Transforming Mindsets: A Journey from Battlefield to Wellness
Join Joanne Lockwood and Jason Archdale on a remarkable journey from the battlefield to wellness, as they share their experiences, wisdom, and transformative insights.
Hello, everyone. My name is Joanne Lockwood, and I'm your hostfor the Inclusion Bites podcast. In this series, I have interviewed anumber of amazing people and simply had the conversation around the subject ofinclusion, belonging, and generally making the world a better placefor everyone to thrive. If you'd like to join me in the future, then pleasedo drop me a line tojo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk.That's S-E-E Change Happen dot codot uk. You can catch up with all of the previous shows on iTunes,Spotify and the usual places. So plug in your headphones,grab a decaf, and let's get going. Today isepisode 104 with the title frombattlefield to wellness, and I have the absolutehonour and privilege to welcome Jason Archdale. Jasondescribes himself as a wellness coach and speaker.When I asked Jason to describe his superpower, he said tolet people know it's okay to not beokay and that there is a light. I should warn anylisteners that we will be talking about poor mental health and there'llbe references to suicide. Hello, Jason. Welcome to the show.
Jason Archdaleguest
Jo. Hello, pleasure to be here. So happy for this
Joanne Lockwoodhost
fantastic. Jason, you've had some dark times.Tell us a bit about yourself, your story from battlefield to wellness.
Jason Archdaleguest
Wow. I've had some bad. Yeah, some hard bad times.But life wasn't always this way,Jo. I was kind of a carefree, happy goinglooking lad when growing up in asmall mining town in the north of England. I wasalways adventurous and joining the venture scouts andreally didn't want to do much at school. So when Ileft, I went to one of those career conventions, likethe last year at school, and everybody's there and you don't want to be thisand you don't want to be that. But right at the back of the room,right at the very back, there was this banner, and the
Jason Archdaleguest
banner had a picture of a tank on it, and this tank wasairborne. And I said, that's it. That's where I wanted. I was 16.That's less than 16, just about to leave school. And so that's what I wantedto do. So about three weeks later, I marched myself down, not knowing how tomarch at that time, but marched myself down to the careers officeand signed on the line. And within, I guess, a few months, Iwas, that's it. The army is now my mother, right? That's what they say. I'myour mother now. So I was in the army and that was it. Andlived a fulfilling, happy, andamazing carefree life in the army foraround five years. So, yeah,it was an amazing experience, a great stepping stone, but never wanted to stay infor a very long length of time and then cameout of the army and wanted to spread my wings into civilian life.Right. But life kind of took hold and took over. AndI'm sure we'll talk a lot more about this throughout thisconversation, Jo. But I didn't deal with life very well.Life took hold of me and I went down the rabbit hole,spiralling down into poor mental health.It just took a grip and to the point.Unfortunately, I went over the edge toattempting my own life,obviously unsuccessfully. Hence why I'm here now, talking toyou right now. Right. But I believe throughout all of thisexperience, there's many, many lessons, hence why I can stand here now orstand on the stage or speak to people now. This is my passion and mypurpose, to be able to do this now and speak to people aboutmy story, my story of darkness, but the story ofrecovery to wellness. Now, let me just wind the clock back a bit there. So
Joanne Lockwoodhost
you're saying you join the army at the age of probably, what, 16and a half or whatever, you do your exams in June, July,you have a couple of weeks off while you wait for the next intake, andsuddenly there you are on the train,or however transport you got, and you got off at the station at the otherend, and there's a load of people milling around waiting for you andsay what you. Whatever the army equivalent is,and you get put on a bus or you get walking around the cornerand suddenly you're going, oh, what? Life isdifferent suddenly? It's a real shock. I joined theRoyal Air force straight from school, right. So I had a similarexperience. I got on the train, got off toSwindervy. I'm not sure what the railway station was. It's probably Newark. And there wasa bus there. We all got marched on. And you can sort of figure outwho's in it and they march you in. And there's no kind ofhoneymoon period, is it? Basically, the discipline starts from sort of almostlike the first second, I think they march you into the station barbers andbrand you with a haircut before. You do anything else.Tell us about that day. Yeah, absolutely.
Jason Archdaleguest
I remember I was so happy, but my mum was so sad.She had a little boy going. Yes, I was 16. Andyou're dead, right? Because although I didn't know what Iwanted to do with my life at the time, at 16, it was a massiveculture shock. And you're so right, you kind of get yourarmy train ticket. They send you a train ticket. Andmine was to Surrey per bright in Surrey. Theguards training depot in Surrey. And I'd kind ofnever been out of Yorkshire at that time, right. And so I'd been down there,an amazing adventure trip. But it didn't last long because, yeah, you get offthe train and it's almost like you're the onlyone on the platform and then somebody else gets off a train and, you knowit's a squaddy, a potential squaddy, right? And then all of a sudden you're thisbellowing out from the entrance of the platform,as you said, right, come on out and you're in thisbus with no markings on. It's not a glorious National Express bus, right? There's nomarkings on. It's plain white army bus. Right.Your life instantly. Instantly changes fromstepping off that train. But it's what I wanted to do and Idid it. I joined and this is what I wanted to do. So it's like,suck it up, boy. So which regiment, which
Joanne Lockwoodhost
division, which part the army did you join? So I was part of the Household
Jason Archdaleguest
cavalry. Now, the household cavalry is split. For those that are notaware of the household cavalry, when they have ceremonial parades ontv, like when they're doing the jubilees and things, and when the queenor the king are in the carriages and those guys on the horses with thered tunics and the plumes on the head, that's the ceremonialside of the regiment I was in called them lifeguards of the HouseholdCavalry Regiment. But I actually joined the armoured division, whichis the tank. So I joined the tank division of that.So I wanted to be a tank driver. Right. Not a horse rider.So I wanted to be a real soldier. So I used to play with actionmen, right. And so I wanted to be an action man. So Ijoined the tank division of the household cavalry. Jo. Yeah,it was great. I've seen loads of
Joanne Lockwoodhost
tv documentaries of following the early stagecareer of squadies going through basic training.Obviously, I was RAF. We used to live in hotels and have five star serviceand breakfast service every day. That's what the other two services say aboutus. We have it easy, don't we? Your basic training must havebeen significantly harder than our couple of weekends here and there. Wow.
