknown Speaker  35:42  
Box. Yeah, it's about a guy who's it's about a guy who is it's sailing, not not unlike myself, and he finds treasure. And, and that sort of changes everything. You know, we all think of how wonderful it would be to find a piece of gold on the bottom of it. But that also brings a lot of questions, and decisions and, and risks. And that's what the book is all about.

Unknown Speaker  36:06  
Oh, look forward to picking up a copy of that. I'll also put a link from my website to Amazon or bookstore. So people can pick a copy of that up, you really made me want to go and have like a bit of an adventure, kind of because I live between the countryside and London and I don't know I just hearing your your life is kind of inspired me to try and have a bit more of adventure next year because I'm self employed as well and kind of go about quite a lot of working. But it's true, isn't it to kind of have a bit of a change and and do something new. So hopefully, our listeners will equally feel and inspired by your adventures and seemingly glamorous but also kind of hard work I did like the just Just to add, I did like the bit of chasing the nomadic dream when you were you had a new way you wanted to sell to and your two crew members one was a long time. And they had an idea. They wanted to go to New York, and we've taken a day off your journey. And they're trying to kind of persuade you to go off course, but you kind of had it that he knew the journey that he needs to go on. And the coldness that you use were really cold at one point. And then the content you got from the little things like the food is that it just felt like every moment you're very present. And it's very mindful, which is what I would class as living a real life where you're present and completely mindful. And I guess living the nomadic lifestyle and sailing that enables you to do that. Or rather, if you're not being present, then you're gonna hurt yourself. Right. So it's kind of

Unknown Speaker  37:53  
Yes, that's it. Yeah, that's a good point. Yeah, I hadn't really thought about that too much. But you're absolutely right. When you're, when you're on a sailboat, and you're offshore, and you're sailing, you absolutely have to be present at all times. You can't be on autopilot. You know, when you're when you're living in a house on shoreline, like most people do. You're, you're probably not going to make a mistake, that's going to be fatal at any point during the day unless you're driving a car. But on a boat, especially by yourself. You have to think about that all the time. Because if I fall overboard, I am gonna die a long, long, slow death, you know, treading water, I've actually got I mean, I take precautions against that, believe me, I've got a self inflating life jacket with two tethers the GPS beacon as well. So I'll have a good chance.

Unknown Speaker  38:41  
That's That's good to hear. That's good to hear, but very brave, and very inspiring. And I really look forward to picking up a copy of your book. So dear listeners, I would like to say thank you to Paul Trammell. And please do stay tuned. Always a meditation inspired by today. But Paul, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. And good luck with everything. Yeah, really special lights. So thank you, thank you. So a meditation, inspired by the inspiring, nomadic lifestyle of poor travel. And I thought, what a wonderful thing to do in the moment. Many of us can't travel for many reasons, restrictions, whatever it may be. But with his meditation, I thought that's fine ourselves away to be free. So this meditation is best done from the comfort of your home or somewhere quiet where you don't have to concentrate on anything, you can just be nice and peaceful and at peace. With all forms of meditation, it's private best to do unless there's a specific one where you lie down but best to do on a hardback chair or sitting cross legged. If your body is physically able, remember, you know how your body feels so listen to it rest Baptists love it. So as you close your eyes on, this doesn't matter what time of day you're listening to this meditation. It feels that we need to go into an ocean at night. So you're on a boat, vast skies above. And the stars are the most brightest you've ever seen. Not a night cloud in the sky, and the water is smooth and not too choppy. And you're in this magical mystical boats. so magical that you are without efforts staying afloat, joyful, and abundant is the sky, lighting up the heavens with beauty, so beautiful before your eye and feel that broad broad lens, learn to live again. So quite often, we can have a tunnel vision stuck in our routine. So with this meditation, let's allow ourselves to have some adventure. And be free.

Unknown Speaker  41:25  
Allow allow things to unfold. Allow allow yourself to be bold. What is your heart's desire? What do you wish to be without pressure just allow it to start to unfold in front of me. The stars they warm your heart with joy, their beauty majestic, shining on you. Remember you are special. And we've all got jobs that we were born to do. So if you're in a situation that doesn't feel in line with your soul, step on to this boat, this magical boat and allow yourself to float and just be free, free free and the wonderful world of the sea. What magical creatures are below. living my life as you stay there a flow to be free to be to be who you are. Remove the obstacles, remove them with love. Find the support you need. Be that in friends or from faith above. Remember, there's so much more to this world than we can see. Don't resist change, allow it to be but remember, you can stay your boat. You are the one keeping it afloat. You can stay away your life should go. magic can happen just like that. If you trust and allow that magic to start in your heart to grow and grow and grow so then you really tap into your inner flow and the glow of the stars and the the the reflection of the moon on the water

Unknown Speaker  43:46  
your own mystical room lit by the magic of the starlit sky. You may be floating on water but inside you're learning to fly. So Float Float Float dare one step onto your boat. Step onto your dreams and believe in magic for that's what brings great possibilities. Whatever you need to do to clear that for it to happen for you know that you're not alone. But have a little bit of effort, a little bit of presence each day. A little bit of structure but also yields thing things will and can start coming your way. So know yourself do one know yourself. And if ever you feel stuck in lacking and creativity, just step onto your mystical boats. But whatever it feels for you, this is your safe place to be truly you and just as you stand on that boat Do you look up to the stars, a shooting star comes past you. And from that star, make a wish, a dream. without attachment but with hope, allow that dream to beam. And remember the magic may not necessarily show in the exact form that you predicted it. But dear one, if you plant it, things will come and you made a wish upon a star and that will allow you to go for so just start taking some nice calm deep breaths and come back into the room. Come back into the present. Thank you. And just a reminder, we have a new website, the gentle yoga warrior.com

Transcribed by https://otter.ai