Jason Archdaleguest
Right? Yeah. Yes, absolutely. No, we never had anyhotels. So my training was around nine months.It was about nine months. It was properinfantry training. We're talkingeverything from crawling through tunnels whereyou have to go underneath it, climbing obstacle courses and firingweapons and things. Right. And you grow up very quickly.Right. Although you're 16, you grow up very quickly because of thediscipline that's in it. And, yes, you're right, there's verymany tv programmes that show the early stages of the armycareer, but they only show the training aspect of it. They don't show it whenyou get to the regiment because it's not all like it shows on tv.Right. Yes, it is a lot of beasting, it's a lot of discipline, it's alot of training, but there's a purpose behind that. But when you get to yourregiment and you pass out, basically, it's likegoing to work every morning. Right. I mean, I was a tank driver, soI turned up to work when I passed out. By the way, when I didpass out, my first posting was in Germany. So, like, 17, Iwas flown across to Germany for three years based over there on thetanks. So it was almost likea guy waking up here in Leeds. That's where I am wakingup, putting his overalls on and going to work at Halfords or quick fit onthe morning to fix vehicles. Right. So we woke up in the morning,went to the vehicle park and fixed our tank just a bit bigger.Right. Butit is very different because there are rules. It's an establishment, isn't it?It's an establishment, but an amazing stepping stone.And I did quite a lot. I travelled the world with it.At 18, we went to war. We went tothe first Gulf War, Operation Desert Storm, if you remember. Storm inNorman. Right, so Operation Desert Storm went there with our tanks.I was a tank driver at 18 in the first Gulf War.And then when I came back from there very shortly afterwards, got selectedto go on anexpedition, a civilian type expedition to Venezuela.Sky TV went with us and filmed it on sky one quite a wayback. Now we're talking 1991, SkyTV went. Yeah. So we were going down theOranoco river and camping out next to the Oranocoand just doing all sorts of amazing things. I actually got arrested there becausepeople thought we were mercenaries, because we were stuck out like a sore thumb. Nobodydresses like Rambo in the desert, in the jungle, apart from us. Right.We thought that's how you dressed. So,yeah, amazing experiences, Jo. In the army, there's
Joanne Lockwoodhost
a kinship and fellowship and a real bond between yourmates, isn't it? And it becomes your family. And you talkedabout the arm is your mother, but your mates are your brothers, aren'tthey? Yeah, 100%. And
Jason Archdaleguest
it really was that because you live with them, you sleepwith them, you go out on the town with them, they'rethere. Twenty four, seven. You really don't havethat time apart. And of course you don't get likenormal life, you don't get on with everybody. Butthere's a part where you have tolerate that, butit really is that kinship. But you would still do anything foranybody in the army, right? Because that's the mentality ofit. That's what it breeds into you and it's what it did.But as I said, you grow up very quickly. And I thinkI joined at 16, but by the time I got to my regiment, I was17 and a bit, if you like. But you kind of felt 20or something. So if you're 20 in there, you'd feel 22. So there's alwaysyears ahead of you in the army because of what you have to grow upvery quick and come on, how many peopleat 18 years old said that their company vehicle was a tank?Right? So
Joanne Lockwoodhost
you were that tank driver running around, running overthings inKuwait. I actually did, but yeah, I mean, Kuwait was a bit different when we
Jason Archdaleguest
went over there because obviously it was all very much different. But we did doknow we went out for two or three weeks with the vehicles in Germany. We'dhave to drive them off the planes, off the prairies and drive them down civilianstreets. So actually I did clip a few cars and put my trucks over afew volkswagen beetles and squashed them a little bit.I'm sure the army is insured, right. But yeah, it iswhat it is. It's all part of the tank driving game. Is it running over
Joanne Lockwoodhost
something? Sorry, didn't notice that. Of course it is
Jason Archdaleguest
and you can't. But it is what it is. But yeah, we got a bitof a tongue in off for that one. Yeah. At the age of 16, in
Joanne Lockwoodhost
a bit you're basically given. I was given when I was in theRAF, an SLR seven six two SLR.We were stripping it down, reassembling it in 10 secondsor something, racing to load the magazines up with, I don't know, 20rounds, whatever they take. And then we're on the firing range shooting thesethings. And then we have the submachine guns and we had thelay down one. I can't remember what it was now or something. GPMG, probablya GPMG trying to fire as many roundsas you can into the target at the end of the. Watching little splats ofdirt coming up. And we're doing that 60 and a half.We could do this, we could do that, we could do the other. Butwe couldn't get married without our parents permission. But we could go and killsomebody or couldn't even vote. Crazy. Exactly.
Jason Archdaleguest
Right. And that takes me back a bit when you say the SMR, because we'dobviously, at that point, when I was in, we transitioned to the SA 80. Right.Which is obviously a fantastic piece of kit. Butyou're dead right. It's almost like you're given this responsibility at a very youngage. As soon as you walk in, this is your weapon.This is your weapon. This is a rifle, these arelive ammunition. And then, obviously, when I've passed out, you then goto Germany and this is yourtank. Right. So I've levelled up from a rifleto a tank, right. This thing islike 70 tonne, 2 million pound piece of kit. And I'vegot my foot on the pedal, so there'sa huge responsibility in there. Obviously,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
the official secrets out of what you can and can't say. I don't know. What'sit like inside a tank? Presumably there's no windows.It's all computer controlled and tv cameras. Isit? It is now. It's all very technical now. I mean, I left in
Jason Archdaleguest
1994 and the tanks have evolved massively now, so everything'svery much automated.No, there are no windows, there are periscopes,but obviously you get in through holes. So ifyou imagine the top of the tank, the commander, the gunner and theloader, the operator, get in through the top of the tank, the driver gets inthrough the front and he's got a hole at the bottom and then it closeshis hatch and then that's it. You look through a metal periscope. If you wantto drive tactically, if you drive opened up, you've just got your head sticking outof this piece of metal. Right. Which looks a bit weird, buteven so. No, actually,it can be claustrophobic. It's very snug, put it that way.Everything's made to fit. It's not made for comfort, put it that way.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
No, a tank is prettysolid, it's pretty armoured and it moves quite quickly.40 miles an hour, saying when it's going to go, isn't it? It really doesmotor. But say you're safe in one side, but you're also quitevulnerable in another. Antitank weapons, helicopterlaunch, whatever it may be, you are potentially a sitting duck, as well as beingsafe in air, but sitting duck here. And it must be quite scary to beon a battlefield. Yeah. But do you know what,
Jason Archdaleguest
and I say this in my talk, that I wasliving my best life. I didn't have a care in the world.That's not to be blase about things. It's just how I felt at the time.Because when I was in the Gulf, ofcourse, we were in the tanks, we were in the theatre of war, right,and anything could happen. And there were B 52s going over, therewere Scud missiles every now and again with the siren, and thesirens would go, Scud missiles.But it still never kind of really affected me. I was insidethis tank. We weren't always inside it, but I kind of felta lot safer inside that than the infantry guy running alongside of us.Right.But, yeah, of course there are still threats from the antitankand whatever, and it only takes a grenade to throw atrack off a tank. Then you've got to get out and put the track backon and that leaves you vulnerable. So there are still vulnerabilities to being a tankdriver, but I think we are one of the safest ones. But like Isaid, I didn't think about that at the time. We just do it. Right?
Joanne Lockwoodhost
What's the crew? It's like four or five people. So there's a
Jason Archdaleguest
driver, obviously, who sits right at the very front in his own separate cab. Andthen you've got the gunner that sits right at the very bottom andhe has no way out. He can't get out until everybody else does. Andthen the loader is the one who loads the biggun. He's the Lord who puts all the big bullets in. Heputs the big bullets in the gun. And then the commander. The commander sits onthe top, on the top seat. So there's four of us working as a teamin there. So you're living your best life, you're travelling around the
Joanne Lockwoodhost
world, you're with your mates, having a fantastic time, working hard,playing hard, drinking hard, no doubt, really enjoyingyourself. And then life changes. What happensnext? It kind of didn't change
Jason Archdaleguest
straight away. And with many things, things happengradually over time, don't they? But thenwe ignore red flags, don't we, in life? And then all of a sudden, theuniverse, if you like, then just goes, oh, there you go. I told you thiswas coming. And we ignore it. But the thing is, with thingslike this, if you're not aware of red flags, how do you deal withthem? If your mind is not open to spotting red flags,you can't do it. And my mindset wasn't inobservation mode. If you like two things like this.When I came out, I won't say I rebelled against the army,but I didn't want to be in an establishment anymoreor like the prison service or the fire service or whatever. I just wanted to
Jason Archdaleguest
kind of be free and do what I wanted to do. And I'd recentlyjust got together with somebody at the timeand so I kind of wanted to come out and start enjoying that life andsee what that life was all about. We ended up being together for 17years, actually. Wethen got engaged and got a house, got married and did all thewhite picket fence stuff as you would normally do. But I kind ofnever really had any aspirations.I was this different person to where I was in the army. Didn'thave the dreams or the goals. I was just kind of like living well. We'resupposed to get engaged, aren't we? Or we're supposed to get married, aren't we? Orlet's get a house now. And this is the order we do it and let'sdo that. And you'd save up for twelve months and go on that holiday thatyou'd booked twelve months earlier and that kind of stuff. Pretty normal.So, yeah, nothing really groundbreaking in that sense.So just pretty average life, if I'm honest, Jo, at that time.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
I tend to refer to that as the conveyorbelt of responsibility and expectations becauseyou just get into this zone ofconformity of doing what you do. You pick upresponsibilities, partner, wife, house,children, job. And suddenly you find your lifeis very procedural, isn't it? You have a routine,you have to just get up and do stuff. And sometimes, as you say, thatkind of masks sometimes what's going on underneath or themiscommunication or the happiness or lack of happiness or whatever itmay be. You just kind of do what you do and it sounds like you'vepicked up those responsibilities. Absolutely. And you know what I
Jason Archdaleguest
think part and parcel of it was thatin the army, how can I say it, that it's reallyeasy to understand. Everything's done for you, it's done for you. Thedecisions are made for you. You've just got to do. You just got to doit. And that's what I did. So I came outand, hey, I've got to make my own choices, but Ikind of like made the choices based on whatsociety and peers told you or thesocial expectations were. This is what we're supposed to do,right? My family is great and I love myfamily, but never pushed into anything to be greator have these big dreams or whatever. So I just fellinto that normality of life, if you like, and justplodding away. And it really was just plodding away.I had a painting decorating business andI would be happy just earning 90 quid a day just painting an oldlady's bathroom or somethingtoday. I kind of, like, laugh at that.I don't know, in a way that, wow, I won't even do thattoday, right. Because of my learnings.But that's who I was. But I knew there was somethingmore. I knew there was something more, but I couldn't pinpointit. And what I meant by that is from me.I knew there's something more to come from me. Yeah. I'm just thinking, as you're
Joanne Lockwoodhost
saying, that in the army, you don't drive the tankevery day. There are days when you'll be cleaning the toilets, there'd be days whenyou're shovelling snow, days when you're picking up stuff off an air, off an airRunway, air for Runway. There'd be days when you're doing all these other things.In a way, you get so ingrained into doing whatever thetask is you're assigned without questioning it orexpecting different. That's what it is. You say you paid for a decoratingjob. Mine probably said to you, this is what I do, I've got to geton with it. And you don't question it, because the army, the servicesinstitutionalise you and your choices are limited as towhat you want for dinner. You've got a choice of three main courses, and that'sprobably the biggest choice you have in the day. Yeah,
Jason Archdaleguest
absolutely. And you're right, you are funnelled down this. You either dothat, that or that, and you do it.But I think when it came to making my own choices,and it's like I was just clodding away with thedecorating business and sometimes not even working for weeks. Ididn't know how to do marketing. I didn't know any of. There were no socialmedia back then and whatever it was on referralfrom word of mouth and things. Right.But I wasn't even good at that. Don't get me wrong, I'm afantastic painter decorator, by the way, but just. You might have the best businessin the world, but if you shop windows down, nobody will see what you'reselling. Right? Nobody could seewhat I was selling because I wasn't putting myself out there,because I didn't know how to. And did I want to, really? DidI just want the norm. Did I want the comfortable? Because I'd been in thisestablishment for five years, flying around the world and doing this kind of stuff,right? But I soon got very bored of it and kindof knew there was something kind of like just more to happen.But the big question mark was, was whatwas that? What was. See, you'd lost
Joanne Lockwoodhost
the army mother, you'd lost your brother,mates where you lived and did everything together. And you had a similar humourbanter and everything else going on, and the rigidity of you, like,all the conformity of doing kind of a framework of what you're told.And now you're there trying to figure your life out withchoices that you hadn't necessarily been brought upto understand because you left school at 16 and youdon't have a lot of free will at 16 either, do you? You're kind ofliving with your parents and again, you're fitting into school, whatever it is. Sothere you are, early 20s, not knowing how to make decisionsfor yourself, and no one's coaching or mentoring you. You're now going,Jason, go figure.
Jason Archdaleguest
And I didn't. Go figure. Yeah.Like I said, I was still in this relationshipwhere I was about to come out of the army. So I was servingmy last year in the army where we kind of, like, just decided to gettogether. So as soon as we came out, I had the excitement ofwanting to be in a relationship then. And that's all I wanted to put my.That was my biggest dream and goal, was to build a relationshipand be in that. But over time, likeI said, we were in this relationship 17 yearsand it kind of probably due to me,became stagnant because I felt there was more to come, or Iwanted more, rather, from what was happening orhow the relationship. It wasn't all about the relationship, by the way. There's a lotmore going on, but more just from life, because I would see andI would watch these programmes like Dragons Den or watch theseexclusive holiday programmes and think, I want to do that.Not go on Dragons den particularly, but seeing people making moneyand having dreams and hearing the word dream and goal.And I used to love and I put myself into that while I was watchingthe programme. But then instantly you're back intoreality and this stuff doesn't happen to me. So,Jace, get back into your painting world or get backinto your life. And that's what I accepted. So you say
Joanne Lockwoodhost
you were in a relationship for 17 years. That's 17 years effectively after you leftthe army. So you've been doing this kind of painting and decorating,bumbling along for a good period of time.So obviously things started turning darker at that point.So what things were going wrong? What's the first signs ofit? That's a question that I always get asked, and
Jason Archdaleguest
I can never put a date in the diary to it or to whatexactly kicked it off. And it was one of those wehighlighted earlier in the conversation, is that these things start to creep up on you,but if you're not aware of them in mind,I think it was because I was starting to feel there was more to life,there was more to experience out there, but didn't knowhow to do it. And I was starting to feela lot of resentment for my life, although.And some people listening to this could go, well, look at what you've just donein the army, right? I mean, this kid driving a tank at 18 and flyingto Venezuela, and now you've got resentment for yourlife. Well, not for that part of my life, but for the part of mylife I was in now. I was starting to resent itand taught me really starting to get anxious.And it was the anxiety that was starting to creep in first. Theanxiety was because I kept saying tomyself, when I was watching these programmes like the Dragons Den or theseexclusive programmes about going on exclusive holidays andthings I really wanted to do, and I stopped watching that stuff because it startedto get me down, because I knew people like me don't have this kindof stuff, right. And so the anxiety, I think, would be thefirst thing that started to kick this off. And you know what happens, Jo,when you're not in control of your mind, or rather when you can'tcontrol your thoughts, the anxiety takes over. And it did.It skyrocketed. The anxiety started to kick in. So did
Joanne Lockwoodhost
you have feelings of not being good enough or feelings ofinadequacy or feelings of not lost about where you gonext? It was all that kind of, in a nutshell, absolutely. Was
Jason Archdaleguest
thatI actually sat down with my head in myhands. The house was empty. I imaginedmyself at that time. I was 30 something, mid thirtys. My daughter was coming up to five yearold. She's 18 now. Beautiful relationshipthat we have. And she was coming up to five at thattime. And as I said, I was starting to resent my life, where it was.I didn't want to be as well in the relationship anymorethat I was in, because I felt trapped in it. And I started to picturemyself, what would this be like now? Once mydaughter's left home in 20 years time, am I still going tobe here in this same scenario, 20 years time, when it'stoo late? And that kicked off my anxiety andit went through the roof because I saw myself. We talk aboutvisualisations and manifestations and things that we create, what we putin our mind, right? And I was creating this scary vision of thefuture of me sitting there, this loner, sad, not loner assuch, but still in the same dull, boring, resentment relationship.And I think that is what started to. That was the tippingpoint, I think. So. Presumably, at that time, your relationship was at a
Joanne Lockwoodhost
point where both of you were not happy. There was tensionbreakdown, lots of probably arguments andshouting and not being happy with each other and no safespace, no one to comfort, no one to sort of pour your heart out to,no one to say, look, I need help. So again, you're being stoic andmanly and kind of holding it all in, not having a solutionof where to go next. That's with the anxiety and not knowing how to fixthis problem. Yeah, it exactly was that. Because
Jason Archdaleguest
life is really about having the coping strategies to dealwith things when they happen, right? Andalthough technically we all do have the coping strategies, but we'rejust not aware that we have them. And that's why it's greatwhen we can reach out to people who have been through this stuff, right,that can show you this.I absolutely think that if I didn't walk away from thatrelationship, I'd still be in it today, that my wife would stillaccept the status quo, still go on as we were,just because of the fear of not knowing what elseis out there and having the faith.But things started totalk to me. I don't want to sound all woo woo and allweird, but things started to talk to me. I'm talking about my feelings, myintuition. Although at that point, and by the way,I am on the spiritual side, but atthat point, I didn't know what I wouldn't have related to it as been spirit.Spirit guides or universal energies or something. Right. I just knewmy feelings were coming through and it got to thisoverwhelming feeling of, that'sit. I made the decision, I don't want to be in it anymore. I don'twant to be in this relationship anymore. But it was at that point as wellwhere I'd also started to build up the depression.Obviously, it's the anxiety, the depression. I was living with fearin my life as well. The fear of staying asis the fear of what's next, or I'm justgoing to go to the end of my life and this is it, right?So they were all escalating and escalating and getting tosuch a point where just oneevening in the little home office that I had,I took up the courage and walked into the bedroom and told my wife thatI don't want to be in this relationship anymore. Bang. The volcanoerupted immediately. That's it. Life changed from thatmoment. So that was devastating for her at that point, was
Joanne Lockwoodhost
it? Absolutely it was. Because I don't think she saw it coming. She knew we
Jason Archdaleguest
had the argument, she knew. She knew there was something a bit unsettling aboutme. Didn't even anticipate this coming. But as soon as that happened, that wasit. I mean, she didn't waste time. She up andleft and took my daughter with me. So on top of the fear,the anxiety, the depression, she took my daughter awayto her mother's, to her grandma's.So I had to live with the fear also of the unknowingof when or if I would ever see my daughter again. Because it wasin that time of where. Mother's rules.Mother's rules. You do what I say because I'm her mother type of thing, right?Which, by the way, I can talk to people about thistype of stuff because I went through all that procedure, through mediation and stuff, becauseshe did threaten me with not seeing my daughter and stuff behind the scenesquietly worked all out and that never happened. I did see mydaughter quite a lot, but if you imagine back then, if you don't know thesituation, it's a scary time that I wouldn't ever see my daughteragain. And she was the love of my life, sothat really was the end for me.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
So you're now living on your own. So you left school, joinedthe army, had your mother, had your mates with somebody virtually all the time.You get married virtually as soon as you leave the army, you're living with somebodyfor 17 years. You've probably not spent a lot of time on your own,living on your own without someone around you that you can callon. So you've got no real support network at this point. You'vegot poor mental health, you've got relationship breakdown, you got threateningaccess to your daughter. All those problems with solicitors andnegotiation, that's a really tough gig, isn't it?
Jason Archdaleguest
It is a tough gig, and that's not even the half of it, becauseduring this build up towards the decision to not want to bein the relationship, I was starting to get careless andin a sense, I've already hinted to the fact thatthe business was going nowhere. And so to subsidise that, Iwas borrowing off credit cards and as you do,not to buy tvs or fancy holidays, but just to live,and then you get to the end of that credit card and then get anotherone and then transfer the balance and to the point where I had five orsix of these and I think the debt got between 25 to 30,000pound. So I had that now hanging above me. Wethen hit the housing crash that we got,so we had a house repossessionalso,phone cut off, car taken away,everything. So it kind of all just came. Kindof all just came. And that's when life came crashingdown. I heard you tell
Joanne Lockwoodhost
this story at an event a couple of weeks ago. Do you want tojust walk me and the listeners throughwhat happened next? Yeah. So
Jason Archdaleguest
at that point I was running a smalllittle business networking event. And it's somethingI always feel I love doing. I love being a people person andbeing around person people and connecting people, and I was connecting peoplein business, but not really getting myself in a business. So it wasn't reallyhelping my situation. And I'd come back thisone evening, I was living on my own now. My wife at the timehad taken my daughter out and this was about a month on fromthis happening, and I'd come back. It wasthe 30 December in 2010,so just before the hurrah party season, right, New Year'sEve. AndI got off the bus and I lookedat what I just saw, this icy house on the hill. You
Jason Archdaleguest
know, the image from Psycho, that 60s film psycho, andit almost had that vision of it. It didn't have any life to itanymore, that once had of family birthdaysand my daughter in there being born and stuff. And I dreaded going backin and the anxiety walking up the garden pathand I just closed the door behind me and I fell tothe floor like somebody just dropped a sack of potatoes.And I instantly just started crying like NiagaraFalls. And the house was so cold becauseof course I had no money and we were on an electric metre and Icouldn't afford to put any, even a fibre on or anything. So the house wascold and I just dropped in the phone, felt the instant cold onthe tiles and washed with tears. Andall I wanted in those first few moments were to hearmy daughter's loving words and feel her arms around me.And I knew that wasn't going to happen.And I just said outloud, because I had these three companions that stayed with me for a while andthat was fear, depression, anxiety, right. Thesepeople that. Not people, these companions that come knocking at your head at03:00 in the morning, wake you up and then you go back to sleep andthen you wake up and they're there. The companions are constantly there. And thesecompanions just instantly said to me in unison, justdo it. And I kind of, like, stopped crying just for a second,just looked around, because there's no other voices there. There's no other people inthe room, these voices that just told me to just do it.And I walked into the kitchen witha bottle of whiskey and tablets. I just said goodbye to my daughterand I took the tablets, went into the lounge, laid on the sofawith my favourite picture of her on my chest and said, I'm so sorry,darling. I love you so much. Brad let you down. And I justsaid goodbye and waited to die. Obviously, I didn't rightnow, but that was basically it. I checkedout. I checked out on life. What saved you then? What saved
Joanne Lockwoodhost
you? I can honestly say right now,
Jason Archdaleguest
when I say my team, if people see me on stage doing this, I'll saymy team. And I point up basically my spirit team, right?What saved me. But on that night, I wasn't aware of that. But on thatnight, I didn't have a spirit team because I wasn't open, Iwasn't awake, I wasn't whatever then, to all this,but what has actually saved me, if we want to gointo the 3d world of this, what savedme was that when I taken the tablets and the whiskey,I heard another voice. And that voice was almost likesergeant major. Like, it was firm,but it was one I could trust. And that voice just said,call the ambulance as soon as I taken the tablets and the whiskey. AndI waited five minutes because I was pondering this voice, but I did.So I turned the whiskey, I turned the tablets, heard the voice, called theambulance, and I called the ambulance. Now, my phone had beencut off, but obviously you can make emergency calls when you can do nine ninenine. I did all the nine nine nine call. She told me to leave thedoor open, but I was in that mindset of justtelling her, well, it's too late, I've done it. Okay, leave your door open. Leaveyour door open. We'll be there. Ambulance is now on its way and whatever.
Jason Archdaleguest
So I hung up from that call as I walked in and said goodbyeto my daughter and laid there with a picture on my chest and closed myeyes, waited to die. But then I cannot put a time on how long itwas or how short the time was, but almost opened my eyes verylike, just as you peek through, you know, when you first wake up in themorning and it's all blurry, and I saw this fluorescent thingjust coming towards me, and I thought, am I dead? Is this what angels wearin heaven? I mean, do they wear fluorescent jackets in heaven?And it was a paramedic,the one that comes on the bike or the car first. And in his trueYorkshire accent, he just said, hey, have you been having a bit of trouble overChristmas? And that instantly woke me up. And I'm like, wow, itdidn't make me better, but, whoa, what is going on?But to cut all theother finer bits out, I got taken into hospital,did all the tests and laid there and feeling sorry for myself afterwards.And it was about 03:00 in the morning. And my third andlast set of voices that I heard was,you are here to help others, and we are here to help you.And it was at that point from hearing that whenI made the decision, and it was the decisionI made to change my life. And what was
Joanne Lockwoodhost
the first step on that journey to change? I didn't actually
Jason Archdaleguest
know at that point, because the only thing I wassure about was that I didn't want to die. The other thing I was sureabout was my life needed to change.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
Old house at Christmas time, no phone, no moneydebt, repossessions or whatever it was. So you're notin an ideal place to change, are you? I mean, okay, you're at the bottom.The only way is up, as they say. But somehow you needsome resources to help you do that, don't you? Yeah, absolutely. And this is
Jason Archdaleguest
why I know I've got the team behind me now, the spirit team, if youlike. I just knew I had to change my life.So I woke up in the morning having only a fewhours sleep. Nobody knew at this point I was in hospital or done what Idid. The nurse came in and I said, can I call my parents? My parentscome in, of course. They were so upset about it. They called one of myfriends and they came and said. And they lookedafter me over the new year period, took me out to thecinema. He then brought one ofhis friends, who I'd never known, who kind of twigged what was happening,because in the cinema, I was throwing up all the time. So I was leavingthe film and going to the toilet and throwing up all the time.And then at the end of the film, while we just sat and stood inthe foyer area, she then said to me, I think you could benefit frommeditation. Now you're talking to a very, likeI said, stoic sort of person who's been in the arm and it doesn'tlisten. I wanted to change my life and I wanted to change my life howeverit changed. So here's me going, I'm inwhatever it is. And it sounded good to me at that point, right? It sounded
Jason Archdaleguest
good because whatever's takenme to the point at that point there in my lifehadn't worked. So I was open to it changing.And that last voice where said, we are here to help you and you arehere to help others. Give me a sense of peacefulness, asense of calm, a sense ofreassurance that I've been looked after, that Iwasn't meant to cheque out. And I can honestly saynow, going back from now to then, I was meant to go down to mydark place. I was meant to take those tablets and feel the pain that Iwent through so I can relive this storyto others and give them the teachings. So I just went with this anddid all the meditation. And do you know what? The first session I went to,I loved it. I loved it because it was sodifferent. The smell of the nice sticks in there, themsmelly sticks, and the calmness, the chiming of the bells and thecalm. Boys, I've not experienced this before. And then one thing leads on toanother. Somebody in that group then says, hey, we're going here, andwould you like to do that? So what's actually happening is, which is one thingI teach is I was starting to purge my life.I was starting to purge the old person. I was. I was stepping outof that person into a new life and purging away from thetoxicity and the negativity and the people and thingsthat no longer served me and stepping into a new life. And I wasenjoying what I was seeing. So I went on a journey. And that journeywas one of personal growth, development and education.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
So how many years ago was thisnewfound purpose? Was that five, six years ago? A bitfurther. All of the recovery started in
Jason Archdaleguest
2011, the January of 2011. Movingforward,I found my passion for life again, but found my purpose for whatI'm doing now. I would say only around five yearsago, because you cannot put a date in the diary asto when you're going to be healed or when you're going to getit right. So you've just got to be open to thedevelopments, the learnings, the growth. When people say, I've notfound my passion or my purpose yet, I say, you don't need to. Your purposewill find you, right? Your purpose will find you. You don't need to doany of that work. It'll find you when you've done the healing, you know, thestudent will find the teacher, and the teacher will be there for the student, thatkind of situation. And that's what I did. And so I found mypassion for life again, but then found my purpose aroundfive years or so ago. Yeah, it's quite common.
Joanne Lockwoodhost
It certainly happened to me that I was hunting around for a long while, tryingto find my passion, my purpose. And as yousay, you just got to be open to the idea and joy will find you.Somehow you suddenly realise that this opportunity occurs and you go,wow, I never knew this was here. And now it'sme that you walk into that. I think it'sbeing open to that joy, isn't it? Open to that joyful. You're
Jason Archdaleguest
so right, Jo, because I think the problem is we're notawake, right? And what I mean by being awake is that we'reso hooked into the busyness of life and our minds are sobusy that there's no room to allow anythingelse in. It's like that filing cabinet. When you're trying to push that last letterin, it's sticking out the drawer. You got toclear the crap out to allow something else in. And sothat's why we've got to purge our life, to clear space into ourmind, to allow the new stuff to come inand be open to change. So thatstuff, what I call stuff, that stuffis already in your life, but we just can't see itbecause we're closed off to it. But it's already there. Yeah, I talked
Joanne Lockwoodhost
about it earlier and we discussed it. This burden ofresponsibility and expectation. You're carrying all this baggagewith you, and it's really hard to drop one bag off andmake a difference. I found that I had to drop every bag off, as yousay, purge and build again, rather than try and cut back.Because if you try and cut back, you never cut deep enough. You never reallysolve the fundamental problems because you got all these little safety nets you hang onto, which don't allow you to fully change. Ithink what you're saying there, the purge, they're getting rightdown to your naked soul, effectively, toallow you to rebuild, because everything else is just chipping at the edgesand makes no fundamental change.
Jason Archdaleguest
It really is about that and stripping,if you like, being bare naked back to zero,starting over again. And it's kind ofscary at the beginning, right? It really is.And it's easy, as people say, it's easyfor you. Well, no, it isn't. Right. But it is amindset shift. It's about the mindset,right. If you remember when I talked about I decided to changemy life, Brad didn't know how. But you've got to setthe intention of deciding to do something andthen just commit to it. But not being so hookedon the how. It's nothing to do with you. The how.What is to do with you is making thedecision but takingintuitive actions. It's like the Taoists call it, the Wuway. The Wu way of life flowing with what is happening withyou. Not creating actions and doing them because you think
Jason Archdaleguest
you must do them. But it's going with the flow of what the universeis giving you. What is life giving you? Okay, what does this mean then?Not saying, why me? But what does this mean? How can I deal with it?Yeah, shit, that hurts. But how can I deal with this? And justgoing with life and flowing with it and takingaction steps.I talk about a process, which is the dart processdart. And that is ultimately makingthe decision for the D, taking the actionsteps, being relentless and then trusting.There's a hell of a lot we can talk about within those four bullet points,but it really is that process that we have to do. Makethe decision, take action, be relentless and trust. Yeah,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
I get that completely. And I think you need toopen your mind for that kind of mindship change becauseyou can, if you're not careful, not let go completely. And that'skind of the thing. You got to have that faith. I've done some things inmy life where the only way forward was forward. There is noback, is staying where you are is painful.So if. If it's painful, staying where you are and painful going forward, butbeyond forward is a place ofcalm. You have to go through that pain zone in order to getthere. But knowing if you stand still, the pain nevergoes. That's the thing. I think I also realisedI wasn't at nothing. I was actually at minus nothing because Ihad all of this responsibility, debt and other things pulling meback. And so when you purgestuff, you purge other things that are negativeanyway. So actually, when you come out of this, you go from beingminus thousands to zero.So you're actually, thousands abound better off becauseyou're not carrying the baggage anymore. And I found that very cathartic andempowering because I wasn't carrying burdens of debt,burdens of responsibility, burdens of things and stuff. Andresponsibility. I was able to do a rebirth. Yeah, exactly.
Jason Archdaleguest
And you know whatI can and do talk about the dark night of the soul and that's bitof what it is. It's a rebirth, it's an awakeningand whatever. Butone of the toughest things is letting go of people andsituations. And we talked aboutsuperpower right at the very beginning. But I've got this innate superpower justto let go of people. Anybody thatdoesn't resonate with my energy or my vibration or I think it's toxicor is going to pull me back. It's like you're not in my life. It'slike I don't need that if it's not goingto take me forward to where I want to go.But it's a journey. But you've first got to startby making the decision to whatever,everything in life. And I can challenge anybody listening to this podcastor any talk that will anybody listening to my talks.Everything we do in life, everything always starts with adecision. Everything, right? Buteverything's always started in the mind first.It gets created in the mind first. So if we cancreate that vision and hook in to the big yin our mind, then we can bring it into reality becausewe can very easily create negative situations, right? We've created thosein our mind. So why not flip that into empowering thoughtsand say, well, wow, what would this look like? What if, whatif I did achieve my goals and dreams? What if I didreally make it? What would that look like? And flip that intoour mind. So start the thought in our mind and thenit will retrain our brain. Yeah. Visualisation,
Joanne Lockwoodhost
destination, planning, painting a picture. What does fantasticlook like, what does awesome look like and what are the steps to achieve that?A very standard coaching model, isn't it? How do we getfrom a five to a ten? What do I have to do to be asix little step? Isn't it here and there? And it's a momentumand a direction. So, yeah, I get that it is
Jason Archdaleguest
the two most powerful words in the english dictionary for me are thewords I am. Because whatever sentence we addat the end of I am is what we'll embody and what we will become.Right? So if I am always indebt or I am always attracting these relationships. Well, flip thataround and say, well, put all the positives afterthat. No, your life will not change instantly overnight justbecause you're doing this. But bit by bit, you'll start toretrain the neural pathways in your brain andit'll start bringing into your reality. It reallydoes work. This is the science, not the woo woo. This doeswork. Yeah. And I'm a great
Joanne Lockwoodhost
believer in I am. It's kind of a mantraI've had for a long time. Where I am helped meunderstand my own life and what was going on with meand trying to understand it. Sometimes you could search toomuch for the why. And what I learned was there was no answer, there wasno equation, there was no fixing, there's no nothing. Once you say, I am,full stop, it doesn't have to say anything more than that. Just, I
Joanne Lockwoodhost
am. I don't need to explain that. Once you can say I am, and thenyou can add other words like, I'm good enough, or I can besuccessful. I am this and I am that, and I think that's the empowerment.But I think when you try and search for meaning where there isn't meaning, youjust go, I am. I can stop searching now. I can get on with life.And I think that's what got me out of a dark place was literally justthat affirmation and being me and not having toquestion it. So I completely resonate what you're saying there.It's letting go, believingtruly that the next step is better than where you aretoday and that it can get better. Then you have power andyou can take your own responsibility for how you develop your life from that pointforward. And not everybody has the luxury or privilegeof a reboot to start again. It's immenselyempowering, and it sounds like you've had an immensely empowering experienceby a life reboot where you find new purpose.
Jason Archdaleguest
Absolutely. I am really feeling privileged to bein a position that I am now to have gone through what I went through,to be able to be able to talk about my storyto people that are going through it right now. AndI can pass on my learnings because our wounds are somebodyelse's healing. Right? So we can pass on our stories to helpthose people and also the wisdom and the coping strategies, becausethat's what we need. Right. We need the tools. So we pass on our toolsto people. Yeah. So, Jason, it's been a fascinating. We chat
Joanne Lockwoodhost
for over an hour, and I could carry on talking. I've got so many morequestions, but I'll let our listeners connect withyou and have a conversation with you directly. So how can people get hold ofyou? What's your passion? What do you do now? How can you help people?So what's your website? What's your LinkedIn? So as many
Jason Archdaleguest
people's websites are, they're always upgrading. Somine's on there. So if you go on there, you might go on a weekafter, it'll be changed again. So my website's Jasonarcdale. Co.Uk. You can find me on Facebook as well asJason Archdale. I'm on Instagram as JasonArchdale. I'm on LinkedIn.Also on there, I'msharing my Lego post of inspiration motivation.And I'm also amember and regional president of the professionalspeaking association for the Yorkshire region as well, whichhas been a fantastic turboride this year. Stage to tell myyep, so that's me. That's where you can find me. And happy to connectand talk to anybody, as you can tell. So for anyone
Joanne Lockwoodhost
listening, that was Jason Artsdale. From battlefieldto wellness. What a story. What a story. One moment he's drivingover beetles in his tank, and the next minutehe's struggling. But now he's out of it and he's found thelight. As I say, his superpower is knowing you don't have to beokay. And there is a light. So thank you, Jason. Absolutely
Joanne Lockwoodhost
fantastic. And a huge thank you to you, the listener, forstaying to the end, for tuning in. If you're not already, please subscribe.Please keep updated on future episodes of the Inclusion Bytespodcast. That's B-I-T-E-S. Share the love, tell your friends, tell your colleagues.I've got a number of other exciting guests lined up over next few weeks andmonths. This is episode 104, and I plan to keep this goingfor as long as I can. As long as I can. So if you'd liketo be a guest, if you've heard some inspiration, listen to some of the backepisodes. You'd like to be a guest, then please email me,jo.Lockwood@seechangehappen.co.uk. Finally,my name is Joanne Lockwood and it's been an absolute pleasure to host thispodcast for you today. Catch you next time. Bye.
In this episode of The Inclusion Bites Podcast, Joanne Lockwood interviews Jason Archdale, a remarkable wellness coach and speaker, as they explore a profound journey from the battlefield to personal wellness. Jason Archdale candidly shares his story, from joining the Army at 16 to facing dark times and poor mental health, including a suicide attempt. With an unwavering passion, he now shares his journey of recovery to wellness, aiming to make it okay to not be okay and to spread light in difficult times. The conversation delves into the dichotomy of feeling safe and vulnerable in the military, the struggles of transitioning to civilian life, and the emotional impact of traumatic experiences. Both Jason and Joanne stress the significance of mindset, intuitive actions, and flowing with life's challenges to make positive changes. A key takeaway from this episode is the importance of letting go, embracing mindset changes, and believing in a better future. Jason and Joanne's experiences and coping strategies resonate, offering insights into personal growth and empowerment. From the battlefield to wellness, this episode shares powerful and moving narratives, encouraging listeners to reflect and find ways to navigate their own challenges.
The views and opinions expressed by guests are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Inclusion Bites, SEE Change Happen Ltd or Joanne Lockwood. This episode is shared for general interest and discussion; we accept no responsibility for the accuracy or completeness of any statements made.
